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29 Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
Ragnarok: the Age of Fire and Gravel
[Redactor's Notes: "Ragnarok" is a sequel to "Atlantis" but goes far
beyond presaging the pseudo-science of Velikovsky's "Worlds in
Collision". The original scans and HTML were provided by Mr. J.B.
Hare. In this edition the illustrations and figures have been
replaced by the glyph "###". Because of the numerous notes, they have
been retained on the original page. Searching on "[" will reveal the
set of notes for the current page. The page numbers of the original
have been retained as {p.117} for example. The HTML is plain vanilla
with no illustrations. For a fully illustrated version the reader is
referred to the website http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/rag/index.htm
where other explanatory material prepared by Mr. Hare is available.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
RAGNAROK:
THE AGE OF FIRE AND GRAVEL.
BY
IGNATIUS DONNELLY,
AUTHOR OF "ATLANTIS: THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD."
_"I am not inclined to conclude that man had no existence at all
before the epoch of the great revolutions of the earth. He might have
inhabited certain districts of no great extent, whence, after these
terrible events, he repeopled the world. Perhaps, also, the spots
where he abode were swallowed up, and the bones lie buried under the
beds of the present seas."--CUVIER._
[1883]
{scanned at sacred-texts.com, December, 2001}
###
THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE DRIFT.
{p. iii}
CONTENTS.
PART I.
THE DRIFT.
I. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DRIFT 1
II. THE ORIGIN OF THE DRIFT NOT KNOWN 8
III. THE ACTION OF WAVES 10
IV. WAS IT CAUSED BY ICEBERGS? 13
V. WAS IT CAUSED By GLACIERS? 17
VI. WAS IT CAUSED BY A CONTINENTAL ICE-SHEET? 23
VII. THE DRIFT A GIGANTIC CATASTROPHE 43
VIII. GREAT HEAT A PREREQUISITE 58
PART II.
THE COMET.
I. A COMET CAUSED THE DRIFT 63
II. WHAT IS A COMET? 65
III. COULD A COMET STRIKE THE EARTH? 82
IV. THE CONSEQUENCES TO THE EARTH 91
{p. iii}
PART III.
THE LEGENDS.
I. THE NATURE OF MYTHS 113
II. DID MAN EXIST BEFORE THE DRIFT? 121
III. LEGENDS OF THE COMING OF THE COMET 132
IV. RAGNAROK 141
V. THE CONFLAGRATION OF PHAĖTON 154
VI. OTHER LEGENDS OF THE CONFLAGRATION 166
VII. LEGENDS OF THE CAVE-LIFE 195
VIII. LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF DARKNESS 208
IX. THE TRIUMPH OF THE SUN 233
X. THE FALL OF THE CLAY AND GRAVEL 251
XI. THE ARABIAN MYTHS 268
XII. THE BOOK OF JOB 276
XIII. GENESIS READ BY THE LIGHT OF THE COMET 316
PART IV.
CONCLUSIONS.
I. WAS PRE-GLACIAL MAN CIVILIZED? 341
II. THE SCENE OF MAN'S SURVIVAL 366
III. THE BRIDGE 376
IV. OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED 389
V. BIELA'S COMET 408
VI. THE UNIVERSAL BELIEF OF MANKIND 424
VII. THE EARTH STRUCK BY COMETS MANY TIMES 431
VIII. THE AFTER-WORD 437
{p. iv}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE DRIFT Frontispiece.
