Chapter III: Fossil Pedigrees (2)

Whenever the appearance of a so-called annectant type is antedated by that of the two forms, which it is supposed to connect, this fact is, naturally, a deathblow to its claim of being the “common ancestor,” even though, from a purely morphological standpoint, it should possess all the requisites of an ancestral type. Commenting upon the statement that a certain genus “is a truly annectant form uniting the Melocrinidae and the Platycrinidae,” Bather takes exception as follows: “The genus in question appeared, so far as we know, rather late in the Lower Carboniferous, whereas both Platycrinidae and Melocrinidae were already established in Middle Silurian time. How is it possible that the far later form should unite these two ancient families? Even a _mésalliance_ is inconceivable.” (_Science_, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 260.)

Certainty, therefore, with respect to the comparative antiquity of the fossiliferous strata is the indispensable presupposition of any palæontological argument attempting to show that there is a gradual approximation of ancient, to modern, types. Yet, of all scientific methods of reckoning, none is less calculated to inspire confidence, none less safeguarded from the abuses of subjectivism and arbitrary interpretation, than that by which the relative age of the sedimentary rocks is determined!

In order to date the strata of any given series with reference to one another, the palæontologist starts with the principle that, in an undisturbed area, the deeper sediments have been deposited at an earlier period than the overlying strata. Such a criterion, however, is obviously restricted in its application to local areas, and is available only at regions of outcrop, where a vertical section of the strata is visibly exposed. To trace the physical continuity, however, of the strata (if such continuity there be) from one continent to another, or even across a single continent, is evidently out of the question. Hence, to correlate the sedimentary rocks of a given region with those of another region far distant from the former, some criterion other than stratigraphy is required. To supply this want, recourse has been had to _index fossils_, which have now come into general use as age-markers and means of stratigraphical correlation, where the criterion of _superposition_ is either absent or inapplicable. Certain fossil types are assumed to be infallibly indicative of certain stratigraphical horizons. In fact, when it comes to a decision as to the priority or posteriority of a given geological formation, index fossils constitute the court of last appeal, and even the evidences of actual stratigraphical sequence and of physical texture itself are always discounted and explained away, whenever they chance to conflict with the presumption that certain fossil forms are typical of certain geological periods. If, for example, the superposed rock contains fossils alleged to be typical of an “earlier” stratigraphic horizon than that to which the fossils of the subjacent rock belong, the former is pronounced to be “older,” despite the fact that the actual stratigraphic order conveys the opposite impression. “We still regard fossils,” says J. W. Judd, “as the ‘medals of creation,’ and certain types of life we take to be as truly characteristic of definite periods as the coins which bear the image and superscription of a Roman emperor or of a Saxon king.” (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 356.) Thus it comes to pass, in the last analysis, that fossils, on the one hand, are dated according to the consecutive strata, in which they occur, and strata, on the other hand, are dated according to the fossils which they contain.

Such procedure, if not actually tantamount to a _vicious circle_, is, to say the least, in imminent danger of becoming so. For, even assuming the so-called empirical generalization, that makes certain fossils typical of certain definitely-aged geological “formations,” to be based upon induction sufficiently complete and analytic to insure certainty, at least, in the majority of instances, and taking it for granted that we are dealing with a case, where the actual evidence of stratigraphy is not in open conflict with that of the index fossils, who does not see that such a system of chronology lends itself only too readily to manipulation of the most arbitrary kind, whenever the pet preconceptions of the evolutionary chronologist are at stake? How, then, can we be sure, in a given case, that a verdict based exclusively on the “evidence” of index fossils will be reliably _objective_? It is to be expected that the evolutionist will refrain from the temptation to give himself the benefit of every doubt? Will there not be an almost irresistible tendency on the part of the convinced transformist to revise the age of any deposit, which happens to contain fossils that, according to his theory, ought not to occur at the time hitherto assigned?

The citation of a concrete example will serve to make our meaning clear. A series of fresh-water strata occur in India known as the Siwalik beds. The formation in question was originally classed as Miocene. Later on, however, as a result, presumably, of the embarrassing discovery of the genus _Equus_ among the fossils of the Upper Siwalik beds, Wm. Blanford saw fit to mend matters by distinguishing the Upper, from the Lower, beds and assigning the former (which contain fossil horses) to the Pliocene period. The title Miocene being restricted by this ingenious step to beds destitute of equine remains, namely the Nahun, or Lower Siwalik, deposits, all danger of the horse proving to be older than his ancestors was happily averted. A mere shifting of the conventional labels, apparently, was amply sufficient to render groundless the fear, to which Professor A. Sedgwick had given expression in the following terms: “The genus _Equus_ appears in the upper Siwalik beds, which have been ascribed to the Miocene age.... If _Equus_ really existed in the Upper Miocene, it was antecedent to some of its supposed ancestors.” (“Students’ Textbook of Zoölogy,” p. 599.) Evidently, the Horse must reconcile himself perforce to the pedigree assigned to him by the American Museum of Natural History; for he is to be given but scant opportunity of escaping it. This classic genealogy has already entailed far too great an expenditure of time, money and erudition to permit of any reconsideration; and should it chance, in the ironic perversity of things, that the Horse has been so inconsiderate as to leave indubitable traces of himself in any formation earlier than the Pliocene, it goes without saying that the formation in question will at once be dated ahead, in order to secure for the “ancestors” that priority which is their due. An elastic criterion like the index fossil is admirably adapted for readjustments of this sort, and the evolutionist who uses it need never fear defeat. The game he plays can never be a losing one, because he gives no other terms than: Heads I win, tails you lose.

