]/!/, 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 The Earth's 
 Annular System 
 
 OR 
 
 The Waters Above the Firmament 
 
 THE WORLD RECORD SCIENTIFICALLY EXPLAINED 
 
 BY ISAAC N. VAIL 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE MISREAD RECORD," " BDBN*S FLAMING SWORD,' 
 "ALASKA, LAND OF THE NUGGBT, WHV?"BTC. 
 
 jfourtf) Edition 
 
 " Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." 
 
 Tennyson 
 
 }3asaticna, California: 
 
 THE ANNULAR WORLD COMPANY 
 
 411 Kensington Place 
 
 1912.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902, 
 BY ISAAC N. VAIL.
 
 Engineering 5 ^CA U 
 athemati 
 Sciences 
 
 Mathematical j -kx 
 ^ * 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 On the 26th of January, 1912, Isaac N". Vail, the 
 author of this book and the originator of the Annular 
 Theory of Evolution, died suddenly at his home at 411 
 Kensington Place, Pasadena, Cal. 
 
 About the first of December, 1911, the previous edi- 
 tion having been exhausted, he had made arrangements 
 for a new edition of this, his largest published work. 
 Only about half the plates were finished at the time 
 of his death, so that it became the duty of his daugh- 
 ters, Alice Vail Holloway and Lydia C. Vail, in whose 
 possession he left all his published and unpublished 
 writings, to carry on the work. This volume now goes 
 before the public just as the author left it. 
 
 Isaac X. Vail was essentially a student, modest and 
 retiring in his nature, and with but little of the 
 aggressiveness of either the propagandist or the man 
 of business that would have pushed his views before 
 the world. In his later years he found increasing con- 
 tentment in searching out material to be used by those 
 who would continue the work after he had left it. 
 
 No one realized so fully as he the far-reaching re- 
 sults and revolutionary effects of annular thought upon 
 almost all departments of science and philosophy. 
 With this realization, and with a confidence and 
 patience born of a knowledge of the truth, he was will- 
 ing to wait till the world was better prepared to accept 
 his ideas. 
 
 He knew that in the light of new discoveries old 
 theories must fail, and that in time the Annular Theory 
 
 816743
 
 of Evolution must gain a sure foothold in the young 
 and vigorous minds of coming generations. 
 
 To the end of carrying toward completion the work 
 begun by our father, our lives will be devoted, and as 
 the demand arises we hope to give to the public further 
 evidence in support of annular evolution. 
 
 We undertake this work not only with the feeling 
 that we are fulfilling a sacred trust, but with a love of 
 the work for itself, and with a profound conviction of 
 its importance to the progress of science. 
 
 While we may be able from time to time to present 
 to the world even vast accumulations of evidence 
 gleaned from the fields of geology and especially myth- 
 ology, we can do but little more than suggest to more 
 able and scholarly minds than our own the work to be 
 done in the fields of Philology and Biology. 
 
 A new science of the origin and growth of language 
 will have to be written. The Darwinian theory of 
 evolution will be found insufficient and will have to be 
 supplemented by the Annular Theory of organic evolu- 
 tion. Following this must come a new Ethnology and 
 a modified Sociology. 
 
 It is with the hope that we may gain the attention 
 of those who are able to do better work than we, that 
 we now send forth this volume. 
 
 ALICE VAIL HOLLOW AY. 
 LYDIA C. VAIL. 
 
 Pasadena, Cal., April, 1912.
 
 INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 The first edition of the " Waters Above the Firmament," 
 or " The Earth's Annular System," was published in 
 pamphlet form in 1874. The chief effort of the author at 
 that time was to show that the Deluge of Noah, and all the 
 " Ice Ages " were caused by the progressive and successive 
 collapse of great world-canopies of aqueous vapor, which 
 were the last remnants of a Saturn-like Ring System, or a 
 Jupiter-like " Cloud-Ocean," sent to the terrestrial skies 
 when the earth was in its molten stage. In that edition it 
 was also shown that earth-canopies were competent to pro- 
 duce all the tropic eras the earth ever saw. It was also 
 pointed out that world-canopies trending poleward tended 
 to mass themselves in the polar heavens, and fall in the 
 Arctic and Antarctic regions as vast avalanches of snow. 
 
 More than forty years of research along these lines have 
 more than justified the claims originally set forth. As a 
 practical geologist I have gathered facts from the earth- 
 record directly, and I am bold to aver that these facts 
 unquestionably demand a revision of geologic thought, as it 
 stands to-day. The tremendous truths of world-evolution 
 shine all the more perfectly under the arc-light of annular 
 earth-building. 
 
 It was this independent research in a very wide field of 
 thought that led me to enlarge the pamphlet of 1874 to a 
 book of 400 pages in 1885; and again it was revised and 
 enlarged in 1902 ; and I have been greatly encouraged by 
 the fact that this last edition is now used in some of the 
 colleges, and in at least two universities as an educator. 
 
 When the first volume was published in 1874 it was a rare 
 thing to meet with a scientist who would admit that the 
 earth had a ring system; to-day it is as rare to meet with 
 one who does not concede the great fact, and the great 
 problem is resolving itself into this form: How did the 
 earth's rings fall back to the surface of the planet ? I have
 
 vi Introduction. 
 
 attempted to answer this question in the following pages, 
 and as this fourth edition is being prepared for the press I 
 have before me more than a thousand letters from many 
 parts of the thinking world. The great mass of them con- 
 cedes the logic of my contentions. But three of their 
 writers have taken a variant view. 
 
 Annular earth-evolution, during the last two decades, has 
 assumed a stage of supreme importance. During this 
 period I discovered many old thought petrifactions in the 
 oldest world-literature of the races, which seemed to point 
 directly to the reign and fall of an ancient earth-canopy. 
 Keeping this central fact in view, during the last ten years, 
 I have secured from the old beds of fossil thought the most 
 indubitable evidence that when the oldest records were in- 
 scribed the last remnants of the earth's annular system 
 lingered prominently in the terrestrial skies. When the 
 mature and reliable judgment of this generation is pro- 
 nounced it will be to establish the great fact that the geo- 
 logic record is a time-written history of the reign and fall 
 of earth-rings, as reflected in the unmistakable reign and 
 fall of canopies. 
 
 The " Old School-Geologist " will likely be the last per- 
 son to admit that the earth's aqueous strata have largely 
 fallen into place as we find them to-day, as the giant wreck 
 of slowly declining annular matter ; but when it shall have 
 become apparent, that an annular system does not neces- 
 sarily fall as a sudden titanic world-collision, but as con- 
 tinuous world-showers of dust and other meteoric matter, 
 and floods of watery vapor, and snow, through the " Ages," 
 the great mass of the thinking world will readily admit the 
 logical record which declares that not only the great mass of 
 the mineral crust of the earth has to a vast extent been built 
 up, sometimes very slowly, and again very rapidly, as 
 annular material, but it will also admit that the very life- 
 succession that characterizes the record, can only be ex- 
 plained by the logic of annular-canopy world-evolution. 
 
 It was not until after this century began that the illus- 
 trious W. F. Warren, Dean of Boston University, kindly 
 called my attention to the fact that the immortal Kant more
 
 Introduction. vii 
 
 than 150 years ago suggested that the fall of waters from 
 an earth-ring might have caused the Deluge of Noah. I 
 desire to concede to that great philosopher all the glory his 
 suggestion merits. To this end I desire that the students 
 of annular and canopy philosophy should read all that he 
 eeems to have written on this subject, and especially his 
 reasons for not advocating the thought. It is found in 
 " Kant's Cosmology," by Hattie ; pp. 229 to 231. 
 
 In the more than forty years of careful examination of 
 the fossil records I have found an amazing amount of 
 testimony that gives support to this contention; but the 
 most astounding part of this testimony is the strange fact 
 that nothing in the old records has been found logically 
 arrayed against it. There is a natural scheme found prom- 
 inent in all earth-building that harmonizes and dovetails 
 into the establishment of a law of progression, and succes- 
 sion which nothing short of the decline of rings and the 
 reign of earth-canopies successively can satisfactorily ex- 
 plain. 
 
 Life-mutation is unquestionably so linked to the history 
 of our planet as to show plainly the frequent passing away 
 of old world-conditions, with catastrophe more or less strik- 
 ing, and the advent of new life with new conditions. 
 Plainly new life-germs have settled down on the ruins of 
 the old. In other words life-mutation is fossilized in the 
 rock record and tells its own tale of world-changes. The 
 logic of Xature confronts us with the grand plan of life- 
 stages, the succession of ages. The system is seen in the 
 great world-scheme, and in the last analysis of the earth- 
 problem we will be taught that if the earth never had had 
 an annular system it would never have had a succession of 
 " ages," except as accidental stages. 
 
 The succession of tropic conditions which the earth-rec- 
 ord affirms, also affirms canopy-succession, and canopy-suc- 
 cession means progressive ring declension. We learn that 
 all earth progress accords with the fact that gravital law 
 determined the grand scheme when it determined the pro- 
 gressive movement of the fiery exhalations that the molten 
 earth sent up into the cold of the skies, through all degrees
 
 viii Introduction. 
 
 of temperature, and thus afforded an opportunity for the 
 formation of those compounds found so abundantly in the 
 earth's crust. 
 
 The reader's attention is called to the cut facing page 
 175 of this volume, and which was first published in the 
 1902 edition of this work. Canopies must float pole- ward 
 in falling, and leave such features persistently in the polar 
 skies. Just before the close of last century I found this 
 polar picture fossilized in the oldest thought of many 
 peoples. The scholars of the world must know that the 
 ancient North World was a point of supreme regard for all 
 humanity. I repeat that canopy vapors massing them- 
 selves in the polar skies and plunging to the earth, must 
 have left some " openings," or " breaches," literally " star- 
 isles " in the polar heavens. I have found such sky-rifts 
 as thought-petrifactions with almost all the ancient races, 
 and need only call attention to the Bel-Peor, or " Shining 
 Hole," whose image was a " hole in the wall." (Ez. 8:7.) 
 , It is plain that if such features are now found as petri- 
 factions in the oldest thought, there can be no questioning 
 the claim that the earth had an annular system, and that 
 its remnants of vapor and mineral dust lingered in the ter- 
 restrial heavens long after the advent of civilized man. 
 This thought is more fully elaborated in my book " The 
 Misread Record," or " The Deluge and Its Cause." (1905). 
 
 ISAAC N. VAIL. 
 PASADENA, CAL., Eleventh month llth, 1911.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 OPP. 
 PAGE 
 
 Fig. 1. Early Stage of Ring Formation 30 
 
 Fig. 2.- Earth Cooled from a Molten State ( Ita Ring System 
 
 Formed ) 45 
 
 Fig. 3. Earth and Its Annular System 74 
 
 Fig. 4. The First Canopy Slowly Spreading Polarward 82 
 
 Fig. 5. The Last Canopy of Earth 100 
 
 Fig. 6. The Closing Scene (Earth with Belts Capping the 
 
 Poles) 167 
 
 Fig. 7. View of Northern Heavena (Poles, Arches, Stars, 
 
 Etc.) 175 
 
 Fig. 8. Sun with Perihelia 232 
 
 Fig. 9. Uranus (Rings Forming) 241 
 
 Fig. 10. Saturn (Rings Formed) 257 
 
 Fig. 11. Jupiter (Rings Fallen) 273 
 
 Fig. 12. Earth in Edenic Times 310
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 All Worlds Made Alike . 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Some General Considerations 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Evidence Supplied by the Planets Saturn, Jupiter and Mars 
 In Support of the Annular Theory 49 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Geological Record Examined 82 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Earth's Annular as Demonstrated by Historic Testimony 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Noachian Deluge 99 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Legends of the Flood 110 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 A Consideration of the Evidence in Support of the Claim 
 that the Waters of the Ocean Have Been Greatly In- 
 creased in Volume in Very Recent Geologic Times 131
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Some Topographical Features that Prove the Declension of 
 Exterior Matter 151 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Glacial Epochs and Eden Ruins Annular Snows the 
 Only Competent Cause 167 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 A Brief Review of the Geologic Ages and a Presentation of 
 
 the Evidence They Afford of Primitive Glaciation, etc. . . 202 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Evidence Advanced in Support of the Claim that the Earth's 
 Annular System was the Seed Bed of Organisms, and 
 Consequently a Region of Microscopic Life and In- 
 fusorial Forms 232 
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 
 A Consideration of the Evidence that Leads to the Conclu- 
 sion that the Carbon Strata of the World were Deposited 
 as Aqueous Sediment from the Earth's Annular System, 
 Where It Had Remained for Countless Ages as a Primi- 
 tive Distillation Expelled from the Incandescent or Burn- 
 ing Earth 255 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 IB Coal a Vegetable Product? An Examination of the Coal 
 
 Beds Under the Light of the Annular Theory 274 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence of the Annular Origin 
 of Coal in the Metamorphism of Carbon Beds. Also, 
 Some Conclusive Testimony from the Cretaceous and 
 Tertiary Coals 310
 
 PA.OK 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons 336 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Conclusive Evidence of Annular Downfalls in the Tertiary 
 Ocean of the Northern Hemisphere 356 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note I. The Last Advance of Glaciers 372 
 
 Note II. The Lost Continent 375 
 
 Note III. Anthracites in British America 376 
 
 Note IV. A Significant Admission 376 
 
 The True Origin of Coal. The Vegetation Theory Disproved 377 
 
 Captain Carter's Original Demonstration 395 
 
 The Origin of Petroleum 396 
 
 Lord Kelvin on Oxygen and Coal 405
 
 Eartfj'0 annular Astern. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ALL \TOKLDS MADE ALIKE. 
 
 To endeavor to prove the truth of the theory that 
 supposes this earth to have been, from the close of the 
 igneous era till the close of the antediluvian period, 
 surrounded by an annular system, seems to me, since 
 I have been so long gathering in the fund of evidence, 
 like trying to establish a self-evident truth; yet, since 
 geologic science has been pursued by a host of honest 
 and indefatigable workers, with ideas at variance with 
 this claim, and since established theories are not ex- 
 pected to be abandoned abruptly, it is plain, that as the 
 annular theory demands a general and thorough re- 
 view of the geologic record, as now interpreted, a 
 great effort will be necessary to bring it within the pur- 
 view and consideration of science. 
 
 The geological " column " reveals many facts that 
 have not yet been recognized by investigators. It would 
 be strange, indeed, if frail and erring man should have 
 erected a faultless fabric out of the crude materials 
 supplied; strange, indeed, if the "records" have in all 
 cases been interpreted without fault; strange, indeed, 
 if the edifice will not some time have to be taken down 
 and rebuilt, as it has been at different times. The time 
 was, when investigators were " few and far between." 
 Thousands of eyes now run over the field where trod 
 the investigators of fifty or a hundred years ago, and
 
 14: The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 the day is past when a geologist can sit in his studio 
 and frame a theory for the great mass of thinkers. The 
 true theory was written by the hand of the great Mas- 
 ter-builder, and it must be read on the spot, where the 
 wondrous mystery lies. 
 
 It is with no desire to find fault with, or undervalue 
 the work of the noble band of ardent workers now in 
 the field, that I advance the claim that we have greatly 
 misunderstood and misinterpreted the fascinating vol- 
 ume whose time-stamped pages are unfolding to our 
 view. We have misapprehended the rock-engraved 
 hieroglyphics from the very first rude lines, traced on 
 the archsean piles. 
 
 It was a sublime conception of Prof. Winchell that 
 represented all the waters of the terrestrial oceans as 
 held in suspension on the outskirts of the primeval at- 
 mosphere by the inveterate heat of the igneous earth. 
 
 The reader, no doubt, remembers his glowing de- 
 scription of the Titanic contest between the powers of 
 Vulcan and Neptune. How the waters on high de- 
 scended, while yet the earth was a hot and seething 
 mass, and were again and again flung into space by the 
 irritated fires; till, finally, worried by the eternal 
 attacks of Neptune, the fires grew tame, and the oceans 
 of vapor settled upon the earth. Thus is portrayed the 
 mistaken idea now universally prevalent, that from 
 that period, beginning as soon as the waters could re- 
 main upon the earth, these having all descended upon 
 it, worked as the universal ocean now does in building 
 up the aqueous crusts; that the work of denudation 
 and the distribution of detrial matter was participated 
 in by the entire ocean as it now exists, from the very
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 15 
 
 period when the internal fires grew quiet and permitted 
 the waters to reniain upon the surface of the planet. 
 
 Now is this claim philosophic? Did the oceans all 
 descend at that time ? I try to settle this point by the 
 test of philosophic law; for, here is the foundation 
 stone of the geologic edifice men have built, and com- 
 ing scientists will lift it from its bed and relay it. I 
 ask geologists to critically examine this point and see 
 whether it be not a fact that only a small part of the 
 oceans fell at the time alluded to, and that the re- 
 mainder continued to revolve about the earth for im- 
 measurable time, as an annular system, or a belt sys- 
 tem like that of the planet Jupiter. Now if the oceans 
 all fell to the earth at the close of the igneous era, then 
 the current theory of crust evolution is correct; but if 
 not, it is incorrect. 
 
 It will be shown in the following pages that the ter- 
 restrial waters did not all fall at that time; that physi- 
 cal law demands that they should not. This is sus- 
 ceptible of the clearest demonstration. The import- 
 ance of this question cannot easily be overestimated; 
 and yet, the first thought may be, " Of what value is 
 it?" 
 
 The reader who patiently reviews this problem will 
 see that a more important one has never come before 
 man for his consideration. 
 
 In the first place, let me press this question : Is there 
 any thing unreasonable or unphilosophic in the claim, 
 that the aqueous vapors, kept away from the molten 
 earth by the repelling force of heat, were necessarily 
 whirled into independent revolution about the central 
 fiery orb? Since we see at least two giant planets in 
 the solar system attended by such revolving vapors, is
 
 16 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 it not a reasonable claim? It is conceded that Jupi- 
 ter's belts are aqueous vapors. 
 
 These make a complete revolution in about ten 
 hours, and it is claimed by eminent astronomers that 
 they are held away from the planet by his own native 
 heat. 
 
 Well, suppose this heat were suddenly removed? 
 The Jovine atmosphere would contract and what 
 would become of Jupiter's moving belts ? They are so 
 many tons of moving matter, possessing so many tons 
 of moving energy, and every one must see that that 
 energy would prolong their stay in Jupiter's firma- 
 ment. It is evident that revolving vapors would be no 
 more likely to fall immediately upon the withdrawal of 
 heat, than a revolving moon in the same situation ; and 
 if their moving energy was great enough, it is plain 
 that Jupiter's belts would continue to revolve inde- 
 pendently about him after he had cooled down. Now, 
 since the equatorial belts of both Jupiter and Saturn 
 move more rapidly than the polar, they must be mov- 
 ing independently of each other and also independent- 
 ly of the bodies of those planets. That is, they do not 
 move in those planets' atmosphere, but are revolving 
 about them in their own independent orbits. Then 
 Jupiter's belts do possess energy sufficient to insure 
 their continuance in a belted or annular system revolv- 
 ing about him, for unknown time. This feature of the 
 question will be fully elaborated in another chapter. 
 
 We know that the terrestrial waters, like Jupiter's, 
 were at one time kept away from the surface of our 
 planet, and we know, too, that in the revolving mass, 
 a moving energy was imparted to these also, and that 
 that energy must have prolonged their stay in the ter-
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 17 
 
 restrial firmament, after the earth cooled down. One 
 must see that on the very threshold of this investiga- 
 tion, my claim that the earth's oceans did not all re- 
 turn to the earth at the close of the igneous era, is a 
 reasonable and philosophic one. I might almost say a 
 necessary one. 
 
 No . geologist, astronomer, or physicist, will, I pre- 
 sume, for a moment doubt the now firmly established 
 conclusion, that the earth was at one time in an igneous- 
 fluid state; and also that while it remained in that fiery 
 condition, all its waters and whatever else that was 
 vaporized and sublimed by the inveterate heat, such as 
 the less refractory minerals and metals in the boiling 
 mass, were driven away from its surface and hindered 
 from falling upon it by the repelling energy of heat. A 
 failure to follow this conclusion, and the consequences 
 necessarily flowing from this primitive condition of our 
 planet, has involved us in a maze of difficulty and error. 
 A failure to comprehend many of the legitimate conse- 
 quences of the measureless force employed^ every 
 pound of which must have been conserved in after- 
 effects, has immeasurably checked the solution of some 
 of the grandest problems of Nature. 
 
 Let us now begin at the very foundation of this physi- 
 cal problem, and critically examine every step of our 
 progress. We will reject every link of evidence that 
 will not bear the test of scientific scrutiny. I must ask 
 the reader to patiently follow me in the line of argu- 
 ment I am about to pursue, for it requires a round of 
 investigation that few men will at first appreciate. 
 
 Our foundation is the molten, or igneous world. The 
 vaporized water, mineral and metallic elements re- 
 pelled from it, existed as a great vaporous atmosphere,
 
 18 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 that rotated with the earth, just as our atmosphere now 
 does. If the earth then rotated once in every twenty- 
 four hours, the atmosphere turned with it in the same 
 time. If it rotated in the short space of about three 
 hours, as claimed by Proctor and other eminent astron- 
 omers, the great primeval atmosphere rotated with it 
 in three hours. Does not this postulate demand uncon- 
 ditional assent from all men? Will any fair reasoner 
 claim that I assume here what is not self-evident? A 
 little thought will induce the most incredulous to admit 
 that my claim here made is just and necessarily true. 
 Let us remember, then, that the primeval atmosphere 
 rotated with the earth in the same time, no matter 
 how long or short that period was. Then the question is 
 at once reduced to this: When did those vapors and 
 other material constituting that atmosphere return to 
 the earth? For they have returned. The question, 
 how did they return, is also a legitimate one, and will 
 receive due consideration. 
 
 They returned or fell to the earth, either immediate- 
 ly after it cooled down and the heat ceased to repel 
 them, or they continued for a time to revolve around 
 it. If some of those vapors fell at the close of the 
 igneous era, then a part of them; continued to revolve. 
 As before intimated, the science of Geology has been 
 built entire upon the former supposition, and the an- 
 nular theory is planted upon the latter. Witnesses 
 must determine which of these foundations is false; 
 with a reasonable probability in the truth of the latter, 
 as attested by the Jovial and Saturnian belted or an- 
 nular systems; and the improbability that the potential 
 energy stored up in the rotating mass of vapors during
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 19 
 
 its repulsion by heat, would all be expended in their 
 decline in the period between azoic and paleozoic time. 
 The most eminent scientists agree that the great 
 mass of swaddling vapors in the primitive atmosphere 
 were driven at least 200,000 miles from the earth. 
 Others claim that the earth's vaporous atmosphere dur- 
 ing the igneous era, embraced the orbit of the moon 
 within its boundaries. It must be remembered that 
 all the carbon in the great casement, of aqueous rocks, 
 the vast oceans of oxygen now contained in the silicates, 
 sulphates, carbonates, and oxides of the crust, as well 
 as the nitrogen and hydrogen, in numerous compounds, 
 enormously swelled its volume, so that a modern chem- 
 ist speaking from his laboratory, makes the claim that 
 if that atmosphere pressed on the earth in proportion 
 to its depth as ours does to-day, unaffected by repelling 
 heat, it would be equal to a column of mercury more 
 than 22,000 inches high. I believe it was M. Figuier 
 that first advanced the idea that this atmosphere ex- 
 tended to the moon, and others would extend it still 
 farther. This, of course, is understood to be its extent 
 at the close of the igneous era, and before the aqueous 
 beds were laid down. Now, however conditioned the 
 atmosphere was at that time, one thing is very evi- 
 dent, it was one of vast extent. If I should take ad- 
 vantage of these claims and base my calculations upon 
 an atmosphere 200,000 or 240,000 miles deep, it would 
 greatly aid me, and make my conclusions much more 
 apparent and conclusive. But to be sure that we are 
 moving entirely within philosophic bounds, and to give 
 no possible opportunity for an opposer to claim that 
 I strain any point or take undue advantage of extrava- 
 gant admissions of men of science, I will not claim
 
 20 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 240,000 nor 200,000 miles as the atmosphere's depth, 
 but will base my calculations on a depth of only 100,- 
 000 miles. This is amply sufficient for us, and with 
 this depth it is easy to prove beyond a doubt, that a 
 mighty fund of vapors continued to revolve for un- 
 known time about the earth. 
 
