Illogical Geology Part 2

[12] Zittel, "History," p. 110. It should be noted that all these rocks in England thus examined by Smith make up only a small fraction of the total geological series--largely what we now call the Jura.s.sic and Cretaceous rocks.

CHAPTER III

FACT NUMBER ONE

Hitherto we have been dealing only with the _a priori_ aspects of the succession of life idea. We have seen that it is really based on two primary a.s.sumptions, viz.:

(1) That over all the earth the fossils =must always occur= in the particular order in which they were found to occur in a few corners of Western Europe; and also--

(2) That in the long ago =there were no such things as zoological provinces and zones=, and totally different types of fossils from separated localities could not possibly have been contemporaneous with one another as we know they are to-day in "recent" deposits.[13]

On the blending of these two a.s.sumptions, the latter essentially absurd, and the former long ago disproved by the facts of the rocks, has been built up the towering structure of a complete "phylogenic series" from the Cambrian to the Pleistocene. The way in which, as we have been, Spencer and Huxley treated this subject, reminds us very much of the old advice, "When you meet with an insuperable difficulty, look it steadfastly in the face--and pa.s.s on." For neither they nor any of their thousands of followers have ever, so far as I know, pointed out the horrible logic in taking this immense complex of guesses and a.s.sumptions as the starting-point for new departures, the solid foundation for detailed "investigations" as to =just how= this wonderful phenomenon of development has occurred. For after Aga.s.siz and his contemporaries had built on these large a.s.sumptions of Cuvier, and had arranged the details and the exact order of these successive forms by comparison with the embryonic life of the modern individual, the evolutionists of our time, led by such men as Spencer and Haeckel, with their "philogenetic principle," =prove= their theory of evolution by showing that the embryonic life of the individual is only "a brief recapitulation, as it were from memory," of the geological succession in time. There would really seem to be little hope of reaching with any arguments a generation of scientists who can elaborate genealogical trees of descent for the different families and genera of the animal kingdom, based wholly on such a series of a.s.sumptions and blind guesses, and then palm off their work on a credulous world as the proved results of =inductive= science.

And yet I am tempted to make some effort in this direction. And since we have now examined the _a priori_ aspects of the question, it remains to test the two above mentioned a.s.sumptions by the facts of the rocks. The =second=, indeed, involving as it does a profound supernatural knowledge of the past, and being so positively contrary to all that we know of the modern world as to seem essentially absurd, is yet by its very nature beyond the reach of any tests that we can bring to bear upon it. Hence it remains to test by the facts of the rocks =the a.s.sumption that all over the earth the fossils invariably occur in the particular order in which they were first found in a few corners of Western Europe= by the founders of the science. Have we already a sufficiently broad knowledge of the rocks of the world to decide such a question? I think we have.

To begin then at the beginning, let us try to find out how we can fix on the rocks which are absolutely the oldest on the globe. We would expect to find a good many patches of them here and there, but there must be some common characteristic by which they may be distinguished wherever found. Of course, when I say "rocks" here I mean fossils, for as has long been agreed upon by geologists, mineral and mechanical characters are of practically no use in determining the age of deposits, and we are here dealing only with life and the order in which it has occurred on the globe. Accordingly our problem is really to find that typical group of fossils which is essentially older than all dissimilar groups of fossils.

In most localities we do not have to go very far down[14] into the earth to find granite or other so-called igneous rocks, which not only do not contain any traces of fossils, but which we have no proper reason for supposing ever contained any. These Azoic or Archaean rocks const.i.tute practically all the earth's crust, there being only a thin skim of fossiliferous strata on the outside somewhat like the skin on an apple.

Now it would be natural enough to suppose that those fossils which occur at the bottom, or next to the Archaean, are the oldest. This is doubtless what the earlier geologists had in mind, or at least ought to have had, for it is not quite certain that they had any clear thoughts on the matter whatever. They did not really begin at the bottom, but half way up, so to speak, at the Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks, and Sedgwick and Murchison, who undertook to find bottom, got too excited over their Cambro-Silurian controversy to attend to such an insignificant detail as the logical proof that any type of fossils was really older than all others. If they had really stopped to consider that some type of fossil might occur next to the Archaean in Wales, and another type occur thus in Scotland, while still another type altogether might be found in this position in some other locality, and so on over the world, leading us to the very natural conclusion that in the olden times as now =there were zoological provinces and districts=, the history of science during the nineteenth century might have been very different, and this chapter might never have been written. But this commonplace of modern geology, that any type of fossil whatever, even the very "youngest," may occur next to the Archaean, was not then considered or understood; and when about 1830 it came to be recognized, other things were allowed to obscure its significance, and the habit of arranging the rocks in chronological order according to their fossils was too firmly established to be disturbed by such an idea.