In setting forth the foregoing difficulties, we have purposely refrained from challenging the cardinal dogma of orthodox palæontology concerning the unimpeachable time-value of index fossils as age-markers. The force of these considerations, therefore, must be acknowledged even by the most fanatical adherents of the aforesaid dogma. Our forbearance in this instance, however, must not be construed as a confession that the dogma in question is really unassailable. On the contrary, not only is it not invulnerable, but there are many and weighty reasons for rejecting it lock, stock, and barrel.

The palæontological dogma, to which we refer, is reducible to the following tenets: (1) The earth is swathed with fossiliferous strata, in much the same fashion that an onion is covered with a succession of coats, and these strata are universal over the whole globe, occurring always in the same invariable order and characterized not by any peculiar uniformity of external appearance, physical texture, or mineral composition, but solely by peculiar groups of fossil types, which enable us to distinguish between strata of different ages and to correlate the strata of one continent with their counterparts in another continent—“Even the minuter divisions,” says Scott, “the substages and zones of the European Jura, are applicable to the classification of the South American beds.” (“Introduction to Geology,” p. 681.) (2) In determining the relative age of a given geological formation, its characteristic fossils form the exclusive basis of decision, and all other considerations, whether lithological or stratigraphic, are subordinated to this—“The character of the rocks,” says H. S. Williams, “their composition or their mineral contents have nothing to do with settling the question as to the particular system to which the new rocks belong. The fossils alone are the means of correlation.” (“Geological Biology,” pp. 37, 38.)

To those habituated to the common notion that stratigraphical sequence is the foremost consideration in deciding the comparative age of rocks, the following statement of Sir Archibald Geikie will come as a distinct shock: “We may even demonstrate,” he avers, “that in some mountainous ground the strata have been turned completely upside down, if we can show that the fossils in what are now the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them.” (“Textbook,” ed. of 1903, p. 837.) In fact, the palæontologist, H. A. Nicholson, lays it down as a general principle that, wherever the physical evidence (founded on stratigraphy and lithology) is at variance with the biological evidence (founded on the presence of typical fossil organisms), the latter must prevail and the former must be ignored: “It may even be said,” he tells us, “that in any case where there should appear to be a clear and decisive discordance between the physical and the palæontological evidence as to the age of a given series of beds, it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter.” (“Ancient Life History of the Earth,” p. 40.)

George McCready Price, Professor of Geology at a denominational college in Kansas, devotes more than fifty pages of his recent work, “The New Geology” (1923), to an intensely destructive criticism of this dogma of the supremacy of fossil evidence as a means of determining the relative age of strata. To cite Price as an “authority” would, of course, be futile. All orthodox geologists have long since anathematized him, and outlawed him from respectable geological society. Charles Schuchert of Yale refers to him as “a fundamentalist harboring a geological nightmare.” (_Science_, May 30, 1924, p. 487.) Arthur M. Miller of Kentucky University speaks of him as “the man who, while a member of no scientific body and absolutely unknown in scientific circles, has ... had the effrontery to style himself a ‘geologist.’” (_Science_, June 30, 1922, pp. 702, 703.) Miller, however, is just enough to admit that he is well-informed on his subject, and that he possesses the gift of persuasive presentation. “He shows,” says Miller, “a wide familiarity with geological literature, quoting largely from the most eminent authorities in this country and in Europe. Any one reading these writings of Price, which possess a certain charm of literary style, and indicate on the part of the author a gift of popular presentation which makes one regret that it had not been devoted to a more laudable purpose, must constantly marvel at the character of mind of the man who can so go into the literature of the subject and still continue to hold such preposterous opinions.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 702.)

In the present instance, however, our interest centers, not on the unimportant question of his official status in geological circles, but exclusively on the objective validity of his argument against the chronometric value of the index fossil. All citations, therefore, from his work will be supported, in the sequel, by collateral testimony from other authors of recognized standing. It is possible, of course, to inject irrelevant issues. Price, for example, follows Sir Henry Howorth in his endeavor to substitute an aqueous catastrophe for the glaciation of the Quaternary Ice Age, and he adduces many interesting facts to justify his preference for a deluge. But this is neither here nor there; for we are not concerned with the merits of his “new catastrophism.” It is his opportune revival in modern form of the forgotten, but extremely effective, objection raised by Huxley and Spencer against the alleged universality of synchronously deposited fossiliferous sediments, that constitutes our sole preoccupation here. It is Price’s merit to have shown that, in the light of recently discovered facts, such as “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts,” this objection is far graver than it was when first formulated by the authors in question.

Mere snobbery and abuse is not a sufficient answer to a difficulty of this nature, and we regret that men, like Schuchert, have replied with more anger than logic. The orthodox geologist seems unnecessarily petulant, whenever he is called upon to verify or substantiate the foundational principles of lithic chronology. One frequently hears him make the excuse that “geology has its own peculiar method of proof.” To claim exemption, however, from the universal criterions of criticism and logic is a subterfuge wholly unworthy of a genuine science, and, if Price insists on discussing a subject, which the orthodox geologist prefers to suppress, it is the latter, and not the former, who is really reactionary.

