Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation Part 6

One of the highest scientific authorities in America, Prof. Thomas Hunt Morgan, of Columbia University, has recently said, "The direct evidence furnished by fossil remains is by all odds the strongest evidence that we have in favor of organic evolution."[33] Accordingly we purpose to examine carefully what this by all odds "strongest evidence" is like.

[Footnote 33: "A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," p. 24.]

II

As with some of the other facts with which we have had to deal in previous chapters, a correct understanding of the questions involved can best be obtained by examining the history of the development of the science.

The first man with whom we need to concern ourselves is A.G. Werner, a teacher of mineralogy in the University of Freiberg, Germany. For three hundred years his ancestors had been connected with mining work, and he, though possessing little general education, knew about all that was then known regarding mineralogy and petrology. He wrote no books; but by his enthusiastic teaching he gathered as students and sent out as evangelists hundreds of devoted young scientists who rapidly spread his theories through all the countries of Europe.

"Unfortunately," says Zittel, "Werner's field observations were limited to a small district, the Erz Mountains and the neighboring parts of Saxony and Bohemia. And his chronological scheme of formations was founded on the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow confines."[34]

[Footnote 34: "History of Geology," p. 59.]

Werner had found the granites, limestones, sandstones, schists, etc., occurring in a certain relative order in his native country; and he drew the very remarkable conclusion that this was the _normal_ order in which these various rocks would invariably be found in all parts of the world, on the theory that this was the order in which these different rocks had been formed in the beginning, great layers of these different rocks having originally been spread completely around the globe one outside another like the coats of an onion. With this as a major premise, it is not surprising that he and his enthusiastic disciples "were as certain of the origin and sequence of the rocks as if they had been present at the formation of the earth's crust."[35]

[Footnote 35: A. Geikie, "Founders of Geology," p. 112.]

The amus.e.m.e.nt with which this onion-coat theory is now regarded is hardly appropriate in view of its universal vogue among geologists about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in view of the further fact that a very similar and only slightly modified subst.i.tute theory has been universally taught for three-quarters of a century _and still prevails_. The modern form of the theory subst.i.tutes onion-coats of fossiliferous rocks for onion-coats of mineral and lithological characters; and a brief consideration of this theory is now in order.

About the time that various geologists here and there were finding rocks in positions that could not be explained in terms of Werner's theory, William Smith (1769-1839) in England and the great Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) in France found characteristic fossils occurring in various strata; and under their teachings it was not long before the fossils were considered the best guide in determining the relative sequence of the rocks. The familiar idea of world-enveloping strata as representing successive ages was not discarded; but instead of Werner's successive ages of limestone making, sandstone making, etc., these new investigators taught that there were successive ages of invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, and mammals, these creatures having registered their existence in rocky strata which thus by hypothesis completely encircled the globe one outside another.

It is true that early in the nineteenth century Sir Charles Lyell and others tried to disclaim this absurd and unscientific inheritance from Werner's onion-coats; but modern geology has never yet got rid of its essential and its chief characteristic idea, for all our text-books still speak of various successive ages _when only certain types of life prevailed all over the globe_. Hence it is that Herbert Spencer caustically remarks: "Though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists."[36] Hence it is that Whewell, in his "History of the Inductive Sciences," refuses to acknowledge that in geology any real advance has yet been made toward a stable science like those of astronomy, physics, and chemistry. "We hardly know," he says, "whether the progress is begun. The history of physical astronomy almost commences with Newton, and few persons will venture to a.s.sert that the Newton of geology has yet appeared."[37] Hence it is that T.H. Huxley declares, "In the present condition of our knowledge and of _our methods_, one verdict,--'_not proven and not provable'--must be recorded against all grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe."[38] And hence it is that Sir Henry H. Howorth, a member of the British House of Commons and the author of three exhaustive works on the Glacial theory, declares, "It is a singular and notable fact, that while most other branches of science have emanc.i.p.ated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning, _the science of geology still remains imprisoned in a priori_ theories."[39]

[Footnote 36: "Ill.u.s.tr. of Univ. Prog.," p. 343.]