But the Fact Number One, which I have chosen as the subject of this chapter, is the now well established principle that =any kind of fossil whatever, even "young" Tertiary rocks, may rest upon the Archaean or Azoic series, or may themselves be almost wholly metamorphosed or crystalline, thus resembling in position and outward appearance the so-called "oldest" rocks=.

The first part of this proposition, about any rocks occurring next to the Archaean, is covered by the following quotation from Dana:[15]

"A stratum of one era may rest upon any stratum in the whole of the series below it,--the Coal-measures on either the Archaean, Silurian, or Devonian strata; and the Jura.s.sic, Cretaceous, or Tertiary on any one of the earlier rocks, the intermediate being wanting. The Quaternary in America in some cases rests on Archaean rocks, in others on Silurian or Devonian, in others on Cretaceous or Tertiary."

It would be tedious to multiply testimony on a point so universally understood.

As for the other half of this fact, that even the so-called "youngest"

rocks may be metamorphic and crystalline just as well as the "oldest,"

it also is now a recognized commonplace of science. Dana[16] says that as early as 1833 Lyell taught this as a general truth applicable to "all the formations from the earliest to the latest."

The first reference I can find to any disproof of this old fable of Werner's, that only certain kinds of rock are to be found next to the "Primitive" or Archaean, is in the observations of Studer and Beaumont in the Alps, (1826-28), who found "relatively young" fossils in crystalline schists, which, as Zittel says, "was a very great blow to the geologists who upheld the hypothesis of the Archaean or pre-Cambrian age of all gneisses and schists."

James Geikie, doubtless referring to the same series of rocks, tells us that:--

"In the central Alps of Switzerland, some of the Eocene strata are so highly metamorphosed that they closely resemble some of the most ancient deposits of the globe, consisting, as they do, of crystalline rocks, marble, quartz-rock, mica schist, and gneiss."[17]

Hence we need not be surprised at the following statement of the situation by Zittel.[18]

"The last fifteen years of the nineteenth century witnessed very great advances in our knowledge of rock-deformation and metamorphism. =It has been found that there is no geological epoch whose sedimentary deposits have been wholly safeguarded from metamorphic changes=, and, as this broad fact has come to be realized, it has proved most unsettling, and has necessitated a revision of the stratigraphy of many districts in the light of new possibilities. The newer researches scarcely recognize any theory; they are directed rather to the empirical method of obtaining all possible information regarding microscopic and field evidences of the pa.s.sage from metamorphic to igneous rocks, and from metamorphic to sedimentary rocks."

But in addition to what Zittel means by recognizing "no theory" as to the origin of the various sorts of "igneous" rocks, it seems to me that this "broad fact" ought surely to prove "most unsettling," to the traditional theories about certain fossils being intrinsically older than others. With our minds divested of all prejudice, and this "broad"

Fact Number One well comprehended, that any kind of fossil whatever may occur next to the Archaean, and the rocky strata containing it may in texture and appearance "closely resemble some of the most ancient deposits on the globe," =where= on this broad earth shall we look for the place =to start= our life-succession That is, where can we now go to find those kinds of fossils which we can prove, by independent arguments, to be absolutely older than all others? It may seem very difficult for some of us to discard a theory so long an integral part of all geology; but until it can be proved that this "broad fact" as stated by Zittel and Dana is no fact at all, I see no escape from the acknowledgment that the doctrine of any particular fossils being essentially older than others is a pure invention, with absolutely nothing in nature to support it.

Or, to state the matter in another way, since the life succession theory rests logically and historically on Werner's notion that only certain kinds of rocks (fossils) are to be found at the "bottom" or next to the Archaean, and it is now acknowledged everywhere that any kind of rocks whatever may be thus situated, it is as clear as sunlight that the life succession theory rests logically and historically on a myth, and that there is =no way of proving what kind of fossil was buried first=.

Of course, the reason the followers of Cuvier and his life succession now find themselves in such a fix as this is because they have not been following true inductive methods. Theirs has been a geology by hypothesis instead of by observed fact. They started out with a pretty scheme ready-made about the origin and formation of the world, perfectly innocent of any evil intent in such a method of procedure, and unconscious of its speculative character; and for nearly a hundred years they have supposed that they were following inductive methods in Geology. But in view of what we have now learned I think we are perfectly justified in adapting and applying to Cuvier and the modern school of geologists what Geikie[19] says about Werner and his school:

"But never in the history of science did a stranger hallucination arise than that of Cuvier and the modern school, when they supposed themselves to discard theory and build on a foundation of accurately ascertained fact. Never was a system devised in which theory was more rampant; theory, too, unsupported by observation, and, as we now know, utterly erroneous. From beginning to end of Cuvier's method and its applications, a.s.sumptions were made for which there was no ground, and these a.s.sumptions were treated as demonstrable facts. The very point to be proved was taken for granted, and the evolutionary geologists who boasted of their avoidance of speculation, were in reality among the most hopelessly speculative of all the generations that had tried to solve the problem of the theory of the earth."

