Chapter 7

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 astonishing 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 classic 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 classic 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 latitude and longitude or in arcs of the earth's circumference. 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 mass 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 Shire 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 makeshift 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_.

[Footnote 44: Bailey Willis, Geol. Survey, Report, Vol. 13, p. 228.]

[Footnote 45: C.W. Hayes, _Bull. Geol. Soc_., Vol. 2, pp. 141-154.]

[Footnote 46: Willis, _op. cit_., p. 228.]

[Footnote 47: Willis, _op. cit_., p. 227.]

The Rocky Mountains furnish examples of many kinds of natural phenomena on the very largest scale, and those of the sort here under consideration are no exception to this rule. For here we have an immense area east of the main divide, extending from the middle of Montana up to the Yellowhead Pass in Alberta, or over 350 miles long, where the tops of the mountains consist of jointed limestones or argillites of Algonkian or pre-Cambrian "age," resting on soft Cretaceous shales. Often the greater part of the mass of a range will consist of these "older" and harder rocks, which by the erosion of the soft underlying shales are left standing in picturesque, rectangular, cathedral-like masses, easily recognizable as far off as they can be seen. And the almost entire absence of trees or other vegetation helps one to trace out the relationship of these formations over immense areas with little or no difficulty.

In the latitude of the Bow River, near the Canadian Pacific main line, there is a long narrow valley of these Cretaceous beds some sixty-five miles long, called the Cascade Trough, with of course pre-Cambrian mountains on each side. Somewhat further south there are two of these Cretaceous valleys parallel to one another, and in some places _three_; while just south of the fiftieth parallel of latitude, at Gould's Dome, there are actually _five parallel ranges_ of these Palæozoic mountains, _with four Cretaceous valleys in between_, one of these valleys, the Crow's Nest Trough, being ninety-five miles long.

But we ought to take a nearer view of these wonderful conditions. A convenient point of approach will be just east of Banff, Alberta, near Kananaskis Station, where the Fairholme Mountain has been described by R.G. McConnell of the Canadian Survey. The latter remarks with amazement on the perfectly natural appearance of these Algonkian limestones resting in seeming conformability on Cretaceous shales, and says that the line of separation between them, called in the theory the "thrust plane," resembles in all respects an ordinary stratification plane. I quote his language:

"The angle of inclination of its plane to the horizon is _very low_, and in consequence of this its outcrop follows a very sinuous line along the base of the mountains, and _acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations_.

"The best places for examining this fault are at the gaps of the Bow and of the south fork of Ghost River.... The fault plane here is nearly horizontal, and the two formations, viewed from the valley, _appear to succeed one another conformably."[48]

[Footnote 48: Annual Report, 1886, Part D, pp. 33, 34.]

This author adds the further interesting detail that the underlying Cretaceous shales are "very soft," and "have suffered very little by the sliding of the limestone over them."[49]

About a hundred miles further south, but still in Alberta, we have the well-known Crow's Nest Mountain, a lone peak, which consists of these same Algonkian limestones resting on a Cretaceous valley "in a nearly horizontal attitude," as G.M. Dawson says, which "in its structure and general appearance much resembles Chief Mountain,"[50] another detached peak some fifty miles further south, just across the boundary line in Montana.

Chief Mountain has been well described by Bailey Willis,[51] who estimates that the Cretaceous beds underneath this mountain must be 3,500 feet thick; while the so-called "thrust plane is essentially _parallel to the bedding_" of the upper series.[52]

"This apparently is true not only of the segments of thrust surface beneath eastern Flattop, Yellow, and Chief Mountain, but also of the more deeply buried portions which appear to dip with the Algonkian strata into the syncline. While observation is not complete, it may be assumed on a basis of fact that thrust surfaces and bedding are nearly parallel over extensive areas."[53]

[Footnote 49: Report, 1886, Part D, p. 84.]

[Footnote 50: Report, 1885, Part B, p. 67.]

[Footnote 51: _Bull. Geol. Soc._, Vol. 13, pp. 305-352.]

[Footnote 52: _Id_., p. 336.]

