Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel. Ignatius Donnelly

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СКАЧАТЬ exceeding seven years, travel in the same direction around the sun as the planets. Among comets with periods less than eighty years long, five sixths travel in the same direction as the planets."[3]

      [1. "American Cyclopædia," vol. v, p. 141.

      2. "The Heavens," p. 239.

      3. American Cyclopedia," vol. v, p. 141.]

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      It is agreed that this globe of ours was at first a gaseous mass; as it cooled it condensed like cooling steam into a liquid mass; it became in time a molten globe of red-hot matter. As it cooled still further, a crust or shell formed around it, like the shell formed on an egg, and on this crust we dwell.

      While the crust is still plastic it shrinks as the mass within grows smaller by further cooling, and the wrinkles so formed in the crust are the depths of the ocean and the elevations of the mountain-chains.

      But as ages go on and the process of cooling progresses, the crust reaches a density when it supports itself, like a couple of great arches; it no longer wrinkles; it no longer follows downward the receding molten mass within; mountains cease to be formed; and at length we have a red-hot ball revolving in a shell or crust, with a space between the two, like the space between the dried and shrunken kernel of the nut and the nut itself.

      Volcanoes are always found on sea-shores or on islands. Why? Through breaks in the earth the sea-water finds its way occasionally down upon the breast of the molten mass; it is at once converted into gas, steam; and as it expands it blows itself out through the escape-pipe of the volcano; precisely as the gas formed by the gunpowder coming in contact with the fire of the percussion-cap, drives the ball out before it through the same passage by which it had entered. Hence, some one has said, "No water, no volcano."

      While the amount of water which so enters is small because of the smallness of the cavity between the shell of the earth and the molten globe within, this process is carried on upon a comparatively small scale, and is a safe one for the earth. But suppose the process of cooling to go on uninterruptedly until a vast space exists between the

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      crust and the core of the earth, and that some day a convulsion of the surface creates a great chasm in the crust, and the ocean rushes in and fills up part of the cavity; a tremendous quantity of steam is formed, too great to escape by the aperture through which it entered, an explosion takes place, and the crust of the earth is blown into a million fragments.

      The great molten ball within remains intact, though sorely torn; in its center is still the force we call gravity; the fragments of the crust can not fly off into space; they are constrained to follow the master-power lodged in the ball, which now becomes the nucleus of a comet, still blazing and burning, and vomiting flames, and wearing itself away. The catastrophe has disarranged its course, but it still revolves in a prolonged orbit around the sun, carrying its broken débris in a long trail behind it.

      This débris arranges itself in a regular order: the largest fragments are on or nearest the head; the smaller are farther away, diminishing in regular gradation, until the farthest extremity, the tail, consists of sand, dust, and gases. There is a continual movement of the particles of the tail, operated upon by the attraction and repulsion of the sun. The fragments collide and crash against each other; by a natural law each stone places itself so that its longest diameter coincides with the direction of the motion of the comet; hence, as they scrape against each other they mark each other with lines or striæ, lengthwise of their longest diameter. The fine dust ground out by these perpetual collisions does not go off into space, or pack around the stones, but, still governed by the attraction of the head, it falls to the rear and takes its place, like the small men of a regiment, in the farther part of the tail.

      Now, all this agrees with what science tells us of the constitution of clay.

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      "It is a finely levigated silico-aluminous earth--formed by the disintegration of feldspathic or granite rocks."[1]

      The particles ground out of feldspar are finer than those derived from mica and hornblende, and we can readily understand how the great forces of gravity, acting upon the dust of the comet's tail, might separate one from the other; or how magnetic waves passing through the comet might arrange all the particles containing iron by themselves, and thus produce that marvelous separation of the constituents of the granite which we have found to exist in the Drift clays. If the destroyed world possessed no sedimentary rocks, then the entire material of the comet would consist of granitic stones and dust such as constitutes clays.

      The stones are reduced to a small size by the constant attrition:

      "The stones of the 'till' are not of the largest; indeed, bowlders above four feet in diameter are comparatively seldom met with in the till."[2]

      And this theory is corroborated by the fact that the eminent German geologist, Dr. Hahn, has recently discovered an entire series of organic remains in meteoric stones, of the class called chrondites, and which he identifies as belonging to classes of sponges, corals, and crinoids. Dr. Weinland, another distinguished German, corroborates these discoveries; and he has also found fragments in these stones very much like the youngest marine chalk in the Gulf of Mexico; and he thinks he sees, under the microscope, traces of vegetable growth. Francis Birgham says:

      [1. "American Cyclopædia," article "Clay."

      2. "The Great Ice Age," p. 10.]

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      "This entire ex-terrestrial fauna hitherto discovered, which already comprises about fifty different species, and which originates from different meteoric falls, even from some during the last century, conveys the impression that it doubtlessly once formed part of a single ex-terrestrial-celestial body with a unique creation, which in by-gone ages seems to have been overtaken by a grand catastrophe, during which it was broken up into fragments."[1]

      When we remember that meteors are now generally believed to be the droppings of comets, we come very near to proof of the supposition that comets are the débris of exploded planets; for only on planets can we suppose that life existed, for there was required, for the growth of these sponges, corals, and crinoids, rocks, earth, water, seas or lakes, atmosphere, sunshine, and a range of temperature between the degree of cold where life is frozen up and the degree of heat in which it is burned up: hence, these meteors must be fragments of bodies possessing earth-like conditions.

      We know that the heavenly bodies are formed of the same materials as our globe.

      Dana says:

      "Meteoric stones exemplify the same chemical and crystallographic laws as the rocks of the earth, and have afforded no new element or principle of any kind."[2]

      It may be presumed, therefore, that the granite crust of the exploded globe from which some comet was created was the source of the finely triturated material which we know as clay.

      But the clays are of different colors--white, yellow, red, and blue.

      [1. "Popular Science Monthly," November, 1881, p. 86.

      2. "Manual of Geology," p. 3.]

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      "The aluminous minerals contained in granite rocks are feldspar, mica, and hornblende. … Mica and hornblende generally contain considerable oxide of iron, while feldspar usually yields only СКАЧАТЬ