 Again, it is to-day a favorite theme of astronomers 
 that, during the igneous era, the earth rotated in a 
 period of only three or four hours. If this be true, the 
 probability that the matter in the primeval atmosphere 
 was whirled into belts or rings is increased from six to 
 eight fold. It seems scarcely needful for me to say, 
 that astronomers came to this conclusion by a legiti- 
 mate process of philosophic deduction. It must be 
 evident that this rate of rotation would be of great ad- 
 vantage to us in establishing annular conditions; for, 
 almost every school-boy has learned that if the earth 
 should rotate more than seventeen times as rapidly as 
 it now does, the oceans at the equator would be whirled 
 into space, and made to revolve around it. Then, a 
 rotation in three hours, or eight times as rapidly as at 
 present, would whirl matter already floating in the at- 
 mosphere to a greater height and increase annular ten- 
 dency in the same proportion. However, we will de- 
 cline to make use of this advantage, and use only that 
 rate of rotation that every one knows to be correct, 
 viz: one revolution in 24 hours. 
 
 Here, then, we have true philosophic data which all 
 men will certainly admit to be fair; and upon which 
 all may proceed to erect the annular theory, and we 
 will endeavor to square every timber in the edifice by 
 one unvarying rule : Philosophic Law. If we succeed 
 with these data to start with, men of science may nrul-
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 21 
 
 tiply its certainty by at least twelve, for their own sat- 
 isfaction. The data then are : a primeval atmosphere 
 admitted on all hands to be 100,000 miles deep, and a 
 known velocity of rotation of once in 24 hours. 
 
 With this rate of rotation, we also know that the 
 velocity of any point on the equator of the earth was 
 about 1,000 miles per hour, while the equatorial 
 periphery of the great vaporous atmosphere moved 
 with an actual velocity of more than 25,000 miles per 
 hour. This, the most ordinary mind can determine; 
 but as we are searching for facts that any child who 
 may peruse these pages may understand, I will give the 
 simple calculation here. 
 
 If the atmosphere were 100,000 miles deep, and the 
 earth 8,000 miles in diameter approximately, the 
 diameter of the sphere would be 208,000 miles, and the 
 circumference a little more than three times that or 
 about 624,000 the space that any point in the outer 
 boundary of the atmosphere would move through in 24 
 hours, and of course -^ of that distance in one hour, 
 or 26,000 miles (I will give 1,000 miles to the other 
 side out of pure liberality). 
 
 The simple conclusion drawn from this is, as any one 
 can see, that a ton of matter at or near the equator of 
 the earth would have a momentum) of 1,000 tons, in 
 the rotating mass, while a ton of vapor or any other 
 matter on the peripheral boundary of the atmosphere, 
 would have a moving energy of 25,000 tons. 
 
 Suppose the former were placed ten miles above the 
 surface of the earth, and the latter brought down to 
 the same position; the former with a velocity of 1,000 
 miles per hour would immediately fall to the earth, 
 while the latter would rise, and revolve around the
 
 22 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 earth as a satellite, as can be readily proved by a simple 
 calculation. The mass possessing 25,000 tons of mov- 
 ing energy must lose 8,000 tons of that moving force 
 before it would, or could reach the earth; for as I have 
 before stated, it is a well-known fact that any body mov- 
 ing around the earth at a rate of more than 17,000 
 miles per hour, can never fall to its surface, and a ton 
 moving at that rate would possess 17,000 tons of mo- 
 mentum, and it becomes a known fact that if that mo- 
 mentum were increased to 25,000 tons, or a velocity 
 25,000 miles per hour, it would rise and revolve in its 
 appropriate orbit about the earth, and never until its 
 velocity became diminished to about 17,000 miles per 
 hour could it reach the surface of the earth. Now it 
 could make no difference whether a body be a ton of 
 stone or a ton of aqueous vapor, it would continue to 
 move around the earth so long as the centrifugal ex- 
 ceeded the gravital force. Hence it is evident that 
 upon the data assumed above, of an atmosphere less 
 than half so extensive, as scientists assumed, and with 
 a radial velocity more than six times less than they 
 claim for the mass, the centrifugal force of a vast por- 
 tion of the aqueous vapors and other matter in the 
 primitive atmosphere was such as to effectually hinder 
 their fall to the earth, as the latter cooled down and the 
 vapors condensed. It is also evident that the matter 
 in the lower regions of the atmosphere would fall on 
 the withdrawal of terrestrial heat, and it is an easy 
 thing to ascertain the line, or height in the atmosphere 
 beneath which all vapors upon condensing would fall, 
 on account of insufficient centrifugal force or moving 
 energy to keep them there, and all vapors beyond which
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 23 
 
 would remain there because of insufficient gravital 
 force to bring them down. 
 
 What, then, must have been the condition of those 
 materials that formed the upper and outer stratum of 
 that great atmosphere after the earth became cool and 
 the atmosphere shrank to near its present dimensions, 
 and all the aqueous matter, etc., to the height of 20,000 
 or 30,000 miles had fallen to the earth? These must 
 have been vast oceans of clouds possessing a velocity 
 that prevented their descent, and which continued to 
 move around the earth; that is, the earth had an an- 
 nular system. If any criticism can shake this conclu- 
 sion, there is nothing in law! One would suppose 
 that this is all-sufficient to settle the question forever, 
 that the oceans did not all fall to the earth at the close 
 of the igneous era, but that such as existed when they 
 had not centrifugal force sufficient to retain them on 
 high, did fall; but I will not put this conclusion aside 
 until I have shown still further the impregnable 
 grounds upon which it is based. It is easy to demon- 
 strate by a mathematical calculation that the above 
 depth of atmosphere and rate of rotation are much 
 greater than that which was actually necessary to pro- 
 duce annular formation about the earth. 
 
 The analytical expression used by mathematicians 
 to represent the whole force of gravity at the earth's 
 equator is g + -^ where g is the visible force of 
 gravity, or the space a body will fall at the equator dur- 
 ing the first second of time; c is the chord of an arc 
 over which a revolving body moves in one second, 
 and D the diameter of the orbit of which c, or the arc, 
 is a part, and- is the centrifugal force or the part of
 
 24 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 gravity destroyed by rotation, or movement in an orbit. 
 It is evident that the arc c or the space passed over 
 by the moving body in one second, will be practi- 
 cally equal to the chord of the same arc, and I will 
 therefore use it as such; that is, as a straight line. 
 Now, as-^- is the centrifugal force, and g the gravital 
 or centripetal force, when these forces are equal, and 
 the body neither falls nor rises, but moves on con- 
 tinually in its orbit, g = -? - 
 
 Now there are 86,164 seconds in one complete rota- 
 tion of the earth, and the circumference of the earth 
 is D X 3.1416 nearly,' and this divided by 86,164, num- 
 ber of seconds in one rotation, gives the length of the 
 arc c, or the distance any point on the equator moves in 
 one second of time; in other words, the rate of motion. 
 But when g =-^-it is evident that gD=c 2 or c = V g D, 
 and as often as c, the distance a body moves in one sec- 
 ond, is contained in the whole circumference, so many 
 seconds are there in one revolution; that is, PX3.1416 
 
 A- -j j i, * i ,/-TT DX3.1416 
 
 divided by c or its equal, vg D, thus: - ^-fr~ = num- 
 
 v g k> 
 
 ber of seconds in one revolution when 9 == ^- or when the 
 
 earth rotates so rapidly that the centrifugal force on 
 
 the equator equals gravity. Then we evidently have 
 
 DX 3.1416 7925X5280X3.1416 *_ 
 
 VgD ~ V 16.076 X 7926 X 6280 
 
 7925 X 528 = number of feet in the earth's 
 diameter, and 16,076 = g distance a body falls 
 at the equator during the first second. Let D 
 be the earth's equatorial diameter (7925 miles), 
 and X the versed sine of the arc or distance a 
 point on the equator moves in one second ; A X 
 is the chord of the arc, and practically equal 
 to the chord itself, where so small a portion of 
 * TO- *' time is considered.
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 25 
 
 5069 seconds = l h , 24: m , 29 s , or the time in which a 
 ton of matter would have to revolve about the earth 
 just at its surface at the equator, so that it would 
 neither rise nor fall, and when, if its velocity were in- 
 creased, it would move away from the earth, and in an- 
 other orbit. Now this velocity is 17 times the present 
 velocity of the earth's rotation, or about 17,000 miles 
 per hour. Hence, we have an absolute demonstration 
 that any body in our present atmosphere or in the great 
 primeval atmosphere, or at any point above the earth, 
 moving at the rate of 25,000 or 20,000 or even 17,500 
 miles per hour around it, could not fall to its surface! 
 But vast quantities of primeval vapors did move with 
 this velocity according to our assumed data, which data 
 we have no reason to dispute, and therefore we are 
 abundantly justified in the claim that the earth for un- 
 known time was accompanied with an annular system, 
 and the geological record has been misinterpreted, and 
 must be reviewed, and geological theories remodeled. 
 
 The foregoing calculations, it might seem, are all- 
 sufficient to establish the fact of annular formation 
 about the primitive earth. But this formation, once 
 effected, demands a permanency of existence, which an 
 immensity of time only can effect. Rings once formed 
 about the earth after the lapse of countless millions of 
 years, cannot collapse in a day. They must lose their 
 momentum with a steadiness as invariable as the flood 
 of ages. It would be as unreasonable to suppose the 
 earth's present satellite would in an hour break loose 
 from its anchorage, and descend to the earth, as to sup- 
 pose that one of its rings could do the same thing. Then 
 with the primitive earth surrounded with a ring system 
 whose longevity could be counted only by geologic
 
 26 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ages, are we for a moment to suppose that the aqueous 
 strata-formation only began after that system had 
 fallen? Is it not more reasonable to suppose that the 
 aqueous strata began to form as the vapors began to 
 descend, and that the latter continued their decline 
 through all geologic time? What is there unreason- 
 able in the claim? 
 
 Rings of aqueous vapor, however associated with 
 mineral and metallic matter, must follow in all respects 
 the same laws as a moon or planetary satellite in their 
 motions around their primary. There is a law well 
 known to the mathematical world, called " Kepler's 
 Third Law." Let us bring it into use. By it we can 
 readily demonstrate not only that the primitive distil- 
 lations, repelled from the fiery sphere, were thrown 
 into a ring-system, but by it we can also readily show 
 how far above the earth's surface they must have re- 
 volved about it. This law may be stated thus: The 
 squares of the periodic times of revolving satellites are 
 proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from 
 the primary around which they move. This is of uni- 
 versal application whatever be the shape or constitution 
 of the satellites, as all must know. Then if we take 
 the cube of the radius of the moon's orbit, which is 
 sixty times the equatorial radius of the earth, and divide 
 it by the square of the time of its revolution in seconds, 
 it must be equal to the cube of the orbital radius of a 
 ring of any kind of matter revolving about the earth, 
 divided by the square of the time of its revolution in 
 seconds. 
 
 As before stated, the primeval atmosphere in which 
 the matter distilled from the igneous earth existed, and 
 out of which matter all terrestrial rings must have been
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 27 
 
 formed, rotated with the earth; and we have assumed 
 this rotation to be once in twenty-four hours, which 
 the reader will readily grant. Then it must be seen 
 that we have three known terms of a proportion to find 
 the fourth. This fourth term is readily found, and 
 is the actual distance of any terrestrial ring from the 
 earth's center. Put this unknown quantity = R and 
 we will have the following easy calculation. The time 
 of the primitive atmosphere's rotation = 86,164 sec- 
 onds, moon's time 2,360,608 seconds, and we have the 
 following equation : 
 
 R 3 60 s 
 
 (86,164) 2 (2,360,608) 2 
 
 developing and reducing by simple calculation or more 
 readily by logarithms, we will find R 3 = 279.725264 
 and R. = 6.54 times the equatorial radius of the earth, 
 or the semi-diameter of a ring revolving about the 
 earth once in twenty-four hours. In other words, 
 vapors, of whatever kind, in the primitive atmosphere, 
 at the height or distance of 26,000 miles from the 
 earth's center, or a little more than 22,000 miles from 
 its surface, possessed all the independent energy of a 
 revolving satellite; and all vapors farther off possessed 
 still greater momentum, and those nearer the earth did 
 not possess the energy of a satellite, and fell to the 
 earth as it cooled down, leaving the more distant mat- 
 ter moving independently about it. Is there anything 
 wrong with this demonstration ? Thus " Kepler's 
 Third Law " establishes the truth of the annular 
 theory, or proves itself to be of no value at all ! 
 
 Then we must see that we need no atmosphere 240,- 
 000 miles in depth, nor 100,000, nor even 22,000 miles 
 in order to show that annular formation was an abso-
 
 28 The Earth's Annular System, 
 
 lute necessity in the evolution of the earth. Every 
 mile added to this paltry depth, adds to the certainty 
 of the fact. Did the earth then rotate in 86,164 
 seconds, or did it rotate in half that time? Every 
 second of diminution adds to the certainty of the fact. 
 How can we escape this conclusion ? Thus is rendered 
 plain and irrefutable the claim that the lower part of 
 the great aqueous atmosphere, upon contraction and 
 condensation resulting from the loss of terrestrial heat, 
 fell away from the upper part, simply because the latter 
 (like the rim of a great revolving wheel) moved so rap- 
 idly it could not descend, but continued to revolve 
 about the earth until it lost so much of its independent 
 inertia, as to permit it to descend, as will be shown in 
 its proper place. 
 
 Proceeding thus from the known condition of the 
 primitive earth along a track, every step of which is 
 known, we have by adhering to strict philosophic de- 
 mands, laid the foundation of a theory that no man can 
 shake. The reader will from this time observe, that 
 the fabric built upon this foundation, is not an obelisk, 
 but a pyramid, whose successive stages add permanence 
 to the adamantine sills upon which it stands. 
 
 Let us look back upon the ground over which we 
 have passed. We see a fiery globe rolling through, 
 space with a vast and heavy atmosphere, rotating so 
 rapidly that its outskirts are unavoidably made to as- 
 sume such a velocity as to prevent them from falling. 
 The earth was then a glowing sun, or a gleaming star, 
 as analogy seems to prove. But when this earth from 
 " its inmost bosom burned," when its oceans of molten 
 minerals beat upon a seething coast, when its rivers 
 were fluid fire, and its fountains dashing flames, when
 
 All Worlds Made Alike. 29 
 
 its " clouds by fiery tempests driven," dropped their 
 steaming floods, an energy potential was stored up in 
 the mighty upper deep a vast abyss that literally built 
 the aqueous world in after times. 
 
 We can easily imagine a world and its atmosphere 
 turning so slowly that the vapors would fall immediate- 
 ly after it cooled down, leaving the heavens clear, and 
 a vast universal ocean washing it. But no such condi- 
 tions have ever existed on the earth that could bring 
 these things to pass. Every mathematician must know 
 full well, that the rotation of such a mass once in 
 twenty-four hours, would inevitably separate the upper 
 vapors from the lower, leaving the upper far above the 
 atmosphere or terrestrial firmament, obeying the de- 
 mands of inexorable law. And when investigators 
 recognize this fact, as it stands to-day demanding a re- 
 spectful consideration, then, and not till then, will they 
 be able to unlock some of the most perplexing questions 
 of science, which now defy explanation. It is the 
 Philosopher's key to "nature's vast cathedral." I dare 
 not now point out the grand avenues of thought which 
 it opens; but time will make all things visible. I al- 
 most said, " all things new," not only in physics, but 
 also in metaphysics ! All I ask of the reader of these 
 pages is implicit recognition of LAW, in this field of 
 labor so near the Great Fountain of Truth. The mo- 
 ment we leave it, we land in shadow and darkness. To 
 propagate and teach one error hides a multitude of 
 truths. An error taught in the name of science is a 
 pernicious falsehood. We must, N sooner or later, ac- 
 knowledge the declaration of the missed and lamented 
 Agassiz : " A physical fact is as sacred as a moral prin- 
 ciple ; " for a physical fact ignored sends violated im-
 
 30 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 pulses through the nerve centers of society; and their 
 impress is traced in imperishable lines, as by a hand 
 unseen. But one physical fact stands out prominent 
 in the universe, viz: Annular formation is a necessity 
 in the evolution of worlds from their primitive state ! ! 
 It must be plain from the foregoing that if geologists 
 had followed the grand train of philosophic events re- 
 sulting from the igneous fluidity of the burning earth 
 in primitive times, they must have long since concluded 
 that much of the aqueous crust of the earth once ex- 
 isted with the revolving vapors, as infinitesimal parti- 
 cles, or tellurio-cosmic dust, in the ring-system. It 
 must be so; from the very nature of that great sublima- 
 tion of terrestrial elements, we are forced to this con- 
 clusion. And now if men of science will but open their 
 eyes and look, they must see it. Let them follow this 
 conclusion to its legitimate end, and they must see with 
 the keenest regret, the fruitless toil of centuries. No, 
 not fruitless! They have sailed along the very boun- 
 dary of this field of investigation, and its explored 
 avenues have yielded returns that will aid in the new 
 realm of thought. The glories of a brighter day are 
 dawning in mankind's sky, when all men must see 
 more nearly eye to eye.
 
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 CHAPTER H. 
 
 SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 To those who are able to follow physical causes to 
 their legitimate and necessary effects, it will not be 
 difficult to satisfactorily explain the mode of ring- 
 formation about the primitive earth. The grand and 
 stupendous changes that have recorded their way- 
 marks, are the guide-posts of the investigator, pointing 
 unmistakably to unavoidable conclusions. Being the 
 physical means by which an incomprehensible Planner 
 and Architect has completed a beautiful world for the 
 habitation of man, according to unchanging law, if we 
 follow philosophically the unmistakably known condi- 
 tions stated in the previous chapter i.e., those flowing 
 from a state of igneous fusion, we cannot draw erron- 
 eous conclusions. Then let us be careful that no error 
 enters the threshold of our work as we pass from the 
 known to the unknown. 
 
 We all know with absolute certainty that when the 
 earth was in a state of fiery fluidity, the entire oceans 
 of water now on its surface were held suspended at a 
 great distance from it. Not one drop of the mighty 
 waters now surging against the shores of the earth, 
 could have remained for an instant on its surface, nor 
 in its flaming firmament. This we can all see so plain- 
 ly that no one can entertain a doubt upon it. There is 
 another known condition that will greatly aid us in this 
 argument, when properly understood: the evident dis- 
 position of the cooling and contracting earth to absorb 
 or draw the waters into its rock-forming crust, as they
 
 32 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 fell to its surface. It is not difficult to determine how 
 much water or moisture a heated stone of any kind will 
 absorb as it cools, so that we can give a reasonable and 
 just approximation of the amount of water existing in 
 the various rock formations of the globe. Many in- 
 vestigators have worked upon this question, and it has 
 been found by analysis and experiment that even the 
 solid lime-rock contains from one-half to one per cent, 
 of water. Coals vary from five to twelve per cent, 
 in the amount of water they contain. Iron ores from 
 one to six per cent. Some sand-stones contain from 
 six to ten per cent., clays much more, while granite, 
 mica, feld-spar, and even solid quartz crystals, contain 
 moisture in different amounts. 
 
 In our deepest caves and mines, some of them far 
 below the ocean's level, water is found running down 
 and into the bosom of the earth. This proves that the 
 solid crust is still imbibing the waters of the ocean 
 with a quenchless thirst, and that coming ages must 
 diminish its volume and depth. If no more than a 
 single barrel of water is absorbed in a day, a sufficient 
 number of days will cause the solid earth to appropriate 
 all the waters on the globe. The question then, what 
 volumes of water has the earth already absorbed, be- 
 comes an interesting and very important one; one that 
 geologists have scarcely considered. 
 
 Dana estimated that the oceans would be 400 feet 
 deeper if these imbibed waters were returned to them. 
 Many of the Atlantic and Gulf States would be entirely 
 submerged. New York city, Philadelphia and New 
 Orleans, would be more than 200 feet under water. 
 Three-fourths of the islands of the earth would be sub- 
 merged, and a vast portion of Europe and Asia would
 
 Some General Considerations. 33 
 
 be one great sweep of waters. Then if Dana's esti- 
 mate be a true one, and if it be true that all the oceans 
 fell to the earth in pre-laurentian times, the general 
 depth of the same is less to-day by 400 feet than it was 
 then. But Dana's estimate is a very cautious and 
 moderate one; and based upon a thickness of super- 
 crust of about five miles, while modern researches have 
 demonstrated it to be vastly thicker, some eminent 
 physicists reckoning it as high as 1,000 miles, so that 
 if we reckon it to be 100 miles thick and admit the 
 rocks to contain one-half of one per cent, of moisture, 
 or one-fifth what Dana claimed, the oceans the world 
 over would rise 2,500 feet upon the shores of the con- 
 tinents; or admitting his estimate of rock moisture to 
 be correct, it would be increased to 8,000 feet. 
 
 Hence it must be seen that if all the terrestrial 
 waters rolled as a primitive ocean around the earth, 
 they have diminished from 2,500 to 8,000 feet in depth 
 during geologic times. How many of my readers are 
 ready to admit that the primitive ocean was, on an aver- 
 age, deeper than it now is? Whatever testimony we 
 can gather from the rocky volume, points to the conclu- 
 sion that- that ocean was very shallow. Hence we are 
 irresistibly forced to believe that the oceans fell to the 
 earth in great installments. If the seas of the earth 
 were never any deeper than now, then 2,500 feet (or 
 the 400 feet of Dana's reckoning) fell after the solid 
 crust had imbibed that much, and I am inclined to 
 think the intelligent reader will yet agree with me, 
 that the ocean is now many thousand feet deeper than 
 it was even in devonian times, to say nothing of the 
 cambrian age. 
 
 But whatever be the present volume of the subter-
 
 34 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ranean waters and rock-imbibed moisture, it is evident 
 that there was a time when the earth did not contain 
 them. So that the present waters on the surface of 
 the globe, do not by any means represent the great ex- 
 panse of vapors that once enveloped it. Let us remem- 
 ber this conclusion, to which we are necessarily im- 
 pelled. 
 
 But all these revolving vapors fell to the earth, for 
 they are on the earth and within it ! and further, every 
 pound that fell, by force of impact and actual mechan- 
 ical pressure, was registered in the rocky frame of the 
 earth as so much potential energy! This fact has 
 never been regarded at all by men of science. In an- 
 other chapter it will be seen that this energy was con- 
 served in mountain-making and plication of strata, and 
 that if the materials of the annular system had not 
 reached the earth at different geological ages, there 
 would have been no general upheaval after the close of 
 the laurentian era; that the mountain systems and 
 the continents of the earth are a measure of the stu- 
 pendous force expended in the fall of the oceans to 
 their present level, and that the starts and mountain- 
 making ages resulted from successive installments of 
 matter from the Earth's Ring System. 
 
 When the waters were held suspended in the primi- 
 tive atmosphere, they would move in that direction 
 towards which the impelling forces would drive them. 
 The centrifugal force of the rotating mass superadded 
 to the driving force of heat, was greater in the direc- 
 tion of the equator, hence they would accumulate in the 
 equatorial regions. Let the reader understand how this 
 must have occurred. There being no centrifugal force 
 at the poles, the vapors were kept from falling there
 
 Some General Considerations. 35 
 
 by heat alone; but all other parts of the surface pos- 
 sessed some centrifugal energy tending to carry the sus- 
 pended matter away from the earth in lines, at right 
 angles to the earth's polar axis. This force, to use the 
 language of mathematicians, " decreases the weight of 
 the sea, which is thereby rendered susceptible of being 
 supported at a higher level than at the poles, where no 
 such counteracting force exists."* 
 
 Now during the igneous era, gravital force could in 
 no sense operate to bring matter back to the earth, 
 which had undergone vaporization. Hence centrifugal 
 force carried it much farther from the earth and into 
 the equatorial heavens at that time than it could to- 
 day; for it is evident that if the earth did not rotate 
 at all during that era, the vapors would occupy great 
 heights of the ancient atmosphere, and the centrifugal 
 force then added by actual rotation would cause them 
 to occupy greater heights. That is, there were two 
 forces operating to keep the vapors away from the 
 earth : heat repelling them, and centrifugal force gath- 
 ering them, as it were, over the equator, and whirling 
 them into rotation with the mass, so that in course of 
 time the vapors must have occupied a vast space in the 
 equatorial telluric heavens, or firmament. 
 
 Again it is apparent, that whenever the earth cooled 
 down, so as to allow the vapors to descend, all that did 
 not possess sufficient centrifugal energy to hold them 
 on high, would descend to the earth. This was partic- 
 ularly the case with all polar vapors, if any were there 
 which had not been previously drawn into the equator- 
 ial ring. So that the polar heavens became clear of 
 primitive vapors and all other matter associated there- 
 * Robinson's " Astronomy," page 69.
 
