Chapter III: Part 3

Such was the general condition of theoretical biology about the beginning of the present century. In the meantime those who were dealing with the empyrical or experimental side of these problems were seeking for the causes of and the rules for variation. All living things vary from one generation to another; the question was, Why do they vary? and do these variations really represent new characters comparable to new species in the making? or are they, so to speak, but an elastic reaction of the internal vital elasticity of the organism, all the while latent and only seeking a favorable expression, to return again under other conditions to the former type?

The effort to reduce these variations to law and system was pursued by thousands of investigators, with varying but at all times perplexing and disappointing results. But in the year 1900 the scientific world awoke to the surprising fact that a patient obscure investigator had already solved most of the puzzles of variation and heredity some thirty-five years before. Gregor Mendel, born a peasant boy, trained as a monk, and afterwards appointed Abbot of Brünn, had in the year 1865 published the results of his experiments in breeding, which had been ignored or forgotten until rediscovered in 1900 by de Vries and two others simultaneously. From this point Mendelism, as it is now called, has steadily gained ground, until at the present time it can be said to be the dominating conception among biologists the world over regarding the problems of heredity.

Mendel worked chiefly with peas, crossing different varieties. In his methods of investigation he differed from all previous investigators in concentrating his attention upon a single pair of alternative or contrasted characters at a time, and observing how these alternative characters are transmitted.

Thus when he crossed a tall with a dwarf, giving attention to this pair of contrasted characters alone, he found that all the first hybrid generation were talls, with no dwarfs and no intermediates. Accordingly he called the tall character _dominant_, and the dwarf character _recessive_, and a pair of contrasted characters which act in this way are now called _factors_ or sometimes called _unit characters_. But on allowing these hybrids to cross-fertilize one another in the usual way, Mendel found that in the second generation of hybrids there were _always_ _three talls to one dwarf_ out of every four. Further experiments proved that these dwarfs of the second hybrid generation _always bred true_, that is, one out of four; and that one out of the remaining talls always bred true, making another quarter of the total; while the remaining fifty per cent. proved to be mixed tails, always acting as did the original hybrids, splitting up in the next generation in the same arithmetical proportion as before.

Accordingly, if we confine our study to the two contrasted characters, tallness and dwarfness, we see that just three kinds of peas exist, namely, dwarfs which breed true, talls which breed true, and talls which always give the same definite proportion of talls and dwarfs among their descendants. Innumerable experiments which have since been made with other pairs of characters have demonstrated that this same mathematical proportion holds good throughout the whole world of plants and animals;[25] and hence this astonishing result is now called Mendel's Law, and is regarded as the most important discovery in biology in several generations.

[Footnote 25: When dealing with only a few individual cases, we do not always find them to come out in such exact proportion; but when the number of examples is large, the proportion is so close to these figures that the exceptions can be entirely neglected as probably due to error of some kind.]

There are two distinct kinds of Andalusian fowls, one pure bred black, the other pure bred white with slight dashes of black here and there. When these are mated, no matter which color is the father or the mother, the next or hybrid generation are always a queer mixture of black and white called by fanciers blue. When these blues are interbred, one-quarter of their offspring will be white, which will prove to breed true ever afterwards, one-quarter will be black that will breed true, and fifty per cent. will be blue which will break up in the next generation in the very same way as before. In this case neither white nor black character is dominant, and accordingly we have a blending of both in the first hybrid generation.

In guinea pigs, black color has been found to be dominant over white, rough coat over smooth coat, and short hair over long hair. These remarkable results following from an experimental trial of Mendelism have stimulated hosts of investigators in all parts of the world, until now many varieties of plants and animals have been studied for many successive generations, already, building up a considerable literature dealing with the subject.

Perhaps the most extensive and exact series of experiments along this line have been carried on by Thomas Hunt Morgan and his assistants, of Columbia University. For over five years they have been breeding the wild fruit fly (_Drosophila ampelophila_), during which time they have originated and observed over a hundred and twenty-five new types that breed true according to Mendel's laws. Every part of the body has been affected by one or another of these mutations. The wings have been shortened, or changed in shape, or made to disappear entirely. The eyes have been changed in color or entirely eliminated. And each of these wonderful variations was brought about not gradually, but at _a single step_.

Professor Morgan grows justifiably sarcastic in contrasting these demonstrated laboratory facts with the armchair theories that have so long and so harmfully dominated biological studies. A quotation from him will not be out of place at this point.

"I may recall in this connection that wingless flies also arose in our cultures by a single mutation. We used to be told that wingless insects occurred on desert islands because those insects that had the best developed wings had been blown out to sea. Whether this is true or not, I will not pretend to say; but at any rate wingless insects may also arise, not through a slow process of elimination, but at a single step.... Formerly we were taught that eyeless animals arose in caves. This case shows that they may also arise suddenly in glass milk bottles, by a change in a single factor."[26]

[Footnote 26: "A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," p. 67.]

