CHAPTER VI

FACT NUMBER FOUR

There is only one class of agents now working upon the rocks of the globe which have been in business continuously ever since the dry land appeared, and which have left us a legible record of approximately the amount of business they have been doing all these centuries. And my Fact Number Four, which will complete this line of argument in illustrating the antagonism between the facts of the rocks and the theory of life succession, is that the =rivers= of the world, which of course are the agents to which I have referred, in traveling across the country, =act precisely as if they knew nothing of the varying ages of the rocks=, but on the contrary treat them all alike as if they were of the same age, and =as if they began sawing at them all at the same time=. Of course it is, evidently, in only a few cases where the records are so free from ambiguity as to be quite incapable of being misunderstood, that is, the cases of rivers with steep rocky gorges, or those that cut through mountain ranges; but there are several such rivers in the world, and they all seem to tell the same story.

The famous Colorado River is a good example. It flows from "younger" strata into "older" in its deep cutting across the Arizona plateau.[32] Stated in terms of the current theory, this means that when the region of country about the lower part of this river's course first became dry land, the upper part was still sea, and that thus there was no such river in existence here until the very "youngest" of these rocks was formed. For otherwise the river must have started running from the sea toward the dry land, i.e., running up hill. Stated in terms neutral as to theory, it means that the whole of this region of country, drained by this large river, with its rocks of many varying "ages," was all elevated practically as it is now before this river began its work of erosion. It treats all these rocks as if they were of the same age, and as if it began sawing at them all at the same time.

Also its companion, the Green River, cuts through the Uinta Range in the same manner. Similar conditions are said to occur on the Danube, and in the river-courses of the Himalayas, and elsewhere.

In the case of the Colorado, Zittel says that:

"Powell's explanation of the apparent enigma is that after the river had eroded its channel rocks were uplifted in one portion of its course, but so slow was the rate of uplift that the river was enabled to deepen its channel, either proportionately or more rapidly, so that it was never diverted from its former course."

It was by similarly cunning inventions that the early writers on astronomy, alchemy, and medicine evaded the force of accumulated facts which told against their absurd theories.

We have now completed our survey of the strictly stratigraphical phases of this question, and have found four very remarkable principles about the rocks, which I wish to summarize here before proceeding further.

(1) The "broad fact," as stated by Zittel and Dana, that any kind of rocks whatever, i.e. containing any kinds of fossils, even the "youngest," may rest on the Archaean, and may thus in position, as also in texture and appearance, resemble the very oldest deposits on the globe.

(2) That any kind of beds may rest in such perfect conformability on any other so-called "older" beds over vast stretches of country that, "were it not for fossil evidence, one would naturally suppose that a single formation was being dealt with," while "the vast interval of time intervening is unrepresented either by deposition or erosion." The youngest seem to have followed the oldest in quick succession.

(3) That in very many cases and over many square miles of country these conditions are exactly reversed, and such very "ancient" rocks as Cambrian limestones are on top of the comparatively "young" Cretaceous, while the lime between them "acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations," and in a natural section made by a river the two "appear to succeed one another conformably." To any one ignorant of the theory of life succession they have every appearance of having been deposited as we find them.

(4) That the rivers of the world, in cutting across the country, completely ignore the varying ages of the rocks in the different parts of their courses, and act precisely as if they began sawing at them all at the same time.

Now I know not what additional fact can be demanded or imagined to complete the demonstration that there is =no particular order= in which the fossils can be said to occur as regards succession in time. It is true, some fossiliferous deposits, metamorphosed almost beyond recognition, and buried deep beneath thousands of feet of subsequent deposits, have enough appearance of remote antiquity about them in all conscience. But to increase this antiquity by saying that other equally prodigious masses of rocks elsewhere were deposited long after these, or by pointing to still other deposits in another region which are said to be older than any of the others, is an illogical and wholly unscientific procedure. I fear I could scarcely confine myself within the bounds of parliamentary language were I to attempt to express an opinion regarding any effort that may now be made to justify the life succession theory in view of the above acknowledged facts.

And surely it is scarcely necessary in this enlightened age to point out how completely this vitiates any biological argument (such as that of Darwinism) which has incorporated into its system the results of such illogical reasoning, or which in any way is dependent upon the conclusions of such a theory of geology. In view of the laws of evidence, which every intelligent person is supposed to understand now-a-days, surely some strange things passed for scientific proof during the nineteenth century. For, as we have seen, the earlier geologists did little better than =assume= the succession of life bodily; than Agassiz and his contemporaries =arranged the details= and the exact order of these successive life forms by comparison with the embryonic life of the modern individual; and now the evolutionists of our day, led by such men as Spencer and Haeckel with their "phylogenetic principle," =prove their theory of evolution= by showing that the embryonic life of the modern individual is only "a brief recapitulation, as it were, from memory," of the (assumed) geological succession in time. Surely this will some day make a more amazing record for posterity than those of phlogiston or the epicycles of Ptolemy.

If I am now asked: What do the rocks have to tell us, in view of the fact that they refuse to testify to a life succession? I can only say that we are not as yet in a position to decide this question. There are several other matters connected with the character and mode of occurrence of the fossils, which are almost equally important with anything already considered, in forming a true scientific induction regarding this matter. These facts must be considered in subsequent chapters. Already, however, we can say this much, that we have in the rocks almost as complete a world, in some respects vastly more complete, than the living world of to-day. With the life succession theory repudiated, we have still to deal with the fossils themselves which have been thus systematically classified; =but this geological series becomes only the taxonomic or classification series of an older state of our present world=, buried somehow and at some time or times in the remote past--the how and the when of which we have not as yet the means to determine.

But I think we are now prepared to enter the mazes of the biological argument, and to study the subject of extinct species, which by many is supposed to furnish a line of independent evidence in favor of the life succession theory.

FOOTNOTE:

[32] See Zittel, "History of Geol.," pp. 210, 211.