 36 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 with before the equatorial matter could possibly de- 
 scend upon the earth. Then it is plain that we have 
 arrived at an actual age of the earth, in our investiga- 
 tions, when it rolled through space with an annular 
 appendage over the equator, while the stars and the sun 
 looked down upon its surface as they do to-day, in the 
 circumpolar heavens. (See cut page 174.) 
 
 At that age rolled the first-born ocean around the 
 earth. From necessity clouds formed and rains de- 
 scended, winds swept over the earth, summer and win- 
 ter, and day and night joined in the round of perpetual 
 change; for solar action under such conditions liter- 
 ally forced such things upon the young planet. When 
 men talk about the " heavy," " damp " and " murky " 
 air of primeval time, they ignore the fact that pure 
 gases are invisible, and all floating particles, as mineral 
 and metallic dust or particles of vapor, which render the 
 air visible or murky and damp, must fall as surely as a 
 flake of snow. If such were not inexorable law, what 
 kind of an atmosphere would surround a planet like 
 the earth? 
 
 The same causes operated in primitive times to clear 
 the atmosphere as now promote that end. But laying 
 these considerations all aside as comparatively unim- 
 portant, we have the grand feature of that age standing 
 out in bold relief, and that feature is the revolving fund 
 of vapors composing the annular system. We must 
 examine this more minutely, beginning, as before, with 
 known features. 
 
 The outer perimeter of the revolving vapors con- 
 densed first because that part of the mass was farthest 
 removed from the heated earth. But in condensing 
 the vapors occupied less space than before. The mass
 
 Some General Considerations. 37 
 
 revolved eastward, just as the earth rotates. The moon 
 fell back westward as it does to-day, drawing the rings- 
 yielding surface after it, just as it draws a tidal wave 
 westward in the ocean to-day. Now as this tidal wave 
 rolls with immeasurable force against the western 
 shores of the ocean, it checks to an exceeding small 
 extent the radial motion of the earth. It produced the 
 same effect upon the rings. It put a brake, as it 
 were, upon the condensing rim of the great revolving 
 wheel, affecting the outer surface more than the in- 
 terior. But just in proportion as the condensed vapors 
 were checked, would they decline inwards, causing the 
 segregating particles to form a more dense rim or 
 boundary. For their motion being reduced, their cen- 
 trifugal force would be diminished, and the gravital 
 force comparatively increased, and the rings would 
 begin their decline under lunar influence, and never 
 cease to approach the earth till the last remnant of an- 
 nular matter reached its surface. 
 
 While this condensation went on in the rim, caus- 
 ing a contraction of the same upon the interior mass, 
 particles next to the rim on the inner side would be 
 attracted to it. Thus the condensed rim, for a certain 
 distance inward, would gather matter, as it were, from 
 below, thus forming a hiatus or division between the 
 rim condensed and the great mass uncondensed. Here, 
 then, we have the outermost ring of the system. It 
 can be readily understood how that it would be impos- 
 sible for this ring of vapor to fall in and unite with the 
 mass. Every particle of the former having a velocity 
 of, say, 24,000 miles per hour, could not unite with 
 the rim of the remaining inner mass, revolving 23,000 
 miles per hour, any more than two aerolites in adjacent
 
 38 The Earth's AnmUar System. 
 
 paths, one moving 1,000 miles per hour more rapidly 
 than the other. And never until the first ring had lost 
 so much of its motion as to move with the same velocity 
 as the mass within, could the two bodies become united 
 again. 
 
 The same process continued downwards or inwards 
 would form the second ring; likewise the third, each 
 separated from its neighbors with certain definite 
 spaces or divisions. 
 
 Can any one following the index finger of philosophy 
 point out any valid objection to this mode of annular 
 formation ? When we shall have gone over the geo- 
 logical record we will see that the annular system was 
 very complex. The number of rings formed was great, 
 each separated from the rest as we have shown above. 
 
 Here now we have formed the earth's annular sys- 
 tem, but let it be understood that we are not now going 
 to build a house upon this foundation we are only ex- 
 pecting to bring a mass of evidence to prove that this 
 is the foundation! We will continually add testimony 
 as we go along, and we will not build the house until 
 the reader can see an immovable base to build upon. 
 We have demonstrated, so far as a physical question can 
 be settled by law, that there were waters revolving 
 about the earth ! We have shown, as I think, the only 
 reasonable mode of annular formation and division. 
 
 Let us turn our glass to the skies. Yonder is a 
 bright gleaming orb, nearly 1 ,000 times as bulky as the 
 earth. Around it revolves an annular system. Across 
 the vast abyss of nearly one thousand millions of miles, 
 we see Saturn's annular appendage, divided into three 
 grand divisions, and these divisions each further divided 
 into a system of smaller ones. The number is not
 
 Some General Considerations. 39 
 
 known. The clearest and best telescopes exhibit the 
 greatest number of divisions, so that it is likely a tele- 
 scope of greater power and clearness than has yet been 
 directed to it, would reveal many more. So here is a 
 world surrounded by a complex system of rings, just 
 as reason teaches the earth was at the close of archsean 
 time. It is divided as philosophic reasoning proclaims. 
 The exterior ring is about 173,500 miles in diameter, 
 and is itself 10,000 miles broad, and the innermost one 
 is more than ten thousand miles from the surface of 
 the planet. Here, then, we have strong reasons for 
 claiming that the process of annular development on 
 both Saturn and the earth was the same. Igneous ac- 
 tion was no doubt the only competent cause. We re- 
 turn to the consideration of our own orb, strengthened 
 in the belief that our reasoning is correct. 
 
 The earth's annular system has fallen, and we will 
 now philosophize upon the manner of its declension. I 
 have said that the moon put a brake, as it were, upon 
 this appendage, just as it now does upon the earth, and 
 its effect upon its motion extended throughout the sys- 
 tem, from the exterior to the innermost ring, so that 
 when condensation and segregation had completed the 
 system, it must have declined bodily toward the planet, 
 and of course the innermost ring reached the outskirts 
 of the earth's atmosphere first. But what would be 
 the immediate effect of the entrance of such a body into 
 the upper regions of the air ? Slowly it descended, but 
 the moment it touched and began mingling with the 
 air, its down-progress would be checked. For, however 
 rare the atmosphere at that elevation, it was matter 
 occupying space, and no other matter, however dense, 
 could displace it without encountering some resistance.
 
 40 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 This resistance or checking force operating upon the 
 vapors in front while they pushed on from above would 
 cause them to spread into the form of a belt, and this 
 belt would widen and spread from the equator toward 
 the poles. When this innermost ring had so far de- 
 clined as to be freed from the system, it of course con- 
 tinued to revolve for some time more rapidly than the 
 atmosphere rotated with the earth. Moving in a greatly 
 attenuated atmosphere with an independent motion, 
 there would be two forces resisting its fall, viz: Its 
 own independent revolving energy, and the resistance 
 afforded by the atmosphere, and this latter increasing 
 in a direction toward the earth on account of greater 
 density. Under these conditions the newly-formed 
 belt would float away from the equator in two divisions, 
 one toward each pole, and must have reached the 
 earth's surface in regions beyond the tropics, perhaps 
 beyond the temperate regions and in the polar zones. 
 
 Now, it is a well-known physical fact, that the gravi- 
 tal force is stronger in the polar regions than elsewhere 
 upon the earth, from two causes i.e., the greater at- 
 traction, and the absence of centrifugal force at the 
 poles. Thus we see, as in the ring formation the vapors 
 followed the direction of the greatest driving force 
 toward the equator, so in ring declension they returned 
 along the same line and fell where there was the least 
 resistance. Now the resistance occasioned by centri- 
 fugal force is zero at the poles, and gravity is greater 
 on this account alone by its -%fa part, while at the same 
 time the polar world attracts a body about -5-^ more 
 than the equatorial, so that the two forces combined 
 make the gravital tendencyy^greater at the poles than 
 at the equator. Hence it is evident that a belt would
 
 Some General Considerations. 41 
 
 fall from the equatorial heavens down to the polar 
 world. This will be abundantly proven as we proceed. 
 Now we see there must be a division between belts and 
 space of time between falls of matter from the annular 
 system. 
 
 There is another point in belt declension we must 
 now consider. When a belt entered the atmosphere, 
 the resistance of the latter would put a brake upon it on 
 the inner side and continue to check its motion until it 
 reached the earth's surface, or wound up its spiral orbit 
 at each of the poles. Hence an equatorial belt neces- 
 sarily revolves more rapidly than a polar one, and the 
 motion of the polar one more nearly represents the 
 time of the planet's rotation than the equatorial; and 
 further, the slower motion of a polar belt shows that it 
 has been under the resisting influence of an atmosphere 
 longer than the equatorial. In other words it shows 
 that it fell from an annular system over the planet's 
 equator, and has floated away with an actual falling 
 motion towards the poles. I state this as a demon- 
 strable fact. 
 
 Let us return to view the planet Saturn, and see how 
 many of these conditions obtain on that ringed world. 
 We first notice that it possesses a number of belts, 
 pretty well defined. We see they are separated by visi- 
 ble divisions or partitions which necessitates the con- 
 clusion that they were separated in the annular sys- 
 tem, for we know of no force to separate them after 
 they once left the annular and assumed the belt form, 
 until they fall at the poles. We also find that the 
 polar belts move more slowly than the equatorial! 
 Here, then, are two important links of evidence point- 
 ing directly to the conclusion that these belts of Saturn
 
 42 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 have descended from the annular form, that they are 
 revolving in the outskirts of Saturn's atmosphere. 
 
 In order that the reader may more fully understand 
 the importance of these witnesses, speaking from the 
 heavens and bearing emphatic evidence from analogy 
 that annular development is a philosophic and neces- 
 sary part of planetary evolution, we must more min- 
 utely examine the only annular system now visible, and 
 also bring in the invaluable testimony of Jupiter, the 
 " King of planets " and giant of the solar system. We 
 must be allowed the privilege of drawing conclusions 
 respecting the former condition of the terraqueous 
 globe, from present known condition of her sister 
 planets. I believe the birth, growth and development 
 of worlds are regulated by inexorable law, and if one 
 planet was ever surrounded by rings, a sister planet un- 
 der the same circumstances, ruled by the same dynamic 
 and static conditions of force, in process of development, 
 must also be attended by rings during some stage of its 
 career. Not that I ignore the fact that circumstances 
 varying must vary the resulting phenomena of ruling 
 forces, but the great principles of planetary growth 
 must obtain on all planets. It is, for instance, as essen- 
 tial that ring-formation should follow igneous action, as 
 the oblatoidal form of a planet should follow its rapid 
 rotation. They are pure results of acting forces every- 
 where apparent in the solar system, from the great 
 burning, seething and smoking sun, to the utmost and 
 smallest satellites. If we can detect this universal dis- 
 position in the worlds around us, we may rest assured 
 that our own has passed through the same grand cycles 
 of change. Nay, we may in fact read the geological
 
 Some General Considerations. 43 
 
 history of the earth in the ringed and belted worlds of 
 the solar system. 
 
 It must now be clear that these features exhibited by 
 the belted vapors of Saturn and Jupiter, are vital con- 
 siderations. Modern science has established beyond a 
 doubt the fact that the motion of their polar belts is 
 slower than the equatorial. From this we are forced 
 to the conclusion that they revolve nearer their pri- 
 maries. 
 
 If those belts could by any possibility increase their 
 motion they would rise and revolve in a larger orbit. 
 That is, they would move from the poles toward the 
 equator. On the other hand, if the equatorial belts 
 should lose the smallest part of their motion they would 
 sink along the lines of least resistance and greatest 
 attraction i.e., toward the poles. Now can it be pos- 
 sible in a universe of unchanging law, that one planet 
 could become the possessor of a ring-system unless the 
 causes that formed it were universal ? Can it be possi- 
 ble that the earth, under the influences of these univer- 
 sal causes, has not passed through the same mode of 
 planetary evolution ? I can no more doubt the univer- 
 sality of this process, than I can doubt that an apple 
 would fall from a Saturnian or Jovian tree; and when 
 we see, that in addition to this necessarily universal 
 annular development, the condition of the primitive 
 earth demands such development, we are not even 
 allowed to entertain a doubt upon the subject. If the 
 laws of gravitation be universal, the causes of annular 
 formation are also, and effects must follow. It may be 
 said unknown conditions may modify the operations of 
 the law. Certainly this is true, but they may also mod- 
 ify the operations of the law of universal gravitation;
 
 44 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 yet, where is the man who doubts its universal applica- 
 tion in the midst of all modifying tendencies? 
 
 From this it must be seen that the mere fact that 
 Jupiter's and Saturn's polar belts move more slowly 
 than the equatorial, is positive proof that they have 
 moved from the equatorial regions, and therefore there 
 is a perpetual tendency in the solar system now for all 
 belts to fall at the poles! Here, then, we are simply 
 impelled to admit that the original form of all re- 
 volving planetary belts, was annular, and that they were 
 located in the equatorial regions of all planets during 
 some period of their history. The supposition also that 
 these belts must reach the surface of the planets in stu- 
 pendous downfalls, during intervals of immeasurable 
 time, receives here an emphatic avowal. 
 
 Thus by following the path pointed out, by the unerr- 
 ing voice of law, we may look upon those giant worlds, 
 and read a history of the mighty changes that made our 
 world what it is to-day. For unknown ages rings and 
 belts attended the earth. One by one they declined 
 and reached its surface around the poles. Grand stu- 
 pendous arches spread over the face of the firmament 
 when no man was here to see; when the wild denizen 
 of a wild world alone roamed its boundless wastes, 
 thoughtless of impending calamity. When we gaze 
 upon the fearful and terrifying elements, when cloud 
 meets cloud, and deep frowns on deep in the battlefields 
 of nature, what pimy things we are in the wondrous 
 arena ! But suppose we dwelt to-day on a ringed 
 world, and could see all these features and conditions a 
 thousand times intensified ! We would stand appalled 
 at the fearful grandeur and majesty of world-making. 
 
 We must look at our earth in its spasms and eternal
 
 Fig. 2. EARTH COOLED FROM A MOLTEN STATE. 
 
 (ITS RIXG SYSTEM FORMED.) 
 
 After the lapse of immeasurable time, tlie earth had cooled 
 down, forming a firm foundation for subsequent deposits. The 
 great mass of expelled vapors had condensed. Some of these 
 had returned to the earth's surface, forming the first ocean, 
 a world expanse of waters, and a world casement of sediment- 
 ary beds. In that ocean the first forms of life appeared. High 
 over the equator, as if anchored to the skies, a vast ring system 
 had formed from the higher and lighter elements, which gravi- 
 tated each to its proper place in the system, according to its spe- 
 cific gravity. Fig. 2 represents this ringed world, with its rings 
 turned edgewise to the observer, and the planet covered with a 
 universal ocean, that ocean teeming with rudimtntal life, and the 
 sun shining on the earth much as it does to-day.
 
 Some General Considerations. 45 
 
 revolutions if we would embrace half the meaning of 
 annular work in by-gone ages. While rivers flow and 
 bear their burdens to the sea, while the all-devouring 
 waves prey upon the continents and are unceasingly at 
 work in building up strata in the seas and lakes of the 
 earth, we must not forget to acknowledge the tribute of 
 the earth's annular system in building up the sedi- 
 mentary beds of the planet.
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS BESPECTING SATUBN, JUPITEE 
 
 AND MARS, AND THE EVIDENCE THEY SUPPLY IN 
 
 SUPPORT OF THE ANNULAR THEORY. 
 
 Saturn is not quite seven hundred times greater in 
 volume than the earth, but he is so light, having a 
 specific gravity less than threefourths that of water, 
 that he is only about ninety times as heavy. Proctor 
 says : " Gravity at his equator is almost exactly equal 
 to gravity at the earth's surface. Near the poles there 
 is a marked increase in the action of Saturnian gravity, 
 insomuch that a body weighing ten pounds at his 
 equator would weigh about twelve pounds at either 
 pole." It is more than likely that Proctor was mis- 
 taken, as it must be conceded that we have never seen 
 the actual face of Saturn, and therefore do not know 
 how rapidly he revolves. Hence all notions as to the 
 comparative polar and equatorial gravital forces, are 
 necessarily vain. He also speaks of total solar eclipses, 
 in the latitudes corresponding to those of London and 
 Madrid, of five and seven years' duration. But the 
 solar orb is never visible to the Saturnians; for, the 
 over-canopying fund of vapors must exclude it from 
 view. It is, however, easily demonstrated that the in- 
 habitants of Saturn, from this very circumstance, are in 
 the midst of eternal day, from the total diffusion of 
 light throughout his revolving envelope, which from 
 necessity becomes an actual light-bearer. All the sun- 
 light received by Saturn is poured into his belts and 
 rings. Every floating particle of vapor or mineral aids
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 47 
 
 in the total diffusion. And the student in optical science 
 will readily understand, how there could be but a sign 
 of the alternation of day and night, on a planet sur- 
 rounded by vaporous belts and light-bearing zones of 
 revolving matter. 
 
 A planet surrounded by a lofty vaporous atmosphere 
 can have but the merest shadow of night while the solar 
 beams pour into it. Neither could there be alternation 
 of seasons, while the solar heat entered such a revolving 
 envelope. Let us examine this a little farther. This 
 difference of polar and equatorial gravity is true as to 
 the envelope of Saturn and shows emphatically the 
 necessary conclusion that the belts must gravitate to 
 the poles in order to fall. Thus, Saturn's equatorial 
 belt presses directly downward with a certain force; but 
 its own centrifugal force, and the resisting atmosphere 
 prevent its motion in that direction. Xow at the same 
 time, while this belt is equipoised, in mid-heaven we may 
 say, another force is actually exerted to pull it down 
 via the poles. A lateral motion must be the inevitable 
 result, and this must end in a universal canopy. 
 
 It is also plain that, if all Saturn's belts, except his 
 equatorial one, should fall, the single belt, if large, 
 would, in spreading toward the poles, shut out the 
 direct sunlight from the surface of the planet. 
 
 Admit a single beam of sunlight in a chamber of mid- 
 night darkness filled with steam, and you will see the 
 whole room illuminated. The steam carries the light 
 into the darkest corner. A jet of water, illuminated 
 just as it leaves the hose by the calcium light in the 
 midst of total darkness, will appear as a beautiful 
 stream of light as far as it can be thrown. Any one 
 can perform these experiments for himself, and prove
 
 48 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 to his own satisfaction that watery vapors, snowy par- 
 ticles, or almost any floating particles except actual ab- 
 sorbents of light, are actual light-bearers. Then a 
 great mass of attentuated clouds or vapors, unpacked by 
 tempests, high above Saturn's surface and extending all 
 around him, one half illuminated directly by the whole 
 light of the sun, must inevitably carry the light of day 
 around the planet; or even a jet of water projected 
 around a planet, would appear as a light-giving ring, 
 and if that ring were extensive enough, it would anni- 
 hilate night. Not that the parts of the envelope of 
 vapor, or jet of water farthest from the sun, would be 
 as light or luminous as the rest, but that the columns 
 rising from the eastern and western skies, brilliantly 
 illuminated and spreading out fan-shaped in the zenith, 
 would illuminate the planet's surface. While in the 
 case of a wide belt, or a universal envelope, the light 
 from the eastern sky would mingle more profusely with 
 that from the western, and the illumination would be 
 BO general that it would be scarcely possible for day and 
 night to alternate as we see now on earth. While one 
 belt remained in the Saturnian or Jovial heavens there 
 could be no true night there. If a single moon shining 
 on earth can so clearly dispel darkness by its reflected 
 light, that one can some times read a common print at 
 midnight; what must be the luminous effects of a uni- 
 versal light-bearing canopy? a reflector equal to 
 thousands of moons. Even when our atmosphere con- 
 tains more floating particles of vapor, or cosmic dust 
 than usual, its daylight is sensibly extended ; and we can 
 readily understand then how our atmosphere might be- 
 come so full of aqueous particles, as to extend morn- 
 ing and evening twilight far into the night. But such
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 49 
 
 particles in an atmosphere no more extensive than that 
 of the earth, could have but small effect compared 
 with arching vapors high in the heavens. If we 
 could transfer a cloud from the full light of day with 
 all the light it contained, into midnight darkness, how 
 brilliant it would appear ! How it would illumine the 
 clouds around it ! So that in philosophizing upon the 
 conditions of our sister planets, astronomers, I believe, 
 have erred by neglecting these facts. Let the reader 
 note this philosophic deduction of perpetual day, for 
 it will come in as startling evidence in its proper place. 
 
 One of the strongest points I have to present to show 
 that the bands and belts of these giants of the solar sys- 
 tem move almost independently of the central orbs, 
 is the velocity with which they apparently rotate. It 
 is admitted by most astronomers that we cannot see the 
 actual surfaces or bodies of these planets. Then it 
 must be admitted that we do not know the length of 
 a Jovial or Saturnian day. We do know the length of 
 a day on Mars, or on Venus, even to the fraction of a 
 minute, and we also approximately know the time of 
 the rotation of Mercury, and that these three planets 
 and the earth rotate in about the same length of time; 
 none varying more than a few minutes from a terres- 
 trial day, or nearly twenty-four hours. ]STow it does 
 not seem likely that Saturn, about 700 times more 
 bulky and ninety times as heavy as the earth, or that 
 Jupiter, more than 1200 times as large, and out- weigh- 
 ing the earth three hundred times, would, in the same 
 system, and under the same laws, rotate more than 
 twice as rapidly as any of the four interior planets 
 named. It seems inharmonious. If, therefore, we 
 should assume the Saturnian day to be about 24 hours
 
 50 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 long and knowing its exterior envelope to rotate in 
 about 10 hours, we should find evidence to support this 
 assumption, from the very highest authority, my read- 
 ers will certainly allow me the liberty of ignoring the 
 long cherished idea that Saturn's light belts are his at- 
 mospheric clouds, as commonly understood, and his dark 
 ones but rifts in the same, revealing the body of the 
 planet, as some suppose. If the earth should rotate so 
 that a particle of matter on its equator should move 
 about 290 miles per minute, a cloud would be thrown 
 outward to the very limit of our atmosphere, and be 
 impelled to move in an independent orbit about the 
 earth. This is so plain that the merest novice in as- 
 tronomy must understand it. But Jupiter's clouds 
 move at the rate of nearly 470 miles per minute. Such 
 a velocity would fling a terrestrial cloud thousands of 
 miles beyond the atmosphere, and cause it to move 
 around the earth. But a cloud on Jupiter's surface 
 weighs about two and a half times as much as on earth, 
 so that a simple calculation will show that with the 
 above velocity, Jupiter's clouds, whatever they may be, 
 are to a great extent independent of the planet so far 
 as velocity or rate of radial motion is concerned. That 
 is, if the same static and dynamic forces exist upon 
 Jupiter as on earth, his bands and belts revolve about 
 him. It also follows that there can be no true clouds 
 in Jupiter's atmosphere. We know that with such 
 velocity, no clouds could exist in our atmosphere, even 
 with all the necessary difference of conditions elimi- 
 nated. We also know that a cloud placed in the out- 
 skirts of our atmosphere must revolve about the earth, 
 or fall immediately toward its surface, and occupy its 
 proper level. Can Jupiter be an exception? Hence
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 51 
 
 it seems necessarily to follow, that if Jupiter has any 
 clouds, they are raised beyond the region of floating 
 clouds, and hence beyond the region of storms and tem- 
 pests. 
 
 The same conditions maybe predicated of Saturn, said 
 conditions differing in character, as the forces existing 
 differ in degree. In this planet, however, we have more 
 direct and emphatic testimony. So that while Jupiter 
 leads us to the above conclusion, Saturn forces us to the 
 same. It is well known that this planet sometimes 
 presents what is called the " square shouldered aspect; " 
 that is, in some parts of his orbit it is not only flattened 
 in the polar, but also in the equatorial region.* Some- 
 times this equatorial depression extends over 65 to 80. 
 This, I conceive, is readily explained by the planet's 
 vapors revolving in ellipses, which they necessarily 
 must do. In certain parts of the planet's orbit, we see 
 the depressed sides of the ellipse, and consequently a 
 flattened equatorial region; and when the major axes 
 are more inclined to our line of vision, we see, as it 
 were, the ends of the ellipses, when Saturn seems ex- 
 cessively flattened at the poles, midway between these 
 points, the equatorial and polar regions both are de- 
 pressed. 
 