We need not be particularly concerned here with the theoretical explanations of these facts offered in terms of the microscopic or even the infra-microscopic components of the germ cells. Morgan seems to make out a strong case for the theory that the chromosomes found in the nucleus are the real ultimate units that carry the hereditary factors. But he is quite decided in the opinion that these hereditary factors are fixed, and are not changed from generation to generation either by environment or by selection.[27] The important thing for us in this connection is to get a clear idea of the results following from an application of Mendel's laws to the old, old problem of the origin of species, incidentally noticing how the theory associated with Darwin's name now looks in the light of these new facts.

[Footnote 27: In human beings it has been found that the effects of alcoholism and of syphilis are indeed transmitted according to Mendelian law, being the two solitary examples of diseased conditions that are thus transmitted. But they are so plainly pathologic phenomena that there is little temptation for the advocates of Lamarckianism to use them as proofs of their theory.]

We have hitherto been considering the results worked out by Mendel with but one pair of contrasted characters or factors. But Mendel studied the relation of other characters of the pea, and found among other results that smooth seeds are dominant to wrinkled seeds, colored seeds dominant to white, yellow color dominant to green, etc. But when a combination of _two_ factors in each parent are put into contrast by cross breeding, two wholly original forms (as they seemed) were sometimes produced, and it looked as if these new kinds were really analogous to new species.

For example, he crossed tall yellow peas with dwarf green peas, with the result that the first hybrid generation turned out to be all tall yellows. However, in the second hybrid generation they split up according to the law as already stated, modified by the additional complication brought into the problem by the additional pair of factors. For out of every sixteen plants there were nine tall yellows, three _dwarf yellows_, three _tall greens_, and one dwarf green. It is evident that these tall greens and dwarf yellows are really new forms; and further experiments proved that they can be separated out or segregated and grown as pure forms which thereafter breed true. Thus we have a very important result for the breeder, for it enables him to work to a definite aim and combine certain desirable characters into a single form.

The term _mutation_, as already intimated, has been given to this process of producing new varieties in this way. The kinds so produced are termed _mutants_, and at first they were hailed by enthusiastic scientists as "elementary species." De Vries in particular gave much publicity to this idea; for he thought he had really produced a new kind comparable in every respect to a true species as produced by nature among wild plants. But the enthusiasm with which this applied result of Mendel's Law was at first hailed by biologists has gradually subsided; for it has been found that though these new forms will breed true under certain conditions, they are nevertheless _cross-fertile with the original forms_, and thus the circle can be _completed back again_ by a return to the parent form, from which the new "species" can again be produced at will with the same mathematical exactness as before.

III

Where then are we?

Clearly we have not really produced any new species in any correct sense of the word. If we have produced new forms that breed true and that are seemingly just as deserving of the rank of distinct species as many now listed in scientific books, it only shows that our lists are sadly at fault, and that they are not all species that are called species. These experiments merely indicate that _the parent form possesses more potential characters than it can give expression to in a single individual form_, some of them being necessarily latent or hidden, and that when these latent ones show themselves they must do so at the expense of others which become latent or hidden in their turn. This _vital elasticity_, as it may be termed, or the vital rebound under definite conditions, is indeed a prime characteristic of the species just as it is of the individual; but like that of the individual the vital elasticity of the species is strictly bounded by comparatively narrow limits beyond which we have never seen a single type pass under either natural or artificial conditions. Mutations can be made according to Mendel's Law; but when we have made them once _we can always be sure of producing the_ _very same mutants again in the very same way_, as surely as we produce a definite chemical compound; and when we have made it _we can always resolve it at will back into its original form_, just as we can a chemical compound. And so, where is the evolution? or how do these facts throw any light on the problem of the origin of species, any more than chemical compounds throw light on the origin of the elements? Obviously in biology as in chemistry we are only working in a circle, merely marking time.

And the bearing of these facts on the other problem of the transmission of acquired characters is quite obvious. Mendelism provides no place for any such transmission. Mendel's Law is sometimes called the law of _alternative inheritance_, thus embodying in its name the thought that offspring may show the characters possessed by one parent or by the other, but that it cannot develop any characters whatever which were not manifest or latent in the ancestry. Changes in the environment during the embryonic stage, it is true, seem sometimes to be registered in the growing form; but it has never yet been proved that these induced changes can ever amount to a unit character or genetic factor that will maintain itself and segregate as a distinct factor after hybridization. Ancestry alone furnishes the material for the factor, and no amount of induced change can get itself registered in the organism so as to come into this charmed circle of ancestral characters which alone seem to be passed on to posterity.

A quotation from Bateson ought to set this point at rest:

"The essence of the Mendelian principle is very easily expressed. It is, first, that in great measure the properties of organisms are due to the presence of distinct, detachable elements [factors], separately transmitted in heredity; and secondly, that _the parent cannot pass on to offspring an element, and consequently the corresponding property, which it does not itself possess_."[28]

[Footnote 28: _Scientific American_ Sup., January 3, 1914.]

