Cataclysms of the Earth
By Hugh Auchincloss Brown
PART ONE
EVIDENCE OF CAREENINGS OF THE GLOBE
I -
HISTORICAL WRITINGS
II -
MECHANICS OF THE GREAT DELUGE
III -
MAN: THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE
I - HISTORICAL WRITINGS
* Obviously there are still many people who consider the Noah tale
as mere fiction. However, there are just as many who credit it with
a certain historical truth; this writer is one of that group.
|
FROM early Jewish history, as recorded in the Bible, comes down to
us a tale of a great deluge, a tale familiar to most civilized
peoples.* All mountains were covered by water. Noah and his
family-together with two of every species of bird, beast, and
reptile-were saved in an Ark which landed on Mt. Ararat in Asia
Minor. The highest elevation of this mountain is 17,100 feet above
sea level.
The physical cause of the Great Flood is confirmed by the biblical
story, which consists of two merged narratives; from these we learn
that "the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken
up .... And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty
nights."
It is both logical and evident that the breaking up of "all the
fountains of the great deep" was the effect of a specific cause, and
that the cause was a mechanical one, forcing a change in land and
sea levels.
Page 14
It is obvious that the rain of forty days and forty nights was
incidental to the Flood, and not its cause. Noah and his group of
survivors were "shut in" the Ark, and therefore knew nothing of
outside atmospheric conditions. They may have thought that the rain
caused the Flood, for the story of the rain has been passed down by
their posterity.
Simple arithmetic shows the impracticality of the theory holding
that the earth was flooded to the tops of all the mountains by rain
water; this leaves "the fountains of the great deep" as the natural
cause of the Flood, this being in accord with the historical record.
Mount Everest is 29,000 feet above sea level, and its top was
submerged. In forty days and forty nights there are 960 hours, or
57,600 minutes, for the waters to rise 29,000 feet; thus the waters
rose 725 feet per day, 30 feet per hour, or approximately 6 inches
per minute!
Obviously no continuous rainfall could create so great a flood.
Since rain waters would run off into the oceans such a flood would
be impossible by means of rainfall. Further, it would be beyond the
capacity of the rain cycle of evaporation, condensation, and
precipitation to produce it.
Therefore, the fountainous breaking up of the waters of the great
deep, (See pages 51, 144) caused by the movements of earth materials,
remains as the logical interpretation of the biblical story of the great Flood. Furthermore, this clearly fits
into the pattern of the careening globe theory, and aids in
identifying that last careen of the earth as the cause of the Flood.
In the mythology of the Greeks, the iniquity of the human race
provoked Zeus to overwhelm the earth with a flood; this occurred, it
was said, in the fifteenth century before their era. From this
flood, only one man, Deucalion, and his wife, Pyrra, survived in an
ark or chest which came to rest on Mt. Parnassus, Greece. The
elevation above present sea level of this mountain is 8,000 feet.
The Hellenes (Greeks) were descended from Deucalion’s son, Hellen.
Page 15
The ancient Hindus, Chaldeans, and the
Jews all have records
indicating that a great deluge occurred slightly more than 5,000
years ago.
Cuvier refers, without identification, to an ancient Brahman
collection of Indo-European prose which had a recurrent flood
theory.
William Thomasson says in his book The Glacial Period and The Deluge
that "the
Chinese have a wonderful tradition, that properly interpretated,
tells of their sudden, flying leap to the Arctic .... It is the
story of the Ten Stems, or Ages."
Confucius, born about 551 B.C., begins his history of China with a
reference to a receding flood which had been "raised to the
heavens."
Plato relates through Critias the story, told to
Solon by Egyptian
priests in 600 B.C., that a great war of invasion had occurred about
9,000 years earlier, led by the kings of Atlantis, an island empire
of very great extent, which was afterwards sunk by an earthquake and
left an impassable barrier of mud to sailors voyaging past what is
now Gibraltar.
Atlantis-The Antediluvian World
by Ignatius Donnelly
Contains
historical proofs
of a great deluge, including details of many written records and
legends of Assyrian, Babylonian, Chaldean, Hindu, and North and
South American origin.
Mr. Donnelly refers only to the disappearance of
Atlantis, and with
it, its civilization. His researches disclose evidence of a
civilization prior to the Flood, and of the dispersion of peoples
and their arts following the catastrophe. Actually, most of the then
existing peoples and their civilization were engulfed immediately by
this latest World Flood.
Theories about the earth’s so-called crust of one hundred to one
hundred fifty years ago reveal that the science writers of that
period appear to have been divided into two main groups. Those who
belonged to the older school of thought were referred to as "Cataclysmists,"
or "Catastrophists." They held to the inherited, then accepted,
theory that the main changes observable in the earth’s surface were
the results of an adjusting power different from what is now
commonly understood as The Laws of Nature. In the view of the newer
school of thought, represented by those referred to as "Uniformitarians,"
the workings of natural, unchanging, explainable forces could
account for all of the changes in the surface of the globe. Since
then, the scientific world has become, in its beliefs, wholly
uniformitarian; the cataclysmic theory of geological changes through
the caprice of nature has been gradually abandoned. The missing
link, which kept cataclysmists and uniformitarians separated, is
simply an acceptance as a basic scientific truth that catastrophism
is a part of the natural working of Nature’s Laws.
Page 16
A hundred odd years ago cataclysms were recognized as having
occurred-as they are so recognized today-but the explanations
offered were not generally accepted because they were based on the
so-called caprice of nature: erratic, freakish, whimsical control by
Nature-or the temperamental setting aside of Nature’s Laws. Today,
scientists look to the Laws of Nature for explanations of all
physical phenomena.
The difference between cataclysmists, who claimed to know the
answers, even though wrong, and the fundamentalists, who were still
seeking for a scientific explanation to which they might agree, is
illustrated by the following story.
A cataclysmist was asked how he would explain the phenomenon if he
saw a bar of steel floating in the air. "Why," he said, "if I
happened to witness such a thing I would know that it proved the
temporary suspension of one of Nature’s Laws."
A fundamentalist, when asked the same question, replied, "If I saw
steel floating in the air I would know it proved the existence of a
Law of Nature about which I happened to be ignorant."
What the cataclysmists explained erroneously, at the time, and the
uniformitarians left unexplained, is now rationally explained by the
basic theory of an automatically careening globe-a theory which is
strictly uniformitarian, being wholly in accord with the immutable
Laws of Nature.
Page 17
Archeology
AT THE site of the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldeans, located in
present-day Iraq about eight miles west of the Euphrates River and
near its junction with the Tigris, archeologists have disclosed
layers of materials which indicate that one city after another
occupied the area during a long period of time. Excavating layer
after layer to a depth of about fifty feet, they have disclosed
about one hundred and thirty-five successive periods of city life,
each period also being demarcated by a different dynasty.
At slightly below the depth of fifty feet the archeologists came
upon a layer of clay, eight to ten feet thick. Below the clay bed
they discovered ten (one account says twelve) layers representing
successive dynasties, but the relics and artifacts were found to be
of a different kind than those found above the clay. A significant
discovery was the fact that painted pottery was found below the clay
bed but not above it, with the exception of scattered samples of
painted pottery found immediately above the clay, but not higher up.
The archeologists are in agreement that a flood must have produced
the bed of clay. Clay is formed by silt settling in water. The silt
is derived primarily from the grinding of rocks upon rocks under the
pressures and movements of glacial ice. A ten-foot clay bed took a
long time to develop; the length of time required for its creation
may be ascertained by counting its varves or layers-as explained in
the section entitled "Geology."
Copper is an ingredient of the articles found in the strata above
the clay bed, but copper is absent from the artifacts
below-suggesting a discontinuity of the two civilizations separated
by the period of time during which the clay bed was being created.
By comparing the relics and artifacts found in the different layers
of dirt with those of other civilizations, we can estimate the
elapsed time represented by the total fill of dirt above the clay
bed to be about 6,000 years.
Page 18
A high degree of civilization, at the culmination of Epoch No. 2 B.P.,
(Before Present) would account for the painted pottery. A movement
of the land area, caused by the careening of the earth, from a
temperate to a cold latitude, its submergence beneath the seas and
the entire disappearance of its people and their civilization, is
indicated for Epoch No. 1 B.P., during which the clay bed was
formed.
At the commencement of the present epoch, at the moment of the last
great flood, the land area careened to its present latitude, where
it again became inhabited by human beings; but these new peoples did
not possess the art of painting pottery, which characterized the
artifacts of the race that had been destroyed by the flood.
Ur of the Chaldeans was probably located on the Persian Gulf, though
it is now about 115 miles inland. The sea level has not remained
constant, as explained elsewhere, and the lower delta of the
Euphrates River has extended into the Gulf. Clues to this are the
record found at Ur of a marine hero, conqueror of storm and sea, and
artifacts indicating trade with distant places-probably partly by
sea.
Excavations by archeologists at Cnossus, Crete, have disclosed 43
feet of soil and then virgin rock. The relics and artifacts
uncovered indicate successive habitations by man, and when compared
with specimens gathered elsewhere, these objects represent a time
period of about 5,300 years.
The soil which developed during these distant years came from
vegetation and animal remains, from wind-borne dust, and from
erosions at higher levels. The relics and artifacts were not found
in the very deepest excavations near the rock surface; this fact
indicates that a period of time elapsed before people came to live
there and also that the gradual build-up of the earth materials had
extended over a period of more than 5,300 years.
The rock substrata below the soil at Cnossus fits into the pattern
of the theory of a careening globe. A revolutionary change in the
development of the earth strata occurred at this place.
Page 19
During Epoch No. 1 B.P. the land area now known as the island of
Crete was located near a latitude corresponding to the present
Arctic Circle. Today, located near the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea, it is in a temperate climate, is covered with
soil and vegetation, and people have been living there for more than
5,300 years.
The Mammoths
ANIMAL fossils, especially mammoths, offer positive proof that the
earth has rolled around sideways to its normal direction of
rotation.
Mammoths are now being found in arctic regions, buried in lifelike
condition in the permanently frozen ground. Their presence,
condition, and location document a gigantic catastrophe in which the
climate of a very large area of land suddenly and drastically
changed. Only a sudden rotating or careening of the globe could have
caused this change.
Siberian mammoths are commonly described by the terms "Wooly" or
"Northern." Their bodies and limbs are covered by long coarse hair
resembling tubular reddish-brown plastic needles. In addition, they
have been found with an undercoat of short finer hair. But the skin
of their head, trunk, and ears is smooth. It is evident that they,
like our present-day elephants, were unsuited to a cold climate.
Indeed, they would have frozen solid in the present winter climate
of Siberia.
The food contents of their stomach and their teeth, however,
provides us with evidence of their origin.
The literature on the mammoths is full of references to their eating
evergreens, now the main vegetation of the regions where the
carcasses are found. This reference has apparently resulted from the
writers’ assuming that the mammoths actually lived and thrived in
the present cold climate of Siberia. Analysis of the stomach
contents of these carcasses does not substantiate this theory. The
evidence suggests that the feeding grounds containing these animals
was moved quickly from a warm to a frigid climate. The carcasses of
rhinoceroses, also found in the ground, aid in further
substantiating that some of the feeding grounds were tropical, and
that the present polar climate of their resting places is far
different from the climate of the Eden-like land in which they were
born and reared.