 Thus the annular theory throws light upon one of 
 the most inveterate puzzles; one that has for half a 
 century perplexed astronomers, and defied solution. I 
 offer the suggestion that no other solution can be found. 
 The same appearance in a less striking degree is some- 
 times seen upon Jupiter. Thus it seems that the two 
 planets under consideration, are respectively sur- 
 rounded by a vast fund of revolving matter, and that 
 
 * Proctor's " Other Worlds Than Ours," pages 168, 169.
 
 52 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 this matter in its motion follows the same laws that reg- 
 ulate planetary motion everywhere. 
 
 Now it is readily seen that this tendency to quad- 
 rangular form on Saturn, becomes irrefragable evi- 
 dence of annular motion among his belts. But recent 
 observations show that the polar belts of both Jupiter 
 and Saturn move more slowly than the equatorial. 
 
 But as before shown the simple fact that the polar 
 belts of these planets have a slower motion, affords 
 irrefutable testimony that they at one time were a part 
 and parcel of an equatorial ring system, and that they 
 also have lost some part of their velocity since they 
 entered the planet's atmospheres, and are therefore con- 
 tinually descending toward the poles, and at the poles 
 are continually reaching the planet's surfaces. Let the 
 reader note this fact. 
 
 Thus away out yonder, toward the bounds of the solar 
 system, we see two giant worlds undergoing the same 
 stupendous ordeals that in ages gone by, our little earth 
 experienced. The heavens speak as with tongues of 
 fire, and we hear celestial harmonies proclaim eternal 
 law to the utmost bounds of space and time. 
 
 But what are those belts, now revealed by the tele- 
 scope ? What kinds of matter constitute those annular 
 and belt systems ? Law replies : " They are composed 
 of the same materials in kind, that now compose the 
 bodies of the planets themselves." 
 
 Now I suppose no one will dispute the claim that 
 Jupiter's belts are, aside from the aqueous matter they 
 contain, composed of the very same elements that now 
 compose the super-crust of the earth. Then it must be 
 they contain silicious, calcareous and carbonaceous mat- 
 ter. But if they contain these, they will in time be-
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 53 
 
 come a part of Jupiter's sedimentary formations, for 
 as I have before shown they must fall. It is impossible, 
 as any one can see, that such matter should not exist 
 in the primeval vapors of every world, and the primeval 
 vapors are the last form of matter that descends upon 
 an evolving planet. And it must be, as I shall show 
 hereafter, that unconsumed carbon occupies a large 
 space among all such revolving vapors. 
 
 I ask the simple question, Is there any other escape 
 from this conclusion ? Is it not a fact within the com- 
 prehension of every one, that if Jupiter's belts contain 
 calcium, iron, or carbon, that that calcium, that iron, 
 and that carbon, will in the coming ages be located as 
 parts and parcels of the sedimentary beds of Jupiter's 
 super-crust? The laws of segregation and gravitation 
 are the same, we may safely assert, on Jupiter as on the 
 earth. Then as carbon is a constituent, nay, a prom- 
 inent constituent of worlds, and a fiery burning condi- 
 tion a necessary condition of those worlds at some 
 time of their career, it follows as plainly as the sun fol- 
 lows its course in the heavens, that as all the last de- 
 scending materials of those worlds must fall upon their 
 surfaces they must and will become a part of the con- 
 stituents of the aqueous rocks of every orb that ever was 
 enveloped in such vapors. On this eternal rock I stand, 
 and though the cruel, heartless elements now gathering 
 blackness and fury from the realm of error may sweep 
 me from it, this eternal rock will remain. 
 
 Now when we have passed over this ground, and sur- 
 veyed minutely the close and interesting analogies visi- 
 ble on all sides, we seem forced to the conclusion that 
 Jupiter once had equatorial rings the same as Saturn. 
 But when we turn to Mars, we see his polar ice caps,
 
 54 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 we see his floating clouds, we see his oceans, and how 
 shall we answer this question ? Were the Martial seas 
 always upon his surface? One moment's philosophic 
 reflection must bring the response of " no," from the 
 seat of reason. The over-cautious setiologist may say, 
 " we cannot tell." Nay, but we can tell. The Crea- 
 tor of heaven and earth points us to facts that can lead 
 us nowhere else. Mars is an aggregation of matter, 
 gathered and formed into a globe, as countless millions 
 of other globes, and formed under the same physical 
 laws that governed others, and the earth is a God- 
 given key for the mind of man to unlock the whole. 
 Man is no more sure that the earth was once a glow- 
 ing and burning orb, than he is that Mars was a fire- 
 born and igneous planet. Then his oceans were his 
 swaddling garments, wrapped about him by the genii 
 of the heavens. Though not so extensive as ours, yet 
 there are oceans on his surface, and they must have 
 fallen thither from the heavens around him. Do not 
 understand me to claim that each planet is a represen- 
 tative of all the rest in all particulars. Mars may have 
 an atmosphere varying from that of all the rest. His 
 seas differ in their constituent salts, etc. His strata may 
 be different in many respects. Nay, even the color 
 of his landscape may be different from ours. These 
 are things that vary under varying circumstances. 
 But there are planetary conditions that must obtain in 
 every planet. We are forced to the conclusion that 
 Mars has an atmosphere ! We would conclude thus if 
 we had never detected it. We would be impelled to 
 the conclusion that he possessed oceans if we had never 
 seen them, just as we are impelled to believe that he is 
 under the pale of the law of gravitation ; for we can no
 
 Baturn, Jupiter and Mars. 55 
 
 more ignore one than the other. Men may say that 
 a planet's oceans may be absorbed by its beds of rock, 
 but one might as well deny that a planet has rock, as to 
 deny that it has water. Our moon has imbibed her 
 oceans; the earth is doing the same thing; but the fact 
 that oceans are thus absorbed has no force at all against 
 the claim that all planets and their moons must have 
 water in some form about them, upon them or within 
 them; and that it fell to their surfaces from annular 
 systems. 
 
 We see the same process now on a grand and meas- 
 ureless scale in the solar orb. His aqueous vapors must 
 be driven millions of miles from his surface. His heat 
 is BO great at the distance of the planet Mercury, 
 nearly 37,000,000 of miles from his center, that water 
 could only exist there in a state of vapor. We know 
 very well in his flaming envelope are glowing, heavy 
 minerals and metals, and must conclude that the vapors 
 of lighter minerals, etc., sublimed in the solar surface, 
 must occupy space far beyond and above the photo- 
 sphere, or his atmosphere. The spectroscope leaves 
 this beyond a doubt. We all know that analogy re- 
 quires that there should be above all other elements, 
 a great fund of carbon, surrounding the solar sphere. 
 The Titanic furnace that vivifies the solar system, does 
 not reveal more than a trace of it in the spectrum. 
 Then it must be so high above the sun's surface as not 
 to be detected. We know not how far this carbon fund 
 extends. But we do know as comets approach the 
 solar orb, they grow brighter, until sometimes they 
 burst into actual flames; when the spectroscope re- 
 veals the fact that the flames are partly burning carbon. 
 But, I think we may safely say, that law demands that
 
 56 The Earth's. Annular System. 
 
 in the solar heavens must be a vast fund of allotropic 
 carbon distilled in the solar alembic, and driven from 
 this fiery center to float as infinitesimal particles in the 
 comet's path; and, finally, when the inveterate fires of 
 the sun shall have died out, as they must in time, these 
 forms of carbon, with associated aqueous and mineral 
 matters, will form into an annular system around that 
 great orb. Its aqueous vapors, or light-bearing bands, 
 will then form bright portions of the system, and the 
 carbons the dark and dusky belts. The sun must be 
 a forming world. What other conclusion can the in- 
 exorable and universal laws of planetary evolution lead 
 us to ? This is simply the declaration of Deity, in- 
 scribed in letters of flame all over the universe. And 
 with this, is written the glowing command, " Philoso- 
 pher, read these lines ! " 
 
 Now one retrospective glance. Look at the dark 
 and dusky bands or belts of Jupiter and Saturn. When 
 we know that these worlds have passed through the forge 
 of Vulcan; when we know that those bodies from their 
 inmost depths have been boiling, seething, and tossing 
 masses of liquid fire; and that to their inmost depths, 
 carbon was one of their prominent constituents, and was 
 therefore one of the sublimed and distilled products in- 
 corporated with aqueous vapors in an upper ocean, how 
 can we avoid the conclusion that those dark belts are 
 necessarily carbon? Can we by ransacking the great 
 laboratory of nature, find any other element that can 
 be made to take its place ? The simple fact stands out 
 prominently to the philosopher's gaze, that so surely 
 as Jupiter and Saturn have passed through a state of 
 igneous fusion, so surely are they now enveloped by 
 bands of primitive carbon, in all its allotropic forms.
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 57 
 
 We can no more ignore this fact, than we can ignore 
 the fact that carbon is distilled in the smelter's furnace 
 in reducing his ores; no more than we can ignore the 
 fact that the same products are formed in the retorts of 
 the gas-furnace. 
 
 A burning world must be a smoking world ; and from 
 its ten thousand furnaces must rise vast volumes of un- 
 consumed carbon to mingle with suspended vapors. If 
 we deny this we are forced to admit that the burning 
 or igneous world was enveloped by an ocean of oxygen, 
 which runs counter to law. Hence it is evident that 
 every igneous world i.e., every annular system, has, 
 or must have had a fund of unconsumed carbon as one 
 of its prominent components. Let the reader remem- 
 ber this, for upon it depends the solution of a momen- 
 tous problem. As I run over this fascinating line of 
 thought, I am tempted to enlarge upon numerous ques- 
 tions that naturally press into my view. A hundred 
 lateral avenues open up, inviting to enter and behold, 
 but even a brief consideration of them would swell this 
 volume beyond proper limits.* I will, therefore, stop 
 short with the consideration of one of these collateral 
 questions. 
 
 Jupiter and Saturn have moons revolving about 
 them. They are located according to unchanging law, 
 at a distance from their primaries measured by their 
 velocities and gravital force. These two forces must 
 be equal, to keep the satellites in undeviating orbits. 
 Now it is an indisputable fact, as every mathematician 
 or astronomer will admit, that Saturn's annular system 
 does to some extent influence the motions of his moons, 
 
 * In the " Vast Abyss," or second book in the annular series, 
 these fascinating fields will be reviewed.
 
 58 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 and thus aid in defining the shape of their orbits and 
 regulating their distance from the planet. To illus- 
 trate : A planet attracts a moon, say, with a force equal 
 to A, and the latter takes up its orbit or path in harmony 
 with that amount of attraction. If, by some process, a 
 ring of any kind of matter should become interposed be- 
 tween the moon and its primary, the central attraction 
 would be increased, say = to B, and the moon would 
 immediately begin to sink nearer to the primary, agree- 
 ably to the force A + B exerted upon it. If this ring 
 of matter arose from the planet itself, it would not in 
 the least vitiate the conclusion that the moon was at- 
 tracted with a greater force than before; for, it would 
 only be a transfer of attracting matter from the primary 
 to a point where it could exert a greater force upon the 
 moon. If the distance of the moon were 100,000 miles 
 from the matter on the planet, before the ring had 
 formed, and the ring were then placed within 50,000 
 miles of the satellite or one-half the former distance, it 
 would attract it with four times the force it formerly 
 did. And the moon, as before stated, would take up a 
 position a little nearer the planet. Hence the conclu- 
 sion is inevitable that Saturn's moons revolve a little 
 nearer the planet because he has an annular system, 
 than they would if he had none ! 
 
 What, then, must be the result when Saturn's glori- 
 ous appendage declines to his surface ? Simply the cord 
 of attraction will be weakened, and the moons will not 
 be controlled by the same force, and they will retire, 
 and after a lapse of ages they will move in orbits 
 farther from the planet. 
 
 Hence the conclusion that a planet's satellite must 
 move away from the primary after its annular system
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 59 
 
 sinks is inevitable. Now the point gained by this dis- 
 cussion is becoming apparent. Eminent astronomers 
 claim that our moon is moving away from the earth 
 with a motion very slow, but " exceeding sure." If this 
 claim be a valid one we must conclude that the earth 
 once had an annular system which fell and allowed the 
 moon to recede. Here, then, we have very important 
 testimony bearing upon this point. For, if the moon 
 is receding, unless it can be shown that some other force 
 could produce this recession, it becomes proof of itself, 
 that the earth had such an appendage. 
 
 I am aware that astronomers are to-day making the 
 claim that this recession is caused by a reaction of the 
 tidal wave upon the moon. (The reader must not con- 
 clude that this recession and consequent retardation 
 affects the periodical acceleration, and retardation of 
 the moon is caused by a change in the eccentricity of 
 the earth's orbit.) That the moon is retarded first by 
 a check which the progressing or rather swinging wave 
 exerts upon it, then she moves away in response to the 
 demands of diminished motion. In other words, the 
 erudite conclusion is, that if a satellite be checked in its 
 motion it must move away from the primary. Then 
 the slower the moon's motion about the earth, the 
 farther off it must move, and consequently the greater 
 its velocity, the less the orbit, which is simply not the 
 case. 
 
 Now it is very true that if the moon recede from 
 the earth with its present velocity unchanged, it will 
 move in a greater orbit, and of course consume more 
 time in a revolution; in other words, its motion will be 
 apparently retarded. But a satellite cannot recede 
 because its velocity is retarded. Astronomers have
 
 60 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 misapprehended the nature of the problem. In order 
 to show that I do not misrepresent, I will quote from 
 R. A. Proctor.* " Delaunay pointed to the tides as a 
 probable and sufficient cause of this change, the great 
 tidal wave carried, not bodily, but still swayingly 
 against the direction of rotation, checking the earth's 
 rotation spin slowly but exceeding surely. Next it 
 was shown that, accompanying this change there must 
 be a gradual loss of lunar motion, accompanied by 
 a gradual recession of the moon." (Italics mine.) 
 
 If this be true, law is law no longer. If a moon re- 
 cedes because it is checked in its motion to a slight 
 degree, its recession will be greater if the retardation 
 be greater, and if the retardation be sufficient to stop 
 its motion entirely, its recession will be in a tangent 
 to its original orbit. We can make nothing else of this 
 astronomical claim; for, let us remember that the tidal 
 wave first retards the moon's velocity, causes a " loss 
 of lunar motion," and then it recedes! Either this or 
 the attraction of the tidal wave causes it to recede. 
 With all due regards for the noble minds which have 
 been puzzled over this problem, I must say astrono- 
 mers are mistaken. 
 
 If a satellite's motion be retarded it will decline 
 toward the central body, and the greater the retarda- 
 tion the greater the decline, until it falls to the prim- 
 ary. But if a satellite recede by loss of attraction from 
 the central body, it takes longer to perform a revolu- 
 tion. Hence we say it is retarded, though it move aa 
 rapidly as ever. If it moves inward on account of an 
 increase of attraction, it revolves in a smaller orbit, 
 
 * " Eclectic Magazine," May, 1882, taken from " Contemporary 
 Review."
 
 Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. 61 
 
 and consequently in less time, and we say its motion is 
 accelerated, though it move no faster than before; for 
 it is plain that if it should move faster it would have 
 increased centrifugal force, and go off into a greater 
 orbit. 
 
 If astronomers are correct in this view, then the 
 moon must in time leave the earth entirely. If they 
 are correct, there was a time when it was so near the 
 earth that its oceanic tides were reared mountain high 
 and made to sweep over the continents twice in twenty- 
 four hours. But I beg leave to say that this does not 
 seem, by any means, to be the declaration of the geo- 
 logic record. The learned Dr. Newberry has shown 
 how erroneous this conclusion is, by a thorough and 
 complete survey of the geologic past. 
 
 What cause, then, must we assign for the moon's re- 
 cession ? I cannot call it " retardation." It can recede 
 only by a decrease of attraction from within; for an 
 outward attraction would only cause a local perturbation 
 susceptible of self-correction. A comet might cross 
 its path, and for a moment exert itself to check, or in- 
 crease its motion, but these ephemeral visitors are harm- 
 less as a puff of wind, and if they should check the 
 moon's velocity, it would decline, not recede; and if 
 they should increase its motion, it would recede, with- 
 out showing retardation. Where, then, can we find a 
 competent cause for the recession of our satellite? If 
 it be not in the fall of the earth's annular system, 
 then, I presume, it can never be found; and concerning 
 this problem, the universe will be as voiceless as death. 
 The conclusion then is simply overwhelming that the 
 earth once had an annular system. Let us now give 
 our attention to this.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GEOLOGIC RECORD EXAMINED. 
 
 Having shown that the prevailing idea maintained 
 by geologists in all their reckoning and conclusions, 
 i.e., the idea that the ocean of water now on the earth 
 fell in its entirety before the aqueous crust was formed, 
 is necessarily erroneous; in short, having established 
 the annular theory upon a foundation peculiarly 
 strong, it certainly demands a respectful consideration 
 at the hands of thinking men, even if no further proof 
 existed. 
 
 To go over the geologic record regularly, and point 
 out all the important features, directing to the order 
 and condition of things here hypothecated, would fill a 
 large volume of itself. I will, therefore, take up some 
 of the most important ones, those also most familiar 
 to and most likely to be comprehended by the ordinary 
 reader. 
 
 I have made the claim that the earth's annular sys- 
 tem was necessarily a complex one. If the igneous 
 earth had been hot enough to vaporize and suspend 
 water only, then it is plain that the great primeval at- 
 mosphere would have contained those vapors only. But 
 those vapors themselves must have contained dissolved 
 silex and quartz, from the fact that hot water and hot 
 vapors will dissolve it. But as we well know the heat 
 of the primitive earth was immensely greater. Then 
 it is certain that its atmosphere must have contained 
 whatever else was vaporized and suspended therein ; and 
 thus under law, when the atmosphere became cool, it
 
 The Geologic Record Examined. 63 
 
 deposited upon the earth what it contained in the heated 
 condition. So that when I advance the claim that 
 much of the sedimentary beds built upon the lauren- 
 tian and older rocks were simply precipitates from the 
 annular system, all must see that it simply is impossible 
 that such should not be the case. So surely as hot 
 vapors can contain more mineral matter than cold, so 
 surely did the cooled vapors of the primeval atmosphere 
 deposit vast quantities of mineral matter on the earth 
 when they fell to its surface. 
 
 Now all the fusible and vaporizable minerals in the 
 earth's crust must have existed to some extent in the 
 upper vapors ; just as all the minerals and metals in the 
 sun must be represented in the heated vapors around 
 it. And every other hot and burning world must ex- 
 hibit the same thing. Let any man reflect, but for a 
 moment, and he must admit that the present state of 
 physical science demands an unqualified assent to thia 
 claim. 
 
 There were calcium and oxygen and carbon in the 
 primitive atmosphere. Then there was carbonate of 
 lime; and these elements existing in measureless 
 abundance, necessitates a vast amount of the carbonate 
 in the system. There were iron and sulphur. Con- 
 sequently these also existed in the upper ocean, as me- 
 tallic and mineral salts, and it simply seems impossible 
 to avoid the conclusion that the annular system was 
 a vast ocean of homogeneous and heterogeneous matter. 
 By a more laborious and critical examination this 
 conclusion would assume the phase of a positive dem- 
 onstration, but I need not burden the reader with it 
 now. A certain degree of heat in the burning earth 
 kept the aqueous vapors suspended on high; a greater
 
 64 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 degree of heat sent up, in their order of fusibility, the 
 minerals and metals of the earth, as they bubbled up 
 as vapor from a boiling crucible. For the present, ad- 
 mit this conclusion, and as we proceed the necessity of 
 it will be apparent. 
 
 How would this vaporized and suspended matter 
 arrange itself, as the earth cooled down and the mass 
 contracted? Obviously the heaviest and densest mat- 
 ter the heaviest minerals and metals would locate 
 more largely in the innermost part of the system, or 
 nearest the earth. Doubtless all kinds of matter, even 
 metals to some extent, must have remained dissemi- 
 nated throughout the system; but bulk for bulk, the 
 inner part must have been the heaviest, because laden 
 with the more refractory metals, etc. For instance, the 
 innermost ring must have contained more iron than 
 any other ring of the same bulk, while at the same time 
 iron particles of a different state of purity, because of 
 certain combination, and consequent of varying gravity, 
 must have existed in all the rings, except, perhaps, the 
 outermost one, which must have been nearly free from 
 metals, but yet must have contained distilled carbon 
 particles of the lightest form as soot sent up from the 
 smoking earth. Hence when I make the claim that 
 the deposited minerals and metals in the earth's crust 
 follow an order of arrangement which was chiefly de- 
 termined by annular arrangement in the nebulous 
 atmosphere, the reader must see what kind of order it 
 must be ! 
 
 We will suppose that the innermost ring of aqueous 
 vapors and their associated matter, comprising all mat- 
 ter within the limits of 20,000 miles, fell after the 
 earth cooled down. But if it fell, it fell because it had
 
 The Geologic Record Examined. 65 
 
 not sufficient revolving momentum to keep it above; 
 while all matter still farther from the earth had more 
 momentum and must have remained longer in the an- 
 nular form. But this innermost ring, when it reached 
 the earth, and mingled with the terrestrial seas, pro- 
 duced an augmentation of the oceans already thereon, 
 and the iron and other heavy metal contained therein, 
 must have formed beds at the bottom of the seas, as an 
 actual precipitate or sediment, and consequently much 
 of the earliest sedimentary rocks must, if our theory 
 be true, contain the heaviest minerals and metals of 
 the crust, and also in the purest form ! Is it necessary 
 for me to bring forth evidence to prove that this is the 
 actual state of affairs ? Every geologist knows full well 
 that this is the case. He knows that the archsean beds 
 the oldest formed that have met the gaze of science 
 are above all others, eminently metalliferous; and 
 that in those beds the metals are in the purest state! 
 Why ? Iron Mountain and Pilot's Knob, the grandest 
 accumulations of iron upon any continent, are beds of 
 nearly pure iron, planted amid laurentian piles. In 
 this foundation lie the heaviest masses of lead and 
 galena ore. The copper, iron and other great deposits 
 of Lake Superior and Canada are in the same old beds. 
 In short, wherever these old beds are found there you 
 will also find the metallic beds. And, moreover, they 
 are aqueous, or sedimentary beds ! Dana says, " These 
 rocks are universal." They are the metallic sills of the 
 earth. They form a mighty casement, or metal band 
 around the world. Can this fact be philosophically 
 explained without the aid of the annular theory? 
 This iron and this copper and silver and gold, etc., were 
 distilled in the fiery furnace of the primitive earth, and
 
 66 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 sent up amid the aqueous vapors on high. What else 
 could have planted them in strata of aqueous beds! 
 What else could have made them so nearly pure ? What 
 else could have made metallic beds in the outside of 
 the earth ? Let him answer who can. 
 
 Since we have found amid the old sedimentary beds 
 the very products of primitive distillation which our 
 theory demands, and found, also, in the very condition 
 it requires, and since we can find no other source at 
 all competent, we are simply forced to conclude that 
 the first ocean that fell to the earth must have been 
 strongly impregnated with iron and other heavy metals. 
 They are precipitates from water. But how was water 
 impregnated with them except through the aid of in- 
 veterate heat and the annular system? The present 
 distillation of iron by the aid of vegetation proves only 
 one thing, viz: that if such a puny combustion can 
 dispel it, the primitive fires of the earth must have 
 done immensely more. The processes are the same, 
 differing only in degree the work of combustion, one 
 puny and almost powerless, the other stupendous and 
 titanic. 
 
 Thus we may look back through the vistas of time to 
 the primitive and immeasurable age of change, when 
 the first ocean rolled its mineral-laden waves around 
 the earth. In course of time it deposited its load upon 
 the earth. It was a casement of immense thickness, 
 requiring an immensity of waters, much of which we 
 must conclude was absorbed into the rocky frame of 
 the earth as its fires retired within. 
 
 It is now apparent that just as we enter on the 
 threshold of this investigation we must meet with the 
 very features our theory requires; but there is much
 
 The Geologic Record Examined. (57 
 
 more in this geological horizon. In the northern hem- 
 isphere the archsean beds are heaviest toward the north. 
 Now if they were thickest and heaviest near the equa- 
 tor, the annular theory would fail to explain it; but 
 a moment's reflection must show that it does explain 
 its northern development, as no other theory can. 
 