Price begins by stating the issue in the form of a twofold question: (1) How can we be sure, with respect to a given fauna (or flora), say the Cambrian, that at one time it monopolized our globe to the complete exclusion of all other typical faunas (or floras), say the Devonian, or the Tertiary, of which it is assumed that they could not, by any stretch of imagination, have been contemporaneous, on either land or sea, with the aforesaid “older” fauna (or flora)? (2) Do the formations (rocks containing fossils) universally occur in such a rigidly invariable order of sequence with respect to one another, as to warrant our being sure of the starting-point in the time-scale, or to justify us in projecting any given local order of succession into distant localities, for purposes of chronological correlation?

His response to the first of these questions constitutes what may be called an aprioristic refutation of the orthodox view, by placing the evolutionary palæontologist in the trilemma: (a) of making the awkward confession that, except within limited local areas, he has no means whatever of distinguishing between a geographical distribution of coëval fossil forms among various habitats and a chronological distribution of fossils among sediments deposited at different times; (b) or of denying the possibility of geographical distribution in the past, by claiming dogmatically that the world during Cambrian times, for example, was totally unlike the modern world, of which alone we have experimental knowledge, inasmuch as it was then destitute of zoölogical provinces, districts, zones, and other habitats peculiar to various types of fauna, so that the whole world formed but one grand habitat, extending over land and sea, for a limited group of organisms made up exclusively of the lower types of life; (c) or of reviving the discredited onion-coat theory of Abraham Werner under a revised biological form, which asserts that the whole globe is enveloped with fossiliferous rather than mineral strata, whose order of succession being everywhere the same enables us to discriminate with precision and certainty between cases of distribution in time and cases of distribution in space.

In his response to the second question, Professor Price adduces numerous factual arguments, which show that the invariable order of sequence postulated by the theory of the time-value of index fossils, not only finds no confirmation in the actual or concrete sequences of fossiliferous rocks, but is often directly contradicted thereby. “Older” rocks may occur above “younger” rocks, the “youngest” may occur in immediate succession to the “oldest,” Tertiary rocks may be crystalline, consolidated, and “old in appearance,” while Cambrian and even pre-Cambrian rocks sometimes occur in a soft, incoherent condition, that gives them the physical appearance of being as young as Pleistocene formations. These exceptions and objections to the “invariable order” of the fossiliferous strata accumulate from day to day, and it is only by means of Procrustean tactics of the most drastic sort that the facts can be brought into any semblance of harmony with the current dogmas, which base geology upon evolution rather than evolution upon geology.

Price, then, proposes for serious consideration the possibility that Cretaceous dinosaurs and even Tertiary mammals may have been living on the land at the same time that the Cambrian graptolites and trilobites were living in the seas. “Who,” he exclaims, “will have the hardihood, the real dogmatism to affirm in a serious way that Cambrian animals and seaweeds were for a long time the only forms of life existing anywhere on earth?” Should we, nevertheless, make bold enough to aver that for countless centuries a mere few of the lower forms of life monopolized our globe, as one universal habitat unpartitioned into particular biological provinces or zones, we are thereupon confronted with two equally unwelcome alternatives. We must either fly in the face of experience and legitimate induction by denying the existence in the past of anything analogous to our present-day geographical distribution of plants and animals into various biological provinces, or be prepared to show by what infallible criterion we are enabled to distinguish between synchronously deposited formations indicative of a geographical distribution according to regional diversity, and consecutively deposited formations indicative of comparative antiquity.

The former alternative does not merit any consideration whatever. The latter, as we shall presently see, involves us in an assumption, for which no defense either aprioristic or factual is available. We can, indeed, distinguish between spatial, and temporal, distribution within the narrow limits of a single locality by using the criterion of superposition; for in regions of outcrop, where one sedimentary rock overlies another, the obvious presumption is that the upper rock was deposited at a later date than the lower rock. But the criterion of superposition is not available for the correlation of strata in localities so distant from each other that no physical evidence of stratigraphic continuity is discernible. Moreover the induction, which projects any local order of stratigraphical sequence into far distant localities on the sole basis of fossil taxonomy, is logically unsound and leads to conclusions at variance with the actual facts. Hence the alleged time-value of index fossils becomes essentially problematic, and affords no basis whatever for scientific certainty.

As previously stated, the sequence of strata is visible only in regions of outcrop, and nowhere are we able to see more than mere parts of two or, at most, three systems associated together in a single locality. Moreover, each set of beds is of limited areal extent, and the limits are frequently visible to the eye of the observer. In any case, their visible extent is necessarily limited. It is impossible, therefore, to correlate the strata of one continent with those of another continent by tracing stratigraphic continuity. Hence, in comparing particular horizons of various ages and in distinguishing them from other horizons over large areas, we are obliged to substitute induction for direct observation. Scientific induction, however, is only valid when it rests upon some universal uniformity or invariable sequence of nature. Hence, to be specific, the assumption that the time-scale based on the European classification of fossiliferous strata is applicable to the entire globe as a whole, is based on the further assumption that we are sure of the universality of fossiliferous stratification over the face of the earth, and that, as a matter of fact, fossils are always and everywhere found in the same order of invariable sequence.

But this is tantamount to reviving, under what Spencer calls “a transcendental form,” the exploded “onion-coat” hypothesis of Werner (1749-1817). Werner conceived the terrestrial globe as encircled with successive mineral envelopes, basing his scheme of universal stratification upon that order of sequence among rocks, which he had observed within the narrow confines of his native district in Germany. His hypothesis, after leading many scientists astray, was ultimately discredited and laughed out of existence. For it finally became evident to all observers that Werner’s scheme did not fit the facts, and men were able to witness with their own eyes the simultaneous deposition, in separate localities, of sediments which differed radically in their mineral contents and texture. Thus it came to pass that this classification of strata according to their mineral nature and physical appearance lost all value as an absolute time-scale, while the theory itself was relegated to the status of a curious and amusing episode in the history of scientific fiascos.