Heredity we now see is a method of analysis, and the facts brought to light by Mendelism help us very much toward an understanding of living matter. Especially does it help us to understand the complexity underlying the facts of heredity, which until now have seemed so strange and capricious. As Professor Punnett of Cambridge remarks:

"Constitutional differences of a radical nature may be concealed beneath an apparent identity of external form. Purple sweet peas from the same pod, indistinguishable in appearance and of identical ancestry, may yet be fundamentally different in their constitution. From one may come purples, reds, and whites; from another only purples and reds; from another purples and whites alone; whilst a fourth will breed true to purple. Any method of investigation which fails to take account of the radical differences of constitution which may underlie external similarity, must necessarily be doomed to failure. Conversely, we realize to-day that individuals identical in constitution may yet have an entirely different ancestral history. From the cross between two fowls with rose and pea combs, each of irreproachable pedigree for generations, come single combs in the second generation, _and these singles are precisely similar in their behavior to singles bred from strains of unblemished ancestry_. In the ancestry of the one is to be found no single over a long series of years; in the ancestry of the other nothing but singles occurred. The creature of given constitution may often be built up in many ways, but once formed it will behave like others of the same constitution."[29]

[Footnote 29: Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XVIII, p. 119.]

IV

Vanished at last are the old theories of gradual changes in species perpetuated and accumulated by natural selection until at last wholly new forms have in this way been produced. True variations are now seen to be confined within well-marked and rather narrow limits, within which ordinary variations may occur, perhaps induced by environment. These fluctuating variations grade off into one another on all sides, and their differences _can_ be plotted on a frequency curve; but the very important thing for us to remember is that these fluctuating variations _cannot be transmitted._ Beyond these fluctuating variations come the unit characters or factors, which are distinct from each other, or "discontinuous," to use the technical term, and which therefore _cannot be plotted on a frequency curve_. These factors are not modified in the least by the environment, and their peculiarities are faithfully transmitted in heredity with all the precision of chemical law. But even these factors are all within the bounds of the species. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that either natural or artificial devices have originated a single genetic factor that was not all the time potentially latent in the ancestry, capable of being produced at will by the proper combination.

It is a universal law of living things that all forms left to themselves tend to degenerate. The necessity for continuous artificial selection in the sugar beet, in Sea Island cotton, in corn, in Jersey and Holstein cattle, in trotting horses, proves this universal tendency to degenerate.[30] Natural selection in a somewhat similar way tends to postpone this degeneracy by killing off the "unfit," but selection either artificial or natural cannot originate anything new, and its results are here displayed merely among the small fluctuating variations mentioned above. Even among the real genetic factors it may show itself by allowing some to survive alone; but as no combination of diverse factors can originate anything really new, its field for operation among these factors is extremely limited. Among species also it is operative, killing off some and allowing others to survive. But neither among fluctuations, among factors, nor yet among species can selection originate anything new.

[Footnote 30: The following represents the consensus of scientific opinion regarding the lessons to be drawn from the phenomena of our improved races of domesticated plants and animals:

"One need not be a pessimist to assert the actual evidence thus far obtained indicates that the supposed progress made in the improvement of domesticated animals and plants is nothing more than the sorting out of pure lines, and thus represents no advancement."--Prof. L.B. Walton, _Science_, April 3, 1914.]

Nor is there any other method known to modern science by means of which new factors can be originated which were not potentially latent in the ancestry. The much heralded new "species" of de Vries and others are now known to be merely new factors cropping out;[31] for though they remain constant and breed true, they obey Mendel's Law when crossed with their parental forms, and hence are merely the result of some new combination of factors which can be reproduced at will by using the same method of combination and segregation. The real scientific test for any form supposed to be a new "species" would be twofold: (1) to show that some new character had been added which no ancestor ever possessed; and (2) to show that this new character will breed true under all circumstances of hybridization and not merely segregate as a unit character or mere analytic variety after hybridization. It is almost superfluous to say that no "new species" originating in modern times has ever justified itself under these tests.

[Footnote 31: Some of our leading biologists are now disposed to grow somewhat humorous when speaking of this mutation theory of de Vries, as may be illustrated by the following:

"The mutation theory of de Vries appears accordingly to lag useless on the biological stage, and may apparently be now relegated to the limbo of discarded hypotheses.... The present refutation has been undertaken in the interest of biological progress in this country. It is now high time, so far as the so-called mutation hypothesis, based on the conduct of the evening primrose in cultures, is concerned, that the younger generation of biologists should take heed lest the primrose path of dalliance lead them imperceptibly into the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire."--Prof. Edw. C. Jeffrey (Harvard), in _Science_, April 3, 1914.]

In conclusion it may be remarked that biologists do not claim to have solved all the problems connected with heredity and variation. But the general results taught us by Mendelism are now established beyond controversy. Led by the German biologists, the leading scientists of the world had already acknowledged that "pure" Darwinism or natural selection cannot explain the origin of new organs or new forms. And now Mendelism destroys the other supposed foundation for biological evolution, by showing that small variations cannot be accumulated into large differences equal in value to a unit character or a new species. Thus the whole foundation of biological evolution has been completely undermined by these new discoveries; and were it not for the wide-spread credence the evolutionary theory has already received, and the intellectual momentum it has acquired tending to carry it on by its inertia into the future, it could be only a very short time now before the elaborate treatises attempting to orientate with it all the facts of religion and history would have to be consigned to the shelves labeled, "Of Historic Interest." For as Bateson remarked in his recent address as President before the British Association at Melbourne, Australia, the new knowledge of heredity shows that whatever evolution there is occurs by loss of factors and not by gain, and that in this way the progress of science is "destroying much that till lately passed for gospel."[32]

[Footnote 32: In commenting on these views of Bateson, Prof. S.C. Holmes, of the University of California, well speaks of them as "an illustration of _the bankruptcy of present evolutionary theory."--Science_, September 3, 1915.]