 Immediately upon the decline of an equatorial ring 
 into the lofty region of the attenuated air, it is at once 
 converted into a belt, and it gravitates toward the 
 poles, the points where gravity is strongest and centri- 
 fugal tendency zero. Hence it must follow that but a 
 small part of the annular system fell in the equatorial 
 world, but more largely in the temperate and frigid 
 zones. Now the geological world well knows that the 
 archaean beds are conspicuously heavier in northern 
 lands; and another condition necessitated by our theory 
 is found, just as we want to find it. It is this kind of 
 evidence that will in the end establish my claim upon 
 a rock that nothing can shake. It is plainly evident 
 that if all the primeval vapors fell in archaean time, as 
 geologists claim, then all the matter that impregnated 
 them must have been deposited in a heterogeneous 
 mass, and not in distinct beds as we find them. There 
 simply could not be those grand and stupendous beds so 
 characteristically different from all subsequently 
 formed strata if the conditions were then as in subse- 
 quent times; and philosophic geology demands the very 
 conditions I have pointed out, in order to account for 
 the relationship of beds formed in different ages. 
 
 But now, in order that the common reader may be 
 able to understand the points here made, let us admit 
 all the upper vapors to have descended before the be- 
 ginning of paleozoic times, and therefore from one
 
 68 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 vast and boundless expanse of waters a mighty bed 
 of precipitated materials fell and formed the azoic 
 beds. This is plain enough. And then all subsequently 
 formed beds were torn away from these earliest beds, 
 and placed elsewhere. This is also plain, and is every- 
 where admitted by geologists. It is a conclusion forced 
 upon us, as an inevitable result of the above assump- 
 tion. Then the silurian beds came from the pre- 
 existing beds. But is there a geologist who, after hav- 
 ing examined the silurian formations of the world at 
 large, and the archasan beds wherever exposed, would 
 say the former are the debris of the latter, unless forced 
 to such a conclusion by his fatal assumption ? By what 
 natural, or even miraculous process could the azoic 
 strata give rise to such a casement of silicious beds, as 
 is well known, forms the base of the silurian in almost 
 all lands? By what natural process was crystallized 
 silica torn from among the carbonates of lime and dolo- 
 mites and metallic strata, and deposited around the 
 earth without depositing the lime, metals and other 
 minerals in the same beds ? Now, if the Potsdam sand- 
 stone, and its equivalents in other lands, were formed 
 from the ruins of other beds, the ruins don't show it. 
 But we will let this matter drop. Let these sub-silurian 
 beds be the ruins of pre-existing beds, placed as a 
 mighty covering around them, thus sealing them away 
 from the ocean's devouring waves. But now with this 
 covering, how did the silurian waters get their lime? 
 Did the same waters that before robbed the archaean 
 piles of their silica, and disdained to touch their lime, 
 now after those piles were covered up, begin to rob 
 them of their lime and refuse to touch the silica? 
 They either did this or they robbed the silicious beds
 
 The Geologic Record Examined. 69 
 
 at the base of the silurian of what they never had, 
 i.e., the stupendous fund of silurian lime. This matter 
 will not be rendered a particle more philosophic by ad- 
 mitting that the great silurian beds were derived from 
 terranes now buried in the depth of the sea. For it is 
 scarcely possible that continents once the highest 
 should sink and become the lowest. But we will let 
 this subject rest too. Let it be admitted that the silu- 
 rian waters did obtain their lime somehow from the 
 archsean beds. Now let us see how this occurred. 
 
 The lime in the archsean strata is more largely mag- 
 nesia than otherwise, and therefore the first silurian 
 lime must also be magnesian! But it is not! What 
 are we to do ? The lime beds nearest the basic beds of 
 the silurian, at least on the American continent, are 
 almost pure carbonate of lime. How did the silurian 
 waters work through its silicious fundamental beds to 
 the dolomites or magnesian lime, and then taking them 
 up deposit them as carbonate of lime \ Now, geologists 
 very well know that this is very wrong. But the diffi- 
 culty is immeasurably increased when we find that after 
 thousands of feet of lower silurian beds were laid down, 
 and among them the heavy carbonates, I say after- 
 wards, high up in the series, we do find an abundance 
 of limestones so highly magnesian in character as to be 
 denominated dolomites. These facts are too plain to 
 be buried. They stand as mountains across our way. 
 The facts are simply these, and no man will deny them : 
 if it were possible for the silurian beds to be the ruins 
 of archjcan terranes, they are not laid down in the order 
 demanded by law ! The carbonates where the dolomites 
 ought to be, and vice versa. How did the upper lime 
 beds or dolomites get where they are? If they were
 
 70 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 originally built up among the archsean, and covered 
 up with thousands of feet of carbonates and silicious 
 beds, how did they ever get out? And why did they 
 not get out when they might have done so i.e., before 
 other beds locked them down forever ? 
 
 Here, again, the annular theory gives a felicitous 
 explanation. The waters from which the silicious beds 
 were deposited contained this silicious matter as a min- 
 eral distillation, before they fell to the earth; and the 
 waters from which the carbonate of lime was deposited 
 contained that lime when they were on high. The 
 ocean from which it was precipitated was strongly im- 
 pregnated with carbonate of lime, and must have ob- 
 tained that lime when the vapors were hot. But the 
 ocean which built up the magnesian lime-beds of the 
 silurian was a different ocean, and made so by addi- 
 tional waters from the annular system. This is abund- 
 antly attested by the extermination of species, which al- 
 ways shows a new environment. 
 
 When every intelligent man must know that if the 
 earth was in an igneous condition, the matter composing 
 these beds, or at least such matter, must have been ex- 
 pelled from the telluric furnace, and that such matter 
 matter that had never been formed into continental 
 beds must have settled somewhere in the ancient 
 ocean, it is the merest folly to claim that all the mat- 
 ter of the aqueous beds was derived from pre-existing 
 beds by aqueous denudation. 
 
 There was, no doubt, in all ages denudation and 
 transfer of native material in the formation of beds, 
 but we must not forget that during all these ages a fall 
 and precipitation of exotic matter tellurio-cosmic mat- 
 ter aided in the work ! It is easy to understand that
 
 The Geologic Record Examined. 71 
 
 if the silurian dolomites had been placed next to the 
 dolomitic beds of the laurentian, the annular theory 
 could have had no support, and would be easily over- 
 thrown by the fact. But since they are placed just 
 where philosophic geology demands, and yet where the 
 current theory utterly fails to explain, geologists must 
 yield their claim. 
 
 We have here, then, the strongest circumstantial 
 evidence that all through these early ages, the upper 
 vapors were falling to the earth and depositing their 
 contained matter upon it. Thus independently of our 
 mathematical demonstration we so far see that the 
 geological history, in its very dawn, declares the essen- 
 tial facts of the annular theory. 
 
 Having then, as I claim, laid the foundation of this 
 view, in such a way that no one will attempt to attack 
 it, who has a particle of regard for law, we will move 
 across the mighty abyss of time that rolls its dark flood 
 between the azoic and the present, and lay another 
 foundation on this side the stream, and then we will 
 erect the super-structure intended to span the mighty 
 void. 
 
 It is plain, that if after having shown that the earth 
 had an annular system in the very dawn of the ages, 
 I should also show that after man came upon the earth, 
 some remnants of that system still remained on high, 
 then the whole geologic world was built up largely 
 under its influence; that is, that the earth possessed 
 rings and belts throughout all the geologic ages. 
 
 We will briefly sum up the conclusions hitherto 
 deduced from the firmly established and generally ad- 
 mitted fact, that the world once passed through the 
 ordeal of fire, or igneous fusion.
 
 72 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 1st. All terrestrial waters were held in suspension 
 during that age of inveterate heat, far removed from 
 the surface of the boiling, naming and smoking mass of 
 the earth. 
 
 2d. This suspended ocean of vapors, rotated as a 
 part and parcel of the earth a primeval atmosphere 
 of great complexity of materials in the same time 
 that the earth then rotated, just as our present atmos- 
 phere now does. 
 
 3d. This suspended matter in the course of time 
 gathered in the earth's equatorial heavens, and upon 
 condensing necessarily contracted and segregated into 
 rings, which revolved independently about the earth, 
 thus causing a great lapse of time between the descent 
 of the first, or primitive, ocean of water nearest the 
 earth, and those waters most remote in the annular 
 system. 
 
 4th. The waters remaining on high, after the in- 
 terior waters or first ocean fell to the earth, fell in a 
 succession of stupendous cataclysms, separated by un- 
 known periods of time. 
 
 5th. The first ocean was necessarily impregnated 
 with mineral and metallic salts, or filled with mineral 
 and metallic particles to a far greater extent than any 
 other section or division of waters or exterior vapors, 
 for the simple reason that in the system the heaviest 
 vapors would settle lowest or nearest the earth as it 
 cooled down. 
 
 6th. All such changes required a great length of 
 time, and a progressive motion of declining matter from 
 the equator, polar-wise; also the bands and belts of the 
 earth's annular system necessarily presented the same 
 general aspect that Jupiter's and Saturn's do to-day.
 
 The Geologic Record Examined. 73 
 
 7th. A succession of concentric rings necessarily 
 requires a vast lapse of time between the declension 
 of one ring of vapors into the outskirts of the atmos- 
 phere, and the fall of the next succeeding one; so that 
 each fall, or each ring, after it reached the attenuated 
 atmosphere, continued to revolve as a belt about the 
 earth with an ever-decreasing velocity as it spread 
 toward the poles and over-canopied the earth. 
 
 8th. The smoke or unconsumed carbon that arose 
 from the burning world commingled with the upper 
 vapors, darkened them, and formed inevitably, dark 
 bands or belts among bright vaporous ones, as we now 
 see on some other planets. 
 
 9th. After a ring of vapors had fallen into the air, 
 it is likely that it may have over-canopied the globe 
 and finally descended to the earth, leaving the atmos- 
 phere clear, before another ring reached the atmos- 
 phere in its persistent decline. 
 
 10th. The apparent retardation of the moon is but a 
 gradual recession of our satellite, caused by diminished 
 attraction as the annular system declined, and the 
 necessary check put upon the revolving rings neces- 
 sarily caused them to sink and finally fall to the earth, 
 if no other cause of their fall existed; and further, this 
 retardation proves the former existence of an annular 
 system about the earth. 
 
 llth. The archsean metalliferous deposits are so 
 located as to be inexplicable by the old theory of aque- 
 ous denudation, but beautifully in accord with the new. 
 
 12th. The silurian beds, and particularly the order 
 of their occurrence in the earth, utterly refute the idea 
 that they were derived from pre-existing beds. Hence 
 it is evident that during the silurian age there was an
 
 .74 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 annular system about the earth. In other words, it 
 is evident that all the primeval waters did not fall be- 
 fore the dawn of life on the globe. 
 
 I here present a chart of the igneous earth and its 
 surroundings, immediately after the heaviest mineral 
 and metallic vapors which gathered more largely near- 
 est the earth in the system had fallen, leaving a space 
 of about 20,000 miles between the rings and the surface 
 of the planet. (This vacant space, marked as 1, we can 
 scarcely make hypothetic, as it must seem to be a neces- 
 sity in annular formation.) The light parts of the 
 system represent aqueous vapors, and the dark rings 
 vapors darkened by the presence of unconsumed car- 
 bon, that necessarily arose from the burning sphere as 
 smoke. Ring 2 represents the heaviest forms of car- 
 bon, as graphite, etc., which, according to law, gathered 
 more largely among the innermost vapors than else- 
 where. King 3, the silurian vapors heavily charged 
 with calcareous and silicious matter, and from which 
 the silurian beds were almost wholly derived during a 
 vast lapse of time. No. 4, vapors of the devonian, car- 
 boniferous and permean seas, heavily charged with car- 
 bon, hydro-carbons, etc. No. 5, tertiary and cretaceous 
 vapors, containing the lighter forms of calcareous and 
 carbonaceous matter. No. 6, the vapors of the quarter- 
 nary, containing the lightest form of carbon, now 
 mixed with the glacial drift of the world and impris- 
 oned in polar ice. No. 7 represents the aqueous vapors 
 of the Edenic period, and the Noachian deluge. 
 
 Imagine the innermost section of ring 1 to decline 
 from the system into the atmosphere and gradually 
 spread over the terrestrial heavens, in its effort to reach 
 the poles, remembering that all such movements con-
 
 Fig. 3. EARTH AND ITS ANNULAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 3 represents a full-face view of the earth and its annular system. Here a is 
 the earth, 6 the earth's atmosphere, c the heavy carbons and their accompanying 
 mineral sublimations, d the lighter carbons and hydro-carbons, e glacial snows and 
 their accompaniments,/ outer vapors, principally aqueous and likely in a frozen 
 state. From this outermost ring came the polar snows that chilled the Eden earth, 
 and afterwards caused the deluges of Noah and Deucalion, and still later caused 
 those sporadic incursions of canopy scenes so vividly shining to-day from all ancient 
 scriptures, sacred and profane. In these outermost rings avast quantity of gold 
 vapors, sent as fire mist to the skies, condensed and forming into nuggets, flakes, 
 flour-gold, and the like, fell in polar lands with the tnowt at they fell and must to-day 
 be found in and on the very glacier* that lock down that once semi-tropic region in 
 the grasp of eternal winter.* 
 
 The inter-annular spaces of this figure represent similar features in the ring system 
 f the planet Saturn. These are probably filled with invisible air, an annular 
 atmosphere. 
 
 * I have more fully elaborated the annular origin of polar gold in my "Alauka, 
 Land of the Nugget. Why ? " and also in " Ophir'e Golden Wedw."
 
 76 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 sume a vast length of time, and we may be able to con- 
 ceive how very often the earth must have been over- 
 canopied as with a greenhouse roof, and how very fre- 
 quently during the geological ages the earth became 
 a greenhouse world, with intervening periods of flood 
 and desolation. How very frequently the oceanic 
 waters were changed in constitution, and their volume 
 and depth increased. How very much the sedi- 
 mentary beds were increased in amount by catastrophic 
 additions. But here again let me remind the reader 
 that I do not claim that these additions of exotic matter 
 built the aqueous strata, but that they greatly aided 
 in the work of denudation and transportation of mat- 
 ter, and that hence the time of building being greatly 
 shortened the ages could not have been of so great 
 duration as we have generally supposed. 
 
 A critical examination of the aqueous strata will 
 show that they were planned according to the order 
 here represented.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EARTH'S ANNULAR SYSTEM AS DEMONSTRATED BY 
 HISTORIC TESTIMONY. 
 
 I have intimated that the views I have advanced 
 could not be more strongly supported by the voice of 
 science than they are vindicated by the claims of his- 
 tory. Yet were I to urge biblical evidence to the 
 front, because of my conscientious regard for the 
 sacred writings, it would be assuming a greater authen- 
 ticity for such testimony than many of my readers are 
 willing to concede. Therefore, in order that it may not 
 be said that I place undue value upon any evidence 
 herein advanced, I will put these writings for the time 
 being on the same level with profane history, however 
 my inclination rebels at the thought. Such evidence, 
 then, as I glean from Genesis, will in this argument be 
 of the same value as it would be if found in the writings 
 of Pliny, Tacitus or Herodotus. 
 
 The question now to be considered is: Did any part 
 of the annular matter continue to revolve about the 
 earth until after man came upon it? If I succeed in 
 showing that some of those revolving vapors remained 
 on high, and were perceived by man, then the question 
 will be forever settled, and almost every physical and 
 metaphysical science will have to be reviewed. For it 
 will show that every form and phase of geologic life has 
 so depended thereon as to be modified thereby. It will 
 show that the earth's ring-system, anchored in the ter- 
 restrial heavens, when this planet was in its infancy, 
 continued to act the part of a mighty world-carver
 
 78 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 throughout all geologic time, and lent its titan energies 
 in building the wondrous piles of aqueous beds the 
 debris of continents and ruin of rings. If the last rem- 
 nants of the system came down upon the earth in mod- 
 ern times, man would certainly have conveyed the in- 
 telligence down to the remotest age, by history and tra- 
 dition, and the account, if true, would harmonize with 
 law. 
 
 Then let us suppose that to-day a fund of annular 
 matter were revolving about the earth. In order to 
 remain in the firmament it would have to revolve more 
 rapidly than the earth rotates upon its axis, and if it 
 were in the outskirts of our atmosphere the resistance 
 of the latter would drag it into belts, and as I have be- 
 fore shown, it would begin an exceedingly slow polar- 
 wise motion, in its efforts to reach the earth. It would 
 thus in time over-canopy the earth, forming a universal 
 aqueous roof, becoming a clearly defined and well- 
 known appendage. 
 
 Man could not fail to know the nature of that ap- 
 pendage, and seeing the waters already on the earth, 
 and seeing other waters on high, as the source of all 
 waters, he would naturally call the two waters by dif- 
 ferent names waters here, on earth, and waters yon- 
 der, in the sky; or, waters above and waters below. 
 
 Is it not a little remarkable that almost the first an- 
 nouncement made by the Hebrew historian is a positive 
 declaration that " God made the firmament," or aerial 
 expanse, " and divided the waters which were under the 
 firmament from the waters which were above the firma- 
 ment. And it was so ? " (Gen 1 : 7.) We are simply 
 given to understand that the writer knew there were 
 two bodies of water one above the earth and in the
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 79 
 
 sky, and the other under the sky or firmament, or on 
 the earth. No amount of torturing can make this pass- 
 age mean anything else than the simple fact that a 
 fund of waters revolved about the earth. The merest 
 child knows that no material substance, vaporous or 
 meteoric, could remain in the terrestrial firmament for 
 one moment, unless it revolved about the earth! 
 Science settles this question at once and forever ! so that 
 our historian, when he made the declaration that the 
 firmament, or Hebrew atmosphere, became an expanse 
 between two bodies of water, one of which was on high, 
 and the other on the earth, could not have predicated 
 the fundamental truth of the annular theory in more 
 positive terms. Had he said, " We now behold a great 
 deep, or fund of aqueous matter moving rapidly around 
 the earth," he would have said nothing more than he 
 did. The fact that the waters were above the firma- 
 ment demands most positively that they should move 
 rapidly around the earth, with a motion of their own. 
 
 How wonderful the thought that the store of sacred 
 history should be opened by the grand conception of a 
 revolving deep ! Let the doubter for a moment pause 
 upon this threshold of a new world, and ask: Why is 
 this announcement the very thing demanded by law? 
 He has been schooled in the belief that the earth was 
 once a burning world. Then he sees one of the grand 
 results of that condition; and he must inevitably see 
 that here on the first page of interdiluvian history is 
 shadowed the very fact science has led him to believe; 
 for, if the earth ever passed through the ordeal of fire, 
 there was a time when there were waters above the 
 earth, and waters on the earth. If the historian had 
 here followed the line of thought that an impostor in
 
 80 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 this twentieth century of the Christian era would do 
 he would have said: In primitive times, directly after 
 the earth cooled down, all the aqueous vapors de- 
 scended to the earth, and from that day to this no 
 waters have been added to the ocean's volume. Over 
 this the intelligent reader would stand confounded in 
 his attempts to harmonize the different statements. As 
 we proceed it must be plainly seen that the penman 
 would have inextricably involved himself in the plain- 
 est stultification. For the sun would have been made 
 visible in the same primitive age, and must have ren- 
 dered contradictory and false nearly every subsequent 
 statement, as will be seen. On the other hand, the 
 plain, simple announcement of upper waters is in har- 
 mony with law, and in harmony with the entire thread 
 of the narrative from beginning to end. Let us see. 
 
 Thus we begin our investigation of Genesis, with the 
 announcement, remarkable for strength and simplicity, 
 that some portions of the terrestrial waters did remain 
 on high, until they were recognized as such by man. 
 We see that announcement in utter harmony with 
 philosophic law, and all men must then give it the credit 
 of honesty and truthfulness, though it were the declara- 
 tion of a Moor, or a Hottentot. 
 
 As we proceed we find truthful witnesses clustering 
 around and supporting this great central fact. Right 
 here we learn that " light " came in and garnished the 
 heaven before the sun was seen. (Gen. 1 : 3, 4.) This, 
 again, is the demand of law. The upper deep over- 
 canopied the earth, hiding the sun, but revealing his 
 light by the laws of universal diffusion among the 
 vapors. Suppose the writer had said, the " sun now 
 came into view." He would then have contradicted
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 81 
 
 himself on the first page of history. For it is plain 
 that no sun could appear except as a great display of 
 light through the revolving deep. These two state- 
 ments, then, are co-linked together as important wit- 
 nesses to the truth of annular formation. Neither of 
 them can be true unless the earth then had an upper 
 fund of waters a great deep beyond the firmament. 
 How does it happen that this dove-tailing of facts sup- 
 ports the very claim which could be so easily refuted if 
 a single contradictory statement were made ? 
 
 What was the name of that expanse of waters? 
 The waters on the earth " were called seas." (Gen. 
 1: 10.) Then it is evident that the " deep " referred 
 to in Gen. 1: 2 was not the waters on the earth, but 
 the waters overhead. This is also evident from the 
 wording of the entire verse. The writer says the earth 
 was void and vacant ruin and waste and then turns 
 his attention to the heavens, and says, " And darkness 
 was upon the face of the deep." As all men believed 
 that God dwelt in the sky, or had his throne established 
 upon the upper side of a solid floor, called heaven, we 
 can easily understand why the writer said: " The 
 Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and 
 said : ' Let there be light ! ' That light burst in from 
 the heavenly sphere and illumined the upper deep. It 
 would not at all comport with man's idea of the power 
 and nature of Deity, to suppose that his spirit moved 
 on the surface of the " seas " and said, " Let there be 
 light." But if we now take the only philosophic view, 
 viz. : that man knew there was a great " deep " on high, 
 and " seas " on earth, and first described the condition 
 of the earth, then the condition of the sky, and the man- 
 ner in which the Deity, " brooding on the vast abyss,"
 
 82 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 or deep of heaven, called in the rays of the solar orb, 
 we see again astonishing harmony. The writer of 
 Genesis, seeing the great deep above the firmament, 
 and knowing, from some source, that all the waters on 
 the earth came from that deep, tells us, first, the earth 
 was once "without form and void"; then adds this 
 simple statement that " darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep," when he must have referred to the waters 
 above, which is a declaration in favor of the revolving 
 vapors; and when he again states that the " spirit of 
 God moved upon the face of the Avaters," while he must 
 have known, or believed, that the Deity moved and 
 lived on high, is another statement, simple and plain, 
 that a fund of waters revolved about the earth. Thus 
 we have two simple announcements in the second verse 
 of the first chapter of Genesis, that the earth had an 
 annular system recognized by man; and again in the 
 fourth and seventh verses it is twice declared, and more 
 positive and emphatic. And again, in verse nine, God 
 said: " Let the waters under the heaven be gathered," 
 etc. Why is the expression under used, unless it be to 
 distinguish the " seas " from the " deep " ? and another 
 link connects this mysterious history in philosophic and 
 harmonious accord with law. Five times declared, and 
 each time by different means, before half a page is 
 written ! It is not a reiteration or tautology, but a sim- 
 ple statement of five different conditions of the sur- 
 roundings of the ancient world! And each of those 
 conditions predicates an annular fund of waters. I care 
 not whether the historian be an impostor or servant of 
 the Most High, one thing is plain: the very nature of 
 these statements forces conviction upon the philo- 
 sophic mind. These links of evidence were not penned
 
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 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 83 
 
 in order that a man in this twentieth century should 
 prove the truth of a theory; and yet they point with 
 such unerring certainty to this grand and fascinating 
 field of thought that it seems as though the penman had 
 himself reveled therein. But let us see further. If 
 it be true that man thus recognized the upper waters, 
 then he lived in an environment consequent upon that 
 condition, and all the natural phenomena of the inter- 
 diluvian world must have had some relation to the 
 same. If there was a fund of water or vapors above, it 
 must have affected all conditions of life until it fell to 
 the earth. The sun could not be seen as it now appears, 
 until the heavens were cleared of vapors. 
 
 In a subsequent part of this volume I will prove that 
 the heavens became cleared at the time of the deluge, 
 and therefore the sun did not and could not have been 
 seen clearly until after that event. 
 
 Now let us examine a few more links of evidence 
 gleaned from this fruitful record. Gen. 1 : 14 to 19 re- 
 veals the fact that the " lesser " and " greater " 
 " lights " made their appearance in the heavens on the 
 fourth day of creation. Laying aside all other consid- 
 eration one thing stands out boldly to view i.e., the 
 sun, which physical science declares had existed for 
 measureless ages, did not appear in the terrestrial sky, 
 until after the earth brought " forth grass and the 
 herb yielding fruit." Then it is plain that some inter- 
 cepting canopy cut off the direct rays of the sun. But, 
 as before stated, no such canopy could exist in such a 
 position unless it had the form and motion of revolving 
 rings or belts. Thus again the plain statement that the 
 " lights " did not appear until the fourth day is a sim- 
 ple declaration that during the first, second and third
 
 84 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 days, at least, the earth had an annular system ! Sup- 
 pose the narrator had said the sun, moon and stars ap- 
 peared on the first day. In that case nothing could be 
 more easily done than to prove him an impostor. But 
 the statement that the lights did not appear till later 
 harmonizes with law with the previously made state- 
 ment that there were " waters above the firmament," 
 with the demands of the annular theory an upper 
 deep. 
 