Page 20
The food contents of the stomachs of the mammoths also give us a
clue as to the exact time of day the earth careened. A full stomach
indicates the sudden death of a healthy animal, and that death
occurred after, and not before, the feeding period of the day. The
food found in the mouths and stomachs of prehistoric monsters
indicates that they had been grazing among abundant warm climate
grasses when death suddenly overtook them.
The suggestion of a sudden careening of the globe is further
substantiated by the condition of the carcasses. Several mammoths
have been found in an upright position on their haunches. Some have
been found with broken bones. The upright position supports the
theory that they met death suddenly; the broken bones indicate
violent contusions just prior to death. The super-hurricanes, or
head winds caused by the rapid careening of the globe, would account
for large animals being tossed about and buried in debris. The
raging waters of a flood would produce a similar effect. The
lifelike condition of mammoths found underground would indicate that
they were frozen solid soon after having been buried alive.
In 1901, a mammoth was extricated from the bank of the Bereskovka
River in Siberia, 66 N. latitude, almost on the Arctic Circle. It
was solidly frozen in the tundra, but its head became exposed during
a landslide. It was a male animal, found sitting on his haunches,
with pelvis bone and right foreleg broken. In this condition he
could not move, much less forage for food. Yet it had perished just
after eating breakfast. There was a small quantity of grass on his
tongue which he had been in the act of eating. His teeth were filled
with half-chewed grasses; twenty-seven pounds of grass were removed
from his stomach on one occasion, and more on another. This animal
is now mounted in the Zoological Institute of The Academy of
Sciences in Leningrad.
Page 21
The stomach contents of the Bereskovka mammoth consisted chiefly of
field grasses, which were identified, analyzed, and photographed.
The names of the grasses are given in Russian and Latin in an
article by G. N. Kutomanov in the Bulletin of The Academy of
Sciences of St. Petersburg, 1914, Vol. 8, No. 6, pages 377-88. The
grasses are similarly reported in a detailed description of the
extrication of the beast in the annual report of The Academy of
Sciences, 1914, Tome 13. That report observes that "Contrary to
popular belief, no evergreens have ever been found in the stomach of
a mammoth."
Nine genera of grasses were found and help us to establish the
climatic conditions under which the animal lived. If the grasses
were arctic grasses, the mammoth must have lived in an arctic
climate. If the grasses were tropical, a tropical climate would be
indicated. This problem was submitted to the Smithsonian Institute.
Mr. C. V. Morton, Curator, Division of Ferns, Department of Botany,
advises that all of the grasses are now found in temperate climates,
none in tropical climates, and four out of the nine are found as far
north as the Arctic Circle.
Whether the grasses could have grown in a tropical climate, and
survived after having been moved to temperate and frigid climates,
is not ascertainable. The presence of rhinoceroses, however,
indicates that the climate had been tropical.
A report concerning a rhinoceros found on the bank of the Vilui
River in Siberia states:
"The animal appears to have been drowned,
for the blood vessels of the head were found by Professor Brandt to
be filled with red coagulated blood, such as would be produced by
suffocating through drowning. Probably it was suddenly caught in a
flood of rushing water, from which it had no opportunity to escape.
At one moment the animal was standing on firm ground, peacefully
browsing, and in the next was overwhelmed by a roaring flood, the
tumultuous waves of which bore along masses of mud and gravel in
their sweeping course, so that it was drowned and buried almost
instantly. Then the intense cold set in, the body froze, and the
ground never thawed out until the day when it fell down on the banks
of the river."
Page 22
Both the Vilui River rhinoceros and the Bereskovka River mammoth
evidently died of suffocation. The stomach contents of the mammoth,
as indicated by the many photographs, did not contain water. The
grasses were dry. Therefore, it is reasoned, the beast was not
drowned but perished in the super hurricane and dust and dirt storm
caused by the rapid movement of the earth’s surface against the air
in that particular area. The same winds, by their force and
pressure, would have filled the air with the trees, animals, top
soil, sand, gravel and debris, in which the animals were buried
alive.
I. P. Tolmachoff states concerning the Bereskovka mammoth:
"The
pelvis, a right foreleg and a few ribs were found broken, as well as
indications of a strong hemorrhage and also suffocation in mud. The
death by suffocation is proved by the erection of the male genital,
a condition inexplicable in any other way."
(American Philosophical
Society Transactions, N.S. 23, 1929).
Physicians have corroborated
Mr. Tolmachoff’s conclusion of
suffocation; this conclusion, in turn, helps to establish the fact
that these animals died through sudden mass extinction, and not by
slow or individually separate deaths. Tolmachoff also states that no
mammoth nor rhinoceros has been found frozen in the ice.
The fossil remains of other beasts and fishes have been found with
undigested stomach contents. A beast with a partly chewed rodent,
for example, was found in Colombia, South America, in 1945, and is
now at the University of California, in Berkeley. This beast,
classed as genus Borhyrna has been estimated to be millions of years
old. It had been buried in fine sand before it had had a chance to
digest its recently swallowed breakfast. When the sandstone was
carved away from the skeleton, the rodent was found resting where
the beast’s intestines belonged.
The arctic regions, where mammoths, rhinoceroses, and other animals
have been found, do not have sufficient vegetation to support a
single mammoth, and the cold is so intense in winter that no mammoth
could survive. Yet, just prior to the latest careening of the globe
this region was populated with teeming herds of animals.
Page 23
They lived there because an ample food supply existed, and the food
supply grew because the climate was warm. Millions of mammoths once
lived in what is now a refrigerator for their carcasses and bones.
The abundant vegetation, indicated by the food supply, corroborates
the other evidence that the latitude where these animals lived was
either tropical or temperate.
Great quantities of bones of mammoths, horses, cattle, buffaloes,
camels, sheep, deer, and many other grass-eating animals as well as
those that preyed on the plant eaters have been found in the frozen
tundra of Siberia. Their remains add to the positive evidence of the
profuse vegetation necessary to support these hordes of animals. The
finding of at least thirty-nine mammoths in the Siberian tundra is
recorded.
Animals smaller and less spectacular than the mammoths and
rhinoceroses have not been reported, when and if they have been
found by hunters and trappers. Nevertheless, a great number of
smaller animals must have become exposed on the surface through
tundra landslides caused by summer rains that, unable to penetrate
the frozen tundras, flood extensive land areas.
In regard to the remains of mammoths, mastodons, dinosaurs, and
other prehistoric animals now being found at widely scattered areas
of the earth, at many different latitudes, and in successive earth
formations, three facts stand out: First, the fact of their total
destruction. Second, the fact that the last members of the species
died suddenly while in a condition of good health. Third, the fact
that their remains show their habitations extended over widely
scattered and now separated land areas.* The theory of the recurrent careenings of the globe fits the evidence better than any other. The
careening theory explains the cataclysms destroying animal and plant
life, and accounts
The moot question of a land bridge at Bering Strait, between North
America and Asia, is apparently solved by the great quantities of
mammoth tusks and bones found in the now separated and frigid areas
of Wrangell Island, New Siberian Islands, Alaska and Siberia;
indicating that these animals roamed freely over a connected land
area, in a warm climate, just previous to the latest careen of the
globe. for changes in the climate of most areas of the earth as well
as the duration of each epoch between the world deluges.
Page 24
Sea Life
THE seas have also been searched for organic life which would help
substantiate the theory of a careening globe, and clues have been
found in seals and lobsters.
The seals found in the Caspian Sea and in Lake Baikal in Siberia are
the same as the seals which inhabit Alaskan waters. The evidence
indicates that the two branches of the family at one time were
together, like the mammoths, and became separated during the last
great deluge. Most of the lakes as well as land areas of the globe
were then temporarily covered with the waters of the oceans enabling
the seals during the Flood to scatter in all directions.
There is a logical, self evident explanation to the riddle why the
same variety of seal happens to be found in three such widely
separated locations. They are the descendants of those seal
ancestors that were still living, and could find a food supply, when
the Flood came to an end. Some among the ancestor group of seals had
been stranded on land, some found themselves in lakes, while others
were still in the ocean.
A lobster of peculiar genus is found only in icy arctic waters and
in the PLA Deep of the Mediterranean Sea. Finding this lobster in
the Mediterranean Sea helps to prove that the sea was near the North
Pole before the last careening of the earth. At that time its waters
were icy and suited to this species of cold-water lobster. When the
earth last careened this sea was moved to a temperate climate. The
cold-water lobster still continues to live in it, but only in its
coldest waters and in its deepest depression.
Page 25
Fossils
ABOUT a century and a half ago Georges Cuvier wrote:
"It is to
fossils that we owe the discovery of the true theory of the earth;
without them, we should not have dreamed, perhaps, that the globe
was formed at successive epochs, and by a series of different
operations. They alone, in short, tell us with certainty that the
globe has not always had the same envelope; we cannot resist the
conviction that they must have lived on the surface of the earth
before being buried in its depths; if we had only unfossiliferous
rocks to examine, no one could maintain that the earth was not
formed all at once."
There is, today, among scientists complete agreement with
Cuvier.
Drillings to a depth of four miles have disclosed the earth’s
envelopes, now called strata, and each provides us with a record of
the epoch during which it was created.
Footprints and tracks of animals, reptiles, and crustacea, that were
made many thousands of years ago in various muds and wet sands, have
been discovered and are now preserved in museums in the form of rock
specimens. Raindrop splashes in the then soft, oozy mud have been
discovered in numerous specimens of stone.
Where the evidence of a tropical climate surrounds frozen mud
sculptures the sudden freezing can only be accounted for by an
assumed careening of the earth which brought the mud into a
different climate. The prompt solidification of the mud by freezing,
when moved quickly from a tropical or temperate climate into a
frigid climate, clearly accounts for these remarkable phenomena.
The mud sculptures having become like stone by freezing were further
"set," during one of the glacial periods, by the accumulation of a
layer of sediment. This, in turn, acted as a mold and preserved the
shapes of the sculptures after the specimens had been careened back
to tropical or temperate climates and the frozen mud or tundra
thawed out during the succeeding epoch. In these molds the former
mud slowly changed to stone.
There are great differences in the fossil markings on rocks. The
sharp, delicate, shell like craters of raindrop splashes could not
have been preserved except by quick freeze; the mud of unfrozen
splashes soon oozes back and become pockmarks. Jellyfish entombed in
mud and frogs could not have been preserved except by quick freeze;
else they soon would have rotted.
Page 26
On the shores of the Bay of Fundy large areas of dried red and sandy
mud, deposited by spring tides, are laid bare and, baking in the hot
summer sun for ten days during neap tides, the upper part of the mud
becomes consolidated for a depth of several inches. Sir Charles Lyell reports finding, on these mud surfaces, small cavities or pit
marks caused by raindrops, footmarks where birds had walked, and
other tracks. On splitting a sample slab of the hardened mud and
reducing it in thickness, he found footprints made during several
prior neap tides on the inferior layers: each made by birds at
different times.