Thanks, however, to Wm. Smith and to Cuvier, the discarded onion-coat hypothesis did not perish utterly, but was rehabilitated and bequeathed to us in a new and more subtle form. Werner’s fundamental idea of the universality of a given kind of deposit was retained, but his mineral strata were replaced by fossiliferous strata, the lithological onion-coats of Werner being superseded by the biological onion-coats of our modern theory. The geologist of today discounts physical appearance, and classifies strata according to their fossil, rather than their mineral, contents, but he stands committed to the same old postulate of universal deposits. He has no hesitation in synchronizing such widely-scattered formations as the Devonian deposits of New York State, England, Germany, and South America. He pieces them all together as parts of a single system of rocks. He has no misgiving as to the universal applicability of the European scheme of stratigraphic classification, but assures us, in the words of the geologist, Wm. B. Scott, that: “Even the minuter divisions, the subdivisions and zones of the European Jura, are applicable to the classification of the South American beds.” (“Introduction to Geology,” p. 681f.) The limestone and sandstone strata of Werner are now things of the past, but, in their stead, we have, to quote the criticism of Herbert Spencer, “groups of formations which everywhere succeed each other in a given order, and are severally everywhere of the same age. Though it may not be asserted that these successive systems are universal, yet it seems to be tacitly assumed that they are so.... Though probably no competent geologist would contend that the European classification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole, yet most, if not all geologists, write as though it were so.... Must we not say that though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists.” (“Illustrations of Universal Progress,” pp. 329-380, ed. of 1890.)

But overlooking, for the moment, the mechanical absurdity involved in the notion of a regular succession of universal layers of sediment, and conceding, for the sake of argument, that the substitution of fossiliferous, for lithological, strata may conceivably have remedied the defects of Werner’s geological time-scale, let us confine ourselves to the one question, which, after all, is of prime importance, whether, namely, without the aid of Procrustean tactics, the actual facts of geology can be brought into alignment with the doctrine of an invariable order of succession among fossil types, and its sequel, the intrinsic time-value of index fossils. The question, in other words, is whether or not a reliable time-scale can be based on the facts of fossiliferous stratification as they are observed to exist in the concrete. Price’s answer is negative, and he formulates several empirical laws to express the concrete facts, on which he bases his contention. The laws and facts to which he appeals may be summarized as follows:

1. The concrete facts of geology do not warrant our singling out any fossiliferous deposit as unquestionably the oldest, and hence we have no reliable _starting-point_ for our time-scale, because:

(_a_) We may lay it down as an empirical law that “any kind of fossiliferous rock (even the ‘youngest’), that is, strata belonging to any of the systems or other subdivisions, may rest directly upon the Archæan or primitive crystalline rocks, without any other so-called ‘younger’ strata intervening; also these rocks, Permian, Cretaceous, Tertiary, or whatever thus reposing directly on the Archæan may be themselves crystalline or wholly metamorphic in texture. And this applies not alone to small points of contact, but to large areas.”

(_b_) Conversely: any kind of fossiliferous strata (even the “oldest”) may not only constitute the surface rocks over wide areas,[8] but may consist of loose, unconsolidated materials, thus in both position and texture resembling the “late” Tertiaries or the Pleistocene—“In some regions, notably in the Baltic province and in parts of the United States,” says John Allen Howe, alluding to the Cambrian rocks around the Baltic Sea and in Wisconsin, “the rocks still retain their original horizontality of deposition, the muds are scarcely indurated, and the sands are incoherent.” (Encycl. Brit., vol. V, p. 86.)

[8] “It is a common occurrence,” says Charles Schuchert, “on
the Canadian Shield to find the Archæozoic formations overlain
by the most recent Pleistocene glacial deposits, and even
these may be absent. It appears as if in such places no rocks
had been deposited, either by the sea or by the forces of the
land, since Archæozoic time, and yet geologists know that the
shield has been variously covered by sheets of sediments formed
at sundry times in the Proterozoic, Palæozoic, and, to a more
limited extent, in the Mesozoic.” (“Textbook of Geology,” ed.
of 1920, II, p. 569.) It may be remarked that, when geologists
“know” such things, they know them in spite of the facts!

A large number of striking instances are cited by Price to substantiate the foregoing rule and its converse. The impression left is that not only is the starting-point of the time-scale in doubt, but that, if we were to judge the age of the rocks by their physical appearance and position, we could not accept the conventional verdicts of modern geology, which makes fossil evidence prevail over every other consideration.

2. When two contiguous strata are parallel to each other, and there is no indication of disturbance in the lower bed, nor any evidence of erosion along the plane of contact, the two beds are said to exhibit conformity, and this is ordinarily interpreted by geologists as a sign that the upper bed has been laid down in immediate sequence to the lower, and that there has been a substantial continuity of deposition, with no long interval during which the lower bed was exposed as surface to the agents of erosion. When such a conformity exists, as it frequently does, between a “recent” stratum, above, and what is said (according to the testimony of the fossils) to be a very “ancient” stratum, below, and though the two are so alike lithologically as to be mistaken for one and the same formation, nevertheless, such a conformity is termed a “non-evident disconformity,” or “deceptive conformity,” implying that, inasmuch as the “lost interval,” representing, perhaps, a lapse of “several million years,” is entirely unrecorded by any intervening deposition, or any erosion, or any disturbance of the lower bed, we should not have suspected that so great a hiatus had intervened, were it not for the testimony of the fossils. Price cites innumerable examples, and sums them up in the general terms of the following empirical law: “Any sort of fossiliferous formation may occur on top of any other ‘older’ fossiliferous formation, with all the physical evidences of perfect conformity, just as if these alleged incongruous or mismated formations had in reality followed one another in quick succession.”