 But the reader will notice that he does not state that 
 the sun and moon made their appearance on the fourth 
 day, but simply " lights." The Hebrew word from 
 which the term is derived does not mean sun, nor moon, 
 and evidently refers only to diffused light. The He- 
 brew words from which these are derived are not used 
 till after the deluge, when the sun was known by man 
 to be both a " lighter " and a " heater." The names, 
 then, sun and moon, not being used, it is evident that 
 they did not even, on the fourth day, appear as they 
 now do, but simply as " lighters," illuminating the 
 vapors. " Let there be lights ! " Why did He not say, 
 " sun and moon ? " Surely, because the sun and moon 
 were not yet unveiled. 
 
 But the writer did use the term " stars," which in 
 almost all ages, according to law, must have shone in 
 upon the earth from the polar heavens. Thus we have 
 mirrored one of the essential features of the annular 
 theory: that the vapors fell largely at the poles. Dur- 
 ing the prevalence of the upper vapors the polar skies 
 must have been cleared again and again, permitting the 
 stars to shine upon the earth from those quarters. Now 
 a little reflection must convince the reader that the 
 scriptural statement that the " great lights " and " the
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 85 
 
 stars also " appeared on the fourth day, conveys the 
 very idea our theory demands. If the terms sun and 
 moon had been used the statement would have contra- 
 dicted the statement just made, of upper waters, and 
 would in turn have been contradicted many times in the 
 succeeding narrative. But why this harmony this 
 unity of evidence ? The fact that the term stars is used 
 argues that the term sun would have been used if that 
 luminary could have been seen. 
 
 Perhaps the reader now begins to understand why 
 the author was so particular, in a former chapter, in 
 his comments on the motions of the belts of Jupiter and 
 Saturn i.e., their polarwise decline. Belts could not 
 revolve long in the polar heavens, and would neces- 
 sarily fall, clearing the circum-polar skies and admit- 
 ting the stars. Here we see this necessary condition re- 
 ferred to in Genesis. I can conceive of no reason why 
 the name stars should have been used and the names of 
 the two most prominent luminaries entirely overlooked 
 by the historian, unless the stars were seen and the sun 
 and moon were not seen; and as this is the very feature 
 our theory demands with emphasis, the question is most 
 conclusive. 
 
 Thus, again, we have to face the fact that the 
 " waters above the firmament " had not yet fallen. 
 The fact, also, that no mention was yet made of their 
 fall argues that they yet remained on high. Thus every 
 step we take leads to a grand confirmation of our views, 
 and in turn substantiates the narrator's account in a 
 way most complete and remarkable. 
 
 But the most remarkable and conclusive evidence is 
 yet to be examined. If the waters above still remained 
 on high, and prevented the sun from shining down upon
 
 86 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 the earth as it now does; if it yet had appeared only as 
 a " lighter," its heat must have been diffused among the 
 upper vapors, and the earth's surface could not have 
 been heated up by its direct rays, but the whole earth 
 under the over-canopying vapors must have been 
 warmed, and its temperature and climate equalized by 
 transmitted and diffused solar heat; just as a green- 
 house is warmed by sun's heat transmitted through a 
 painted glass roof. Now this is no vain or idle conclu- 
 sion; but so surely as the sun's light and heat were dif- 
 fused among the upper vapors, at the period alluded to, 
 so surely was the earth under a greenhouse covering, 
 and possessed of a climate and temperature harmoniz- 
 ing therewith. The conditions, then, that must have 
 obtained in such a world are substantially these, viz: 
 
 1st. There must have been a greenhouse tempera- 
 ture and climate prevailing over the greater part of the 
 earth. 
 
 2d. There could not have been storms and tempests 
 as we now have on earth; for the reason that all such 
 phenomena are caused by sun-power sun-heat falling 
 directly upon the earth's surface. Winds and storm 
 must have been reduced to a minimum; and what is 
 more, rains must have been infrequent, if they could 
 possibly have occurred at all. This certainly is Law. 
 
 3d. The solar-beam shorn of its active power, it must 
 have been an age of rest to the earth. There could not 
 have been the alternation of seasons as there now is. 
 Winter and summer would cease to alternate, and there 
 would be one perpetual seed-time, and one perpetual 
 harvest. 
 
 4th. Man living in this universal greenhouse would 
 naturally harmonize with his environment, and during
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 87 
 
 that day when solar actinism was shorn of its strength, 
 he must have experienced remarkable longevity; for, it 
 must be remembered that upon solar energy depends 
 every form and phase of life on earth ! ! 
 
 Now let me call attention to a few simple statements 
 in the second chapter of Genesis. The first we notice 
 is the well-known declaration that there was a day 
 an age of rest. " And God blessed the seventh day and 
 sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all 
 his work," etc. (Gen. 2 : 3.) Can the human mind see 
 any meaning at all in this remarkable announcement, 
 except through the light of the annular theory? Did 
 God, the Creator of all things, ever rest from His 
 labors, except those pertaining to the earth and seen by 
 and familiar to man? Did the planets cease to move, 
 the suns cease to burn ? Did the solar ray cease its eter- 
 nal work ? Did the clouds cease to move, the rain cease 
 to fall, the seasons cease to alternate, except as looked 
 upon by man shut in from the universe by a stupendous 
 greenhouse roof by the waters above? All phe- 
 nomena of nature were looked upon by the infant race 
 as the immediate work of Deity. If the sun could 
 not heat the earth's surface, then that much of the 
 work of Deity was suspended in the estimation of 
 man. Then clouds could not form, and tempests could 
 not rage, and that much of God's work ceased in the 
 eyes of the human race. Then winter could not chill 
 the earth with his icy breath, and the race would see 
 another labor suspended. Fountains and rivers and 
 streams, reduced to minima, would almost cease 
 their labors. In short, if this world was ever enveloped 
 by a fund of vapors " above the firmament," it was 
 characterized by a condition of universal rest! And
 
 88 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 this is apparently the only possible manner in which 
 the God of heaven and earth could have rested. Man 
 saw these things reduced to this condition as an abso- 
 lute necessity arising from the presence of the upper 
 deep. And we are again simply compelled to admit the 
 truth of our theory; for, the God of nature the God 
 of the infant race could not possibly have rested if 
 the earth had not at that very time a canopy of vapors 
 revolving about it. Now it can be readily seen that if 
 our author had said that God never rested from His 
 labors, his statement, if true, would have overthrown 
 the annular theory at once and forever. How grand 
 the thought, then, that the very condition demanded by 
 it is proclaimed as immaculate philosophy, shaming the 
 mockery and scholastic bigotry of the world ! Beauti- 
 ful, indeed, the concept that the Great Creator presents 
 to the human race, in its greenhouse cradle, a Sabbath 
 typical of that glorious rest prepared for the people of 
 God, where the physical sun will be again shut off, and 
 the " Lord God and the Lamb " will be the light of the 
 spiritual world. 
 
 But what is most remarkable and overwhelming is 
 the fact that we scarcely have finished our contempla- 
 tion of the physical Sabbath, which, above all things, 
 necessitates a windless, stormless and rainless age be- 
 fore we are told that it was a day when the " Lord God 
 had not caused it to rain upon the earth." (Gen. 2: 5.) 
 Such harmonious features must strike the reader with 
 amazement. Every one must see that if there ever was 
 an age in which the earth was not watered by rain it 
 was windless, stormless and winterless! We cannot 
 avoid this conclusion by any human possibility. And, 
 again, we are compelled to admit, however unwilling
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 89 
 
 we might be, that it was an age in which the sun did not 
 and could not shine directly upon the earth i.e., that 
 the earth's upper waters still revolved about it. At first 
 sight, perhaps, the reader might not think there is much 
 in this. But we must remember that here is a statement 
 of a physical fact, and if we had read it in Ovid only 
 the fact would be the same: that if it be a true state- 
 mentif the earth was not watered by rains, but by " a 
 mist " then the sun's heat was intercepted, and then 
 there was an intercepting body; and since these harmo- 
 nious statements are all dove-tailed into unimpeachable 
 testimony we are led to believe that this history is the 
 most marvelous ever penned by the hand of man a 
 history of the earth while yet under the far-reaching 
 influence of the last remnants of its annular appendage. 
 The last ring of vapors in some form had so far declined 
 into the terrestrial atmosphere, as to spread over the 
 earth in its effort to reach the poles; for the last time 
 the sun was again shut out of view. Rains for a short 
 geological period ceased as they had done many a time 
 before; for, it must be remembered, that this was only 
 one of many similar changes through which the earth 
 passed, and which left their records on its rocky frame. 
 The tiny rain-drop has left this testimony upon the liv- 
 ing rock. Certain rock-formations say in positive 
 terms that ages before this clouds marshaled their 
 forces in the heavens as they do now, and others are 
 equally emphatic that rains had again ceased, and the 
 earth was a world of verdure unbroken by the reign of 
 winter and storms. 
 
 But independently of all these considerations we all 
 know that the warm greenhouse climate of the Eden 
 world is boldly set forth by the writer or writers of
 
 90 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 Genesis. There was a warm climate, for man dwelt 
 naked upon the earth. (Gen. 2: 25.) The infant race 
 must have been nurtured and cradled in a greenhouse 
 world. There was a paradise a garden in which all 
 manner of trees grew, and where all animals named by 
 the Adamite lived. Then that garden was the Edenic 
 or greenhouse world. Now what could have made this 
 greenhouse world? This rainless earth? Just pre- 
 vious to this the world was bound in the icy fetters of 
 the mighty glacier a sea of universal snow and ice; 
 then it was blooming and lovely, fit abode for the hu- 
 man race in its infancy. It is plain that no feature of 
 the Adamite period is more strongly painted and em- 
 phasized than the warm climate of the Eden world. 
 Then another claim of the annular theory is here 
 vindicated. The very climate necessitated by the over- 
 arching waters, is positively and emphatically set forth; 
 and we add another link of evidence to the great 
 chain.* 
 
 Another thing, set forth in language too plain to 
 be misconstrued is the great longevity of man in ante- 
 diluvian times. People lived to be 800 or 900 years 
 of age. Now it seems to me I need not tell the philo- 
 sophic world that if members of the human race at- 
 tained the age of 800 years, it was primarily because 
 of a modification of solar energy. And as this subject 
 will be fully treated upon in another volume, I will 
 
 * Here I feel strongly inclined to follow up the Edenic narra- 
 tive of which there is not a feature that cannot be beautifully 
 explained by the new theory. But it would require a volume to 
 do it justice. If Providence favor, it will be set forth in a future 
 day. Meanwhile, the reader may run over this fascinating field 
 and anticipate the inevitable result the abandonment of the 
 vain and unphilosophic idea that the Garden of Eden was a local 
 paradise for infant-man.
 
 Demonstrated ly Historic Testimony. 91 
 
 merely refer to the fact that man's physical environ- 
 ment in antediluvian times, simply impelled long life; 
 and as his longevity diminished immediately after the 
 upper deep fell, and the sun began to pour his beams 
 upon the race, it is evident that his environment 
 changed with that event ! In a few generations after 
 the flood man died at the age of 120 or 100, and, finally, 
 at " three score and ten." When we place these facts 
 together, we find in man's great longevity another im- 
 portant link of testimony. Man could not have lived 
 800 years if his environment was then as it is now. 
 Then it is plain that his environment changed at the 
 time of the flood. But the narrator tells us that the 
 rainbow was then placed in the cloud! (Gen. 9: 12.) 
 Then it is a fact that cannot be disputed, that the sun 
 came into view more clearly at that time, and the en- 
 vironment was changed because it came. 
 
 The inference, of course, is that the rainbow was not 
 seen by antediluvian man, which is one of the very 
 things the annular theory claims. The sun could 
 not shine through the annular vapors, or there could 
 never have been an Eden world. It could not shine 
 upon the earth, or it must have rained in Edenic times. 
 It could not shine upon the earth's surface because 
 God had placed the deep " above the firmament," and 
 man lived 800 or 900 years, because of certain solar 
 chromatism and actinism effected by vaporous absorp- 
 tion. The death-dealing properties of the solar beam 
 were sifted out as they entered the revolving vapors. 
 But I cannot too strongly press upon the reader the 
 emphatic and conclusive evidence of the rainbow. If 
 it came into view at the close of the deluge there is 
 no possible escape from the conclusion that the fall of
 
 92 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 waters cleared the terrestrial heavens of annular 
 vapors ! Of this more in another place. 
 
 I have said that the antediluvian world was almost 
 free from winds and storms. It was free from them 
 because all such phenomena are children of the sun- 
 beam. Then it is plain that when the heavens were 
 cleared, and the sun shone directly upon the earth's 
 surface, the winds of the earth must then have received 
 their directing impetus. Surely, then, if it had been 
 recorded that winds came into play in the economy 
 of nature immediately after the deluge, contem- 
 poraneously with the rainbow, the author of Genesis 
 would have advanced overwhelming evidence in favor 
 of the truth of the theory I advance; and at the same 
 time invest himself in an armor glittering with the 
 priceless gems of Truth; giving value and importance 
 to his history that is accorded to no other ancient 
 book. Will not my readers fully grant this? Would 
 it not have been a glorious summation of the argument 
 in support of the annular theory? But stop! Have 
 we forgotten that at this very time, when the glorious 
 bow was painted on the clouds, or spanning the new- 
 born skies ; at the very time the " fountains of the 
 great " celestial " deep were closed," and the " windows 
 of heaven were stopped," " God remembered Noah," 
 said the historian, " and made a wind to pass over the 
 earth." Do we need more and stronger testimony to 
 plant our theory upon a rock that no man can shake ? 
 Can evidence be more overwhelming than is found in 
 this grand array of stubborn facts ? One glance at the 
 circumstances under which this wind occurred, the 
 first that is spoken of, and perhaps the first that man 
 ever saw, will, must convince the philosopher that it
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 93 
 
 was a remarkable one indeed! The winds of this day 
 herald the rain. They bring on the rain, and the storm 
 dies away in the calm quiet of the equipoised elements. 
 But that was a rain from the fountains of heaven, and 
 when it ceased the sun shone down on the desolated 
 earth! At that moment, all the air-currents began 
 their eternal round. The trade-winds then began their 
 beneficent offices. One-half the earth was then 
 warmed by the sunbeam, that for centuries had no 
 power upon it; and when we consider the stupendous 
 force thus expended, we can no longer wonder that the 
 wind was looked upon by man as the conqueror of the 
 flood. Now the simple fact that it came after the rain 
 makes it a remarkable anomaly, and proves that the 
 flood came from exterior waters. 
 
 It can be readily seen that if the wind had occurred 
 as it now does previous to the rain, that it would have 
 forever crushed our theory. The fact, then, that so 
 many harmonious links of evidence join in its support, 
 must give it overwhelming and crushing weight. 
 
 But what about the eternal summer of the Edenic 
 world? As the annular theory claims that summer 
 and winter could not alternate as they now do; as the 
 absence of the bow points to the same fact; as a rain- 
 less world demands the same; as the Edenic narrative 
 from beginning to end enforces the claim that the 
 earth was characterized by endless summer; there can 
 no longer be a doubt that such a state of things really 
 existed. I presume that a perpetual summer, necessi- 
 tated by a modification of solar actinism, as it operated 
 only through the upper vapors, necessitated long life; 
 but did the writer of Genesis know this, and did he 
 state that man lived 800 years because he had stated
 
 94 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 that it had not rained ? Did he state it had not 
 rained because the Edenic day was a day of rest ? Did 
 he state, " God rested," because he had stated the sun 
 was not seen, when there was light? Did he give the 
 whole narrative, in this grand and inexpressible har- 
 mony, with the important declaration, that there were 
 " waters above the firmament " ? Now every one 
 must see that all these circumstances, conditions and 
 phenomena, are emphatically necessary results of the 
 presence of upper waters; and that not one of them 
 could naturally have obtained if there were no such 
 watery or vaporous roof on high. And, since eternal 
 law demands, independently of all history or tradition, 
 that the God of nature did place a fund of waters 
 above, how many of us will now put no more confidence 
 in Genesis than in Herodotus? It is as plain as the 
 noon-day sun that the absence of the rainbow in, inter- 
 diluvian times demands the existence of upper vapors, 
 which the first stroke, almost, of the historian's pen 
 places on high; and that nothing else can explain its 
 appearance at the close of that appalling debacle of 
 overwhelming floods. But tell me, did the author of 
 Genesis designingly state this remarkable truth in 
 order to confirm a dozen previous statements, every one 
 of which is planted on the rock of the annular theory 
 the waters above the firmament ? Every philosopher 
 must know that there is not a particle of truth in this 
 rainbow question, except in this light and in this light 
 it shines as one of the sublimest truths ever penned. 
 
 But I repeat, what about the perpetual summer that 
 this condition of interdiluvian things imperatively de- 
 mands? this non-existence of perpetual change in the 
 seasons, which the very presence of an over-arching
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 95 
 
 fund of vapors requires? Is there any intimation in. 
 this fruitful history that points to a stormless age, a 
 winterless world? Man dwelling naked in his Eden 
 clime, says in plain language, there was no alternation, 
 of summer and winter. His great longevity is unim- 
 peachable evidence in favor of the claim; and the 
 physical sabbath, or day of rest, joins in the har- 
 monious chain of testimony. This eternal summer, it 
 must be seen, is necessary to make the harmony of the 
 historian's account complete. 
 
 But it must also be admitted by every intelligent 
 reader, that if such a climate and conditions of seasons 
 existed before the deluge, the fall of waters must have 
 made a sweeping and far-reaching change at once. 
 Eternal spring or summer must have changed in a very 
 short period, to alternating summer and winter, etc. 
 Now if the narrator had even remotely intimated that 
 such a change took place at the close of the deluge, 
 such intimation would certainly be admitted as strong 
 evidence in favor of this theory of the deluge. Espe- 
 cially when coupled with the other new phenomena 
 and changes introduced, as before mentioned, it would 
 be taken from the pages of profane history as evidence 
 peculiarly strong, because of its harmonious union in 
 the great chain of testimony. It is then with supreme 
 satisfaction that I turn to Gen. 8: 22, and read in plain, 
 simple terms the very intimation the philosopher would 
 expect and desire to find. 
 
 The earth had been desolated for the last time by 
 supra-aerial floods. The survivors of that appalling 
 visitation were introduced to the new environment and 
 ordinances of the skies ; when momentous changes were 
 instituted, and new decrees were set forever. Nature's
 
 96 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 philosophic sign of eternal security, bright and glori- 
 ous, spanned the new-made firmament. Then the 
 voice of nature proclaimed in the heart and mind of 
 man: " While the earth remaineth, seed-time and har- 
 vest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and 
 day and night, shall not cease." * It was the voice of 
 God, proclaiming through " nature's vast cathedral," 
 a momentous revolution. Can it be, that the erring 
 voice of tradition even, to say nothing of the unerring 
 voice of law, would have said that summer and winter, 
 etc., should forever alternate after the deluge, if they 
 had been alternating before ? Can this announcement 
 be made to mean anything at all, if it point not back 
 to the greenhouse clime of the pre-diluvian period, 
 when the earth was dressed in the verdure of eternal 
 spring; when seed-time and harvest did not alternate, 
 but one perpetual seed-time and one perpetual harvest 
 were the familiar characteristics of the habitable earth ? 
 
 It would seem that this would be the proper place 
 to refer more largely to these things; and especially to 
 the nightless period of the Edenic world, when both 
 " evening and morning were day," i.e., coalesced into 
 one period and called day; but I cannot do this with- 
 out extending this volume entirely beyond its intended 
 limits. 
 
 Now turn one backward glance, and behold the 
 ground on which we have passed. See it thickly 
 strewn with evidence all pointing to the upper waters, 
 predicated upon the first page of Genesis. Note the 
 indisputable fact that all these things proclaim a 
 deluge to come in the ordering of Nature's God. Note 
 the additional fact, that pointing to a deluge, they also 
 
 * I am inclined to render the Hebrew, " Shall cease no more."
 
 Demonstrated by Historic Testimony. 97 
 
 point beyond it, to a radical change after the flood, 
 which change in turn points back to the grand cause 
 of all, the annular waters. But one change that took 
 place because of a fall of waters would stand as strong 
 evidence of that great cause. What, then, shall we 
 say of all the changes that followed the deluge ? Why 
 did the bow come then? Why did man's longevity 
 decline at that time? Why did alternating seasons 
 come into play after a deluge ? These things must be 
 explained by philosophic law; and I stand under the 
 protecting wing of science to proclaim that philosophic 
 law declares that these things, individually and col- 
 lectively, demonstrate that the antediluvivan world was 
 over-canopied by the annular waters. 
 
 It can now be seen that the very manner in which 
 these statements are made, adds great force to their 
 testimony. They all harmonize and point to one cen- 
 tral thought. Not one contradicts another, and the 
 final close is the magnificent triumph of the historian, 
 whose unvarnished statements are each demonstrable 
 by inexorable law. 
 
 It must be seen at a glance, that the manner in 
 which light came down, as declared in the third verse 
 of the first chapter of Genesis, predicates the existence 
 of upper waters, so does the " dark " " face of the 
 deep" as before referred to. But upper waters pre- 
 dicate a deluge. Consequently a deluge is indirectly 
 announced and prophesied by both these statements. 
 Then immediately following them comes the positive 
 statement in the 7th verse, that there " were waters 
 above." 
 
 I care not who penned these consecutive statements.
 
 98 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 They are from their very nature pure truth; rendered 
 doubly pure and refined by the philosophic requisition, 
 that each separately, and all combined, declare that a 
 deluge must come. And the last statement becomes 
 a keystone in the arch of testimony; for every man 
 must know that such a fund of waters could not have 
 existed without pointing to a deluge to come! Did a 
 deluge come? Independently of every other consid- 
 eration, I am bold to say, if the earth has not been 
 deluged again and again, then every leaf of the geologic 
 record is a lie; then the molten earth has no con- 
 clusion, there can be no fires in the universe, no suns 
 or flame; for law is law in every nook of creation, and 
 if solid matter fell to the earth, and formed its mass, 
 so did its waters fall upon it as the last remnants of 
 annular matter. With this mass of evidence pointing 
 to a deluge, we will next see how true to these indica- 
 tions there came a terrible fall of waters from the 
 " great deep " on high.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 
 
 A professor from one of the first institutions in this 
 country once declared, as he no doubt conceived to 
 the discredit of biblical history, that " no one but a 
 D.D. now believed there ever was a deluge." It was 
 well said ! To the deathless honor of the " D.D.'s " 
 may it always be said, they stand for the testimony 
 and the law! I have shown in the foregoing chapter 
 that every feature and phenomenon of the Adamite 
 age point to a future deluge as an utter and absolute 
 necessity. Let the reader re-survey the statements 
 made in reference to the heavens and the earth, the 
 divisions of waters, the " stars," and the " lighters" ; 
 the light of the first, second, third days; the day of 
 rest; the Eden world and its climate; the rainless 
 period, when the whole surface of the earth was 
 watered by a mist only;* man's longevity; the "giants 
 of those days ; " the absence of the rainbow, etc., etc., 
 
 " But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the 
 whole face of the ground." ( Gen. 11:6.) I understand that by 
 this process the whole earth was watered. It must seem to him 
 who critically examines this statement, that there is another 
 philosophic sequence of the ruling of upper waters in that long 
 day of physical rest. As the earth rotated, one-half of it must 
 have been more directly under the influence of diffused solar heat 
 for half the time; during which, one-half of the atmosphere 
 would absorb aqueous matter from sea and land, and during the 
 remainder of the time the atmosphere being carried by rotation 
 somewhat beyond solar influence into the " cool of the day," 
 would water the earth with excessive dews or mist. Yet there 
 are strong reasons for claiming that one-half the day presented 
 a scene of rising fog, and the other of descending mist. But we 
 must always bear in mind that annular vapors were continually 
 saturating the air on high, and would thus add to descending 
 " mists."
 
 100 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 and if possible draw any other conclusion than that this 
 earth, in the ordering of nature, was fated for a com- 
 ing fall of water. What is more natural ? And what 
 natural visitation could be more appalling, far-sweeping 
 and destructive, than this inevitable dispensation ? 
 