This is an illustration of one of Nature’s methods of preserving
track marks. Even today fossil prints of various kinds are produced
in this way and may be found in many different localities. This
drying out method of producing stone from mud, and preserving track
marks, could never account for the delicate shell like craters of
raindrop splashes which are preserved by quick freeze.
The most sharply delineated markings of tracks of living things and
imprints of vegetation preserved in stone are found in the top
layers of the strata that correspond to the end of each epoch. For
example: the profusion of leaf and fern details on the top surfaces
of vegetable muck deposits which have become coal (as described in
detail later), indicates solidification by freezing during the last
moments of the thousands of years of muck accumulation; after that
moment no more muck accumulated at that location.
Where these muck deposits were located, a revolutionary change
occurred in the way the earth’s materials are formed. From this we
know that the conditions necessary for the forming of those earth
layers suddenly changed. We know that a condition for the formation
of vegetable muck was a tropical or temperate climate, and we know
that its slow, time consuming creation suddenly ceased. We know that
it would disintegrate or be consumed by slow combustion unless it
was suddenly covered up.
Page 27
We therefore look for evidences of a polar climate in the overlying
strata, and we often find clays, shales, and slates, which confirm
the theory of a careening globe.
A confirmation of the theory of a careening globe evidenced by the
time elapsed between successive layers of the earth’s upper strata
comes from the tracks of large dinosaurs which were examined by a
trained observer, in 1940, on the Davenport Ranch in Bandera County,
Texas. He reported sun cracks in the silt filling the footprints;
this indicated that the surface had been below, although it is now
above, water.
The important element in that observation is the fact that the sun
cracks were in the silt filling the imprints, but not in the rock
materials containing the track marks. From this it may be readily
deducted that the tracks had become set as hardpan and then rock
before the silt filler that cracked in the sun had been deposited;
and that, therefore, the silt filler represented a later epoch of
time than did the rock material which did not crack in the sun, and
could not have been contemporaneous.
The dinosaurs whose skeletons were found grouped together in the
rock formations at Dinosaur Monument, Utah, were drowned by
the
Great Deluge which ended the epoch in which they lived; they sank to
the bottom of a lake or river and became covered with sediment which
turned to rock during succeeding epochs of time.
Those rocks are now small mountains. The upheaval raising lake or
river bottoms to much higher elevations occurred during one of the
later careenings of the earth with simultaneous rearrangements of
land masses and a Great Deluge. From Dinosaur Monument a million
pounds of petrified bones have been quarried for display in various
museums.
Page 28
Mass graveyards with remains of mammoths have also been discovered.
Geoffrey Bibby, in his book The Testimony of the Spade, describes
one graveyard containing over 900 mammoths, both young and old,
several hundred other grazing animals, and wolves and foxes; it is
located at Predmosti in central Moravia, in a valley quarry six to
ten feet below the surface of the covering dirt and top soil, in a
stratum which has not yet turned to rock. He states some conflicting
opinions as to the probable reason for its existence. He cites
similar mass burial grounds of mammoths as having been found in
Lower Austria, at Krems, Langmannerdorf, and
Willendorf, and
elsewhere. Evzen and Jiri Neustupny, in their book Czechoslovakia
Before the Slavs (page 26) state that "the bones of more than a
thousand mammoths have been found at Predmosti and the quantities
discovered at Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov are no less impressive."
The mammoths’ graveyards can be considered as additional evidence of
the recurrent cataclysms of the earth. Their shallow burials make it
appear probable that they lived in Epoch No. 2 B.P., when the Hudson
Bay Basin was at the North Pole of Spin; it also seems probable that
their carcasses have not received quite as much protection against
disintegration as have the New York State mastodons of Epoch No. 3 B.P.
An exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History showing a
similar group of skeletons of prehistoric animals, all piled
together like offal at a slaughterhouse, can be explained most
rationally by the deluge caused by a careen of the globe. Those
animals evidently came to their death by cataclysmic mass drownings.
Their bodies probably settled in an eddy, or at an obstruction, or
in a deep hole at the bottom of the transient flood waters, where
they were covered by dirt and debris. Quick freezing may also have
retarded their disintegration.
The careening of the globe, with concurrent great deluges, is
confirmed by such discoveries of massed skeletons of contemporaneous
animals piled together. Similar burial grounds containing
contemporaneous fish skeletons will be discussed later.
Petrified oysters, clams, crabs, and starfish were found at depths
of several hundred feet during the digging of the Panama Canal. They
were all perfectly preserved but had turned to stone. Some of the
species do not thrive in the tropics, indicating that what is now
Panama was at one time located in a temperate zone.
Specimens of fossil jellyfish have been discovered in Cambrian rock
formations, classified as among the oldest rocks. Their external
structures, as well as something of the interior forms of the
jellyfish, were found to be quite well preserved. (Geology, by H. F.
Cleland, page 416. )
Page 29
Solidification by freezing of both the sand and the jellyfish, at
the moment of the careen of the globe, is the simplest scientific
answer to this age old riddle of how a soft jellyfish could become
solid rock. What is now rock was once soft and wet sand which was
suddenly hurled about so that the jellyfish was virtually buried in
it; thereupon both suddenly congealed into a solid mass by quick
freezing.
The preponderance of marine fossils found so far, as compared to
upland fossils, is partly due to the cleavages of the unconformable
debris which covers former sea surfaces. Such cleavages bring about
the exposure of the trapped and preserved specimens, among which the
best preserved are those that have been quickly frozen. The fossils
of the uplands embedded in what was soil at that time, are less
easily discoverable. Many animals, including dinosaurs, are found in
rock. Mammoths are being found in tundra or dirt that will change to
rock, and mastodons have been retrieved from moist earth, well below
the surface, which will eventually become rock.
As we have seen, the bones of fossil animals must be assumed to be
those of animals quickly buried after death, for bones left on the
surface decay rather rapidly due to oxidation and the action of
organic acids wherever vegetation flourishes. The former enormous
herds of buffalo on the American plains did not become fossils. The
present swarming animal life of the African plains does not become
fossilized at death. At death animals become part of the substances
building up the soil. But when mass burials of animals have occurred
due to the careenings of the globe the remains have been embedded in
earth through which mineral laden waters have percolated and have
established conditions for creating fossils.
Page 30
Trees and Vegetation
FOSSIL trees and other vegetation provide additional evidence
regarding past epochs of our planet. Upright trees and tree trunks
are found in the sea; fresh tree trunks lie underground; fresh fruit
and leaves, frozen like the mammals, are found in Siberia;
fossilized and petrified trees exist net only on the surface of the
earth, but also in tiered layers of its sub strata. And all of these
phenomena can be traced quite rationally to the past careenings of
the globe.
In the Bay of Fundy, at Fort Lawrence, Nova Scotia, the stumps of a
submerged forest of pine and beech trees stand upright in the soil
in which it once grew. They become visible during low tide. In other
parts of the Bay of Fundy also, short, decaying stumps and roots
emerge briefly and are exposed to view during low tide.
These trunks and stumps are the remnants of trees once growing in
upland areas that were completely submerged when the earth last
careened. As the sea level later was lowered (due to the waters
accumulating as ice in Antarctica and elsewhere) the trees were all
gradually exposed to the air. Oxidation occurred, and the exposed
parts rotted away.
The tree trunks of any submerged forest all end abruptly at low tide
water level, for any part of a tree projecting above the water or
mud would, if given enough time, become oxidized by the air, would
rot, and be washed away. What will finally be left are the stumps
and short trunks standing below the lowest water level.
Three branches in a vertical position were reported by Nordenskiold
(in The Voyage of Vega) to be at the bottom of the sea adjacent to
the arctic islands of New Siberia. Nordenskiold also refers to tree
branches which burn with a glow, without a flame, and which continue
to be cast up every year in a northern Siberian lake, indicating
submerged forests, beneath the surface of the lake.
At many places tree trunks have been found underground. These trees
obviously did not grow underground, and under normal conditions no
fallen tree becomes buried. They must have grown above ground in
some former epoch and then been buried by a cataclysm, for dead
trees lying on the ground merely rot and decay. They are gradually
oxidized, just like the decaying tree limbs projecting above water.
Under such conditions they would have disappeared entirely before a
hundred years had elapsed. But when trees are buried in water or
damp earth they are protected from oxidation, and are able to stay
fresh for thousands of years. The presence of these underground
trees is further evidence of a cataclysm that buried them under dirt
and debris borne by hurricanes and flood waters.
Page 31
Fresh trees can now be mined in many places, including the Dismal
Swamps of Virginia, the Hackensack,
New Jersey, meadows, and in the
marsh area of the isthmus connecting Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick.
In certain areas of northern Siberia innumerable tree trunks called
by the natives "Adam’s wood" and said to be in all stages of decay
are embedded in the solidly frozen tundra. Because they were once
growing trees, of types which do not grow in that climate, they
confirm that a change in climate has taken place, such as would be
caused by a careen of the globe. They could have been broken by a
hurricane or flood. If so, they will show a clean break on the side
on which the breaking force was imposed and torn fibers on the lee
side. A reexamination of the wood, to determine genera and species
of the trees, will enable us to establish the latitude range or
climate in which these trees grew.
A so called mammoth tree, with fruit and leaves still on it, was
discovered and reported after a landslide of Siberian tundra. Such
cold storage of fruit 7,000 years old can only be explained by a
sudden transportation of the fruit from a warm climate in which it
grew to the cold storage climate in which it has been refrigerated.
This specimen of fruit, with leaves, and many other specimens of
leaves reported found in Siberia also confirm the careen of the
globe.
The American Museum of Natural History in New York possesses an
exhibit of fruit and plant fossils postulated as millions of years
old; the exhibit includes figs and palm fruits; fresh, full sized
banana leaves; fig, palm, sycamore, pine, and gingko leaves; sequoia
pine cones, and water chestnuts. The fruits are full size and
luscious looking, as though freshly fallen from the trees; the
leaves are also full and fresh looking, not shrunken or folded as
from exposure to the sun, but appear as just fallen, or laid down in
water.
Page 32
It is necessary to apply the theory of "quick freeze" to these
specimens, as otherwise they would have become rotted, crushed, or
otherwise destroyed, like most other vegetation. The fruits and
leaves "set" by "quick freezing," and then being hermetically sealed
within soil which became rock, the prerequisites were established
for the slow process of petrification to take place.
Nothing else accounts for the fossilization of this vegetation but
the careening of the earth. Figs, for example, are a tropical or
semitropical product. To be preserved they had to be frozen, and to
become frozen they must have been moved to a frigid climate.
Fossil trees are found all over the world. Outstanding examples of
petrified forests are near Cairo, Egypt, at sea level, and those
high up in the Rocky Mountains in Yellowstone Park, near the
continental divide.
At the latter location there are twenty seven horizontal tiers of
former tree life, representing an equal number of Life Ages; all
have become exposed as the side of the mountain has been gouged out.
The fossil trees which have become exposed in some of the earth’s
layers show recurrent periods of tree life; the strata showing tree
life are sometimes separated by strata of earth from which trees are
missing. Where tree fossils occur in one stratum, are absent in the
strata above and below, but occur in the next adjacent strata, they
give us an authoritative confirmation of the careening of the earth.