[Footnote 53: _Id_., p. 336.]

Quite recently this region has been studied by Marius R. Campbell of the Washington Survey Staff (Bulletin 600), while the part in Alberta has been studied by Rollin T. Chamberlin of Chicago. Much of the vast area involved is not yet well explored; but over it all, so far as it has been fully examined, the same lithological and stratigraphical structures reappear with the persistence of a repeating decimal. And were it not for the exigencies of the theory of Successive Ages, this whole region of some five or six thousand square miles would be considered as only an ordinary example, on a rather large scale, of undisturbed horizontal stratification cut up by erosion into mountains of denudation, with of course occasional instances of minor local disturbances here and there, as would be expected over an area of this extent.

Richards and Mansfield in a recent paper describe the "Bannock Overthrust," some 270 miles long, in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The Carnegie Research recently reported a similar phenomenon about 500 miles long in northern China.

But it would be tiresome to follow these conditions around the world. We have plenty of examples, and we have them described by the foremost of living geologists. What we need to do now is to adopt a true scientific attitude of mind, a mind freed from the hypnotizing influence of the current theories, in order correctly to interpret the facts as we already have them.

_How much of the earth's crust would we have to find_ in this upside down order of the fossils, before we would be convinced that there must be something hopelessly wrong with this theory of Successive Ages which drives otherwise competent observers to throw away their common sense and cling desperately to a fantastic theory in the very teeth of such facts?

The science of geology as commonly taught is truly in a most astonishing condition, and doubtless presents the most peculiar mixture of fact and nonsense to be found in the whole range of our modern knowledge. In any minute study of a particular set of rocks in a definite locality, geology always follows facts and common sense; while in any general view of the world as a whole, or in any correlation of the rocks of one region with those of another region, it follows its absurd, unscientific theories. But wherever it agrees with facts and common sense, it contradicts these absurd theories; and wherever it agrees with these theories, it contradicts facts and common sense. That most educated people still believe its main thesis of _a definite age for each particular kind of fossil_ is a sad but instructive example of the effects of mental inertia.

IV

The reader will find this matter discussed at length in the author's "Fundamentals of Geology"; but here it will be necessary only to draw some very obvious conclusions from the _five facts_ which we have set in opposition to the theory of Successive Ages.

1. The first and absolutely incontrovertible conclusion is that this theory of successive ages must be a gross blunder, in its baleful effects on every branch of modern thought deplorable beyond computation. But it is now perfectly obvious that the geological distinctions as to age between the fossils are fantastic and unjustifiable. No one kind of true fossil can be proved to be older or younger than another intrinsically and necessarily, and the methods of reasoning by which this idea has been supported in the past are little else than a burlesque on modern scientific methods, and are a belated survival from the methods of the scholastics of the Middle Ages.

Not by any means that all rock deposits are of the same age. The lower ones in any particular locality are of course "older" than the upper ones, that is, they were deposited first. _But from this it by no means follows that the fossils contained in these lower rocks came into being and lived and died before the fossils in the upper ones_. The latter conclusion involves several additional assumptions which are wholly unscientific in spirit and incredible as matters of fact, one of which assumptions is the _biological form of the onion-coat theory_. But since thousands of modern living kinds of plants and animals are found in the fossil state, _man included_, and no one of them can be proved to have lived for a period of time alone and before others, we must by other methods, more scientific and accurate than the slipshod methods hitherto in vogue, attempt to decide as best we can how these various forms of life were buried, and how the past and the present are connected together. But the theory of definite successive ages, with the forms of life appearing on earth in a precise and invariable order, is dead for all coming time for every man who has had a chance to examine the evidence and has enough training in logic and scientific methods to know when a thing is really proved.

And how utterly absurd for the friends of the Bible to spend their time bandying arguments with the evolutionist over such minor details as the question of just what geological "age" should be assigned for the first appearance of man on the earth, when the evolutionist's major premise is itself directly antagonistic to the most fundamental facts regarding the first chapters of the Bible, and above all, when this major premise is really the weakest spot in the whole theory, the one sore spot that evolutionists never want to have touched at all.