V

Let us sum up the situation. We began this chapter with the question, Have new kinds of plants and animals originated in modern times comparable in all essential respects with the idea of true species?

The answer of modern science is reluctantly obtained, but it is a negative. De Vries and others have indeed originated new kinds that were loudly hailed as new species, and are doubtless as deserving of specific rank as many already listed for years in the treatises of specialists. Indeed there is every reason to believe that almost countless numbers of our taxonomic species have originated from common ancestral originals. But as these so-called species are now known to be freely or moderately cross fertile with other related species, their hybrids following the ordinary laws of Mendelian inheritance, we see that they are not true species but mere analytic varieties.

In short, we now know that our taxonomic classifications have been marked off on altogether too narrow lines. This has tended greatly to confuse the question at issue. But from our enlarged views of the laws and nature of heredity and variation, as well as from the original intent of the term _species_ as defined by the great scientist who originated it, the verdict of an impartial investigator must be that we have never seen a new species originate by any natural or artificial method since the dawn of scientific observation.

Here again we find the record of Creation confirmed; for the failure of the thousands of modern investigators to originate genuine new species proves that in this respect also Creation is not now going on. And all the analogies from the origin of matter, of energy, of life, and from the laws of the reproduction of cells, indicate that we have at last found rock bottom truth regarding the vexed question of the origin of species. So far as science can observe and record, each living thing on earth, in air, in water, reproduces "after its kind."

VII

GEOLOGY AND ITS LESSONS

I

In all the previous chapters I have not been giving any very new facts or any discoveries of my own. True, my conclusions from the facts may seem novel; but in general I have been giving merely facts which are almost universally acknowledged by educated men. The conservation laws of matter and of energy, the impassable gulf between the living and the not-living, the laws governing cell multiplication, are matters of common knowledge and will be found in the appropriate college text-books throughout the civilized world. Even the facts which I have presented regarding variation and heredity are admitted in one way or another by practically all biologists. But in following our general subject into the field of geology, I shall be obliged to present some comprehensive truths and general conclusions which are not so widely acknowledged, because only recently brought to light. However, as these facts and conclusions may seem very new and strange to many, I shall endeavor to build up my argument wholly on the recorded observations of the very highest authorities rather than on my own unsupported testimony; though for the sake of brevity I shall be obliged to refer the reader to my "Fundamentals of Geology" (1913) for some of the details.

One of the great outstanding ideas of geology as usually taught is that life has been on the globe for many millions of years, that in fact there has been a graded succession of different types of life in a well defined invariable order, from the lower and more generalized to the higher and more specialized. Quite obviously this succession of life was antagonistic to the former views of a literal Creation; and only on this supposed fact as an outline has the modern theory of biological evolution been built up. For if geology cannot furnish the most unquestionable proof that life has occurred in a very definite and invariable order, what is the use of talking about the development of one form of life into another by a gradual process of evolution?

One of the highest scientific authorities in America, Prof. Thomas Hunt Morgan, of Columbia University, has recently said, "The direct evidence furnished by fossil remains is by all odds the strongest evidence that we have in favor of organic evolution."[33] Accordingly we purpose to examine carefully what this by all odds "strongest evidence" is like.

[Footnote 33: "A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," p. 24.]

II

As with some of the other facts with which we have had to deal in previous chapters, a correct understanding of the questions involved can best be obtained by examining the history of the development of the science.

The first man with whom we need to concern ourselves is A.G. Werner, a teacher of mineralogy in the University of Freiberg, Germany. For three hundred years his ancestors had been connected with mining work, and he, though possessing little general education, knew about all that was then known regarding mineralogy and petrology. He wrote no books; but by his enthusiastic teaching he gathered as students and sent out as evangelists hundreds of devoted young scientists who rapidly spread his theories through all the countries of Europe.

"Unfortunately," says Zittel, "Werner's field observations were limited to a small district, the Erz Mountains and the neighboring parts of Saxony and Bohemia. And his chronological scheme of formations was founded on the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow confines."[34]

[Footnote 34: "History of Geology," p. 59.]

Werner had found the granites, limestones, sandstones, schists, etc., occurring in a certain relative order in his native country; and he drew the very remarkable conclusion that this was the _normal_ order in which these various rocks would invariably be found in all parts of the world, on the theory that this was the order in which these different rocks had been formed in the beginning, great layers of these different rocks having originally been spread completely around the globe one outside another like the coats of an onion. With this as a major premise, it is not surprising that he and his enthusiastic disciples "were as certain of the origin and sequence of the rocks as if they had been present at the formation of the earth's crust."[35]

[Footnote 35: A. Geikie, "Founders of Geology," p. 112.]