The slow rising and sinking of land areas relative to sea levels,
which prevail at all times, cannot account for this phenomenon.
Page 33
Upright fossil trees are found at many different levels at the
Bay
of Fundy, Nova Scotia. The tree trunks vary in diameter from
fourteen inches to four feet, and in height from six to twenty feet.
The lower ends are in strata of coal or shale. Tree roots penetrate
two different strata in some locations. The tree trunks, all cut off
abruptly at the tops, extend through different strata of shale,
sandstone and clay, but never through a seam of coal above them.
Tree roots having grown through two adjacent strata of earth confirm
the assumption that they grew in soil and that the soil has changed
into rock.
The coal and shale strata from which the trees sprouted are seen to
belong to an earlier period than the superimposed strata above the
upper ends of the vertical tree trunks. The seam of coal next above
was a still later development. The beds containing the fossil trees
are usually separated from each other by masses of shale and
sandstone many yards in thickness. These strata represent the
developments of many thousands of years and successive epochs of
time.
Nothing of the original trees is preserved except the bark; it forms
tubes of pure bituminous coal and is filled with sand, clay, and
other deposits which appear like solid internal cylinders. In one of
the trees examined by Sir Charles Lyell nine distinct layers, or
deposits, formed the interior cylinder, while there were only three
layers of earth surrounding the tree. The formations in which the
tiered layers of upright fossil tree trunks are found contain also
about nineteen seams of coal. They range from two to three miles in
length along the coast, and are not interrupted by faults.
The best view of these ancient tree trunks may be had at Joggins,
where the cliffs are 150 to 200 feet high, forming the southeastern
shore of an inlet of the Bay of Fundy, called Chignecto Bay. The
fossil trees are all at right angles to the planes of
stratification, which are inclined at an angle of 24 degrees to the
south southwest. The strike lines of these planes, together with the
length of the uplifted formation, as shown in data from the Spur
Ranch drilling (see page 73), indicate that the trees were once
buried about 2 to 2’2’ miles below the surface, and that they are
about five to ten million years old.
The circumstance that all the trees have been cut off abruptly at
the tops suggests that they once stood under water as sub merged
forests, at which time the bark became carbonized as is happening
today to the upright tree stumps in the Bay of Fundy.
Page 34
The tiered layers of fossil trees are a visual confirmation of the
fact that the earth has careened repeatedly. Each layer was
developed during a different epoch. Each epoch ended with a change
of true latitude for the land area now known as Nova Scotia.
Similar tiered layers of fossil trees are found in the arctic
regions. Frozen "Wood Hill" in the New Siberia Islands, well within
the Arctic Circle is described by Nordenskiold as being 200 feet
high and consisting of thick horizontal sandstone beds alternating
with strata of fissile bituminous tree stems, heaped on each other
to the top of the hill, with vertical tree trunks embedded in the
sandstone of the upper strata.
This scientific disclosure, on analysis, shows that the bituminous
tree stems, which are now in the fossilized form of coal, were the
successive growths of earlier ages. The thick sandstone beds
correspond to sands created during the intermediate epochs of time,
or sands left by one of the successive great deluges of the earth.
The fact that these fossil trees are displayed on the side of a hill
indicates that the hill is a remnant of land left standing after the
surrounding land areas were gouged out by flood or glacier. The
vertical tree stems in the upper strata are the remnants of trees
which were growing at the time of the latest cataclysm of the globe,
and it can be predicted with confidence that, on reexamination, the
protruding tree trunks will prove to be growths of a temperate or
tropical climate.
Superimposed coal fields, separated by considerable thicknesses of
rock, are described in "Fossil Flora of Sydney Coalfields, Nova
Scotia," by W. A. Bell (in Memoir 215, Geological Survey of Canada).
The text and illustrations describe hundreds of specimens of fossil
leaves, ferns, tree bark, and wood. Many of the successive horizons
contain duplicate fossils; but in each horizon differences in
species occur, with the earliest (lowest) ones differing most from
the latest.
Page 35
It is natural to assume that the fossil leaves and barks of trees
came from trees that also have been fossilized. Layers of upright
fossil trees, like those in the cliffs of Joggins on the opposite
side of Nova Scotia, are never found in the coal seams, and it is
therefore assumed that they would remain undiscovered in the drifts
of the Sydney coal mines, to which Mr. Bell confines his report. His
specimens were mostly taken from the roofs of coal mines which
extend three miles out from shoreline under the sea. Fossil trees
are exposed in superimposition on the adjacent cliffs, as at Joggins.
Similar vertical fossil tree trunks have been found in other
locations. For example, at St. Helen’s, Lancashire,
England, they
occur in silty clay below a layer of about seven feet of brownish
colored topsoil. The stratum containing the trees is reported to be
about twenty one feet thick, inclined twenty three degrees to the
east southeast, and rests on white sandstone. The tree trunks begin
on a level about 8 ? feet above the white sandstone stratum and
extend up about nine feet.
These trees grew during a previous epoch, but they did not grow in
England. The topsoil, above the tree bearing stratum, is all that
was developed in the land area now known as England.
In all the cases discussed it is obvious that the trees grew to
their present size upon the earth’s surface, were suddenly buried in
water, mud, or moist earth, and after fossilization, were returned
to the surface of the earth when the covering strata of materials
were gouged out by glaciers or washed away during great deluges.
Again, the theory of the careening of the globe explains all the
evidence we have here reviewed.
Rivers and Waterfalls
The waterfalls of certain rivers furnish us with time scales with
which we can estimate the duration of their existence.
In the language of geology, a waterfall, or cataract, is a temporary
erosion in the land which is always moving upstream. This stems from
the fact that the brink of the falls is being worn away continually
by crumbling and erosion of the earth materials of the ledges, and
the lowest rock layers, below the falls, are being constantly cut
away by the forces created by the falling waters. As a result of
this erosion it is possible to estimate the length of the life of a
waterfall and to determine the duration of our present epoch by the
life span of the waterfall.
Page 36
Superimposed Strata of Stone Containing Fossil Trees and Fossil Flora
(In some cases definitely known to be separated by massive strata of non fossiliferous rock)
|
|
Location |
Number of tree bearing strata |
Type of fossilization |
Reported by
|
1. |
Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, |
59 |
Fossil
Flora |
Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 215 |
2. |
Yellowstone
National Park
|
27 |
Petrified wood and
bark |
Longwell and Flint in Outlines of Physical Geology, 1962
|
3. |
Wales |
17 |
Superimposed fossil
trees |
W. J. Fielding in Shackles of the Supernatural
|
4. |
Joggins, Nova Scotia |
10 plus |
Petrified bituminous tree |
Sir Charles Lyell, in
Travels in North
America in 1841-2 |
5. |
New Siberian Islands, "Wood Hill" |
Many |
Fissile
bituminous tree stems in strata alternating
with thick sandstone beds; heaped on each other to the top of the
hill
|
Nordenskiold in The
Voyage of the Vega
|
|
Page 37
The falls of the Niagara River have moved upstream from what is now
Lewiston, on Lake Ontario, and have created a gorge which is now
about seven miles long. Records kept by the U.S. Geological Survey
since 1842 regarding the speed of retreat of the Niagara River
cataract document that the entire Falls are creeping upstream at an
average annual rate of about 2;2’ feet per year. The Canadian Falls
section creeps at about 4;2’ feet per year.
The precipice of the Falls is now very much longer at its ledges
than the width of the gorge which it has cut. The flow of water over
the ledges is now much shallower, with correspondingly less
pressures than existed, say, 3,000 years ago, when the Falls was in
the gorge. As a result, the rate of the erosion and undermining of
the cataract, and therefore the speed of its retreat, is less now
than during the early existence of the gorge. The creeping speed
during the creation of the gorge was comparable to the speed of
retreat of the Canadian Falls, where the weight, speed, and pressure
of the flowing water are more concentrated than the average over the
entire Falls.
In 1891 the Commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara Falls
employed Robert S. Woodward to estimate the time required for the
creation of the gorge of the Niagara River. A man of unquestioned
integrity and superior competence later to become president of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. he reported that less than
8,000 years had been required to cut the gorge of the Niagara River.
By assuming a creeping speed of 4% feet per year one quarter foot
per year faster than the upstream movement of the Canadian Falls, to
allow for the additional waters now going over the American Falls we
obtain 7,800 years for the approximate life span of the Niagara
Gorge. This figure, however, is subject to correction.
Page 38
When at Lewiston the Falls were approximately 280 feet higher than
they are now, and this indicates that the estimated age of the
Niagara River is about 7,000 years.
A diminution of forty feet in the perpendicular height of the Falls
for every mile that they receded southward is pointed out in a
survey made by New York State Geologist James Hall, as recorded by
Sir Charles Lyell. Hall states that the southward dip of the rock
strata from Lewiston to the Falls is about 25 feet per mile, with
the river channel sloping in the opposite direction at the rate of
15 feet per mile. As a result of this change in the height of the
Falls, the rates of speed of erosion and cutback of the upstream
retreat of the Falls have been variable and not constant. It has
depended on the height of the Falls and on the nature of the rocks
being cut.
Assuming approximately constant average yearly volume, the force
created by this perpendicularly falling water is determined by the
height of the fall. The kinetic energy created by the fall increases
with the square of the speed of falling. The speed of fall in turn
increases with height, through acceleration by gravity, at
approximately 32 feet per second for each consecutive second of its
fall. The wreckage and erosion of the bottom layers of the precipice
take place at a faster rate with a higher fall. This wear and
erosion become greater than the erosion at the ledges over which the
waters fall. Sections of the cliffs give way and fall to the bottom.
It is apparent that the upstream creepage of the Falls was faster
when the Falls were higher.
The birth of the Niagara River and the record of the short span of
its life history during our present epoch are proof of a recent
careen of the globe and a world cataclysm. During the previous epoch
the Great Lakes watershed existed in a tropical latitude and drained
into the ocean; but it did not drain by way of the Niagara River as
it does now. The Niagara River as we know it today did not then
exist. It was born, in its present form, with the birth of our
epoch.
Page 39
Embedded sea shells and corals indicate marine formations in the ten
distinct strata of rocks, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, through
which the Niagara River flows. Ancient beach lines, ridges, and
terraces are found at successive levels. At different levels the
rocks also have been smoothed, polished, and furrowed by ice. The
grooves in the rocks are tell tale evidence that they were once on
the surface, and that they were located in polar regions, where they
supported the moving glaciers when this land area was undergoing
successive ice ages.
A most careful record of this formation and one of the first was
made by Sir Charles Lyell, and is recorded in his book Travels in
North America in 1841-42. These geological phenomena require, for a
rational explanation, a careening globe with attendant world
cataclysms. Other discoveries of Lyell at Niagara also seem to
require changes in the earth’s Axis of Figure for their explanation.
He discovered that the northwest cliffs of the whirlpool do not
consist of the normal regional rock formation, but are composed of
drift, consisting of sand, gravel, loam and boulders, cemented into
a conglomerate by carbonate of lime. Since this is a surface layer
now, consolidated by lime, it seems to indicate that it had been an
ocean bottom for a long period of time, during a previous epoch.
