Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chapter 11)
by Robert Chambers
Era of the Superficial Formations.
Commencement of Present Species.
e have now completed our survey of the series of stratified
rocks, and traced in their fossils the progress of organic creation down to
a time which seems not long antecedent to the appearance of man. There are,
nevertheless, monuments of still another era or space of time which it is
all but certain did also precede that event.
Over the rock formations of all eras, in various parts
of the globe, but confined in general to situations not very elevated,
there is a layer of stiff clay, mostly of a blue colour, mingled with
fragments of rock of all sizes, travel-worn, and otherwise, and to which
geologists give the name of diluvium, as being apparently the produce of
some vast flood, or of the sea thrown into an unusual agitation. It seems
to indicate that, at the time when it was laid down, much of the present
dry land was under the ocean, a supposition which we shall see supported by
other evidence. The included masses of rock have been carefully inspected
in many places, and traced to particular parent beds at considerable
distances Connected with these phenomena are certain rock surfaces on the
slopes of hills and elsewhere, which exhibit groovings and scratchings,
such as we might suppose would be produced by a quantity of loose blocks
hurried along over them by a flood. Another associated phenomenon is that
called crag and tail, which exists in many places,—namely, a
rocky mountain, or lesser elevation, presenting on one side the naked rock
in a more or less abrupt form, and on the other a gentle slope; the sites
of Windsor, Edinburgh, and Stirling, with their respective castles, are
specimens of crag and tail. Finally, we may advert to certain long ridges
of clay and gravel which arrest the attention of travellers on the surface
of Sweden and Finland, and which are also found in the United States,
where, indeed, the whole of these phenomena have been observed over a large
surface, as well as in Europe. It is very remarkable that the direction
from which the diluvial blocks have generally come, the lines of the
grooved rock surfaces, the direction of the crag and tail eminences, and
that of the clay and gravel ridges—phenomena, be it observed,
extending over the northern parts of both Europe and America—are
all from the north and northwest towards the south-east. We thus
acquire the idea of a powerful current moving in a direction from
north-west to south-east, carrying, besides mud, masses of rock which
furrowed the solid surfaces as they passed along, abrading the northwest
faces of many hills, but leaving the slopes in the opposite direction
uninjured, and in some instances forming long ridges of detritus along the
surface. These are curious considerations, and it has become a question of
much interest, by what means, and under what circumstances, was such a
current produced. One hypothetical answer has some plausibility about it.
From an investigation of the nature of glaciers, and some observations
which seem to indicate that these have at one time extended to lower
levels, and existed in regions (the Scottish Highlands an example) where
there is now no perennial snow, it has been surmised that there was a time,
subsequent to the tertiary era) when the circumpolar ice extended far into
the temperate zone, and formed a lofty, as well as extensive accumulation.
A change to a higher temperature, producing a sudden thaw of this mass,
might set free such a quantity of water as would form a large flood, and
the southward flow of this deluge, joined to the direction which it would
obtain from the rotatory motion of the globe, would of course produce that
compound or south-easterly direction which the phenomena require. All of
these speculations are as yet far too deficient in facts to be of much
value; and I must freely own that, for one, I attach little importance to
them. All that we can legitimately infer from the diluvium is, that the
northern parts of Europe and America were then under the sea, and that a
strong current set over them.
Connected with the diluvium is the history of
ossiferous caverns, of which specimens singly exist at Kirkdale in
Yorkshire, Gailenreuth in Franconia, and other places. They occur in the
calcareous strata, as the great caverns generally do, but have in all
instances been naturally closed up till the recent period of their
discovery. The floors are covered with what appears to be a bed of the
diluvial clay, over which rests a crust of stalagmite, the result of the
droppings from the root since the time when the clay-bed was laid down. In
the instances above specified, and several others, there have been found,
under the clay bed, assemblages of the bones of animals, of many various
kinds. At Kirkdale, for example, the remains of twenty-four species were
ascertained—namely, pigeon, lark, raven, duck, and partridge; mouse,
water-rat, rabbit, hare, deer, (three species,) ox, horse, hippopotamus,
rhinoceros, elephant, weazel, fox, wolf, bear, tiger, hyena. From many of
the bones of the gentler of these animals being found in a broken state,
it is supposed that the cave was a haunt of hyenas and other predaceous
animals, by which the smaller ones were here consumed. This must have been
at a time antecedent to the submersion which produced the diluvium, since
the bones are covered by a bed of that formation. It is impossible not to
see here a very natural series of incidents. First, the cave is frequented
by wild beasts, who make it a kind of charnelhouse. Then, submerged in the
current which has been spoken of, it receives a clay flooring from the
waters containing that matter in suspension. Finally, raised from the
water, but with no mouth to the open air, it remains unintruded on for a
long series of ages, during which the clay flooring receives a new
calcareous covering, from the droppings of the roof. Dr. Buckland, who
examined and described the Kirkdale cave, was at first of opinion that it
presented a physical evidence of the Noachian deluge; but he afterwards saw
reason to consider its phenomena as of a time far apart from that event,
which rests on evidence of an entirely different kind.
Our attention is next drawn to the erratic blocks or
boulders, which in many parts of the earth are thickly strewn over the
surface, particularly in the north of Europe. Some of these blocks are many
tons in weight, yet are clearly ascertained to have belonged originally to
situations at a great distance. Fragments, for example, of the granite of
Shap Fell are found in every direction around to the distance of fifty
miles, one piece being placed high upon Criffel Mountain, on the opposite
side of the Solway estuary; so also are fragments of the Alps found far up
the slopes of the Jura. There are even blocks on the east coast of England,
supposed to have travelled from Norway. The only rational conjecture which
can be formed as to the transport of such masses from so great a distance,
is one which presumes them to have been carried and dropped by icebergs,
while the space between their original and final sites was under ocean.