FOOTNOTES:

[13] The onion-coat hypothesis, which is the only other alternative, modern science professes to have abandoned.

[14] When the text-books speak of ten or twelve miles thickness of the fossiliferous rocks, the reader should remember how the rocks have to be patched up together from here and there to make this incredible thickness, as only a small fraction of such a thickness exists in any one place.

[15] "Manual," p. 399, Fourth Ed.

[16] "Manual," p. 408.

[17] "Manual of Historical Geol.," p. 74.

[18] "Hist.," p. 360.

[19] "Founders of Geology," p. 112.

CHAPTER IV

FACT NUMBER TWO

If we had ample evidence that a certain man was personally acquainted with Julius Caesar, that they were born in the same town, went to school together, served in the same wars, and later carried on an extensive mutual correspondence, would we not conclude that they must have lived in the same age of the world's history? I confess that the conclusion seems quite unavoidable. Who would dream that eighteen centuries or more had separated the two lives, and that while one was an old Roman the other was an American of the latter nineteenth century?

Some such a puzzle as this is presented in geology under the general subject of =conformability=. Let me define this term.

Strata laid down by water are in the first place in a horizontal position. Some subsequent force may have disturbed them, so that we may now find them standing up on edge like books in a library. But all human experience goes to show that they were not deposited in this position.

Some disturbing cause must have taken hold of them since they were laid down, for the water in which they were made must have spread them out smooth and horizontal, each subsequent layer or stratum fitting "like a glove" on the preceding. Thus when we find two successive layers agreeing with one another in their planes of bedding, with every indication that the lower one was not disturbed in any way before the upper one was spread out upon it, the two are said to be =conformable=.

But if the lower bed has evidently been upturned or disturbed before the other was laid down, or if its surface has even been partly eroded or washed away by the water, the strata are said to be =unconformable=, or they show =unconformability= in bedding.

Of course, in all this we are dealing only with =relative= time. When we find one bed or stratum lying above another in their natural position, the lower one is of course the older of the two; but whether laid down ten minutes earlier, or ten million years earlier, how are we to determine? Ignoring the matter of the fossils they contain, must we not own that, though there is no way of telling just how much longer the lower one was deposited before the next succeeding, yet if the two are conformable to one another, and the bottom one shows no evidence of disturbance or erosion before the other was fitted upon it, the strong presumption would seem to be that no great length of time could have elapsed between the laying down of the two layers. To say that we have here a geological example similar to that of a modern American having been personally acquainted with Julius Caesar, would seem to be quite "inexplicable," as Herbert Spencer used to say.

But if the life succession theory be true, we have just such a conundrum in our Fact Number Two, which is that =any formation whatever may rest conformably upon any other "older" formation=.

The lower may be Devonian, Silurian, or Cambrian, and the upper one Cretaceous or Tertiary, and thus according to the theory millions on millions of years must have elapsed after the first, and before the following bed was laid down, but the conformability is perfect, and the beds have all the appearance of having followed in quick succession.

Sometimes, too, though less frequently, these age-separated formations are lithologically the same, and can only be separated by their fossils!

But before going into the minute description of any of these cases, we must notice some general statements. Thus as long ago as the date of the publication of "The Origin of Species," Darwin, in speaking of the "Imperfection of the Geological Record," could speak of "The many cases on record of a formation conformably covered, after an immense interval of time, by another and later formation, without the underlying bed having suffered in the interval by any wear and tear."[20]

Also Geikie,[21] in speaking of how "fossil evidence may be made to prove the existence of gaps which are not otherwise apparent," says that "It is not so easy to give a satisfactory account of those which occur where the strata are strictly conformable, and where no evidence can be observed of any considerable change of physical conditions at the time of deposit. A group of quite conformable strata having the same general lithological characters throughout, may be marked by a great discrepance between the fossils of the upper and the lower part." In many cases he says these conditions are "not merely local, but persistent over wide areas.... They occur abundantly among the European Palaeozoic and Secondary rocks," and are "traceable over wide regions."

We have seen how Dana admits that "A stratum of one era may rest upon any stratum in the whole series below it, ... the intermediate being wanting." He cla.s.ses this under the head of the "=Difficulties=" of the science, quite naturally as it would seem, though he does not expressly a.s.sert that these age-separated formations are often =conformable= to one another, as Geikie and Darwin have said in the above given quotations.