I fancy I hear some one object, and ask what we are to do with the systematic arrangement of the fossils, the so-called "geological succession," that monument to the painstaking labors of thousands of scientists all over the world. This geological series is still on our hands; what are we to do with it?

It is scarcely necessary for me to say that this arrangement of the fossils is not at all affected by my criticism of the cause of the geological changes. _The geological series is merely an old-time taxonomic series, a classification of the forms of life that used_ _to live on the earth_, and is of course just as artificial as any similar arrangement of the modern forms of life would be.

We may illustrate the matter by comparing this series with a card index. The earlier students of geology arranged the outline of the order of the fossils by a rather general comparison with the series of modern life forms, which happened to agree fairly well with the order in which they had found the fossils occurring in England and France. But only a block out of the middle of the complete card index could be made up from the rocks of England and France; the rest has had to be made up from the rocks found elsewhere. Louis Agassiz did herculean work in rearranging and trimming this fossil card index so as to make it conform better, not only to the companion card index of the modern forms of life, but also to that of the embryonic series. From time to time even now readjustments are made in the details of all three indexes, the fossil, the modern, and the embryonic, the method of rearrangement being charmingly simple: _just taking a card out of one place and putting it into another place_ where we may think it more properly belongs. And then if we can convince our fellow scientists over the world that our rearrangement is justified, our adjustment will stand,--until some one else arises to do a better job. When a new set of rocks is found in any part of the world it is simplicity itself for any one acquainted with the fossil index system to assign these new beds to their proper place, though of course the one doing this must be prepared to defend his assignment with pertinent and sufficient taxonomic reasons.

In view of these facts, we need not be concerned as to the fate of the geological classification of the fossils. It is a purely artificial system, just as is the modern classification; but both are useful, and so far as they represent true relationships they will both stand unaffected by any change we may make in our opinions as to how the fossils were buried. But in view of this purely artificial character of the geological series, what a strange sight is presented by the usual methods employed to "prove" the exact order in which evolution has taken place, such for instance as the use made of the graded series of fossil "horses," to illustrate some particular theory of _just how_ organic development has occurred. One might just as well arrange the modern dogs from the little spaniel to the St. Bernard, for the geological series is just as artificial as would be this of the dogs.

2. Another conclusion from the facts enumerated above is that there has obviously been a great world catastrophe, and that this must be assigned as the cause of a large part,--_just how large a part_ it is at present difficult to say,--of the changes recorded in the fossiliferous rocks. This sounds very much like a modern confirmation of the ancient record of a universal Deluge; and I say confidently that no one who will candidly examine the evidence now available on this point can fail to be impressed with the force of the argument for a world catastrophe as the general conclusion to be drawn from the fossiliferous rocks all over the globe.

3. Finally, there is the further conclusion, the only conclusion now possible, if there is no definite order in which the fossils occur, namely, that life in all its varied forms _must have originated on the globe by causes not now operative_, and this Creation of all the types of life may just as reasonably have taken place all at once, as in some order prolonged over a long period.

As I have pointed out in my "Fundamentals," a strict scientific method may destroy the theory of Successive Ages, and it may show that there has been a great world catastrophe. But here the work of strict inductive science ends. It cannot show just how or when life or the various kinds of life did originate, it can only show _how it did not_. It destroys forever the fantastic scheme of a definite and precise order in which the various types of life occurred on the globe, and thus it _leaves the way open_ to say that life must have originated by just such a literal Creation as is recorded in the first chapters of the Bible. But this is as far as it can be expected to go. It is strong evidence in favor of a direct and literal Creation; but it furnishes this evidence by indirection, that is, by demolishing the only alternative or rival of Creation that can command a moment's attention from a rational mind.

_But if life is not now being created from the not-living, if new kinds of life are not now appearing by natural process, if above all we cannot prove in any way worthy of being called scientific that certain types of life lived before others, if in fine man himself is found fossil and no one fossil can be proved older than another or than that of man himself, why is not a literal Creation demonstrated as a scientific certainty for every mind capable of appreciating the force of logical reasoning?_

VIII

CREATION AND THE CREATOR

I