[Footnote 37: Vol. II, p.580.]

[Footnote 38: "Discourses," pp. 279-288.]

[Footnote 39: "The Glacial Nightmare," Preface, vii.]

And thus the matter remains even to-day, in this second decade of the twentieth century. _Geology has never yet been regenerated_, as have all the other sciences, by being delivered from the caprice of subjective speculations and _a priori_ theories and being placed on the secure basis of objective and demonstrable fact, in accordance with the principles of that inductive method of investigation which was inst.i.tuted by Bacon and which has become so far universal in the other sciences that it is everywhere known as the scientific method. In accordance with this method, theories in all the other sciences are always kept well subordinated to facts; and whenever unequivocal facts are found manifestly contradicting a theory no matter how venerable, the theory must go to make way for the facts. In other words, the theoretical parts of the various other sciences are always kept revised from time to time, to keep them in line with the new discoveries that have been made. There has been no lack of astonis.h.i.+ng discoveries of new facts in geology during the past half century or so, while all the other sciences have been making such astonis.h.i.+ng progress. _But for over seventy five years geology has not made a single advance movement in its theoretical aspects_; indeed, in all its important general principles it has scarcely changed in a hundred years. I shall leave it to the reader to judge whether this is a case of almost miraculous perfection from the beginning, or of arrested development.

III

Of the _three_ general postulates or _a priori_ a.s.sumptions of this curiously out-of-date mediaeval science, namely, (1) Uniformity, (2) the Cooling globe theory, and (3) the theory of the Successive Ages, the first two have already been examined and found wanting by other investigators, and have been allowed to lapse into a sort of honored disuse, though their memory is still reverently cherished in all the text-books of the science. The "Challenger" Expedition dissipated most of the myths that had long been taught regarding the deep waters of the ocean; and Professor Suess has disposed of the closely related myth about the coasts of the continents being constantly on the seesaw up and down. These two discoveries, with others that might be mentioned, dispose of Lyell's theory of uniformity. Lord Kelvin and the other physicists dissipated the idea of a molten interior of the earth. Hence, because these other false hypotheses have already in a measure been disposed of, as well as for the sake of brevity, I shall here discuss only the _third_ of the prime postulates of the current system of geology, namely the theory of Successive Ages. And when we have adjusted this aspect of the science of geology to the facts of the rocks as made known to us by modern discoveries, we shall find little in this science out of harmony with the older view of a literal Creation as taught in the Bible and as already confirmed by the other branches of science which we have been examining.

There are _five_ leading arguments against the reality of these successive ages. Four of them must be dismissed here by a brief summary of the facts as we know them to-day, referring the reader to the author's larger work, where detailed evidence is given for each. The _fifth_ series of facts I shall give here in more detail, though of course even this must be but an outline of what is given elsewhere.

1. In the earlier days of the theory of successive ages it was taught that only certain kinds of fossils were to be found _at the bottom_ of the series, or next to the Primitive or Archaean. This feature of the theory was demanded by the supposed universal spread of one type of life all around the globe in the earliest age. But it is now known that the so-called "oldest" fossiliferous rocks occur only in detached patches over the globe, while other or "younger" kinds are just as likely to be found on the Primitive or next to the Archaean. Not only may any kind of fossiliferous rocks occur next to the Archaean, but even the "youngest"

may be so metamorphosed and crystalline as to resemble exactly in this respect the so-called "oldest" rocks. On the other hand some of the very "oldest" rocks may, like the Cambrian strata around the Baltic and in some parts of the United States, consist of "muds scarcely indurated and sands still incoherent."[40]

[Footnote 40: J.A. Howe; Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. II, p. 86.

Cambridge Edition.]