 I presume the biblical narrative of the flood is in 
 the possession of every reader of these pages and I will 
 therefore not insert it here. 
 
 The first impression given to the reader of the 
 Mosaic account is the universality of the falling waters, 
 which of course necessitates an annular source. 
 
 Can the philosophic mind, as it contemplates this 
 great world of law, conceive of any source in the order- 
 ing of the God of Nature, from whence such a stu- 
 pendous downfall of waters could come, other than this 
 most natural one ? A rain from the mighty " deep " 
 alone could thus have swept the earth. And when we 
 contemplate that there is a volume of water now on the 
 earth, and in its rocky frame, sufficient to make a 
 thousand terrific deluges, every one of which could 
 drown the world of living beings, and which has fallen 
 to the earth, necessarily as stupendous cataclysms, how 
 can we reasonably expect that this historical and tra- 
 ditional narrative can refer to any other than the clos- 
 ing scene of annular declension? Let us reduce the 
 extent of this great debacle of waters to the lowest 
 minimum this narrative will allow, then take into con- 
 sideration the well-known fact that there scarcely is a 
 nation, tongue or tribe on earth that has not a tradi- 
 tion of this great event, and yet we will fail to find any 
 existing source of such a rain. Study the biblical ac- 
 count of the flood, and tell me, did that rain descend 
 from the clouds?
 
 Fig. 5. THE LAST CANOPY OF EARTH. 
 
 Here is our Last Earth Canopy. It has banished the last ice period, and the Eden 
 earth blooms again. Biblical and legendary man dwells naked in a warm and genial 
 world. The human family, the world over, for unknown time look up to a watery 
 hearen and give it a name signifying that condition. The Hebrews called this 
 heaven Shamayim, "there waters"; the Greeks called it Ouranos, " water heaven "; 
 the Hindus called it Varuna, " water heaven "; the Latins called it Cnelum, and this, 
 too, was a watery heaven, for it passed away. So did the heaven of the ancient 
 Egyptians, Japanese, Scandinavians and Mexicans. 
 
 But the Last Earth Canopy must fall. It opens at the equator (e, e), and the 
 vapors slowly float to the poles, and begin to fall. Again, as in ages gone by, 
 snows begin to chill the earth. The sun shines in upon the equatorial earth through 
 the opening and air in that region rises. This starts air currents from the poles 
 and these currents bear the falling vapors back toward the equator, thus making 
 one long-continued downpour of waters in medial latitudes. So, in the windup of 
 canopy influences, there must be not only a vast accumulation of snows at the poles, 
 but long-continued and devastating floods in warmer lands. 
 
 Those snows now cap the poles. Those floods have sent their immortal witnesses 
 down the ages, and they speak from the sacred pages of our fathers and in the songs 
 and legends of the whole earth. The last canopy having fallen, heaven has made a 
 rew and eternal covenant with earth, and the Bow is the eternal Testator.
 
 The Noachian Deluge. 101 
 
 Is it not a demonstrable fact, that if the clouds were 
 its source, eternal law was suspended ? Is this the or- 
 der of nature ? Is this the administration under which 
 worlds are evolved ? We cannot admit the fraction of 
 law in the universe of God ! But if the deluge did not 
 come from the clouds, then it came from beyond, or 
 above the clouds. And again we are compelled to call 
 in the annular waters as the only competent source. 
 Let us analyze the account a little more minutely. Is 
 there any intimation in the narrative itself that the 
 Noachian rain did not come from the clouds? There 
 certainly is, not only an intimation, but unmistakable 
 and positive declarations, that the clouds did not and 
 could not have supplied such a rain. Gen. 7:11 tells 
 us that rain came from a source that was " broken 
 up " at the time the waters fell ; that it came from the 
 eataractae of heaven from the "fountains of the great 
 deep," through the imaginary " windows of heaven." 
 
 If we will but reflect that at that time mankind be- 
 lieved that there was a great deep on high, from which 
 all rains descended, that the Deity resided in that part 
 of heaven and presiding over its fountains, watered 
 the earth through windows opened for that purpose, 
 we cannot avoid the conclusion that the sacred pen de- 
 scribed this great event, true to the indications, and in 
 absolute harmony with facts. But the annular 
 theory demands the same conclusion. It requires 
 that the source of the deluge should have been " broken 
 up " at that very time, for it does not now exist. And 
 any one can see, that if that rain came from beyond 
 the clouds, it came from revolving waters or vapors; 
 and also that no fountains or source of floods could have 
 been " broken up," except such a source. A little
 
 102 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 thought here must settle this question in the philosophic 
 mind. 
 
 Again, we are told over and over, in the eighth and 
 ninth chapters of Genesis, that there will be such floods 
 no more forever. Then it is impossible for such rains 
 to occur again, and then we are forced to admit again, 
 that the source has been " broken up." But no source 
 of floods can be broken up but the source of annular 
 floods ! If the " fountains of the deep " were on the 
 earth or in the " seas," then they are not " broken up." 
 If they were in the clouds, they are not. If that source 
 has not been destroyed we are under the same precar- 
 ious reign of floods still; and no physical assurance 
 whatever protects us from their recurrence. Thus, ac- 
 cording to the annular hypothesis, the declaration is 
 positive and unmistakable, that man is forever safe 
 from a deluge; that the waters can "no more become 
 a flood " to " destroy all flesh " the very same declar- 
 ation made by the historian, and which certainly has no 
 significance except in this light. 
 
 Again, the annular theory declares to all races of 
 men under heaven that an eternal covenant is made 
 between them and their Creator, and that the rainbow 
 is an everlasting token of the same, just as the biblical 
 account maintains. The two must agree, as they must 
 in every particular, for both are the voice of nature. 
 These wondrously harmonious facts! What mar- 
 velous truths unfold to view in the resolution of these 
 once mysterious statements! What stronger evidence 
 can vindicate a theory ! They are the adamantine sills 
 upon which the true theory of creation is planted for- 
 ever. 
 
 Now we know that a devastating flood did visit the
 
 The Noachian Deluge. 103 
 
 earth in the human period, and we know its all-compe- 
 tent and philosophic source. " In the 600th year of 
 Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the 
 month, the same day were all the fountains of the 
 great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were 
 opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and 
 forty nights." 
 
 It seems to me there cannot be a man of reason who 
 cannot see in this declaration annular-canopy waters 
 emphatically portrayed. For what reason have men 
 concluded that the " great deep " here mentioned 
 was the great ocean-fund on the earth ? Why should 
 the imaginary " windows of heaven " be opened to let 
 down the waters, if those waters were located in the 
 fountains in the earth ? Let us imagine ourselves 
 placed in the same situation as the ancient human race, 
 fully believing there were fountains of waters on high, 
 over which the Deity presided, and which were the 
 sources of descending floods or rains. Then let us see 
 the same heavens they saw, cleared of upper vapors, 
 veritable fountains of the deep. Would we not under 
 the same circumstances see that those sources of falling 
 waters " were broken up ?" And further, knowing 
 that the bow could not be seen if any of those vapors 
 remained on high, and seeing it painted on the skies, as 
 an actual sign that such vapors had all fallen to the 
 earth, would we not have said, " No more deluges can 
 occur;" and this, the bow, is a token of the same? 
 Would we not have penned an account of this dispensa- 
 tion, just as the ancient historian did ? Unless we ad- 
 mit this as the true rendering of this wonderful narra- 
 tive, what can we make of it? What reason, what 
 philosophy can be found in it ?
 
 104 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 Do we not know full well that no such terrific rains 
 could possibly come, in the order of nature, from any 
 other source than from that beyond the clouds, where 
 inexorable law put the fountains of all descending 
 waters in primitive geologic times; and whence all the 
 waters now on the earth must have fallen? The idea 
 that the great deep of Genesis was or is the terres- 
 trial ocean, is a post-diluvian one, and necessarily arose 
 from the fact that our oceans, after the upper one had 
 fallen, became the only one man saw. Could I place 
 before my readers the vast array of facts that may be 
 drawn from the antediluvian and interdiluvian myth- 
 ologies in support of the universal belief that the 
 heaven, the home of deities, was a region of abundant 
 rivers and fountains, of oceans traversed by golden 
 ships, etc., they would never doubt the Hebraic idea 
 that all rains were given by Jehovah of the Gods, 
 drawn from celestial fountains, and poured down upon 
 the earth through the " windows of heaven." The old- 
 est Hebraic histories teem with this idea. The great 
 Psalmist says, " Praise Him ye waters above the heav- 
 ens," " Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy 
 water-spouts." Mankind formerly believed that the 
 clouds of post-deluge times were filled from a great 
 fund of waters above them; and this was especially so 
 among the Hebrews. (See Job 26: 7-14, and 28: 11, 
 24, 26; also 36:30, and 38:8-26.) 
 
 This idea runs through the works of all the ancient 
 poets. Homer's and Virgil's writings reveal it on al- 
 most every page. The great deep of the Hebrews 
 was the same as the Okeanos (Oceanus) of the Greeks 
 and the celestial Nile of the Egyptians. When the 
 great abyss fell, its name was translated from the skiei
 
 The Noachian Deluge. 105 
 
 to the waters of the earth. In a succeeding volume of 
 this series these facts will be fully established. 
 
 Unless we adopt the philosophic view here set forth, 
 what meaning can the forty days' rain be made to as- 
 sume? Waters were sent from a great deep through 
 the windows of heaven. Reason forever refuses to en- 
 tertain the idea that a rain from the clouds met waters 
 from the terrestrial oceans, and both combined overran 
 the earth. It is unphilosophic and unnatural. See to 
 what endless disorder and confusion, contradiction and 
 self stultification, such an idea impels us. It at once 
 tells us that the bow as a token or sign of security 
 means nothing, and running from sequence to cause it 
 could be readily proven that the first and eighth chap- 
 ters of Genesis are a tissue of contradictions and false- 
 hoods. But with the fountains of the great deep 
 placed on high, the veritable " waters above the fir- 
 mament," we can readily understand why the " win- 
 dows of heaven were opened," and why " all the foun- 
 tains were broken up." A grander and more signifi- 
 cant truth was never penned by the hand of man. All 
 those fountains were broken up at that time, the 
 very fact which the rain-bow proclaims forever, around 
 the circuit of the earth. Oh, when will the master- 
 minds of the world grasp this momentous idea ! What 
 a sad spectacle the unbelieving world presents to-day, 
 simply because the doctrine of a universal deluge is 
 denied ! Now, I do not expect to claim that the great 
 deluge in its might and fearful magnitude and grand- 
 eur, swept the entire earth, but that its appalling effects 
 were felt in some form in every part of the globe can- 
 not be denied. In another chapter I will give solid 
 reasons for claiming that the oceans stand to-day vastly
 
 106 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 deeper than they did in the Adamite age, and I will let 
 the most skeptical man answer the following question. 
 If the fountains of the great deep should, during a 
 down-rush of water for six months, raise the ocean so as 
 to cause its level to climb upon the continents, is it 
 likely that many individuals of any race of terrestrial 
 beings, could survive the catastrophe? And would 
 not such a rain or flood convince the survivors of the 
 same that it was universal ? All I claim, and ask, is 
 that men admit that a universal flood is no unnatural 
 thing. No man of reason will for one moment doubt 
 that the earth was deluged universally when the oceans 
 fell to its surface. The oceans did fall to its surface ! 
 And what philosophy can there be advanced against 
 the claim that some part of the oceans fell in the days 
 of Noah, since we all know they did fall some time? 
 If men choose to say they all fell in pre-archsean times, 
 I choose to say they could not and did not, and that all 
 the evidence is on my side. 
 
 What consternation would fill the mind of humanity, 
 if from some exhaustless fund of waters, the earth 
 should in this age be again compelled to undergo such 
 a baptism ! Such a rush of waters as would drench the 
 hills for years, perhaps ages, fill the valleys till they 
 leap their boundaries, and pour into the ocean from 
 millions of river-mouths, till its level would rise even 
 one foot, would literally drown the earth; and a few 
 thousand years would obliterate much of the impres- 
 sion from the human mind, and all physical appear- 
 ances of its track. If at such a time, that fund of 
 waters were exhausted by the down-rush, and man in 
 ages to come could see no longer any philosophic cause 
 of deluges, and forgetting that a source of such flood'?
 
 The Noachian Deluge. 107 
 
 did once exist, he would begin to doubt the truth of the 
 old histories and traditions relating thereto. 
 
 This is the exact condition to-day of our knowledge 
 of the last great deluge. The history of the event is 
 chronicled in the oldest records of the races. Its 
 source has vanished, and men doubt that it ever oc- 
 curred. But let me again repeat : the evolution of the 
 earth demands that such a source be supplied. As 
 man directs his mind to this investigation he must and 
 will supply it. So that if every trace of the history, 
 tradition or physical appearance of such an event be 
 utterly lost, man must and will conclude that the earth 
 has been deluged many times. The oceans, as they roll 
 around the planet, are the aggregate of almost endless 
 additions of water during the ages. 
 
 At this point let us look back upon the ground we 
 have left. See the order in which this remarkable ac- 
 count is given. We are told there was a day when it 
 did not rain on the earth. Surely every one of my 
 readers can see that this necessarily excludes the sun's 
 direct heat from the earth's surface. The sun must 
 shine upon the earth, and heat its surface before air- 
 currents can arise and enter upon their round. It is a 
 commingling of air-currents of different temperatures 
 that causes rains to fall. Consequently no currents, 
 no rain; and no rains, no sun. But no sun necessitates 
 upper vapors, and upper vapors necessitate an annu- 
 lar appendage; an annular appendage of vapors neces- 
 sitates a deluge; and a deluge from that source means 
 the clearing of the skies, and the advent of the bow; 
 and the clearing of the skies, necessitates a great 
 " wind," and the beginning of the grand air-currents 
 of the atmosphere; and this, so long as it continues,
 
 108 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 necessitates the regular alternation of seasons. If 
 there be anything at all in physical law, we certainly 
 cannot avoid this conclusion. How did it ever happen, 
 that the author or authors of Genesis related these 
 facts in such harmonious accord with all those condi- 
 tions which an annular arrangement of waters necessi- 
 tates ? How did it ever happen that the " mistakes of 
 Moses " were all made in the line of eternal law ? 
 " Mistakes !" Facts related for what ? To establish 
 a theory which the least variation or contradiction 
 would vitiate? We must value that history, and that 
 historian, that presents what have puzzled the greatest 
 minds of earth four thousand years. 
 
 Again, we are told there was light in the terrestrial 
 heavens before the sun appeared; but light before the 
 advent of the visible sun necessitates a fund of inter- 
 cepting matter above the terrestrial firmament ; and this 
 requires an annular or belted canopy; and this requires 
 a day of physical rest, a rainless age, an Eden clime, 
 and long life; and (may I not also claim?) a race of 
 giants.* (See Genesis 6:4.) But each and all these 
 things demand a suspension to a great extent of the 
 regular alternation of seasons, seed-time and harvest, 
 cold and heat, and day and night, before the deluge. 
 And this condition of things before the deluge demands 
 a change and a regular alternation of the same, as the 
 waters fell and the heavens became clear. Hence the 
 
 * The presence of upper vapors, entering the atmosphere on 
 their way to the earth, via the polar regions, necessitates an at- 
 mosphere of greater buoyant power. (For much of the weight 
 of all the waters of the deluge was added thereto, so long as it 
 existed in the atmosphere, which may have been the case for mil- 
 lenniums.) And a greater buoyant power necessitates larger bod- 
 ily frame. Hence the greater size of antediluvian animals. 
 Question: Could there have been ' giants in those days " if there 
 had been no upper waters?
 
 The Noachian Deluge. 109 
 
 declaration made immediately after the waters fell. 
 (See Gen. 8 : 22.) I need not tell the reader how near- 
 ly these natural causes and sequences flow in harmony 
 with the demands of the earth's annular system. 
 
 In order to prove more fully the claim that the great 
 deep of diluvian times was the upper ocean of ancient 
 man, we will draw a little from traditions, that yet, 
 after thousands of years, live in the human mind. As 
 we proceed, let the reader notice the evident fact that 
 man, in the infancy of the race, and the rudeness of his 
 intellect, coupled the deluge with celestial streams, 
 celestial deities and celestial monsters guarding celes- 
 tial fountains. It is not necessary for me to call the 
 attention of classical students and thinkers to these 
 facts. They know the pages of mythological literature 
 are replete with these ideas ; and every man must admit 
 the only claim I build upon this evidence, that when 
 these thoughts were penned, these ideas pervaded the 
 human race; that one main thought runs through all 
 ancient traditional lore ; that the " great abyss " of the 
 Hebrews; the Oceanus of the Greeks and Romans; 
 and the Nilus of the Egyptians were the " waters above 
 the firmament," the earth's canopy appendage.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 
 
 Having conclusively shown that vast and terrific 
 deluges have been a philosophic necessity from the re- 
 motest geologic ages, and having shown that the pecu- 
 liar testimony of Genesis can mean nothing less than a 
 recital of the effects of the fall of the last remnant of 
 the earth's annular system, I will here append a brief 
 chapter of the " Flood Legends," as they have existed 
 in the history and memory of the human race for un- 
 known ages. I do this, not with the mere aim to 
 strengthen the foundation already laid, but also to pre- 
 sent some facts of interest, permitting one to draw his 
 own conclusion as to the bearing they have upon the 
 theory I have advanced. Yet it is impossible not to see 
 in many of these legends the intimate relation between 
 cataclysms and their efficient and natural cause. First 
 let us take a philosophic glance at the value of these 
 legends. 
 
 Such widespread desolation must have indelibly im- 
 pressed the human mind, and inasmuch as the account 
 has come down to us through the custodians of the most 
 reliable history, the guardians of civilization, the 
 Aryans, Phoenicians, Greeks and Hebrews, it is no diffi- 
 cult task to co-link even the rudest form of flood tradi- 
 tions with the one terrible visitation so graphically re- 
 lated by the ancient penman. Its shadows will never 
 pass from the historic page. Men may impugn and 
 ridicule the narrative. Yet the fact remains, that a 
 self-sustaining history is there; and the combined
 
 Legends of the Flood. Ill 
 
 sophistry of all time cannot shake it. The day will 
 come when even the most incredulous will admit the 
 main truth recorded from the very fact that it is self- 
 corroborative. Let the reader again peruse the plain 
 unvarnished narrative as recorded in Genesis. We are 
 indebted to Berosus, who is supposed to have been a 
 Chaldean priest, for the most valuable traditional ac- 
 count of the flood. He lived some time in the third 
 century B. C., and seems to have had access to the 
 Babylonian records. Some of these, including the 
 flood legend, he translated into the Greek language. 
 This latter I give as translated from the Greek his- 
 torian, and is as follows : 
 
 " After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus 
 (Noah) reigned 18 sari. In his time happened a great 
 deluge, the history of which is thus described. The 
 god Chronos appeared to him in a vision, and warned 
 him that upon the fifteenth Daesius there would be a 
 flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He 
 therefore enjoined him to write a history of the begin- 
 ning, procedure and conclusion of all things, and to 
 bury it into the City of the Sun at Sippara ; and to build 
 a vessel, and take with him into it, his friends and rela- 
 tions, and to convey on board every thing necessary to 
 sustain life, together with all the different animals, both 
 birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to 
 the deep. Having asked the deity whither he was to 
 sail, he was answered ' To the gods ' ; upon which he 
 offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then 
 obeyed the divine admonition and built a vessel, five 
 stadia in length, and two in breadth.* Into this he 
 
 One stadium = 625 Roman, 600 Greek, and 609% English 
 feet.
 
 112 The Earth's Annidar System. 
 
 put every thing which he had prepared, and last of all 
 conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his friends. 
 After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in 
 time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel, 
 which, not finding any food, nor any place whereupon 
 they might rest their feet, returned to him again. Af- 
 ter an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second 
 time, and they now returned with their feet tinged 
 with mud. He made a trial a third time with these 
 birds, but they returned to him no more. From which 
 he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared 
 above the waters. He therefore made an opening in 
 the vessel, and upon looking out, found that it was 
 stranded upon the side of some mountain, upon which 
 he immediately quitted it with his wife, his daughter 
 and the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the 
 earth, and having constructed an altar, offered sacri- 
 fices to the gods, and with those who came out of the 
 vessel with him, disappeared. They who remained 
 within, finding that their companions did not return, 
 quitted the vessel with many lamentations, and called 
 continually upon the name of Xisuthrus. Him they 
 saw no more; but they could distinguish his voice in the 
 air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due re- 
 gard to religion; and likewise informed them, that it 
 was on account of his piety, that he was translated to 
 live with the gods, and that his wife and daughter had 
 obtained the same honor. To this he added, that they 
 should return to Babylonia, and as it was ordained, 
 search for the writings at Sippara, which they were to 
 make known to all mankind. Moreover, that the place 
 wherein they then were, was the land of Armenia. The 
 rest, having heard these words, offered sacrifices to the
 
 Legends of the Flood. 113 
 
 gods, and taking a circuit, journeyed towards Baby- 
 lonia. The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, 
 some part of it yet remains in the Gordyan mountains." 
 Such is an account of the last grand debacle of ex- 
 terior waters, as it comes to us from the historian of 
 the Chaldees. It bears upon its face some important 
 and undeniable truths. 1st. That its original source and 
 that of the Biblical account were one and the same. 
 2d. That the former had been long preserved in the 
 mind and memory of a different nationality, or people. 
 The tradition of the Chaldees shows that its custodians 
 were a maritime people, one accustomed to the waters. 
 Their ark was a ship, and built for the ocean, and their 
 Noah was commanded to launch fearlessly upon the 
 " deep." The Biblical ark was a thebotem, a chest or 
 box, and every term used in the history of the same, 
 points to the fact that it was a place of refuge for an 
 inland people. The Chaldees had a pilot, a term and 
 personage employed only among inhabitants of the 
 waters. 3d. It shows that there was a vast lapse of 
 time, from the date of the deluge to the time when the 
 account was placed upon the Chaldean records. So 
 long was it that this people claimed it as their own his- 
 tory, just as every race and tongue, having a similar 
 tradition, does to-day. It is a perfectly natural result. 
 Each tribe and race has perpetuated the knowledge of 
 the deluge in its own language ; each has its own Noah, 
 ark, ship or canoe. It would be exceedingly strange 
 and unphilosophic if it did not. There is another ver- 
 sion of the Chaldean account a little different : " The 
 deity, Chronos, foretold to him (Sisithrus), that on the 
 fifteenth day of the month Daesius, there would be a 
 deluge of rain, and he commanded him to deposit all
 
 114 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 the writings whatever, which were in his possession, in 
 the city of the Sun at Sippara. Sisithrus, when he 
 had complied with these commands, sailed immediately 
 to Armenia, and was presently inspired of God. Upon 
 the third day after the cessation of the rain, Sisithrus 
 sent out birds by way of experiment, that he might 
 judge whether the flood had subsided. But the birds 
 passing over an unbounded sea, without finding any 
 place of rest, returned again to Sisithrus. This he re- 
 peated with other birds, and, when upon the third trial 
 he succeeded (for the birds then returned with their 
 feet stained with mud), the gods translated him from 
 among men. With respect to the vessel, which yet re- 
 mains in Armenia, it is a custom of the inhabitants to 
 form bracelets and amulets from its wood." 
 
 I wish here to again call the attention of the reader 
 to the indisputable fact, that the continual decline of. 
 revolving vapors, as they progressed toward the poles, 
 would cause them to grow thin near the equator, and 
 that the sun became visible in the equatorial world long 
 before the great catastrophe to which these traditions 
 allude. This seems to have been the case of the cherub 
 sun more than a thousand years before the days of 
 Noah. That the sun's coming into view would be the 
 only physical means, possessed by the human race, as 
 a warning against the impending danger. How signi- 
 ficant then the fact that Chronos, the god of time, the 
 vapor-veiled sun, is represented here as announcing to 
 the human race the coming deluge? After this great 
 cataclysm of water, when the sun became clear and 
 visible to the entire world, what could be more natural 
 and reasonable than that the remnant of the human 
 race, as they multiplied and filled the earth, knowing
 
 Legends of the Flood. 115 
 
 that this luminary came into view as the waters fell, 
 should look upon it as a deity a measurer of time 
 and finally, as a veritable personage who had given 
 warning of the coming deluge, Now, anyone can see 
 to-day that the sun would be to the scientists of this 
 age, an actual measurer, and he would not be very much 
 of a mathematician, at this age, who could not by notic- 
 ing the appearance of the moving belts, the perpetual 
 change in the halo, the fitful and frequent falls of 
 vapor, as the years rolled by, calculate the month 
 and the day of the final collapse. It seems that man 
 knew of this coming dispensation long enough to enable 
 him to build an ark. How did he get the information ? 
 The simple fact is, that Noah was informed of God, 
 either as a seer or mathematician. Which ? 
 