TILL OVERLAID WITH BOWLDER-CLAY 5
SCRATCHED STONE, FROM THE TILL 6
RIVER ISSUING FROM A SWISS GLACIER 19
TERMINAL MORAINE 20
GLACIER-FURROWS AND SCRATCHES AT STONY POINT, 26
LAKE ERIE
DRIFT-DEPOSITS IN THE TROPICS 38
STRATIFIED BEDS IN TILL, LEITHEN WATER, 54
PEEBLESSHIRE, SCOTLAND
SECTION AT JOINVILLE 54
ORBITS OF THE PERIODIC COMETS 83
ORBIT OF EARTH AND COMET 88
THE EARTH'S ORBIT 89
THE COMET SWEEPING PAST THE EARTH 92
THE SIDE OF THE EARTH STRUCK BY THE COMET 93
THE SIDE NOT STRUCK BY THE COMET 93
THE GREAT COMET OF 1811 95
CRAG AND TAIL 98
SOLAR SPECTRUM 105
SECTION AT ST. ACHEUL 122
THE ENGIS SKULL 124
THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL 125
PLUMMET FROM SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA 180
{p. v}
COMET OF 1862 137
COURSE OF DONATI'S COMET 157
THE PRIMEVAL STORM 220
THE AFRITE IN THE PILLAR 270
DAHISH OVERTAKEN BY DIMIRIAT 272
EARTHEN VASE, FOUND IN THE CAVE OF FURFOOZ, 347
BELGIUM
PRE-GLACIAL MAN'S PICTURE OF THE MAMMOTH 349
PRE-GLACIAL MAN'S PICTURE OF REINDEER 350
PRE-GLACIAL MAN'S PICTURE OF THE HORSE 351
SPECIMEN OF PRE-GLACIAL CARVING 352
STONE IMAGE FOUND IN OHIO 353
COPPER COIN, FOUND ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN FEET 356
UNDER GROUND, IN ILLINOIS {front}
COPPER COIN, FOUND ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN FEET 356
UNDER GROUND, IN ILLINOIS {back}
BIELA'S COMET, SPLIT IN TWO 409
SECTION ON THE SCHUYLKILL 432
{p. 1}
RAGNAROK:
THE AGE OF FIRE AND GRAVEL.
PART I.
The Drift
CHAPTER I.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DRIFT.
READER,--Let us reason together:--
What do we dwell on? The earth. What part of the earth? The latest
formations, of course. We live upon the top of a mighty series of
stratified rocks, laid down in the water of ancient seas and lakes,
during incalculable ages, said, by geologists, to be from _ten to
twenty miles in thickness_.
Think of that! Rock piled over rock, from the primeval granite
upward, to a height _four times greater than our highest mountains_,
and every rock stratified like the leaves of a book; and every leaf
containing the records of an intensely interesting history,
illustrated with engravings, in the shape of fossils, of all forms of
life, from the primordial cell up to the bones of man and his
implements.
But it is not with the pages of this sublime volume
{p. 2}
we have to deal in this book. It is with a vastly different but
equally wonderful formation.
Upon the top of the last of this series of stratified rocks we find
THE DRIFT.
What is it?
Go out with me where yonder men are digging a well. Let us observe
the material they are casting out.
First they penetrate through a few inches or a foot or two of surface
soil; then they enter a vast deposit of sand, gravel, and clay. It
may be fifty, one hundred, five hundred, eight hundred feet, before
they reach the stratified rocks on which this drift rests. It covers
whole continents. It is our earth. It makes the basis of our soils;
our railroads cut their way through it; our carriages drive over it;
our cities are built upon it; our crops are derived from it; the
water we drink percolates through it; on it we live, love, marry,
raise children, think, dream, and die; and in the bosom of it we will
be buried.
Where did it come from?
That is what I propose to discuss with you in this work,--if you will
have the patience to follow me.
So far as possible, [as I shall in all cases speak by the voices of
others] I shall summon my witnesses that you may cross-examine them.
I shall try, to the best of my ability, to buttress every opinion
with adequate proofs. If I do not convince, I hope at least to
interest you.
And to begin: let us understand what the Drift _is_, before we
proceed to discuss its origin.
In the first place, it is mainly unstratified; its lower formation is
altogether so. There may be clearly defined strata here and there in
it, but they are such as a tempest might make, working in a
dust-heap: picking up a patch here and laying it upon another there.
But there
{p. 3}
are no continuous layers reaching over any large extent of country.
Sometimes the material has been subsequently worked over by rivers,
and been distributed over limited areas in strata, as in and around
the beds of streams.