Icebergs do even now carry off such masses from the polar coasts, which,
falling when the retaining ice melts, must take up situations at the bottom
of the sea analogous to those in which we find the erratic blocks of the
present day.
As the diluvium and erratic blocks clearly suppose one
last long submersion of the surface, (last, geologically speaking,)
there is another set of appearances which as manifestly shew the steps by
which the land was made afterwards to reappear. These consist of
terraces, which have been detected near, and at some distance inland
from, the coast lines of Scandinavia, Britain, America, and other regions;
being evidently ancient beaches, or platforms, on which the margin of the
sea at one time rested. They have been observed at different heights above
the present sea-level, from twenty to above twelve hundred feet; and in
many places they are seen rising above each other in succession, to the
number of three, four, and even more. The smooth flatness of these
terraces, with generally a slight inclination towards the sea, the sandy
composition of many of them, and, in some instances, the preservation of
marine shells in the ground, identify them perfectly with existing
seabeaches, notwithstanding the cuts and scoopings which have every here
and there been effected in them by water-courses. The irresistible
inference from the phenomena is, that the highest was first the coast line;
then an elevation took place, and the second highest became so, the first
being now raised into the air and thrown inland. Then, upon another
elevation, the sea began to form, at its new point of contact with the
land, the third highest beach, and so on down to the platform nearest to
the present sea-beach. Phenomena of this kind become comparatively familiar
to us, when we hear of evidence that the last sixty feet of the elevation
of Sweden, and the last eighty-five of that of Chili, have taken place
since man first dwelt in those countries; nay, that the elevation of the
former country goes on at this time at the rate of about forty-five inches
in a century, and that a thousand miles of the Chilian coast rose four feet
in one night, under the influence of a powerful earthquake, so lately as
1822. Subterranean forces, of the kind then exemplified in Chili, supply a
ready explanation of the whole phenomena, though some other operating
causes have been suggested. In an inquiry on this point, it becomes of
consequence to learn some particulars respecting the levels. Taking a
particular beach, it is generally observed that the level continues the
same along a considerable number of miles, and nothing like breaks or
hitches has as yet been detected in any case. A second and a third beach
are also observed to be exactly parallel to the first. These facts would
seem to indicate quiet elevating movements, uniform over a large tract. It
must, however, be remarked that the raised beaches at one part of a coast
rarely coincide with those at another part forty or fifty miles off. We
might suppose this to indicate a limit in that extent of the uniformity of
the elevating cause, but it would be rash to conclude positively that such
is the case. In the present sea, as is well known, there are different
levels at different places, owing to the operation of peculiar local
causes, as currents, evaporation, and the influx of large rivers into
narrow-mouthed estuaries. The differences of level in the ancient beaches
might be occasioned by some such causes. But, whatever doubt may rest on
this minor point, enough has been ascertained to settle the main one, that
we have in these platforms indubitable monuments of the last rise of the
land from the sea, and the concluding great event of the geological
history.
The idea of such a wide-spread and possibly universal
submersion unavoidably suggests some considerations as to the effect which
it might have upon terrestrial animal life. It seems likely that this would
be, on such an occasion, extensively, if not universally destroyed. Nor
does the idea of its universal destruction seem the less plausible, when we
remark, that none of the species of land animals heretofore discovered can
be detected at a subsequent period. The whole seem to have been now
changed. Some geologists appear much inclined to think that there was at
this time a new development of terrestrial animal life upon the globe, and
M. Agassiz, whose opinion on such a subject must always be worthy of
attention, speaks all but decidedly for such a conclusion. It must,
however, be owned, that proofs for it are still scanty, beyond the bare
fact of a submersion which appears to have had a very wide range. I must
therefore be content to leave this point, as far as geological evidence is
concerned, for future affirmation.
There are some other superficial deposits, of less
consequence on the present occasion than the diluvium—namely,
lacustrine deposits, or filled-up lakes; allovium, or the deposits of
rivers beside their margins; deltas, the deposits made by great ones at
their efflux into the sea; peat mosses; and the vegetable soil. The
animal remains found in these generally testify to a zoology on the verge
of that which still exists, or melting into it, there being included many
species which still exist. In a lacustrine deposit at Market-Weighton, in
the Vale of York, there have been found bones of the elephant, rhinoceros,
bison, wolf, horse, felis, deer, birds, all or nearly all extinct species;
associated with thirteen species of land and fresh water shells, "exactly
identical with types now living in the vicinity." In similar deposits in
North America, are remains of the mammoth, mastodon, buffalo, and other
animals of extinct and living types. In short, these superficial deposits
shew precisely which remains as might be expected from a time at which the
present system of things (to use a vague but not unexpressive phrase)
obtained, but yet so far remote in chronology as to allow of the dropping
of many species, through familiar causes, in the interval. Still, however,
there is no authentic or satisfactory instance of human remains being
found, except in deposits obviously of very modern date; a tolerably strong
proof that the creation of our own species is a comparatively recent event,
and one posterior (generally speaking) to all the great natural
transactions chronicled by geology.
[ Robert Chambers,
Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation, 1st edition, 1844; James Secord,
ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 134-144. ]
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