Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel

arth with one of these wandering luminaries of space, the question can not but occur to him, Was this the first and only occasion, during all the

must be in

same phenomena which we have learned to recognize as pecu

rust oscillated at a rate not to exceed one foot in a century.[1] It was an age of peace. Then came a

ssures were opened in the earth's crust," like the fiords or great rock-cracks which accompanied the Diluvial

"Text-Boo

.

into architectural and statuary marble. Bituminous

following cut, showing the extent to wh

#

E SCHUYLKILL,

; 4, Hudson River; 5, Oneida and Niagara; 7, Lower Helderberg; 8, 10, 11

ressure of some kind which came from the ea

having taken place just as it might in paper or

ondition, drove the volatile gases out of the bituminous coal and changed it into anthraci

t universal slaughter

ne of the most extensive in all geological history; . . . no f

"Text-Boo

id.,

id.,

d., p.

.

Age, by tremendous floods of water; the evaporat

of denudation, which has been c

striking confirm

,--but actually melted and metamorphosed; the heat, as in the Drift Age, sucked up the waters of the seas, to cast them down again in great floods; it wiped

n; here is heat, not ice; combustion, not cold; and yet all these phenomena are but the

ged the very texture of the solid rocks, we find in the geological record the evidences of repeated visitations when Drift was

are found, combinations of stones and har

Scotland, large blocks and bowlders (f

"Text-Boo

.

anite, etc., none of which belong

ie s

ave come from some ancient Atl

mation in the north of England and in Scotland, we are t

conglomerate was found nearly

h it is difficult to believe are other than ancient morainic débris. They are frequently quite unstratif

-scratched and blunted ston

rs. In the Eocene of Switzerland, erratics have been found, some angular and some rounded. They often attain great size; one measured one hundred and five fe

ie s

al character of the Eocene fossils is taken into account, for these have a somewhat tropical a

reat Ice A

id.,

Ibi

.

peak to us of tropical and sub-tropical cli

prevailed in Spitzbergen and North Greenland that th

ferous,--that is to say, containing no traces of animal or vegetable life,--so these strange

ve been found. In the conglomerates of Turin, belonging to the

sion is for

f the planet, are the records of repeated visitations

stratified, unfossiliferous deposits of clay and stones and bow

t returns to us it fills a large part of the orbit which the earth describes around the sun, and showers down upon us deluges of débris, while it fills the world with flame? And ar

reat Ice A

d., p.

.

f these different conglomerates. No secret can escape discovery wh

umble over a still

s the molten crust of the original glowing ball o

dation of all our rocks, this ancient globe-crust, is itself made up of sedimentary rocks, which wer

the waters to form the rocks melted up in this granite; there were countless ages; possibly there were

eternity? Who shall say how often this planet has been developed up to the highe

one great t

that

but a handfu

ber in it

--birth, life, development, destruction.

.