A quotation from Schuchert’s “Textbook of Geology,” (1920), may be given by way of illustration: “The imperfection,” we read, “of the geologic column is greatest in the interior of North America and more so in the north than in the south. This imperfection is in many places very marked, since an entire period or several periods may be absent. With such great breaks in the local sections the natural assumption is that these gaps are easily seen in the sequence of the strata, but in many places the beds lie in such perfect conformity upon one another that the breaks are not noticeable by the eye and can be proved to exist only by the entombed fossils on each side of a given bedding plane.... Stratigraphers are, as a rule, now fully aware of the imperfections in the geologic record, but the rocks of two unrelated formations may rest upon each other with such absolute conformability as to be completely deceptive. For instance, in the Bear Grass quarries at Louisville, Ky., a face of limestone is exposed in which the absolute conformability of the beds can be traced for nearly a mile, and yet within 5 feet of vertical thickness is found a Middle Silurian coral bed overlain by another coral zone of Middle Devonian. The parting between these two zones is like that between any two limestone beds, but this insignificant line represents a stratigraphic hiatus the equivalent of the last third of Silurian and the first of Devonian time. But such disconformities are by no means rare, in fact are very common throughout the wide central basin area of North America.” (_Op. cit._, II, pp. 586-588.)

In such cases, the stratigraphical relations give no hint of any enormous gap at the line of contact. On the contrary, there is every evidence of unbroken sequence, and the physical appearances are as if these supposed “geological epochs” had never occurred in the localities, of which there is question. Everything points to the conclusion that the alleged long intervals of time between such perfectly conformable, and, often, lithologically identical, formations are a pure fiction elaborated for the purpose of bolstering up the dogma of the universal applicability of the European classification of fossiliferous rocks. Why not take the facts as we find them? Why resort to tortuous explanations for the mere purpose of saving an arbitrary time-scale? Why insist on a definite time-value for fossils, when it drives us to the extremity of discrediting the objective evidence of physical facts in deference to the preconceptions of orthodox geology? Were it not for theoretical considerations, these stratigraphic facts would be taken at their face value, and the need of saving the reputation of the fossil as an infallible time index is not sufficiently imperative to warrant so drastic a revision of the physical evidence.

3. The third class of facts militating against the time-value of index fossils, are what Price describes as “deceptive conformities turned upside down,” and what orthodox geology tries to explain away as “thrusts,” “thrust faults,” “overthrusts,” “low-angle faulting,” etc.[9] In instances of this kind we find the accepted order of the fossiliferous strata reversed in such a way that the “younger” strata are conformably overlain by “older” strata, and the “older” strata are sometimes interbedded between “younger” strata. “In many places all over the world,” says Price, “fossils have been found in a relative order which was formerly thought to be utterly impossible. That is, the fossils have been found in the ‘wrong’ order, and on such a scale that there can be no mistake about it. For when an area 500 miles long and from 20 to 50 miles wide is found with Palæozoic rocks on top, or composing the mountains, and with Cretaceous beds underneath, or composing the valleys, and running under these mountains all around, as in the case of the Glacier National Park and the southern part of Alberta, the old notion about the exact and invariable order of the fossils has to be given up entirely.”

[9] Thus, to explain away “wrong sequences” of fossils, Heim
and Rothpletz postulate the great Glaurus overthrust in the
Alps, Geikie the great overthrust in Scotland, McConnell,
Campbell, and Willis a great overthrust along the eastern
front of the Rockies in Montana and Alberta, while Hayes
recognizes numerous overthrusts in the southern Appalachians.
“The deciphering of such great displacements,” says Pirrson,
speaking of thrust faults, “is one of the greatest triumphs of
modern geological research.” (“Textbook of Geology,” 1920, I,
p. 367.) Desperate measures are evidently justifiable, when it
is a question of saving the time-value of fossils!

Price formulates his third law as follows: “Any fossiliferous formation, ‘old’ or ‘young,’ may occur conformably on any other fossiliferous formation, ‘younger’ or ‘older.’” The corollary of this empirical law is that we are no longer justified in regarding any fossils as intrinsically older than other fossils, and that our present classification of fossiliferous strata has a _taxonomic_, rather than a _historical_, value.

Low-angle faulting is the phenomenon devised by geologists to meet the difficulty of “inverted sequence,” when all other explanations fail. Immense mountain masses are said to have been detached from their roots and pushed horizontally over the surface (without disturbing it in the least), until they came finally to rest in perfect conformity upon “younger” strata, so that the plane of slippage ended by being indistinguishable from an ordinary horizontal bedding plane. These gigantic “overthrusts” or “thrust faults” are a rather unique phenomenon. Normal faulting is always at a high angle closely approaching the vertical, but “thrust faults” are at a low angle closely approximating the horizontal, and there is enormous displacement along the plane of slippage. The huge mountain masses are said to have been first lifted up and then thrust horizontally for vast distances, sometimes for hundreds of miles, over the face of the land, being thus pushed over on top of “younger” rocks, so as to repose upon the latter in a relation of perfectly conformable superposition. R. G. McConnell, of the Canadian Survey, comments on the remarkable similarity between these alleged “thrust planes” and ordinary stratification planes, and he is at a loss to know why the surface soil was not disturbed by the huge rock masses which slid over it for such great distances. Speaking of the Bow River Gap, he says: “The fault plane here is nearly horizontal, and the two formations, viewed from the valley appear to succeed one another conformably,” and then having noted that the underlying Cretaceous shales are “very soft,” he adds that they “have suffered little by the sliding of the limestones over them.” (_An. Rpt. 1886_, part D., pp. 33, 34, 84.) _Credat Iudaeus Apella, non ego!_