The amusement with which this onion-coat theory is now regarded is hardly appropriate in view of its universal vogue among geologists about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in view of the further fact that a very similar and only slightly modified substitute theory has been universally taught for three-quarters of a century _and still prevails_. The modern form of the theory substitutes onion-coats of fossiliferous rocks for onion-coats of mineral and lithological characters; and a brief consideration of this theory is now in order.

About the time that various geologists here and there were finding rocks in positions that could not be explained in terms of Werner's theory, William Smith (1769-1839) in England and the great Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) in France found characteristic fossils occurring in various strata; and under their teachings it was not long before the fossils were considered the best guide in determining the relative sequence of the rocks. The familiar idea of world-enveloping strata as representing successive ages was not discarded; but instead of Werner's successive ages of limestone making, sandstone making, etc., these new investigators taught that there were successive ages of invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, and mammals, these creatures having registered their existence in rocky strata which thus by hypothesis completely encircled the globe one outside another.

It is true that early in the nineteenth century Sir Charles Lyell and others tried to disclaim this absurd and unscientific inheritance from Werner's onion-coats; but modern geology has never yet got rid of its essential and its chief characteristic idea, for all our text-books still speak of various successive ages _when only certain types of life prevailed all over the globe_. Hence it is that Herbert Spencer caustically remarks: "Though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists."[36] Hence it is that Whewell, in his "History of the Inductive Sciences," refuses to acknowledge that in geology any real advance has yet been made toward a stable science like those of astronomy, physics, and chemistry. "We hardly know," he says, "whether the progress is begun. The history of physical astronomy almost commences with Newton, and few persons will venture to assert that the Newton of geology has yet appeared."[37] Hence it is that T.H. Huxley declares, "In the present condition of our knowledge and of _our methods_, one verdict,--'_not proven and not provable'--must be recorded against all grand hypotheses of the palæontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe."[38] And hence it is that Sir Henry H. Howorth, a member of the British House of Commons and the author of three exhaustive works on the Glacial theory, declares, "It is a singular and notable fact, that while most other branches of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning, _the science of geology still remains imprisoned in a priori_ theories."[39]

[Footnote 36: "Illustr. of Univ. Prog.," p. 343.]

[Footnote 37: Vol. II, p.580.]

[Footnote 38: "Discourses," pp. 279-288.]

[Footnote 39: "The Glacial Nightmare," Preface, vii.]

And thus the matter remains even to-day, in this second decade of the twentieth century. _Geology has never yet been regenerated_, as have all the other sciences, by being delivered from the caprice of subjective speculations and _a priori_ theories and being placed on the secure basis of objective and demonstrable fact, in accordance with the principles of that inductive method of investigation which was instituted by Bacon and which has become so far universal in the other sciences that it is everywhere known as the scientific method. In accordance with this method, theories in all the other sciences are always kept well subordinated to facts; and whenever unequivocal facts are found manifestly contradicting a theory no matter how venerable, the theory must go to make way for the facts. In other words, the theoretical parts of the various other sciences are always kept revised from time to time, to keep them in line with the new discoveries that have been made. There has been no lack of astonishing discoveries of new facts in geology during the past half century or so, while all the other sciences have been making such astonishing progress. _But for over seventy five years geology has not made a single advance movement in its theoretical aspects_; indeed, in all its important general principles it has scarcely changed in a hundred years. I shall leave it to the reader to judge whether this is a case of almost miraculous perfection from the beginning, or of arrested development.

III

Of the _three_ general postulates or _a priori_ assumptions of this curiously out-of-date mediæval science, namely, (1) Uniformity, (2) the Cooling globe theory, and (3) the theory of the Successive Ages, the first two have already been examined and found wanting by other investigators, and have been allowed to lapse into a sort of honored disuse, though their memory is still reverently cherished in all the text-books of the science. The "Challenger" Expedition dissipated most of the myths that had long been taught regarding the deep waters of the ocean; and Professor Suess has disposed of the closely related myth about the coasts of the continents being constantly on the seesaw up and down. These two discoveries, with others that might be mentioned, dispose of Lyell's theory of uniformity. Lord Kelvin and the other physicists dissipated the idea of a molten interior of the earth. Hence, because these other false hypotheses have already in a measure been disposed of, as well as for the sake of brevity, I shall here discuss only the _third_ of the prime postulates of the current system of geology, namely the theory of Successive Ages. And when we have adjusted this aspect of the science of geology to the facts of the rocks as made known to us by modern discoveries, we shall find little in this science out of harmony with the older view of a literal Creation as taught in the Bible and as already confirmed by the other branches of science which we have been examining.

There are _five_ leading arguments against the reality of these successive ages. Four of them must be dismissed here by a brief summary of the facts as we know them to-day, referring the reader to the author's larger work, where detailed evidence is given for each. The _fifth_ series of facts I shall give here in more detail, though of course even this must be but an outline of what is given elsewhere.