This conglomerate fills an old river bed, now known as St. Davis
Valley, which extends northwest from the whirlpool for about three
miles, and at its mouth is about two miles wide. The present
northern section of the Niagara River, flowing slightly northeast
from the whirlpool, is apparently a movement cutoff, established in
our present epoch.
The conglomerate filling the St. Davis Valley could not have become
deposited during the cataclysm that ended the epoch just previous to
the commencement of our own epoch the latest world Flood because of
the time required for its cementation. It could not have become
cemented unless allowed to remain for a long period of time, unassailed by the present rushing waters of the whirlpool. It
appears, therefore, to be a formation resulting from a cataclysm
that ended one of the earlier epochs.
Page 40
The boulders it contains are evidence that it underwent an ice age,
below an ice cap.
Geologists have also reported important discoveries of two recent
river beds at higher levels than the present Niagara River. One
river terrace is twelve feet and the other 24 feet above the present
level, suggesting that Goat Island, between the American and
Canadian Falls, was once under water, with the same fresh water
shells being found there as in the higher river terraces. Both
higher terraces extend to the whirlpool. They appear to confirm
successive world cataclysms.
The Mississippi River like the Niagara River provides a tell tale
geological time scale showing us how long the earth’s surface has
remained essentially as it is today. The upstream retreat of the
Falls of St. Anthony, on the river at Minneapolis, Minnesota, has
caused the formation of a gorge between seven and eight miles long
and about a quarter of a mile in width. This gorge provides a cutoff
from the broad trough of the old Mississippi River bed used during
previous epochs of time.
Thanks to information regarding the locations of these Falls
provided by early explorers - first Hennepin and later Carver we
know that the Falls receded, up to 1856, at an estimated rate of
about five feet per year, and that therefore approximately 8,000
years must have elapsed from the time when the Falls started, at
Fort Snelling, to the time they arrived at their present geological
location, at the north end of the gorge cut by the Falls.
A correction factor of 10% to 15% must here also be applied in
correctly interpreting this time scale; we thus arrive at
approximately 7,000 years for the life span of the gorge of St.
Anthony’s Falls. Consequently the Falls of St. Anthony and Niagara
Falls both give us a time scale of about 7,000 years for the
duration of our present epoch of time.
The Falls of St. Anthony, when they were located at Fort Snelling,
were 110 feet above the present river grade at that point. Now the
Falls are about 40 feet high. From these facts it is logical to
assume that there was a greater amount of undercutting of the
precipice of the Falls when they were higher and that the waters
then landed on the base rocks with much greater force. There was
therefore a correspondingly faster upstream creep during the youth
of the Falls than during its old age. (The probable profiles of the
Falls at various times in the past, with plan and elevations, are
shown in Geological Survey, Folio 201, Minneapolis St. Paul, Minn.)
Page 41
Geological evidence discloses that there were troughs for the bed of
the Mississippi River in former epochs of time. One trough now
buried commences on the Minnesota River about four miles west of
Fort Snelling, circles and joins the present river where the break
through of the present cutoff occurs just above the Falls of St.
Anthony. Here again the river’s bed or trough becomes wide and
eroded.
The Minnesota River occupies an oversize and eroded trough which
continues beyond its source, crosses the continental divide, and is
continuous with the channel of the Red River of the North which now
flows in the opposite direction.
These geological features show that a change of land elevation
occurred in this area about 7,000 years ago. The old river troughs
were cut in previous epochs. The narrow gorge or cutoff was created
during the present epoch.
The Mississippi River’s delta contains a record of the river’s age.
The number of cubic feet of sediment, and the number of millions of
tons of earth materials being carried southward by the waters of the
river and deposited in the Gulf of Mexico, have been determined with
fair accuracy.
Based on these data and the dimensions of the delta of the river, a
close estimate of the age of the delta can be made; this will also
give us the age of the present river. But estimates of the age of
the river already made by those whose opinions are most highly
regarded vary from 4,000 years to 138,393 years (Geological Bulletin
#8, Louisiana Department of Conservation). This wide variation in
expert opinion is due to the total lack of agreement as to which of
the many substrata of the river bed are to be considered as
belonging to the delta.
The head of the delta has been found, by different individuals and
groups, to be at various places including Keokuk, St. Louis, Cape
Girardeau, Commerce, the mouth of the Red River, and Baton Rouge.
Each of those places is probably a correct location for one of the
former delta heads, for there have been many.
Page 42
The general acceptance of the new theory of a recurrently careening
globe will result in resolving all differences of opinion as to the
location of the head of the delta of the present Mississippi River.
Each time the earth careened a new delta head became established,
for the watershed existed as far back in geological time as we can
go.
During Epoch No. 1 B.P., preceding the latest careen of the globe,
the Mississippi River flowed from west to east in a tropical
climate. The Sudan Basin, now in Africa, was then at the North Pole.
In Epoch No. 2 B.P. the river flowed generally southward, in a
frigid climate. The Hudson Bay Basin land area was at the North Pole
and in summers glaciers fed the upper river.
Cores from borings have been taken in abundance by the Mississippi
River Commission to establish the approximate areas and depths of
the successive alluvial strata and to determine the various channels
of the old river in past ages. Variations in the character of the
fills and a study of the diatoms, algae, foraminifera, and other
fossil evidences will disclose changes of climate.
Remains of tropical vegetation and water life should mark the next
delta layer below the surface strata. Next below that should be
evidences of the flow off of the glaciers which melted at the
headwaters of the river at the very beginning of Epoch No. 1 B.P.
Below this, the evidences should disclose a cold water river whose
northern headwaters were fed by the North Pole Hudson Bay Basin
glaciers during Epoch No. 2 B.P.
To determine the age of the present river it is necessary to
identify the area and volume of the present top delta and divide the
weight of its cubical contents by the weight of the average annual
deposits of sediment.
The following table results from a preliminary effort to tie
together epochs and strata that are now generally recognized.
Epoch
|
Duration Years
Approximate
|
U.S. Geological Survey
Series of Epochs |
Mississippi River
Commission Designations for Sub
strata |
Present
|
7,000 |
--
|
Recent Alluvium |
1 B.P.
|
4,400
|
--
|
Jackson |
2 B.P.
|
7,000
|
Wisconsin Ice Age
|
Vicksburg Jackson |
3 B.P.
|
5,000
|
Peorian Life Age
|
Claiborn |
4 B.P.
|
--
|
Iowan Ice Age
|
Wilcox |
5 B.P.
|
-- |
Sangamon Life Age
|
Midway |
6 B.P.
|
--
|
Illinoisan Ice Age
|
Upper Cretaceous |
7 B.P.
|
--
|
Yarmouth Life Age
|
Lower Cretaceous |
g B.P.
|
--
|
Kansan Ice Age
|
Mesozoic |
9 B.P.
|
--
|
Aftonian Life Age |
-- |
10 B.P. |
--
|
Albertan Ice Age |
--
|
Page 44
Great Salt Lake is a shrinking remnant of a much greater lake known
as Lake Bonneville which in prehistoric times filled the entire
present day land basin.
The Bonneville shore level, wave cut by the former lake, shows it to
have covered an area of about 20,000 square miles, with a depth of
1,050 feet. (Bulletin of the University of Utah, Vol. 30, October
1939, No. 4) . The area of the existing lake is about 2,000 square
miles, which is about the size of the land area of the state of
Delaware.
Proofs of the recurrent careenings of the globe have been developed
from the `original proposition that the continents of North and
South America lay along the equator, in tandem, during the epoch of
time just preceding the epoch in which we are now living. This
theory receives confirmation from the old shore lines, ’beaches, and
wave cut terraces in the rocks now high above the surface of Great
Salt Lake.
When the present lake basin was located in an equatorial area, it
received as great a rainfall as now prevails along the Amazon River.
Such torrential rainfall can be considered sufficient to fill the
lake basin to the Bonneville shore line level, since lake levels are
maintained by the balance between rainfall on the watershed and the
rate of evaporation, or where there is an overflow outlet by its
elevation.
Descriptions of soil borings confirm the lake basin’s tropical
location in Epoch No. 1 B.P., and also its successive locations in
tropical and nontropical latitudes. Excellent illustrations of the
many different prehistoric shore lines and other features appear in
the comprehensive report on Lake Bonneville by G. K. Gilbert in U.S.
Geological Survey, Monograph #1, 1890.
Page 45
Ice Ages
Louis Acnssiz, around 1845, first used the phrase ice age to account
for glacial markings on rocks. Since then many persons have assumed,
erroneously, that the glacial markings indicated a change in climate
throughout the world. The term Ice Age is now used to define a
relatively small area, approximately within a circle, such as the
area now contained within the Antarctic Circle. We are now living
with what may be called "The Antarctica Ice Age." A lesser Ice Age
includes those areas of Greenland, North America, and Asia that lie
within the Arctic Circle.
Ice Ages have occurred in all the continents of the world, as
indicated by the tell tale scouring marks on successive layers of
rocks. These rock groovings always radiate from central points which
indicate the locations of the North Pole or South Pole of that
particular epoch of time. The surrounding polar areas never received
enough heat from the sun to melt the ice which accumulated from the
constant snowfall.
During each successive polar Ice Age the rest of the globe enjoyed
tropical or temperate climates, as at present. We know this because
the fossils of animal and plant life indicate the climates in which
each section of successive earth strata existed and they tell us
clearly that the globe has rotated on many successive Axes of
Figure.
Five successive Ice Ages have left their scars in land areas of
Canada and northeastern United States. Glacial markings on rocks,
loose boulders and debris, are in evidence over most of this area.
Life Ages have occurred in these same land areas between the Ice
Ages. These Life Ages were long intervals of time during which these
regions were free of glaciers, and were warmer than at present. Each
Ice Age blotted out the Life Age of a certain area and was, in turn,
succeeded by another Life Age in the same region. These changes were
sudden and without gradation.
The sudden birth of each Ice Age was paralyzing and destructive to
animal and plant life. Each Ice Age produced an ice cap which grew
to maturity and by its great weight depressed and dented the earth
beneath. The ice caps uprooted and carried on, under and within
their massive slowly moving bodies, enormous sections of rock and
earth to be deposited elsewhere; while, beneath the ice, the land
was gouged, earth and rocks were scattered all around, and valleys
and river beds were filled with debris.
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The end of the ice caps did not come through slow withdrawal. When
they left, they disappeared just as rapidly as such huge masses of
ice can melt when moved to a tropical climate.
Evidences of the Life Ages are found under and above the successive
overlapping flows of till and glacial debris which have been
carefully charted by the United States Geological Survey. During
each Life Age animals and plants lived and multiplied, forests
flourished, bogs developed, brooks and rivers flowed, valleys
filled, while mountains and rocks eroded.
Fossil remains of animal and plant life are absent from the strata
of till and debris representing the five Ice Ages occurring between
the Life Ages. Absent also from these strata are the marks of
erosion of soil and rock and the usual evidences of the normal work
of rivers and brooks in filling valleys with transported sediment.
The waters had been changed to solid ice. Glacial debris is the sole
remaining evidence.
Today, those land areas are in a part of the globe which is Laving a
Life Age, while the land areas of Antarctica and Greenland are
passing through a temporary Ice Age. Canada and northeastern United
States are now in a second successive Life Age, since they once were
covered by an ice cap, or formed a frozen tundra adjacent to it.