Schuchert describes the Alpine overthrust as follows: “The movement was both vertical and thrusting from the south and southeast, from the southern portion of Tethys, elevating and folding the Tertiary and older strata of the northern areas of this mediterranean into overturned, recumbent, and nearly horizontal folds, and pushing the southern or Lepontine Alps about 60 miles to the northward into the Helvetic region. Erosion has since carved up these overthrust sheets, leaving remnants lying on foundations which belong to a more northern portion of the ancient sea. Most noted of these residuals of overthrust masses is the Matterhorn, a mighty mountain without roots, a stranger in a foreign geologic environment,” (Pirsson & Schuchert’s “Textbook of Geology,” 1920, II, p. 924.)

With such a convenient device as the “overthrust” at his disposal, it is hard to see how any possible concrete sequence of fossiliferous strata could contradict the preconceptions of an evolutionary geologist. The hypotheses and assumptions involved, however, are so tortuous and incredible, that nothing short of fanatical devotion to the theory of transformism can render them acceptable. “Examples,” says Price, “of strata in the ‘wrong’ order were first reported from the Alps nearly half a century ago. Since that time, whole armfuls of learned treatises in German, in French, and in English have been written to explain the wonderful conditions there found. The diagrams that have been drawn to account for the strange order of the strata are worthy to rank with the similar ones by the Ptolemaic astronomers picturing the cycles and epicycles required to explain the peculiar behavior of the heavenly bodies in accordance with the geocentric theory of the universe then prevailing.... In Scandinavia, a district some 1,120 miles long by 80 miles wide is alleged to have been pushed horizontally eastward ‘at least 86 miles.’ (Schuchert.) In Northern China, one of these upside down areas is reported by the Carnegie Research Expedition to be 500 miles long.” (“The New Geology,” 1923, pp. 633, 634.)

Nor are the epicyclic subterfuges of the evolutionary geologist confined to “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts.” His inventive genius has hit upon other methods of explaining away inconvenient facts. When, for example, “younger” fossils are found interbedded with “older” fossils, and the discrepancy in time is not too great, he rids himself of the difficulty of their premature appearance by calling them a “pioneer colony.” Similarly, when a group of “characteristic” fossils occur in one age, skip another “age,” and recur in a third, he recognizes the possibility of “recurrent faunas,” some of these faunas having as many as five successive “recurrences.” Clearly, the assumption of gradual approximation and the dogma that the lower preceded the higher forms of life are things to be saved at all costs, and it is a foregone conclusion that no facts will be suffered to conflict with these irrevisable articles of evolutionary faith. “What is the use,” exclaims Price, “of pretending that we are investigating a problem of natural science, if we already know beforehand that the lower and more generalized forms of animals and plants came into existence first, and the higher and the more specialized came only long afterwards, and that specimens of all these successive types have been pigeonholed in the rocks in order to help us illustrate this wonderful truth?” (_Op. cit._, pp. 667, 668.)

The predominance of extinct species in certain formations is said to be an independent argument of their great age. Most of the species of organisms found as fossils in Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian rocks are extinct, whereas modern types abound in Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks. Hence it is claimed that the former must be vastly older than the latter. But this argument gratuitously assumes the substantial perfection of the stone record of ancient life and unwarrantedly excludes the possibility of a sudden impoverishment of the world’s flora and fauna as the result of a sweeping catastrophe, of which our present species are the fortunate survivors. Now the fact that certain floras and faunas skip entire systems of rocks to reappear only in later formations is proof positive that the record of ancient life is far from being complete, and we have in the abundant fossil remains of tropical plants and animals, found in what are now the frozen arctic regions, unmistakable evidence of a sudden catastrophic change by which a once genial climate “was abruptly terminated. For carcasses of the Siberian elephants were frozen so suddenly and so completely that the flesh has remained untainted.” (Dana.) Again, the mere _fact_ of extinction tells us nothing about the _time_ of the extinction. For this we are obliged to fall back on the index fossil whose inherent time-value is based on the theory of evolution and not on stratigraphy. Hence the argument from extinct species is not an independent argument.

To sum up, therefore, the aprioristic evolutional series of fossils is not a genuine time-scale. The only safe criterion of comparative age is that of stratigraphic superposition, and this is inapplicable outside of limited local areas.[10] The index fossil is a reliable basis for the chronological correlation of beds only in case one is already convinced on other grounds of the actuality of evolution, but for the unbiased inquirer it is destitute of any inherent time-value. In other words, we can no longer be sure that a given formation is old merely because it happens to contain Cambrian fossils, nor that a rock is young merely because it chances to contain Tertiary fossils. Our present classification of rocks according to their fossil contents is purely arbitrary and artificial, being tantamount to nothing more than a mere taxonomical classification of the forms of ancient life on our globe, irrespective of their comparative antiquity. This scheme of classification is, indeed, universally applicable, and places can usually be found in it for new fossiliferous strata, whenever and wherever discovered. Its universal applicability, however, is due not to any prevalent order of invariable sequence among fossiliferous strata, but solely to the fact that the laws of biological taxonomy and ecology are universal laws which transcend spatial and temporal limitation. If a scheme of taxonomy is truly scientific, all forms of life, whether extant or extinct, will fit into it quite readily.