1. In the earlier days of the theory of successive ages it was taught that only certain kinds of fossils were to be found _at the bottom_ of the series, or next to the Primitive or Archæan. This feature of the theory was demanded by the supposed universal spread of one type of life all around the globe in the earliest age. But it is now known that the so-called "oldest" fossiliferous rocks occur only in detached patches over the globe, while other or "younger" kinds are just as likely to be found on the Primitive or next to the Archæan. Not only may any kind of fossiliferous rocks occur next to the Archæan, but even the "youngest" may be so metamorphosed and crystalline as to resemble exactly in this respect the so-called "oldest" rocks. On the other hand some of the very "oldest" rocks may, like the Cambrian strata around the Baltic and in some parts of the United States, consist of "muds scarcely indurated and sands still incoherent."[40]

[Footnote 40: J.A. Howe; Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. II, p. 86. Cambridge Edition.]

All this means that many facts regarding the _position_ of the strata as well as regarding their _consolidation_ contradict the theory of successive ages.

2. Many of the rivers of the world completely ignore the alleged varying ages of the rocks in the different parts of their course, and treat them all as if of the same age or as if they began sawing at them all at the same time. This is true of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Danube in Europe, the Sutlej of India, and the upper part of the Colorado in America, not to mention others. The old strand lines around all the continents act in the very same way, ignoring the varying ages of the rocks they happen to meet; as is also true of nearly all the great faults or fissures which are of more than local extent. The ore veins of the various minerals are about as likely to be found in Tertiary or Mesozoic as in the Palæozoic. A very similar lesson is to be learned from the fossils found lying exposed on the deep ocean bottom; for they are about as likely to be Palæozoic or Mesozoic as Tertiary.

From these facts we conclude that practically all the great natural chronometers of the earth seem to treat the fossiliferous rocks as if they are _all of about the same age_, completely disregarding the distinctions in age founded on the fossils.

3. According to the present chronological arrangement of the rocks, very many genera, often whole tribes of animals, are found as fossils only in the oldest rocks, and _have skipped all the others_, though found in comparative abundance in our modern world. Very many others have skipped from the Mesozoic down, while still others skip large _parts_ of the series of successive ages.

These absurdities would all be avoided by acknowledging that the current distinctions as to the ages of the fossils are purely artificial, and that one fossil is intrinsically just as old or as young as another.

4. It is now known that any kind of "young" beds whatsoever, Mesozoic, Tertiary, or even Pleistocene, may be found in such _perfect conformability_ on some of the very oldest beds over wide stretches of country that "the vast interval of time intervening is unrepresented either by deposition or erosion"; while in some instances these age-separated formations so closely resemble one another in structure and in mineralogical make-up that, "were it not for fossil evidence, one would naturally suppose that a single formation was being dealt with" (McConnell); and these conditions are "not merely local, but persistent over wide areas" (A. Geikie), so that the "numerous examples" (Suess) of these conditions "may well be cause for astonishment" (Suess).

A still more astonishing thing from the standpoint of the current theories is that these conformable relations of incongruous strata are often _repeated over and over again in the same vertical section_, the same kind of bed reappearing alternately with others of an entirely different "age," that is, appearing "as if _regularly interbedded"_ (A. Geikie) with them, in a manifestly undisturbed series of strata.

Here again we have a very formidable series of facts whose gravamen is directed wholly against the artificial distinctions in age between the different groups of fossils; and their argument is an eloquent plea that the fossils are neither older nor younger but all of a similar age.

5. Our last fact demands a somewhat more extended consideration; but it may be stated in advance briefly as follows:

In very numerous cases and over hundreds and even thousands of square miles, the conformable conditions specified in the previous fact are exactly reproduced _upside down_; that is, very "old" rocks occur with just as much appearance of natural conformability on top of very "young" rocks, the area in some instances covering many hundreds of square miles, and in one particular instance in Montana and Alberta covering about five or six thousand square miles of area.

The first notable example of this phenomenon was discovered at Glarus, Switzerland, a good many years ago; since which time this locality has become a classic in geological literature, and has called out many ponderous monographs in German and French by such men as Heim, Schardt, Lugeon, Rothpletz, and Bertrand. This example, which was first (1870) called the Glarner Double Fold by Escher and Heim, is now universally called a nearly flat-lying "thrust fault," in accordance with the explanations since adopted of similar phenomena elsewhere. Without obtruding unnecessary technicalities upon my non-professional readers, I may quote the words of Albert Heim as to the conditions as now recognized in these parts:

"These flat-lying faults, of which those at Glarus were the first to be discovered, _are a universal_ _phenomenon_ in the Northern and Central Alps."[41]

[Footnote 41: "Der Bau der Schweizeralpen," p. 17.]