In the area now known as New York State several whole mastodons have
been discovered, as well as parts of over two hundred mastodons and
of about fifteen mammoths. Like the mammoths found in Siberia and
Alaska, the whole mastodons were perfectly preserved after their
death by quick freezing and cold storage during the first Ice Age.
Also as in the case of the mammoths, they have been found with full
stomachs, indicating the sudden death of a healthy animal.
These mastodons lived in a warm climate, in Epoch No. 3 B.P.,
perished at the close of this period, and were buried in a flood or
by hurricane debris all of which froze solid. During Epoch No. 2 B.P.
they were interred in cold storage, the New York State area then
being frozen tundra, and the Hudson Bay area being at the North
Pole.
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Subsequently, the North Pole was in the Sudan Basin area (during the
following epoch, No. 1 B.P. ), and the New York State area with its
interred mastodons was moved to the tropics. Both soil and dead
animals immediately thawed out; but the soil which preserved these
particular specimens must have been so moist that oxidation was
retarded.
Now they are in a temperate climate, during a second Life Age for
this land area, and are frequently found in a collapsed and
disintegrating condition.
There is much geological evidence to show that the last Ice Age of
the North American continent was caused by a great ice cap centered
in Canada that extended southward to present day New York City.
Moraines, eskers, clay beds, and other residual evidence of the
glacier exist in many places, including northern New Jersey and
southern New York.
A shallow dent in the earth, averaging 420 feet below sea level, now
known as Hudson Bay, marks the ice cap’s approximate center, while
the heights of land known as the Laurentian Shield and which almost
surround Hudson Bay, mark the final edges or lips of the main ice
bowl.
The watershed of the Hudson Bay Basin corresponds to the kind of
scar or dent in the surface of the earth which an ice cap could
make, and which it would leave behind as evidence of its existence.
Counts of the annual varves (layers) in clay beds at New London,
Wisconsin, and Hackensack, N.J., indicate that the Hudson Bay Ice
Age lasted for approximately 7,000 years!
The distance from the North Pole of Figure of the epoch, in Hudson
Bay, to the moraine of Long Island is approximately 1,800 miles.
Analytically, this compares with the distance from the present South
Pole of Figure to the ocean, this being about 1,800 miles for most
of the perimeter of the Antarctic Continent. At the Ross Sea the
distance is about 600 miles.
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The flow offs of glacial ice, during the Hudson Bay Ice Age, were
distributed in much the same way as the present flow offs of glacial
ice in Antarctica. The ice flowed until it reached the ocean,
flowing faster in the direction of Hudson Strait and Davis Strait
than toward Long Island, N.Y., because the ocean was nearer in that
direction and the grade was correspondingly steeper; it accumulated
greater volumes of ice where the flow-off was most retarded.
In the southern region the grooves in the rocks show that the ice
was flowing south, but in the northern regions the markings show
that the ice was flowing north. Glacial striae caused by the
movements of this last North American ice cap, together with
displaced boulders, are in evidence as far south as Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and the Mississippi valley, and as far north as the Northwest
Territory of Canada.
The outstanding fact is that the ice radiated from a center in the
area now known as the Hudson Bay Basin. It did not spread southward
from the present North Pole area. The ice flowed away from a central
point; this shows clearly that the Hudson Bay Basin was then at the
North Pole of the Axis of Spin, and that the ice flowed in every
direction from the pole.
In Antarctica today the very same types of striations are being
created on the rocks, and boulders are continuously carried seaward
(from the South Pole) on glacial ice flowing northward.
Over a hundred years ago Louis Agassiz discovered glacial markings
in the Amazon Valley, along the Equador. On both sides of the Equator
within 18 and 20 degrees glacial markings have been found in Permian
rocks. In other regions of the world, tree specimens with annual
rings have been found in rock formations of the same age indicating
that temperate zone conditions prevailed in the regions where the
trees grew, at the very same time that polar region glaciers scoured
and striated the rocks at that time located near the poles but now
being near the Equator.
Ice Ages are recorded in rocks at random latitudes and longitudes
for all periods of geological history. For example, in all
continents glacial horizons are found in rocks classified in
geological textbooks as Pre Cambrian and Permian. Three of the Pre
Cambrian locations are in Africa, three in Asia, and two in
Australia. Five of the Permian glaciated horizons are in South
America. Five of the most recent Ice Ages are recorded in the rocks
of Canada and the United States.
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In all cases where the records can be studied, it has been found
that the striae show radiations of the scouring ice masses from
central points. This gives adequate evidence in support of the
theory that the glaciated areas were at the poles of the earth in
the epoch of time during which each ice cap was developed. They
moved away from the poles when they reached maturity and caused the
globe to careen.
Geological Outcroppings
THE age of various earth strata are determined by studying the
fossils found in them, and generally the lower strata correspond to
the earlier epochs of the earth’s history but not always.
Outcroppings of very old rocks appear in many places on the earth’s
surface instead of being buried deep in its bowels. The "Old Red,"
for example, a very hard and durable sandstone, which is classified
as belonging to the Lower Cambrian Period, is found as surface
outcroppings in New York State, in West Virginia, and Canada. It
should normally be buried at depths of three miles or more,
according to the geology charts.
Such facts indicate that the slow building up of the earth, epoch by
epoch, layer by layer, through ages of time, has not been an
uninterrupted process. A mighty cataclysm has taken away all the
overlying rock strata and the earth materials above the hard red
sandstone in the areas where the stone now appears as an
outcropping, but that same cataclysmic force was not on the loose in
those other areas where the overlying materials are still intact.
The gouging out and tearing away of earth strata to a very great
depth in certain areas have been caused by such materials coming
into contact, at high speeds, with masses of ocean waters churned
into a swirling flood during the careens of the globe.
This operational force of Nature is the logical reason why the "Old
Red" sandstones are being found as outcroppings on the surface of
the earth; isostasy accounts for the earth again being rounded off
following the new arrangements of the earth’s masses of land and
sea.
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According to older authorities, the transporting power of water
equals the 6th power of its velocity. It is given as 3.2 to the 4th
power (3.24) by P. G. Worcester in his recent textbook in
geomorphology. He states that when the St. Francis Dam in
California
failed in 1928, blocks of concrete weighing more than 10,000 tons
were carried more than half a mile down the valley.
During the transient cataclysms caused by land masses careening
against the ocean waters, the pressures created at maximum speeds of
careening are beyond the imagination of man. Vegetation is crushed
to a pulp and animals are obliterated.
The ancient earth materials which once covered the "Old Red"
sandstone, in successive layers, and which were torn loose and
washed away by one of the great deluges, are now superimposed
somewhere on more recent earth strata, and may be either heaped in
ridges or blocks or spread widely in conglomeratic strata.
In Cuvier’s "Essay on the Theory of the Earth" it is stated that,
"Mr. Kerwin has given weighty reasons for his belief that the globe
has been, at some remote period, most violently assailed by a mighty
flood from the southeast. Tearing up and bearing away the looser
materials of the southern hemisphere, it has brought a great body of
them to the northern, and impressed upon the capes of Good Hope, of
Horn, and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), and other promontories, the
marks of its overwhelming force."
There is geological evidence that mountains have been cut off and
carried away during the cataclysms of the deluges. Miles of telltale
slanting rocks exist in normal formations which appear to have been
cleanly cut off. A fairly level plain is now all that remains where
once a mountain stood at Joggins, Nova Scotia, on the Bay of Fundy,
where the fossil forests are also on display.
Martin Gardner, referring to Chief Mountain in the Alberta Montana
region of the Rocky Mountains, where older strata are found resting
on younger, states that,
"In its form the fault line of the overthrust can be seen clearly, with slickened faces of rock which
testify to the faulting movement." He mentions Hart Mountain in
Wyoming as another upside down spot, and he states, "The fault line
is easily traceable for some twentyfive miles."
(Facts and Fallacies
in the Name of Science, Page 130. )
Page 51
Table Mountain, at Capetown, South Africa, rises 3,500 feet above
sea level. It consists of horizontal layers of sedimentary rocks
still intact. All of the surrounding layers of rock were gouged out
and washed away by the impact of the ocean waters when the southern
tip of the continent of Africa spearheaded the southward careen of
that continent during the latest great deluge.
The gouged out profile of Table Mountain and other land strata of
the southern tip of Africa illustrate the effects of some of the
forces of nature which were active when that continent careened
southward into, under, and through the inert ocean. The oceans
around Africa became extremely turbulent because of the sudden
change of ocean depths with change of latitude, and because of the
motion of the great land mass which careened into them. It was the
reverse of an ordinary flood or of the overflow of a mighty river.
In this flood the land moved against the waters, and the waters then
rode up over some of the land.
The Koran confirms the mechanical force of the flooding waters: "The
earth’s surface boiled (seethed, roiled) up . . . the Ark moved . .
. amid waves like mountains."
It was upon these temporarily turbulent waters, near the east coast
of Africa, that the vessels of Noah and Deucalion rode this latest
flood; the land below them careened southward, until Noah’s barge
bumped or was bumped by the summit of Mt. Ararat, and
Deucalion’s
life saving chest ran aground on Mt. Parnassus.
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There are remnants of tablelands in a great many places throughout
the world; here layers of sedimentary rocks, which previously have
been below the surface of the earth are at the surface in the form
of gouged out ends or sides of mountains, butts and hills, exposing
great numbers of the successively created horizontal
stratifications, all cut off cleanly, stripped from top to bottom.
Typical examples can be seen at Monument Canyon, Arizona, in
Yellowstone National Park, in South Dakota and western Nebraska,
near Banff in the Canadian Rockies, near New Haven, Connecticut, and
at the Delaware Water Gap. Most of these cutaway mountains and butts
represent what was left when the waters of a great deluge tore away
all the land excepting the gouged sections still standing intact as
mountains. The exposure of the inner layers of these ravaged
mountains is indicative of the force of the impact of land and water
during the cataclysms produced by the careenings of the globe.
Another reason for the occurrence of older rock formations on top of
younger is the transportation work of glaciers. The compound word
"Ice Age" created only about 100 years ago, and the ice age theory,
suggested at that time, enabled puzzled geologists to account for
the appearance of "foreign" rock materials in many places, and for
many of the unconformities in successive earth strata.
A few miles south of Lake Erie, near Jamestown, N.Y., there is a
huge erratic block of whitish stone perched on the summit of a small
mountain range of brownish stone. It marks the spot it had reached
when the glacier it was riding turned to water. It settled down like
a Noah’s Ark.
The copper bearing rock formations of Arlington and Kings land,
N.J., are not native, but are erratic blocks, transported by ice
from some as yet unidentified region, and dropped when the ice
melted. There are many similar erratic blocks in many parts of this
and other countries.
Long Island, N.Y., was created by glacial action, being a terminal
moraine in its north sections and an outwash plain in the south,
formed by the heavy loads of silt, sand, and gravel carried by the
streams emerging from beneath the last North American glacier. In
Boston Harbor the islands are composed of glacial till and their
long axes are parallel to the direction of the flow of the ice. They
are called drumlins, and were left by glaciers.