But in the lower, older, and first-laid-down portion of the Drift,
called in Scotland "the till," and in other countries "the hard-pan,"
there is a total absence of stratification.
James Geikie says:
"In describing the till, I remarked that the irregular manner in
which the stones were scattered through that deposit imparted to it a
confused and tumultuous appearance. The clay does not arrange itself
in layers or beds, but is distinctly unstratified."[1]
"The material consisted of earth, gravel, and stones, and also in
some places broken trunks or branches of trees. Part of it was
deposited in a pell-mell or unstratified condition during the
progress of the period, and part either stratified or unstratified in
the opening part of the next period when the ice melted."[2]
"The unstratified drift may be described as a heterogeneous mass of
clay, with sand and gravel in varying proportions, inclosing the
transported fragments of rock, of all dimensions, partially rounded
or worn into wedge-shaped forms, and generally with surfaces furrowed
or scratched, the whole material looking as if it had been scraped
together."[3]
The "till" of Scotland is "spread in broad but somewhat ragged
sheets" through the Lowlands, "continuous across wide tracts," while
in the Highland and upland districts it is confined principally to
the valleys.[4]
[1. "The Great Ice Age," p. 21.
2. Dana's "Text-Book," p. 220.
3. "American Cyclopędia," vol. vi, p. 111.
4. "Great Ice Age," Geikie, p. 6.]
{p. 4}
"The lowest member is invariably a tough, stony clay, called 'till'
or 'hard-pan.' Throughout wide districts stony clay alone occurs."[1]
"It is hard to say whether the till consists more of stones or of
clay."[2]
This "till," this first deposit, will be found to be the strangest
and most interesting.
In the second place, although the Drift is found on the earth, it is
unfossiliferous. That is to say, it contains no traces of
pre-existent or contemporaneous life.
This, when we consider it, is an extraordinary fact:
Where on the face of this life-marked earth could such a mass of
material be gathered up, and not contain any evidences of life? It is
as if one were to say that he had collected the _detritus_ of a great
city, and that it showed no marks of man's life or works.
"I would reiterate," says Geikie,[3] "that nearly all the Scotch
shell-bearing beds belong to the _very close of the glacial_ period;
only in one or two places have shells ever been obtained, with
certainty, from a bed in the true till of Scotland. They occur here
and there in bowlder-clay, and underneath bowlder-clay, in maritime
districts; but this clay, as I have shown, is more recent than the
till--fact, rests upon its eroded surface."
"The lower bed of the drift is entirely destitute of organic
remains."[4]
Sir Charles Lyell tells us that even the stratified drift is usually
devoid of fossils:
"Whatever may be the cause, the fact is certain that over large areas
in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, I might add throughout the northern
hemisphere, on both sides of the Atlantic, the stratified drift of
the glacial period is very commonly devoid of fossils."[5]
[1. "Great Ice Age," Geikie, p. 7.
2. Ibid., p. 9.
3. Ibid., p. 342.
4. Rev. O. Fisher, quoted in "The World before the Deluge," p. 461.
5. "Antiquity of Man," third edition, p. 268.]
{p. 5}
In the next place, this "till" differs from the rest of the Drift in
its exceeding hardness:
"This till is so tough that engineers would much rather excavate the
most obdurate rocks than attempt to remove it from their path. Hard
rocks are more or less easily assailable with gunpowder, and the
numerous joints and fissures by which they are traversed enable the
workmen to wedge them out often in considerable lumps. But till has
neither crack nor joint; it will not blast, and to pick it to pieces
is a very slow and laborious process. Should streaks of sand
penetrate it, water will readily soak through, and large masses will
then run or collapse, as soon as an opening is made into it."
###
TILL OVERLAID WITH BOWLDER-CLAY, RIVER STINCHAR.
_r_, Rock; _t_, Till; _g_, Bowlder-Clay; _x_, Fine Gravel, etc.
The accompanying cut shows the manner in which it is distributed, and
its relations to the other deposits of the Drift.