[10] “All that geology can prove,” says Huxley, “is local order
of succession.” (“Discourses Biological and Geological,” pp.
279-288.)

The anomalies of spatial distribution constitute a sixth difficulty for transformistic palæontology. In constructing a phylogeny the most diverse and widely-separated regions are put under tribute to furnish the requisite fossils, no heed being paid to what are now at any rate impassable geographical barriers, not to speak of the climatic and environmental limitations which restrict the migrations of non-cosmopolitan species within the boundaries of narrow habitats. Hypothetical lineages of a modern form of life are frequently constructed from fossil remains found in two or more continents separated from one another by immense distances and vast oceanic expanses. When taxed with failure to plausibleize this procedure, the evolutionist meets the difficulty by hypothecating wholesale and devious migrations to and fro, and by raising up alleged land bridges to accommodate plants and animals in their suppositional migrations from one continent to another, etc.

The European horse, with his so-called ancestry interred, partly in the Tertiary deposits of Europe, but mostly in those of North America, is a typical instance of these anomalies in geographical distribution. It would, of course, be preposterous to suppose that two independent lines of descent could have fortuitously terminated in the production of one and the same type, namely, the genus _Equus_. Moreover, to admit for a moment that the extinct American _Equus_ and the extant European _Equus_ had converged by similar stages from distinct origins would be equivalent, as we have seen, to a surrender of the basic postulate that structural similarity rests on the principle of inheritance. Nothing remains, therefore, but to hypothecate a Tertiary land bridge between Europe and North America.

Modern geologists, however, are beginning to resent these arbitrary interferences with their science in the interest of biological theories. Land bridges, they rightly insist, should be demonstrated by means of positive geological evidence and not by the mere exigencies of a hypothetical genealogy. Whosoever postulates a land bridge between continents should be able to adduce solid reasons, and to assign a mechanism capable of accomplishing the five-mile uplift necessary to bring a deep-sea bottom to the surface of the hydrosphere. Such an idea is extravagant and not to be easily entertained in our day, when geologists are beginning to understand the principle of _isostasy_. To-day, the crust of the earth, that is, the entire surface of the lithosphere, is conceived as being constituted of earth columns, all of which rest with equal weight upon the level of complete compensation, which exists at a depth of some 76 miles below land surfaces. At this depth viscous flows and undertows of the earth take place, compensating all differences of gravitational stress. Hence the materials constituting a mountain column are thought to be less dense than those constituting the surrounding lowland columns, and for this reason the mountains are buoyed up above the surrounding landscape. The columns under ocean bottoms, on the contrary, are thought to consist of heavy materials like basalt, which tend to depress the column. To raise a sea floor, therefore, some means of producing a dilatation of these materials would have to be available. Arthur B. Coleman called attention to this difficulty in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society of America (December 29, 1915), and we cannot do better than quote his own statement of the matter here:

“Admitting,” he says, “that in the beginning the lithosphere bulged up in places, so as to form continents, and sagged in other places, so as to form ocean beds, there are interesting problems presented as to the permanence of land and seas. All will admit marginal changes affecting large areas, but these encroachments of the sea on the continents and the later retreats may be of quite a subordinate kind, not implying an interchange of deep-sea bottoms and land surfaces. The essential permanence of continents and oceans has been firmly held by many geologists, notably Dana among the older ones, and seems reasonable; but there are geologists, especially palæontologists, who display great recklessness in rearranging land and sea. The trend of a mountain range, or the convenience of a running bird, or a marsupial afraid to wet his feet seems sufficient warrant for hoisting up any sea bottom to connect continent with continent. A Gondwana Land arises in place of an Indian Ocean and sweeps across to South America, so that a spore-bearing plant can follow up an ice age; or an Atlantis ties New England to Old England to help out the migrations of a shallow-water fauna; or a ‘Lost Land of Agulhas’ joins South Africa and India.

“It is curious to find these revolutionary suggestions made at a time when geodesists are demonstrating that the earth’s crust over large areas, and perhaps everywhere, approaches a state of isostatic equilibrium, and that isostatic compensation is probably complete at a depth of only 76 miles” ... and (having noted the difference of density that must exist between the continental, and submarine, earth columns) Coleman would have us bear in mind “that to transform great areas of sea bottom into land it would be necessary either to expand the rock beneath by several per cent or to replace heavy rock, such as basalt, by lighter materials, such as granite. There is no obvious way in which the rock beneath a sea bottom can be expanded enough to lift it 20,000 feet, as would be necessary in parts of the Indian Ocean, to form a Gondwana land; so one must assume that light rocks replace heavy ones beneath a million square miles of ocean floor. Even with unlimited time, it is hard to imagine a mechanism that could do the work, and no convincing geological evidence can be brought forward to show that such a thing ever took place.... The distribution of plants and animals should be arranged for by other means than by the wholesale elevation of ocean beds to make dry land bridges for them.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, pp. 269-271.)