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When the great size and carrying capacity of the recent consecutive
North American polar glaciers are analyzed and fully appreciated,
many other unconformities of earth, rocks and small mountains will
be adjudged to have been glacially transported to their present
locations.
The Oldest Rocks and the Age of the Earth
THE oldest rocks about which we can have any definite knowledge are
those within our physical reach. We know well the rocks from various
earth strata that have been obtained from mine shafts, tunneling,
and well drilling. We also know well rocks which have formerly been
buried, perhaps three miles below the surface, but are now exposed
as outcroppings. But what we know about other rocks must remain
hypothetical being in the nature of philosophic geology.
Nevertheless, we do possess much valuable information. As tentative
as our calculations and theories must be, they are supported by
substantial evidence which serves as a basis for initial theorizing
and as a guide for future research.
A legible record of the frequent careenings of our globe, with
specimens of animal and plant life of each epoch, is contained in
the great stone book whose pages are the successive strata of the
earth’s materials thousands of which have been penetrated and have
been sampled and identified on the basis of cores from drilling.
Men have explored beneath the surface of the earth to a depth of
approximately five miles by boring in search of oil, and to lesser
depths in search of water and other minerals. The evidence brought
up in the drilling cores proves that the earth is built up of
layers. There is no reason why the strata of the earth below those
penetrated by the deepest well drilling should have been created in
a different manner from the strata above.
From the depth of the strata encountered in the deepest drilling to
date, their average thickness, and the total number of
layers, we can estimate the age of the rocks penetrated. On the
basis of data indicating the ultimate depth of the earth’s
stratifications, we can estimate the age of the earth.
Page 54
The deepest drilling on record penetrated 25,340 feet below the
surface of the earth. It was drilled in 1913 by the Phillips
Petroleum Company in the Pecos Field in Texas. The average strata of
the earth through which it penetrated, as shown in the Spur Ranch
Drilling data of the next chapter, were approximately 13 feet in
thickness, and each stratum was created during an epoch lasting
approximately 6,000 years. Hence, 25,340 feet divided by 13 feet per
layer yields the number of epochs transversed by the drilling 1,949.
This figure multiplied by 6,000, the average duration of each of the
recent epochs, gives the approximate age of the rock stratum at the
bottom of the well 11,694,000 years.
The oldest rocks about which we have any accurate knowledge are
therefore around twelve million years old. Factual evidence of rocks
that are older is not available at present.
A further analysis of the age of rocks, based on the new theory of
continuous creation and the constant buildup of materials of the
earth, is given in Part III, "The Origin of the Earth’s Materials."
There is no known reason why the strata below those penetrated by
the deepest well drilling should have been created in a different
manner from the strata above. Thus, by determining the ultimate
depth of rock strata in the earth, we can estimate the age of the
earth in roughly the same manner that we determined the approximate
age of the oldest rocks we know. This is done with the aid of depth
soundings; by artificially creating shock waves through the earth,
akin to the shock waves of earthquakes, we can measure the depth of
the rock strata.
The estimated depth of solid materials which exist and transmit
seismic waves between the core of the earth and ground level are
discussed in Encyclopaedia Britannica and in Physics of the Earth,
Vol. VII, published by the National Research Council. Terrestrial
depth soundings have indicated that there is something about 1,850
miles below ground level from which the impulse waves bounce back to
the surface. This is assumed to be the core of the earth.
Page 55
In order to determine fairly exactly the age of the earth, however,
the figures used so far must be adjusted.
We have said that presently available data show that the upper
strata of earth materials each required about 6,000 years for their
creation. This is the estimated duration of each epoch during which
the upper layers were formed. However, it seems logical to assume
that the time periods between careens of the globe were shorter when
the globe was smaller. Thus, 4,500 years between careens of the
globe are assumed for this tentative calculation of the earth’s age,
and the rate of buildup of earth materials is set at 9% feet per
epoch instead of 13 feet.
According to these estimated figures, then, the number of feet from
the surface of the earth to its core (1,850 x 5,280 ) divided by the
number of feet per stratum (9%) indicates that the impulse waves
travel through one million strata to reach the core. Taking 4,500
years as the duration of each epoch, we find the age of the earth to
be approximately 4’2’ billion years.
As suggested throughout, these figures for the age of the earth and
the age of the oldest rocks known are tentative. They are based
solely on the Spur Ranch Drilling, but this one was more accurately
supervised than the many commercial drilling. Many similarly
supervised drilling in numerous areas the world over must be made
and compared to enable one to make more perfect estimates. More
accurate data are also required regarding the duration of the
successive epochs.
Epochs of Geological Stratification
THE word "epoch" as here used denotes the period of time, during
which the globe rotated on any one axis of figure. The careening
globe theory is supported by evidence to the effect that most of the
land areas of the earth have changed their latitudes, and that major
changes in the arrangement of the materials of the earth’s surface
occurred in, and marked the end of, each of these epochs.
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The theory is one of normal and natural cataclysmic changes
occurring at the end of each epoch, and of other normal and natural,
but slower, changes being continuously wrought during each epoch,
both types of change being the natural results of definitely
identified operational and creative forces of nature.
The history of the earth as written in the rocks indicates that both
kinds of change have taken place. Fossil evidence proves that many
different kinds of animals, reptiles, fishes, shell fish and plants
lived for long periods of time and then ceased to exist.
The fossil remains of extinct forms of life now buried in the depth
of the earth show that they once lived on the surface of the earth
or in surface waters. They are found in the oldest rocks known, and
are found in cores brought up by the deepest oil well borings. They
show us that the creation and development of animal and plant life,
and of earth materials, in the upper five miles of the earth’s
materials have been gradual and continuous for the whole earth.
The most recent epochs can be counted by an examination of the upper
layers of the earth’s materials much as the age of a tree may be
determined by counting the number of rings on its stump; and, just
as the climate prevailing during each year of the tree’s growth can
be learned from the condition of each ring, we can analyze the
condition of each of the earth’s layers. There is a difference,
however; while a tree has one ring per year, an epoch may be
represented by several layers in any one local area, or some of the
strata may be missing.
Numerous and various noncomformities will be found varying with the
geographic location of each area during each epoch. For example: a
local stratum may be developed from organic life, from vegetation
and animals, together with dust and dirt carried by wind and water;
this soil may then be all or partly washed away by the waters of one
of the world deluges, or may become covered by sand and flood
detritus or by the glacial drift of an ice age.
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At this point in our examination of the evidence for the careening
of the globe we can piece together the materials we do have to
describe the recent geological epochs.
The age of the epoch in which we now live is tentatively estimated
at 7,000 years. It will be a useful yardstick, especially when
comparing the length of our epoch with the life span of earlier
epochs. However, it may be adjusted when better evidence becomes
available.
A period of 7,000 years conforms approximately to the historical
period, beginning at or about 5000 B.C., and also to the time scales
of the gorges produced by the Niagara and Mississippi Rivers.
Materials containing Carbon 14, properly identified as having been
contemporaneous with the last great cataclysm of the earth, can be
counted on to produce close estimates of the elapsed time since that
cataclysm occurred. Carbon 14 dating of mammoths, rhinoceroses,
mammoth trees, and other vegetable and animal remains buried in the
tundra of Siberia and elsewhere at the time of that cataclysm, may
disclose ages of less than 7,000 years. The more data we obtain on
this subject the shorter the elapsed time seems to become.
The idea occurred to me that the perfectly preserved mammoths found
in the Arctic tundra had possibly been reeled from a tropic to a
frigid zone; and that, if so, perhaps I could find some evidence to
that effect.
I imagined having an 8 inch globe of the earth in my hands, then
throwing it into the air, and making it stay there and spin around.
I thought that North and South America would ride along the Equator
of Spin, due to their weight and the corresponding centrifugal
force, provided I kept the globe spinning.
It seemed common sense to say that the earth would naturally rotate
with its heaviest masses stretched out along the Equator, because
the centrifugal force throws the greatest weights to the periphery
or equator of any freely suspended rotating mass. And yet, quite to
the contrary, the mighty Rocky Mountains and Andes Mountains are not
now stretched along the Equator.
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My theory was that if I could plot a circumference of the earth
which might have been the Equator when the mammoths were living just
prior to the latest careen of the globe then I might be able to find
some evidence of a polar area 90 degrees of latitude away from that
Equator, and this would prove the theory to be correct.
I was curious enough to make a trip one Saturday afternoon in 1913
to the Public Library of Erie, Pa., where I then lived. I took along
a spool of ’e inch wide red ribbon, and tied the ribbon around a
three foot globe of the earth, which stood in the middle of the main
library room. I remember that I felt self-conscious at first, but
soon guessed that the other library patrons must think that I was
just one of the men who worked there, for they paid no attention to
me, and I worked leisurely. What was routine at the time, now in
retrospect looms as a momentous occasion.
I tied the first ribbon in a great meridian circle, or Equator like
line, along the great ridges of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes
Mountains. It divided the globe into two equal halves. On the
opposite side of the globe, I was interested to note, the ribbon
traversed East Asia and the shallow seas surrounding the Malay
Peninsula. I tried to make it represent the meridian or equatorial
band traversing the heaviest land areas, and it seemed that the land
zones it touched far outweighed any other circumferential belt of
the earth’s surface that I could have selected.
Then I attached two other ribbons representing great circles of the
earth at random places, but taking particular pains that they were
at exactly a 90 degree angle to the first band. The idea was that I
might find some evidences of former polar areas where these two
upright ribbons intersected each other, for the intersections would
mark the locations of polar centers, at the moment of time that my
first ribbon was an actual under the sun equator.
One intersection was found to be at Lake Chad, Africa which I
thought might give me a clue; the other intersection was located in
the Pacific Ocean, and no clue came to mind. I recall
writing "Lake Chad" on a piece of paper, with a resolve to try to
find out something about it. I was looking for evidence of glacial
action, or of a dent left in the earth by an ice cap. I was
astonished to discover just what I was looking for: the great Sudan
Basin of Africa.
Page 59
"In North Africa there is a vast space of upwards of four million
square miles, extending from the Nile valley westward to the
Atlantic coast, and from the plateau of Barbary in the north to the
extremities of the basin of Lake Chad in the south, from which no
single river finds its way to the sea. The whole of this space,
however, appears to be furrowed by water channels in the most varied
directions.
"From the inner slopes of the plateau of Barbary numerous wadys take
a direction toward the great sand belt of the Erg, in which they
terminate; a great series of channels appear to radiate from the
higher portion of the Sahara, which lies immediately north of the
tropic of cancer and in about 5 E. of Greenwich; another cluster
radiates from the mountains of Tibesti, in the eastern Sahara."
Encyclopoedia Britannica, 9th edition, Vol. I, page 255.
This formation could be the natural result of the torrential run off
of melting glacial ice, turned to water by a blazing tropical sun,
when the Sudan Basin Ice Cap reeled from the North Pole of Spin and
melted near the Equator, about 7,000 years ago. The innumerable
watercourses without any apparent relation to one another remain as
tell tale evidence.
Lake Chad has one outstanding peculiarity. It is a freshwater lake,
and yet it does not have an outlet to the sea. There is not another
lake like it on the surface of the globe.