In this "till" or "hard-pan" are found some strange and
characteristic stones. They are bowlders, not water-worn, not
rounded, as by the action of waves, and yet not angular--for every
point and projection has been ground off. They are not very large,
and they differ in this and other respects from the bowlders found in
the other portions of the Drift. These stones in the "till" are
always striated--that is, cut by deep lines or grooves, usually
running lengthwise, or parallel to their longest diameter. The cut on
the following page represents one of them.
{p. 6}
Above this clay is a deposit resembling it, and yet differing from
it, called the "bowlder-clay." This is not so tough or hard. The
bowlders in it are larger and more angular-sometimes they are of
immense size; one at
###
SCRATCHED STONE (BLACK SHALE), FROM THE TILL.
Bradford, Massachusetts, is estimated to weigh 4,500,000 pounds. Many
on Cape Cod are twenty feet in diameter. One at Whitingham, Vermont,
is forty-three feet long by thirty feet high, or 40,000 cubic feet in
bulk. In some
{p. 7}
cases no rocks of the same material are found within two hundred
miles.[1]
These two formations--the "till" and the "bowlder-clay"--sometimes
pass into each other by insensible degrees. At other times the
distinction is marked. Some of the stones in the bowlder-clay are
furrowed or striated, but a large part of them are not; while in the
"till" _the stone not striated is the rare exception_.
Above this bowlder-clay we find sometimes beds of loose gravel, sand,
and stones, mixed with the remains of man and other animals. These
have all the appearance of being later in their deposition, and of
having been worked over by the action of water and ice.
This, then, is, briefly stated, the condition of the Drift.
It is plain that it was the result of violent action of some kind.
And this action must have taken place upon an unparalleled and
continental scale. One writer describes it as,
"A remarkable and stupendous period--a period so startling that it
might justly be accepted with hesitation, were not the conception
unavoidable before a series of facts as extraordinary as itself."[2]
Remember, then, in the discussions which follow, that if the theories
advanced are gigantic, the facts they seek to explain are not less
so. We are not dealing with little things. The phenomena are
continental, world-wide, globe-embracing.
[1. Dana's "Text-Book," p. 221.
2. Gratacap, "Ice Age," "Popular Science Monthly," January, 1878.]
CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGIN OF THE DRIFT NOT KNOWN.
WHILE several different origins have been assigned for the phenomena
known as "the Drift," and while one or two of these have been widely
accepted and taught in our schools as established truths, yet it is
not too much to say that no one of them meets all the requirements of
the case, or is assented to by the profoundest thinkers of our day.
Says one authority:
"The origin of the unstratified drift is a question which has been
much controverted."[1]
Louis Figuier says,[2] after considering one of the proposed theories:
"No such hypothesis is sufficient to explain either the cataclysms or
the glacial phenomena; and we need not hesitate to confess our
ignorance of this strange, this mysterious episode in the history of
our globe. . . . Nevertheless, we repeat, no explanation presents
itself which can be considered conclusive; and in science we should
never be afraid to say, _I do not know_."
Geikie says:
"Many geologists can not yet be persuaded that till has ever formed
and accumulated under ice." [3]
A recent scientific writer, after summing up all the facts and all
the arguments, makes this confession:
[1. "American Cyclopędia," vol. vi, p. 112.
2. "The World before the Deluge," pp. 435, 463.
3. "The Great Ice Age," p. 370.]
{p. 9}
From the foregoing facts, it seems to me that we are justified in
concluding:
"1. That however simple and plausible the Lyellian hypothesis may be,
or however ingenious the extension or application of it suggested by
Dana, it is not sustained by any proof, and the testimony of the
rocks seems to be decidedly against it.
"2. Though much may yet be learned from a more extended and careful
study of the glacial phenomena of all parts of both hemispheres, the
facts already gathered _seem to be incompatible with any theory yet
advanced_ which makes the Ice period simply a series of telluric
phenomena, and so far strengthens the arguments of those who look to
extraneous and cosmical causes for the origin of these phenomena."[1]
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