The favorite method of explaining these conditions has slightly changed within recent years, as already remarked. For whereas the classic example at Glarus was at first spoken of as a double fold-in from both sides toward the Sernf Valley, this is now universally spoken of as a "thrust fault," with the rocks all pushed one way. Incidentally it may be noted that this very fact that what was long regarded as two completely overturned folds is now spoken of as one flat-lying thrust fault, is _prima facie_ evidence that there is here _no physical proof_ of any real overturning of the strata, such as we do find on a very small scale in true folded rocks. The latter can usually be measured in yards, feet, or inches; while in this example at Glarus the area involved would be measured in many miles, and in some very similar examples to be presently mentioned from America the measurement could best be made in degrees of latitude and longitude or in arcs of the earth's circumference. In these larger examples it is manifestly impossible that there should be any physical evidence sufficient to indicate a huge earth movement of this character, especially when, as is usually the case, both the upper and the lower strata are _quite uninjured in appearance_. No; the fossils are here in the wrong order, that is all. And so, to save the long established doctrines of a very definite order of successive life-forms, this theory of a "thrust fault" is offered as the best available explanation. As Dr. Albert Heim himself once expressed it very naively in a letter to the present writer, that the strata over these large areas are in a position manifestly at direct disagreement with the received order of the fossils, "is a fact which can be clearly seen,--only we know not yet how to explain it in a mechanical way."

An example in the Highlands of Scotland was about the next to be discovered. Here, as Dana says, "a mass of the oldest crystalline rocks, many miles in length from north to south, was thrust at least ten miles westward over younger rocks, part of the latter fossiliferous;" and he further declares, "the thrust planes _look like planes of bedding, and were long so considered._"[42]

Sir Archibald Geikie and others had at first described these beds as naturally conformable; and when at length they were convinced that the fossils would not permit this explanation, Geikie gives us some very picturesque details as to how natural they look.

The thrust planes, he says, are with much difficulty distinguished "from ordinary stratification planes, like which they have been plicated, faulted, and denuded. Here and there, as a result of denudation, a portion of one of them appears capping a hilltop. One almost refuses to believe that the little outlier on the summit does not lie normally on the rocks below it, but on a nearly horizontal fault by which it has been moved into its place."

Of a similar example in Ross Shire he declares:

"Had these sections been planned for the purpose of deception, they could not have been more skilfully devised, ... and no one coming first to the ground would suspect that what appears to be a normal stratigraphical sequence is not really so."[43]

[Footnote 42: "Manual," pp. 111, 534.]

[Footnote 43: _Nature_, November 13, 1884, pp. 29-35.]

Here again we have unequivocal testimony from the most competent of observers that there is _no physical evidence whatever_ to lead any one to say that a ponderous scale of the earth's crust was really pushed up on top of other portions, as this makeshift theory of "thrust faults" involves. The _fossils are here in the wrong order_, just as in the case at Glarus; that is all. The facts seem to be a flat contradiction to the theory of definite successive ages, and to save the theory this explanation of a "thrust fault" is invented, though there is absolutely no physical evidence of any disturbance of the strata.

Our next stopping place is in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia. Here we have the Carboniferous strata dipping gently to the southeast, like an ordinary low monocline, _under_ Cambrian or Lower Silurian, one of these so-called faults having a reported length of 375 miles,[44] while in another instance the upper strata are said to have been pushed about eleven miles in the direction of the "thrust."[45] These conditions, we are told, "have provoked the wonder of the most experienced geologists,"[46] because of the perfectly natural appearance of the surfaces of the strata affected; or as this same writer puts it, "The mechanical effort is great beyond comprehension, but the effect upon the rocks is inappreciable," and "the fault dip is often parallel to the bedding of the one or the other series of strata."[47] Which means, in other words, that these "thrust planes" _look just like ordinary planes of bedding between conformable strata_.

[Footnote 44: Bailey Willis, Geol. Survey, Report, Vol. 13, p. 228.]

[Footnote 45: C.W. Hayes, _Bull. Geol. Soc_., Vol. 2, pp. 141-154.]

[Footnote 46: Willis, _op. cit_., p. 228.]

[Footnote 47: Willis, _op. cit_., p. 227.]

The Rocky Mountains furnish examples of many kinds of natural phenomena on the very largest scale, and those of the sort here under consideration are no exception to this rule. For here we have an immense area east of the main divide, extending from the middle of Montana up to the Yellowhead Pass in Alberta, or over 350 miles long, where the tops of the mountains consist of jointed limestones or argillites of Algonkian or pre-Cambrian "age," resting on soft Cretaceous shales. Often the greater part of the mass of a range will consist of these "older" and harder rocks, which by the erosion of the soft underlying shales are left standing in picturesque, rectangular, cathedral-like masses, easily recognizable as far off as they can be seen. And the almost entire absence of trees or other vegetation helps one to trace out the relationship of these formations over immense areas with little or no difficulty.

In the latitude of the Bow River, near the Canadian Pacific main line, there is a long narrow valley of these Cretaceous beds some sixty-five miles long, called the Cascade Trough, with of course pre-Cambrian mountains on each side. Somewhat further south there are two of these Cretaceous valleys parallel to one another, and in some places _three_; while just south of the fiftieth parallel of latitude, at Gould's Dome, there are actually _five parallel ranges_ of these Palæozoic mountains, _with four Cretaceous valleys in between_, one of these valleys, the Crow's Nest Trough, being ninety-five miles long.