It is generally understood that lake water remains fresh by
surrendering its salts to the oceans, through run offs, or
overflows. With the exception of Lake Chad, the large lakes without
outlets to the sea are salty. They were filled with sea water when
first created at the beginning of the present epoch. Some such as
the Caspian Sea probably overflowed and lost their salt contents due
to the excessive humidity created by the melting of the Sudan Basin
Ice Cap and the eastward flowing air currents, but these lakes later
shrank, lost their overflows, and have since accumulated mineral
salts.
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Salts are carried and brought in by the incoming tributary rivers
and streams. As indicated before, the water levels of lakes are
determined by the ratio of incoming water to evaporation. During the
approximately 7,000 years of its existence Lake Chad has not
accumulated sufficient salts from its tributaries to cause it to
become salty. It remains a fresh water lake without an outlet to the
sea.
During the rainy season Lake Chad overflows its normal basin. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica statement adds that it fertilizes
the wadys
including the great wady or basin to the northeast, into which it
overflows. This indicates that the overflow does not purge the lake
of salts to any extent, because if it did, the soil in the
overflowed areas would become salty and not fertilized.
The Equator of the last epoch of time prior to our own was a line
along the Rocky and Andes Mountains. If the earth careened 80
degrees of latitude, instead of 90 degrees, then Lake Chad would not
be the polar center of the previous North Pole Ice Cap. Lake Chad is
located several hundred miles southeast of the center of the Sudan
Basin.
The Sudan Basin is in the center of the north lobe of that
continent. The accumulating ice mass, which created the great
depression of that basin, was landlocked and therefore it did not
have a chance to flow off the land into the sea through the force of
gravity, in the manner that the glacial ice now flows off the
smaller continent of Antarctica. This fact, together with the
probability that a smaller ice cap grew at the South Pole of that
epoch, would appear to account for Epoch No. I B.P. having had a
shorter life span than the epochs just preceding and following.
Further studies of the channels cut by the watercourses in the Sudan
Basin and of the glacial striations cut on Canadian rocks may be
expected to show that neither Lake Chad nor Hudson Bay were the
exact centers of the North Pole Ice Caps of those two epochs. But,
Lake Chad and Hudson Bay give us two
points of reference; they have moved approximately equal distances
from the Pole of Spin each time that the earth has careened and are
therefore useful references to the approximate polar points of their
epochs.
Page 61
The Hudson Bay Ice Cap has left a more sharply marked, and larger,
dent in the earth than has the subsequent Sudan Basin Ice Cap. The
Hudson Bay Ice Cap took a roughly 60% longer time to grow and
therefore made a larger and deeper basin than the Sudan Basin Ice
Cap. The process of isostasy, tending to raise sunken areas, adds to
the difficulty in reading the records correctly.
When the Sudan Basin Ice Cap moved away from the North Pole of Spin,
it did not go all the way to the Equator, because by the time it
reached its present position, the new bulge of the earth had become
established. The Sudan Basin Ice Cap and the new bulge of the earth
were soon traveling along together, at the rotation speed of the
earth or about 1,000 miles per hour.
The careening speed of the Ice Cap had practically vanished and its
eccentric pull of centrifugal force had now been changed from a
sideways pull to an upward and outward stabilizing force. Isostatic
equilibrium had once again become established, subject to
readjustment through earthquakes, until the Ice Cap had completely
melted.
Thus Epoch No. 1 B.P. ended at the time of the latest world flood,
and the present epoch commenced. During Epoch No. 1 B.P. the Sudan
Basin area of Africa was occupying the area at the North Pole of
Spin. The continents of North and South America then lay in tandem
on one side of the globe, along the Equator, and the eastern parts
of Siberia and China were on the opposite side.
The time estimate suggested is based on recent advances in
pinpointing geological time by measuring the amount of Carbon 14
remaining in sample specimens of wood. Wood from an ancient forest,
uncovered in a lower stratum of the earth at Two Rivers, Wisconsin
geologically tied in with the ending of the latest North American
Ice Cap, often referred to as the Wisconsin Ice Age was analyzed for
its Carbon 14 content..
Page 62
Its age was found to be approximately 11,400 years old. The
literature dealing with this ancient Wisconsin forest contains many
reports on its age, varying from 11,000 to 12,000 years. I have
chosen to use the report by the foremost authority in this field,
Willard F. Libby, who arrives at a figure of 11,400 years.
If we subtract 7,000 years, the estimated age of our present epoch,
from 11,400 years, we are left with 4,400 years as the duration of
Epoch No. 1 B.P. The figure is subject to correction when better
data become available.
During Epoch No. 2 B.P. the geological dent of the Hudson Bay
watershed contained the North Pole and its ice cap, while
South America, Africa, Borneo, and India
lay along the Equator. During
that epoch clay beds were laid down by silt, presumably carried by
glacial streams flowing in summer from beneath the edges of the
Hudson Bay Ice Cap. Each layer of clay called a varve corresponds to
a single year’s growth of the clay beds; thus the approximate
duration of that epoch may be set at 7,000 years.
The identification of this former North Pole area is based on the
fact that its distance from Lake Chad in the Sudan Basin of Africa
is approximately the same as the present distance of Lake Chad from
the North Pole, which, in turn, is the distance through which the
Lake Chad area moved during the latest careen of the globe. All
careening moves cover about 80 degrees of latitude.
The depression now occupied by the Caspian Sea seems to have been
the location of the North Pole during Epoch No. 3 B.P., because its
bowl as well as that of the Black Sea was formed by a depression
caused by an ice cap.
The Caspian Sea is located in a large low lying land area called the
Caspian Depression and is the focal drainage center which gathers
the gravitational downhill water flow of several large rivers,
including the Ural and Volga rivers. This sunken Caspian area has
geological similarities to the depressed areas in which Hudson Bay
in Canada and Lake Chad in Africa are located. All three are
drainage centers for extensive river systems
in very large areas, and have been depressed into basin formations
by the weight of the ice caps of former epochs.
Page 63
We know that each successive ice cap leaves a depression in the
land, and each careen of the globe moves both the North and South
Pole ice caps distances of about 80 degrees of latitude around 5,500
miles. With this information as a guide, we can identify the
locations of former poles of many successive epochs. We find
approximately the same distances between the Caspian Sea and
Hudson
Bay, between Hudson Bay and Lake Chad, between
Lake Chad and the
present North Pole.
The one observable clue to the duration of the Caspian Basin epoch
No. 3 B.P. is that it did not permit a ready flow off of the ice to
the oceans. It appears to have been landlocked. Therefore, it is
assumed to have had a shorter life span than the Hudson Bay Basin
epoch No. 2 B.P. It was more like the Sudan Basin Ice Cap of Epoch
No. 1 B.P. Possibly, a duration of 5,000 years is a fair estimate.
The recent geological history of the earth subject to being
corrected when better data become available may be summarized as
follows:
-
Epoch No. 3 B.P. began about 23,400 years ago and lasted around
5,000 years. The Caspian Depression was at the North Pole of Spin.
The New York State mastodons were living in a tropical climate.
-
Epoch No. 2 B.P. lasted around 7,000 years. The Hudson Bay was at
the North Pole. The New York State mastodons were in cold storage
like the Siberian mammoths of today.
-
Epoch No. 1 B.P. lasted around 4,400 years. The Sudan Basin of
Africa was at the North Pole. The New York State mastodons were
buried in the tropics. The Siberian mammoths were grazing in an Eden
like climate in or near the tropics.
Our own Epoch has already lasted about 7,000 years. The Arctic Ocean
is at the North Pole. The mammoths are buried in frozen tundra in
Siberia and Alaska.
Page 64
The mystery of how the earth was created and built up can now be
explained through the rational and understandable display of factual
evidence. We now know just how the various layers of rock, sand,
shale, etc. with their telltale specimens of former animal and plant
life came to be laid down in the strata in which they are now found.
For example: A piece of live fresh wood resembling red cedar was
found during the excavation made for the foundation of the Chase
Manhattan Bank building at 18 Pine Street, New York City. It was
found three feet below the top surface of a layer of hardpan, which
in turn was about sixty feet below the surface. The tree probably
grew in Epoch No. 2 B.P.
In the excavation made for the foundation of the New York Telephone
Company’s building at Barclay and West Streets, New York City, the
contractors came across the prostrate trunks of several juniper
trees with bark and branches intact. At 45 feet below high tide
level they came across a bed of peat eighteen inches thick. The peat
bed had grown where found; probably the trees also. These might
tentatively be classed as growths of Epoch No. 1 B.P.
Parts of whale skeletons have been found on Long Island, N.Y. These
are tentatively classed as belonging to our present epoch, because
during this period of time the ocean waters are assumed to have
receded and now make up part of the ice and snow in the Antarctic
Ice Cap; also, the dearth of top soil on Long Island lends support
to the idea that it has not had its present size during the
approximately 7,000 years of our epoch.
Clay beds abound in the vicinity of New York City; they are found
with layers of sand, gravel, loam or topsoil, etc., superimposed
upon them. Facts such as these agree with the theory of the careenings of the globe.
By assuming that there was land at the edge of the Hudson Bay Ice
Cap, during Epoch No. 2 B.P., it follows that silt from the glacial
streams settled in lakes or rivers and formed these clay beds. Since
then, two world deluges and two epochs of time have occurred, during
which the layers of overlying materials now being found were
developed.
Page 65
Clay beds are normally laid down in layers of silt with different
colors and textures. These varves contain a record of each year; in
some instances they indicate the climate, rainfall, and vegetation,
by the color, thickness, and texture of each varve.
A physical time scale for our present epoch has been developed from
a study of varied clays by the Swedish scientist Gerard De Geer. He
fixed the beginning of the post glacial epoch at about 8,700 years
ago. He counted the number of varves in clay beds in river valleys
running north south, assuming a gradual ascension, like a long
staircase, as the ice retreated northward, and tying in the top
varve of one clay bed with a lower varve of a higher bed. He called
it the Swedish Time Scale.
De Geer reported the following numbers of clay varves from locations
presumed to have been at the Ice Cap’s edges:
Location |
Count made by
|
Number of varves |
Hackensack, N. J.
|
C. Reeds
|
6,984
|
New London, Wis.
|
E. Antev
|
6,984
|
Manitowoc, Wis. |
E. Antev
|
6,942 |
Menominee, Wis. |
E. Antev
|
6,855 |
Wrenshall, Minn.
|
E. Antev
|
6,700 |
|
|
His time scale shows a longer period than the River Gorge Time
Scales. This could be attributed to the clay varves of the same year
having been counted at two different locations.
Below the 8,700th varve, approximately, De Geer came upon a
giant varve. This evidence fits the theory of the careening globe, because
the giant varve marks an abrupt change in the formation of the clay
deposits occurring about 8,700 years ago. There is also evidence to
indicate that Sweden was located in a different and warmer latitude
during the previous epoch of time.
The De Geer Time Scale shows that it is possible to ascertain the
approximate duration or length of time of many former epochs, by
counting the varves in clay, slate, and shale deposits. Many counts
of the number of varves in clay beds have been made and registered,
but no systematic attempt has as yet been made to associate the
numbers arrived at with epochs of time.
Page 66
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