A seventh anomaly of palæontological phylogeny is what may be described as contrariety of direction. We are asked to believe, for example, that in mammals racial development resulted in dimensional increase. The primitive ancestor of mammoths, mastodons, and elephants is alleged to have been the _Moeritherium_, “a small tapirlike form, from the Middle Eocene Qasr-el-Sagha beds of the Fayûm in Egypt.... _Moeritherium_ measured about 3½ feet in height.” (Lull: Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1908, pp. 655, 656.) The ancestor of the modern horse, we are told, was “a little animal less than a foot in height, known as _Eohippus_, from the rocks of the Eocene age.” (Woodruff: “Foundations of Biology,” p. 361.) In the case of insects, on the other hand, we are asked to believe the exact reverse, namely, that racial development brought about dimensional reduction. “In the middle of the Upper Carboniferous periods,” says Anton Handlirsch, “the forest swamps were populated with cockroaches about as long as a finger, dragonfly-like creatures with a wing spread of about 2½ feet, while insects that resemble our May flies were as big as a hand.” (“Die fossilen Insekten, und die Phylogenie der recenten Formen,” 1908, L. c., p. 1150.) Contrasting one of these giant palæozoic dragonflies, _Meganeura monyi_ Brongn., with the largest of modern dragonflies, _Aeschna grandis_ L., Chetverikov exclaims with reference to the latter: “What a pitiful pigmy it is and its specific name (_grandis_) sounds like such a mockery.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 446.) Chetverikov, it is true, proposes a teleological reason for this progressive diminution, but the fact remains that for dysteleological evolutionism, which dispenses with the postulate of a Providential coördination and regulation of natural agencies, this _diminuendo_ of the “evolving” insects stands in irreconcilable opposition to the _crescendo_ of the “evolving” mammals, and constitutes a difficulty which a purely mechanistic philosophy can never surmount.

Not to prolong excessively this already protracted enumeration of discrepancies between fossil fact and evolutionary assumption, we shall mention, as an eighth and final difficulty, the indubitable persistence of _unchanged_ organic types from the earliest geological epochs down to the present time. This phenomenon is all the more wonderful in view of the fact that the decision as to which are to be the “older” and which the “younger” strata rests with the evolutionary geologist, who is naturally disinclined to admit the antiquity of strata containing modern types, and whose position as arbiter enables him to date formations aprioristically, according to the exigencies of the transformistic theory. Using, as he does, the absence of modern types as an express criterion of age, and having, as it were, his pick among the various fossiliferous deposits, one would expect him to be eminently successful in eliminating from the stratigraphic groups selected for senior honors all strata containing fossil types identical with modern forms. Since, however, even the most ingenious sort of geological gerrymandering fails to make this elimination complete, we must conclude that the evidence for persistence of type is inescapable and valid under any assumption.

When we speak of persistent types, we mean generic and specific, rather than phyletic, types, although it is assuredly true that the persistence of the great phyla, from their abrupt and contemporaneous appearance in Cambrian and pre-Cambrian rocks down to the present day, constitutes a grave difficulty for progressive evolution in general and monophyletic evolution in particular. All the great invertebrate types, such as the protozoa, the annelida, the brachiopoda, and large crustaceans called eurypterids, are found in rocks of the Proterozoic group, despite the damaged condition of the Archæan record, while in the Cambrian they are represented by a great profusion of forms. “The Lower Cambrian species,” says Dana, “have not the simplicity of structure that would naturally be looked for in the earliest Palæozoic life. They are perfect of their kind and highly specialized structures. No steps from simple kinds leading up to them have been discovered; no line from the protozoans up to corals, echinoderms, or worms, or from either of these groups up to brachiopods, mollusks, trilobites, or other crustaceans. This appearance of abruptness in the introduction of Cambrian life is one of the striking facts made known by geology.” (“Manual,” p. 487.) Thus, as we go backward in time, we find the great organic phyla retaining their identity and showing no tendency to converge towards a common origin in one or a few ancestral types. For this reason, as we shall see presently, geologists are beginning to relegate the evolutionary process to unknown depths below the explored portion of the “geological column.” What may lurk in these unfathomed profundities, it is, of course, impossible to say, but, if we are to judge by that part of the column which is actually exposed to view, there is no indication whatever of a steady progression from lower, to higher, degrees of organization, and it takes all the imperturbable idealism of a scientific doctrinaire to discern in such random, abrupt, and unrelated “origins” any evidence of what Blackwelder styles “a slow but steady increase in complexity of structure and in function.” (_Science_, Jan. 27, 1922, p. 90.)

But, while the permanence of phyletic types excludes progress, that of generic and specific types excludes change, and hence it is in the latter phenomenon, especially, that the theory of transformism encounters a formidable difficulty. Palæobotany furnishes numerous examples of the persistence of unchanged plant forms. Ferns identical with the modern genus _Marattia_ occur in rocks of the Palæozoic group. Cycads indistinguishable from the extant genera _Zamia_ and _Cycas_ are found in strata belonging to the Triassic system, etc., etc.

The same is true of animal types. In all the phyla some genera and even species have persisted unchanged from the oldest strata down to the present day. Among the Protozoa, for example, we have the genus _Globigerina_ (one of the Foraminifera), some modern species of which are identical with those found in the Cretaceous. To quote the words of the Protozoologist, Charles A. Kofoid: “The Protozoa are found in the oldest fossiliferous rocks and the genera of _Radiolaria_ therein conform rather closely to genera living today, while the fossil _Dinoflagellata_ of the flints of Delitzsch are scarcely distinguishable from species living in the modern seas. The striking similarities of the most ancient fossil Protozoa to recent ones afford some ground for the inference that the Protozoa living today differ but little from those when life was young.” (_Science_, April 6, 1923, p. 397.)