All this means that many facts regarding the _position_ of the strata as well as regarding their _consolidation_ contradict the theory of successive ages.

2. Many of the rivers of the world completely ignore the alleged varying ages of the rocks in the different parts of their course, and treat them all as if of the same age or as if they began sawing at them all at the same time. This is true of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Danube in Europe, the Sutlej of India, and the upper part of the Colorado in America, not to mention others. The old strand lines around all the continents act in the very same way, ignoring the varying ages of the rocks they happen to meet; as is also true of nearly all the great faults or fissures which are of more than local extent. The ore veins of the various minerals are about as likely to be found in Tertiary or Mesozoic as in the Palaeozoic. A very similar lesson is to be learned from the fossils found lying exposed on the deep ocean bottom; for they are about as likely to be Palaeozoic or Mesozoic as Tertiary.

From these facts we conclude that practically all the great natural chronometers of the earth seem to treat the fossiliferous rocks as if they are _all of about the same age_, completely disregarding the distinctions in age founded on the fossils.

3. According to the present chronological arrangement of the rocks, very many genera, often whole tribes of animals, are found as fossils only in the oldest rocks, and _have skipped all the others_, though found in comparative abundance in our modern world. Very many others have skipped from the Mesozoic down, while still others skip large _parts_ of the series of successive ages.

These absurdities would all be avoided by acknowledging that the current distinctions as to the ages of the fossils are purely artificial, and that one fossil is intrinsically just as old or as young as another.

4. It is now known that any kind of "young" beds whatsoever, Mesozoic, Tertiary, or even Pleistocene, may be found in such _perfect conformability_ on some of the very oldest beds over wide stretches of country that "the vast interval of time intervening is unrepresented either by deposition or erosion"; while in some instances these age-separated formations so closely resemble one another in structure and in mineralogical make-up that, "were it not for fossil evidence, one would naturally suppose that a single formation was being dealt with"

(McConnell); and these conditions are "not merely local, but persistent over wide areas" (A. Geikie), so that the "numerous examples" (Suess) of these conditions "may well be cause for astonishment" (Suess).

A still more astonis.h.i.+ng thing from the standpoint of the current theories is that these conformable relations of incongruous strata are often _repeated over and over again in the same vertical section_, the same kind of bed reappearing alternately with others of an entirely different "age," that is, appearing "as if _regularly interbedded"_ (A.

Geikie) with them, in a manifestly undisturbed series of strata.

Here again we have a very formidable series of facts whose gravamen is directed wholly against the artificial distinctions in age between the different groups of fossils; and their argument is an eloquent plea that the fossils are neither older nor younger but all of a similar age.

5. Our last fact demands a somewhat more extended consideration; but it may be stated in advance briefly as follows:

In very numerous cases and over hundreds and even thousands of square miles, the conformable conditions specified in the previous fact are exactly reproduced _upside down_; that is, very "old" rocks occur with just as much appearance of natural conformability on top of very "young"

rocks, the area in some instances covering many hundreds of square miles, and in one particular instance in Montana and Alberta covering about five or six thousand square miles of area.

The first notable example of this phenomenon was discovered at Glarus, Switzerland, a good many years ago; since which time this locality has become a cla.s.sic in geological literature, and has called out many ponderous monographs in German and French by such men as Heim, Schardt, Lugeon, Rothpletz, and Bertrand. This example, which was first (1870) called the Glarner Double Fold by Escher and Heim, is now universally called a nearly flat-lying "thrust fault," in accordance with the explanations since adopted of similar phenomena elsewhere. Without obtruding unnecessary technicalities upon my non-professional readers, I may quote the words of Albert Heim as to the conditions as now recognized in these parts:

"These flat-lying faults, of which those at Glarus were the first to be discovered, _are a universal_ _phenomenon_ in the Northern and Central Alps."[41]

[Footnote 41: "Der Bau der Schweizeralpen," p. 17.]