But we ought to take a nearer view of these wonderful conditions. A convenient point of approach will be just east of Banff, Alberta, near Kananaskis Station, where the Fairholme Mountain has been described by R.G. McConnell of the Canadian Survey. The latter remarks with amazement on the perfectly natural appearance of these Algonkian limestones resting in seeming conformability on Cretaceous shales, and says that the line of separation between them, called in the theory the "thrust plane," resembles in all respects an ordinary stratification plane. I quote his language:

"The angle of inclination of its plane to the horizon is _very low_, and in consequence of this its outcrop follows a very sinuous line along the base of the mountains, and _acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations_.

"The best places for examining this fault are at the gaps of the Bow and of the south fork of Ghost River.... The fault plane here is nearly horizontal, and the two formations, viewed from the valley, _appear to succeed one another conformably."[48]

[Footnote 48: Annual Report, 1886, Part D, pp. 33, 34.]

This author adds the further interesting detail that the underlying Cretaceous shales are "very soft," and "have suffered very little by the sliding of the limestone over them."[49]

About a hundred miles further south, but still in Alberta, we have the well-known Crow's Nest Mountain, a lone peak, which consists of these same Algonkian limestones resting on a Cretaceous valley "in a nearly horizontal attitude," as G.M. Dawson says, which "in its structure and general appearance much resembles Chief Mountain,"[50] another detached peak some fifty miles further south, just across the boundary line in Montana.

Chief Mountain has been well described by Bailey Willis,[51] who estimates that the Cretaceous beds underneath this mountain must be 3,500 feet thick; while the so-called "thrust plane is essentially _parallel to the bedding_" of the upper series.[52]

"This apparently is true not only of the segments of thrust surface beneath eastern Flattop, Yellow, and Chief Mountain, but also of the more deeply buried portions which appear to dip with the Algonkian strata into the syncline. While observation is not complete, it may be assumed on a basis of fact that thrust surfaces and bedding are nearly parallel over extensive areas."[53]

[Footnote 49: Report, 1886, Part D, p. 84.]

[Footnote 50: Report, 1885, Part B, p. 67.]

[Footnote 51: _Bull. Geol. Soc._, Vol. 13, pp. 305-352.]

[Footnote 52: _Id_., p. 336.]

[Footnote 53: _Id_., p. 336.]

Quite recently this region has been studied by Marius R. Campbell of the Washington Survey Staff (Bulletin 600), while the part in Alberta has been studied by Rollin T. Chamberlin of Chicago. Much of the vast area involved is not yet well explored; but over it all, so far as it has been fully examined, the same lithological and stratigraphical structures reappear with the persistence of a repeating decimal. And were it not for the exigencies of the theory of Successive Ages, this whole region of some five or six thousand square miles would be considered as only an ordinary example, on a rather large scale, of undisturbed horizontal stratification cut up by erosion into mountains of denudation, with of course occasional instances of minor local disturbances here and there, as would be expected over an area of this extent.

Richards and Mansfield in a recent paper describe the "Bannock Overthrust," some 270 miles long, in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The Carnegie Research recently reported a similar phenomenon about 500 miles long in northern China.

But it would be tiresome to follow these conditions around the world. We have plenty of examples, and we have them described by the foremost of living geologists. What we need to do now is to adopt a true scientific attitude of mind, a mind freed from the hypnotizing influence of the current theories, in order correctly to interpret the facts as we already have them.

_How much of the earth's crust would we have to find_ in this upside down order of the fossils, before we would be convinced that there must be something hopelessly wrong with this theory of Successive Ages which drives otherwise competent observers to throw away their common sense and cling desperately to a fantastic theory in the very teeth of such facts?

The science of geology as commonly taught is truly in a most astonishing condition, and doubtless presents the most peculiar mixture of fact and nonsense to be found in the whole range of our modern knowledge. In any minute study of a particular set of rocks in a definite locality, geology always follows facts and common sense; while in any general view of the world as a whole, or in any correlation of the rocks of one region with those of another region, it follows its absurd, unscientific theories. But wherever it agrees with facts and common sense, it contradicts these absurd theories; and wherever it agrees with these theories, it contradicts facts and common sense. That most educated people still believe its main thesis of _a definite age for each particular kind of fossil_ is a sad but instructive example of the effects of mental inertia.

IV

The reader will find this matter discussed at length in the author's "Fundamentals of Geology"; but here it will be necessary only to draw some very obvious conclusions from the _five facts_ which we have set in opposition to the theory of Successive Ages.

1. The first and absolutely incontrovertible conclusion is that this theory of successive ages must be a gross blunder, in its baleful effects on every branch of modern thought deplorable beyond computation. But it is now perfectly obvious that the geological distinctions as to age between the fossils are fantastic and unjustifiable. No one kind of true fossil can be proved to be older or younger than another intrinsically and necessarily, and the methods of reasoning by which this idea has been supported in the past are little else than a burlesque on modern scientific methods, and are a belated survival from the methods of the scholastics of the Middle Ages.