The favorite method of explaining these conditions has slightly changed within recent years, as already remarked. For whereas the cla.s.sic example at Glarus was at first spoken of as a double fold-in from both sides toward the Sernf Valley, this is now universally spoken of as a "thrust fault," with the rocks all pushed one way. Incidentally it may be noted that this very fact that what was long regarded as two completely overturned folds is now spoken of as one flat-lying thrust fault, is _prima facie_ evidence that there is here _no physical proof_ of any real overturning of the strata, such as we do find on a very small scale in true folded rocks. The latter can usually be measured in yards, feet, or inches; while in this example at Glarus the area involved would be measured in many miles, and in some very similar examples to be presently mentioned from America the measurement could best be made in degrees of lat.i.tude and longitude or in arcs of the earth's circ.u.mference. In these larger examples it is manifestly impossible that there should be any physical evidence sufficient to indicate a huge earth movement of this character, especially when, as is usually the case, both the upper and the lower strata are _quite uninjured in appearance_. No; the fossils are here in the wrong order, that is all. And so, to save the long established doctrines of a very definite order of successive life-forms, this theory of a "thrust fault"

is offered as the best available explanation. As Dr. Albert Heim himself once expressed it very naively in a letter to the present writer, that the strata over these large areas are in a position manifestly at direct disagreement with the received order of the fossils, "is a fact which can be clearly seen,--only we know not yet how to explain it in a mechanical way."

An example in the Highlands of Scotland was about the next to be discovered. Here, as Dana says, "a ma.s.s of the oldest crystalline rocks, many miles in length from north to south, was thrust at least ten miles westward over younger rocks, part of the latter fossiliferous;" and he further declares, "the thrust planes _look like planes of bedding, and were long so considered._"[42]

Sir Archibald Geikie and others had at first described these beds as naturally conformable; and when at length they were convinced that the fossils would not permit this explanation, Geikie gives us some very picturesque details as to how natural they look.

The thrust planes, he says, are with much difficulty distinguished "from ordinary stratification planes, like which they have been plicated, faulted, and denuded. Here and there, as a result of denudation, a portion of one of them appears capping a hilltop. One almost refuses to believe that the little outlier on the summit does not lie normally on the rocks below it, but on a nearly horizontal fault by which it has been moved into its place."

Of a similar example in Ross s.h.i.+re he declares:

"Had these sections been planned for the purpose of deception, they could not have been more skilfully devised, ... and no one coming first to the ground would suspect that what appears to be a normal stratigraphical sequence is not really so."[43]

[Footnote 42: "Manual," pp. 111, 534.]

[Footnote 43: _Nature_, November 13, 1884, pp. 29-35.]

Here again we have unequivocal testimony from the most competent of observers that there is _no physical evidence whatever_ to lead any one to say that a ponderous scale of the earth's crust was really pushed up on top of other portions, as this makes.h.i.+ft theory of "thrust faults"

involves. The _fossils are here in the wrong order_, just as in the case at Glarus; that is all. The facts seem to be a flat contradiction to the theory of definite successive ages, and to save the theory this explanation of a "thrust fault" is invented, though there is absolutely no physical evidence of any disturbance of the strata.

Our next stopping place is in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia. Here we have the Carboniferous strata dipping gently to the southeast, like an ordinary low monocline, _under_ Cambrian or Lower Silurian, one of these so-called faults having a reported length of 375 miles,[44] while in another instance the upper strata are said to have been pushed about eleven miles in the direction of the "thrust."[45] These conditions, we are told, "have provoked the wonder of the most experienced geologists,"[46] because of the perfectly natural appearance of the surfaces of the strata affected; or as this same writer puts it, "The mechanical effort is great beyond comprehension, but the effect upon the rocks is inappreciable," and "the fault dip is often parallel to the bedding of the one or the other series of strata."[47] Which means, in other words, that these "thrust planes" _look just like ordinary planes of bedding between conformable strata_.