 As it may be of some interest to the reader to learn 
 something of the records from which this tradition 
 came, I will present in this chapter some parts of the 
 rude legend of the flood, imprinted on brick tablets, 
 perhaps in the early age of the Babylonian monarchy, 
 nearly, if not quite, 4,000 years ago, and stored away in 
 the libraries of Nineveh, and other cities, now mould- 
 ered to dust and marked only by rounded heaps or 
 mounds. From these mounds, the persistent efforts of 
 Layard and Smith have brought to light vast numbers 
 of these tablets, veritable books of those long-lost ages, 
 which have been so far deciphered and translated, as 
 to show conclusively what they are. These volumes 
 are inscribed in cuneiform characters, characters so 
 exceedingly old that it was but a happy accident that 
 the key to their meaning was discovered and that 
 archaeologists are now able to interpret them. These
 
 116 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 tablets are so mutilated and broken that their full text 
 cannot be made out. 
 
 " I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, 
 and he said to me : ' Man of Shurippak, son of Ubar- 
 atutu thou, build a vessel and finish it (quickly). 
 (By a deluge) I will destroy substance and life. Cause 
 thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that 
 
 has life. The vessel thou shalt build 600 cubits 
 
 shall be the measure of its length and 60 cubits the 
 amount of its breadth and of its height. (Launch it) 
 thus on the ocean, and cover it with a roof.' I under- 
 stood, and I said to Ea, my lord: '(The vessel) that 
 thou commandest me to build, thus (when) I shall 
 do it, young and old (shall laugh at me.)'- (Ea 
 opened his mouth and) spoke. He said to me, his ser- 
 vant: '(If they laugh at thee) thou shalt say to 
 them: (shall be punished) he who has insulted me, 
 (for the protection of the gods) is over me . . . like 
 to caverns ... ... I will exercise my judgment 
 on that which is on high, and that which is below . . . 
 ... Close the vessel. . . . . . At a given moment 
 that I shall cause thee to know, enter into it, and 
 draw the door of the ship toward thee. Within it, thy 
 grains, thy furniture, thy provisions, thy riches, thy 
 men-servants and thy maid-servants, and thy young 
 people the cattle of the field, and the wild beasts of 
 the plain that I will assemble and that I will send 
 thee, shall be kept behind thy door.' Khasisatra opened 
 his mouth and spoke ; he said to Ea, his lord : ' No 
 
 one has made (such a) ship. On the prow I will fix 
 
 . . . I shall see . . . and the vessel . . . the ves- 
 sel thou commandest me to build (thus) which in . . .' 
 On the fifth day (the two sides of the bark) were
 
 Legends of the Flood. 117 
 
 raised. In its covering fourteen in all were its rafters 
 fourteen in all did it count above. I placed its roof, 
 and I covered it. I embarked in it on the sixth day; 
 I divided its floors on the seventh; I divided the in- 
 terior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up 
 the chinks through which the water entered in; I 
 visited the chinks, and added what was wanting. I 
 poured on the exterior three times 3600 measures 
 asphalte, three times 3600 measures of asphalte 
 within. Three times 3600 men, porters brought on 
 their heads the chests of provisions. I kept 3600 
 chests for the nourishment of my family, and the 
 mariners divided among themselves twice 3600 chests. 
 For (provisioning) I had oxen slain; I instituted 
 (rations) for each day. In (anticipation of the need 
 of) drinks, of barrels, and of wine (I collected in 
 quantity) like to the waters of a river, (of provisions) 
 in quantity like the dust of the earth. (To arrange 
 them in) the chests I set my hand to. ... of the sun 
 
 . . . the vessel was completed. . . . strong and 
 
 I had carried above and below the furniture of the ship 
 (This landing filled the two thirds.) All that I pos- 
 sessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I 
 gathered together all that I possessed of gold I gath- 
 ered together all that I possessed of the substance of 
 life of every kind I gathered together, I made all as- 
 cend into the vessel; my servants, male and female, the 
 cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and the 
 sons of the people, I made them all ascend. Shamash 
 (the sun) made the moment determined, and he an- 
 nounced it in these terms : 'In the evening I will cause 
 it to rain abundantly from heaven ; enter into the vessel 
 and close the door' the fixed moment had arrived,
 
 118 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 which he announced in these terms; ' In the evening I 
 will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven.' When 
 the evening of that day arrived,! was afraid I entered 
 into the vessel and shut my door. In shutting the ves- 
 sel, to Buzur-shadi-rabi, the pilot, I confided this 
 dwelling with all that it contained. Mu-sheri-ina- 
 namari rose from the foundations of heaven in a black 
 cloud; Rammon thundered in the midst of the cloud, 
 and Nabon, and Sharru marched before; they 
 marched, devastating the mountain and the plain; 
 Nergal, the powerful, dragged chastisement after him; 
 Adar advanced, overthrowing before him; the arch- 
 angels of the abyss brought destruction. in their ter- 
 rors they agitated the earth. The inundation of Ram- 
 mon swelled up to the sky, and (the earth) became 
 without lustre, was changed into a desert. They broke 
 ... of the surface of the earth like . . . ; (they de- 
 stroyed) the living beings of the surface of the earth. 
 The terrible (deluge) on men swelled up to (heaven). 
 The brother no longer saw his brother; men no 
 longer knew each other. In heaven the gods became 
 afraid of the water-spout, and sought a refuge; they 
 mounted up to the heaven of Anu. The gods were 
 stretched out motionless, pressing one against another 
 like dogs. Ishtar wailed like a child, the great god- 
 dess pronounced her discourse: 'Here is humanity 
 turned into mud, and this is the misfortune that I 
 have announced in the presence of the gods. So I an- 
 nounced the misfortune in the presence of the gods, 
 for the evil I announced, the terrible (chastisement) of 
 men who are mine. I am the mother who gave birth 
 to men, and like to the race of fishes, there they are 
 filling the sea; and the gods, by reason of that which
 
 Legends of the Flood. 119 
 
 the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with me.' 
 The gods on their seats were seated in tears, and 
 they held their lips closed, (revolving) future things. 
 Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the 
 water-spout, and the diluvian rain were in all their 
 strength. At the approach of the seventh day the 
 diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible water-spout 
 which had assailed after the fashion of an earthquake, 
 grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind 
 and the water-spout came to an end. I looked at the 
 sea, attentively observing, and the whole of humanity 
 had returned to mud; like unto sea-weeds the corpses 
 floated. I opened the windows, and the light smote on 
 my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I 
 wept; and my tears came over my face. I looked at 
 the regions bounding the sea; toward the twelve points 
 of the horizon; not any continent. The vessel was 
 borne above the land of Nizir, the mountain of Mzir 
 arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over. 
 A day, and a second day the mountain of Nizir ar- 
 rested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over; 
 the third and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested 
 the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over; the fifth 
 and sixth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the ves- 
 sel, and did not permit it to pass over. At the ap- 
 proach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a 
 dove. The dove went out, turned, and found no 
 place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and 
 loosed a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and 
 found no place to light on and it came back. I sent 
 out and loosed a raven; the raven went and saw the 
 corpses on the water; it ate, rested, turned, and came 
 not back. I then sent out (what was in the vessel)
 
 120 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 toward the four winds, and I offered a sacrifice. I 
 raised the pile of my burnt-offering on the peak of the 
 mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured 
 vases, and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juni- 
 per-wood. The gods were seized with the desire of it 
 the gods were seized with a benevolent desire of it; 
 and the gods assembled like flies above the master 
 of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great 
 goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for 
 their glory (the gods). These gods, luminous crystal 
 before me, I will never leave them ; in that day I prayed 
 that I might never leave them. 
 
 "Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile ! but never 
 may Bel (sun) come to my sacrificial pile! for he did 
 not master himself, and he has made the water-spout 
 for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men for the 
 pit. From afar, in drawing near, Bel saw the vessel, 
 and Bel stopped; he was filled with anger against the 
 gods and the celestial archangels : ' No one shall 
 come out alive ! No man shall be preserved from the 
 abyss ! ' Adar opened his mouth and said ; he said to 
 the warrior Bel : ' What other than Ea should have 
 formed this resolution ? for Ea possesses knowledge, 
 and (he foresees) all.' Ea opened his mouth and 
 spoke ; he said to the warrior Bel : ' O thou, herald of 
 the gods, warrior, as thou didst not master thyself, 
 thou hast made the water-spout of the Deluge. Let 
 the sinner carry the weight of his sins, the blasphemer 
 the weight of his blasphemy. Please thyself with this 
 good pleasure, and it shall never be infringed; faith in 
 it never (shall be violated). Instead of thy making a 
 new deluge, let lions appear and reduce the number of 
 men; instead of thy making a new deluge, let hyenas
 
 Legends of the Flood. 121 
 
 appear and reduce the number of men; instead of 
 thy making a new deluge let there be famine, and let 
 the earth be (devastated) ; instead of thy making a 
 new deluge, let Dibbara appear, and let men be 
 (mown down). I have not revealed the decision of the 
 great gods; it is Khasisatra who interpreted a dream 
 and comprehended what the gods had decided.' 
 Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into 
 the vessel. He took my hand and made me rise. He 
 made my wife rise, and made her place herself at my 
 side. He turned around us and stopped short; he ap- 
 proached our group. ' Until now Khasisatra has been 
 made part of perishable humanity; but lo, now Khas- 
 isatra and his wife are going to be carried away to live 
 with the gods, and Khasisatra will reside afar at the 
 mouth of the rivers.' They carried me away and es- 
 tablished me in a remote place at the mouth of the 
 streams," etc., etc. 
 
 Here we have in rude form the legend of the flood 
 lettered on brick and stone thousands of years ago. In 
 the libraries of Nineveh, a city within whose walls 
 were " six score thousand persons who knew not the 
 right hand from the left," they were stored away and 
 when her temples went to dust there they remained. 
 Amid the shock of war her walls went down, and the 
 shout of armies echoed through her streets. When 
 citadels and temples and courts had gone to dust, her 
 silent libraries were waiting but to speak in other 
 tongues, in a world of light. That light came and her 
 dust awoke and she speaks again. She says in language 
 too plain to be mistaken, that when these rocky vol- 
 umes were inscribed, the tradition then was old! So
 
 122 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 old the carver or printer scarcely knew the doubtful 
 from the true. 
 
 Some of my readers perhaps are aware that some 
 that aim to cast discredit upon the Biblical account of 
 the deluge, make the claim that the writer of Genesis 
 borrowed the account from the Nineveh columns. 
 How strange that any man of reason should make the 
 claim. Place the two side by side, and tell me which 
 is more natural, which is more in accord with facts, 
 with law? Which more distinctly portrays a down- 
 rush of exterior floods; which possesses the more har- 
 monious links of truth in the light of modern discov- 
 eries; which of the two reveals more plainly the neces- 
 sity of waters beyond the firmament? A Sabbath 
 of physical rest, a rainless age, an Eden world, a wind- 
 less, nightless, winterless age ? Which of them reveals 
 the positive fact that there can never be another 
 deluge; and which of them seals the eternal covenant 
 with the stamp of God impressed upon the clouds? 
 How many of these were borrowed from Nineveh's 
 sapient piles? While these ancient tablets are engag- 
 ing our attention, let me call the reader's thoughts to 
 the patent fact that their authors, like the rest of the 
 older world, looked upon the heavens as the home of 
 fountains and rivers. The imaginary lands of the gods 
 beyond the clouds were a world of waters traversed by 
 celestial ships inhabited by all imaginary monsters. 
 
 Here the sage who escaped the flood and was trans- 
 lated to the skies relates to Izdubar the story of the 
 flood. Izdubar seeks an entrance into the celestial 
 world and pleads in behalf of his dead companion who 
 is resting uncomfortably in Hades, and asks that he be 
 rescued. His dead companion also joins in the appeal in
 
 Legends of the Flood. 123 
 
 the following language : . . . " Return me from Hades, 
 the land of my knowledge, from the house of the de- 
 parted, the seat of the god Irkalla from the house with- 
 in which there is no exit. From the road the course of 
 which never returns. From the place within which they 
 long for light. The place where dust is their nourish- 
 ment and their food mud. Its chiefs also like birds are 
 clothed with wings. Light is never seen; in darkness 
 they dwell." Such was their picture of Hades, the 
 under-world, and their description of the place proves 
 their belief in such a place and a future life. But now 
 comes the picture of the land of the blessed after death. 
 ..." Return me to the place of seers which I will 
 enter . . . treasured up a crown ; . . . wearing crowns 
 who from days of old ruled the earth. To whom 
 the gods, Anu and Bel, have given renowned names. 
 A place where water is abundant drawn from peren- 
 nial springs." Also let us note in this connection one 
 more very significant fact, that the ancient Baby- 
 lonians considered the sun to be the author of the 
 deluge. On one column are inscribed the sentiments 
 of Noah, " May the gods come to my altar; may Bel 
 (the sun-god) come not to my altar; for he did not mas- 
 ter himself and made a deluge, and my people he had 
 consigned to the deep. From of old also Bel in his 
 course saw the ship, etc." Again when the patriarch 
 of the ship was about to leave his vessel, he says, "Adra- 
 hasis (Xoah,) a dream they senf and the judgment 
 of the gods he heard. When his judgment was accom- 
 plished Bel went up to the midst of the ship; he took 
 my hand and raised me up; he caused to raise and 
 bring my wife to my side . . . When Hasisadra and 
 his wife, and the people to be like gods were carried
 
 124 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 away, then dwelt Hasisadra in a remote place at the 
 mouth of the rivers." Thus it seems the idea of celes- 
 tial rivers and streams " fed by perennial fountains " 
 was a common one 4,000 years ago. And that Bel 
 (Belus), the Sun, was Nineveh's god, and her author 
 of the flood. How natural these things appear! The 
 sun coming into view as the waters fell, was esteemed a 
 deity, and the direct cause of man's destruction. 
 Hence for unknown generations, he was feared and 
 adored by the survivors of the flood. This will be more 
 fully understood in connection with other traditions. 
 I shall treat elsewhere of the ancient belief of man- 
 kind that the heavens were supported by giants, whose 
 heads received the lofty vault of the firmament, and 
 whose feet were planted in the depths of the earth; 
 that the origin of this belief was the actual existence 
 in the eastern and western skies, of the appearance of 
 vast columns rising from the horizon, and spreading 
 out against the face of the sky, their huge Briarean 
 arms, the actual vapor-bands that afterwards fell. Now 
 hear what George Smith, the indomitable searcher 
 and discoverer of these old tablets, says after years of 
 study in this direction. " They (ancient Babylonians) 
 held the idea that at a little distance from them there 
 were giants who controlled the rising and setting sun, 
 and that the orb of day was looked after, and sent on 
 its course by these beings, who had their feet in the 
 lower region of hell while their heads touched and 
 probably upheld the heavens." Veritable pillars of 
 Hercules, pillars of the sun. How immortal are some 
 crude ideas. This idea which must have obtained be- 
 fore the deluge, lived in the mind of men for unknown 
 ages after these phenomena disappeared.
 
 Legends of the Flood. 125 
 
 When America was discovered there existed among 
 the Mexicans a tradition of a deluge, which represented 
 that a couple of people were saved therefrom in a ship 
 or raft, from which birds were sent to ascertain whether 
 the waters had subsided. Some of these it is stated 
 saw the floating carcasses on the water and fed thereon. 
 Humboldt tells us that " of the different nations who 
 inhabit Mexico, paintings representing the deluge are 
 found among the Aztecs, the Mizletecs, the Zapotecs, 
 Tlascaltecs and the Mechoachans. The Noah, Xisu- 
 thrus or Menu of these nations is Coxcix Teocipactli 
 or Tezpi. He saved himself and his wife in a bark, or, 
 according to other traditions, on a raft. But accord- 
 ing to the Mechoachans he embarked in a spacious 
 'acalli,' with his wife, his children, several animals 
 and some grain, the preservation of which was import- 
 ant to mankind, when the great spirit ordered the 
 waters to withdraw. Tezpi sent out from his ship a 
 vulture, the Zapilote. This bird that feeds on dead flesh 
 did not return. . . . Tezpi sent out other birds, one of 
 which, the humming bird, alone returned, holding in 
 its beak a branch covered with leaves. Tezpi, seeing 
 that fresh verdure began to clothe the soil, quitted his 
 bark near the mountain of Colhauacan " (Humb. Res. 
 p. 65.) 
 
 Another tradition of the ancient Mexicans states 
 that 4,800 years after the creation, a great inundation 
 took place; that before this the country of Anahuac 
 was inhabited by giants; that after the deluge the sur- 
 vivors built a hill in the shape of a pyramid, the top 
 of which was to reach the clouds. This displeased 
 the gods, who hurled fire on the builders, some of whom 
 were killed, and the monument was afterwards dedi-
 
 126 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 cated to Quelzolcoatl (Jupiter). Thus we see in the 
 legends of Mexico, parts of the Chaldean tradition, such 
 as the floating carcasses and the devouring birds tra- 
 ditions which were buried for 4,000 years in Babylon- 
 ian libraries. During all this time, then, the memory 
 of this great dispensation lived in the mind of man. 
 How indelible the stamp it has placed upon the death- 
 less pages of tradition. 
 
 Ellis, in his " Polynesian Researches," says : " The 
 Sandwichers believe that the Creator destroyed the 
 earth by an inundation that covered the whole earth 
 except Mouna Roa in Hawaii, on the top of which one 
 single pair had the good fortune to save themselves." 
 Thus in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, cut off from 
 every source of information from the scenes of Arme- 
 nian history, the same tradition lives. Another thing 
 plainly to be seen in these deluges is the cataclysmic 
 character of the devouring waters. " The archangel 
 of the (celestial) abyss brought destruction." " The 
 waters rose to the sky." The inhabitants of the earth 
 " fill the sea like fishes." Their " corpses floated like 
 sea-weeds." It was a war of elements most terrific. 
 " Water-spouts pouring from the abyss." Ea opened 
 his mouth and spake; he said to the warrior Bel (the 
 sun), "Oh, thou, herald of the gods, warrior as thou 
 didst not master thyself (didst not consider), thou hast 
 made the water-spout of the Deluge." Again " Six 
 days and as many nights passed; the wind, the water- 
 spout, and the diluvian rain, were in all their strength." 
 "In heaven the gods became afraid of the water-spout." 
 Thus all through legendic lore, we can trace the belief 
 of man that the deluge was a mighty down-rush of 
 waters from the celestial abyss, and that Bel, the sun-
 
 Legends of the Flood. 127 
 
 god, was the author of it all. Deucalion's flood, which 
 is evidently the Chaldean modified to suit the Greeks, 
 sets forth many of the same occurrences and features 
 just named, and I need not add them here. 
 
 Among the Hindoo legends I find the following: 
 One morning water for washing was brought to Manu, 
 and when he had washed himself, a fish remained in 
 his hands, and addressed him thus, . . . " a deluge will 
 sweep all creatures away . . . the very year I shall 
 have reached my full growth the deluge will hap- 
 pen. Then build a vessel and worship me. When the 
 waters rise, enter the vessel and I will save thee." 
 There is also another form translated from Hindoo, 
 which is evidently taken from the Chaldean or Biblical. 
 " In seven days the three worlds shall be submerged." 
 Among the Iranians, the sacred books relate how the 
 original ancestor, under the name of Yima, is ordered 
 to construct an enclosure and cause men and animals 
 to enter it in order to escape destruction from a deluge. 
 Now all these legends, pointing to the general destruc- 
 tion of man and beast, and the construction of some 
 ship, chest or enclosure to preserve them, leads direct- 
 ly to the annular system as the source of the destroy- 
 ing waves. Both the legend of Ogyge's flood and that 
 of Deucalion, refer to the offices of the ark in the pre- 
 servation of a few persons, from a general destruction. 
 The Koran says, " All men were drowned save Noah 
 and his family; and then God said, ' Oh Earth, swal- 
 low up thy waters, and thou Oh Heaven, withhold thy 
 rain,' and immediately the waters abated." The 
 Egyptians seem to have had a correct knowledge of the 
 deluge, for they told Solon that there- had been many;
 
 128 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 and also told him of " one great deluge of all." Plato's 
 " Dialogues." 
 
 My readers no doubt are familiar with the fable of 
 Phaeton, son of Helios, who harnessed the steeds of the 
 sun to his father's chariot, but because he was not able 
 to keep them in the path of his father, produced a gen- 
 eral conflagration and destruction. This evidently 
 is a myth which arose from the fact that, as the upper 
 vapors declined, the sun came more vividly into view, 
 and as the waters of the deluge fell, it became visible 
 in all its might and majesty, and all terrestrial nature, 
 including man and beast, all vegetation unaccus- 
 tomed to the blaze of the sun, must have suffered 
 from its direct action. So the sun-power would be re- 
 membered with the same vividness as the deluge, by 
 those in lands not so greatly affected by the fall of 
 waters. And in the land of Egypt, above all others, I 
 presume this phenomenon would be more thoroughly 
 remembered. Now it is not a little remarkable that 
 the Egyptian priests should tell Solon that the fable 
 " Really means a decline of the bodies moving around 
 the earth, and in the heavens." The declaration 
 could not be plainer if it said, it " Really means the 
 fall of revolving vapors from the heavens." (See 
 Plato's " Dialogues.") This volume might be filled 
 with such traditions, from almost every nation, kindred 
 and tongue on the earth. Hindoos, Brahmins, Chinese, 
 Sandwichers, Fijis, Peruvians, Mexicans and Alaskans 
 have all preserved deathless memorials of this great 
 event. 
 
 The classical student is now prepared perhaps to see 
 that the rock of the annular theory underlies the en- 
 tire system of Eastern and Western mythologies;
 
 Legends of the Flood. 129 
 
 that the light radiating from the former, illumines and 
 simplifies the latter to a marvelous extent. Let us ad- 
 mit the interdiluvian world to have been in its earlier 
 periods the scene of perpetual day lighted up by a yet 
 invisible sun, and a hundred mysteries are readily 
 solved. First we may readily understand why the 
 sacred historian informed his readers that day and 
 night should forever alternate after the deluge when 
 the sun came distinctly into view. (See Gen. 8: 22.) 
 Then we may readily see the sun-power represented by 
 Osiris, Hercules, and the Apollos to have been looked 
 upon as the forming, conquering, and renovating 
 deities of the ancient world. The absence of the sun's 
 direct light and actinic energy having formed the 
 Edenic clime that characterized the world in which the 
 infant human race was nursed, it must be plain that as 
 the vapors grew thinner in the equatorial regions, as 
 they spread toward the poles of the earth, the sun came 
 gradually into view, and its coming was the physical 
 agent in the Creator's hands in putting an end to the 
 Eden climate. The sun's absence made Eden, and 
 therefore his presence destroyed it and drove man from 
 his genial home. We are impelled to this conclusion 
 by inexorable law. The solar orb then coming into 
 view more fully as the vapors thinned away, and the 
 climate of the Eden world growing colder necessarily 
 at the same time a physical curse thus coming upon 
 the earth mankind must have looked upon the sun 
 as the agent in the hands of the supreme Arbiter, to 
 punish them for their sins. In short, that coming con- 
 queror was looked upon as the cause of the deluge. 
 With this, as the agent of the Omnipotent Hand, in 
 the estimation of man for punishing the wicked, not
 
 130 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 only is the darkness of mythology largely expelled, but 
 the whole Edenic history is wonderfully illuminated. 
 
 Then when I read the remarkable passages of Job 
 38: 12, 13, " Hast thou commanded the morning, since 
 thy days; and caused the day-spring (sun) to know his 
 place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, 
 that the wicked might be shaken out of it ? " it shows 
 plainly to my mind that the famous patriarch lived 
 in an age when men believed the sun came in to pun- 
 ish the wicked! This, and several other passages, I 
 cannot now enlarge upon, leave not a doubt upon my 
 mind, that much of the book of Job was penned in 
 interdiluvian * times. We are now merely approach- 
 ing some of the momentous conclusions to which the 
 annular theory must inevitably lead. Conclusions that 
 must make sweeping and radical changes in opinions, 
 as the theory gains a place in the philosophic credence 
 of men. 
 
 * I use the term interdiluvian to represent that period extend- 
 ing from the expulsion of man from Eden, to the final fall of the 
 waters upon the earth. As it is evident man was deprived of 
 his Eden clime by declining vapors, first in the polar regions, 
 this period must have been one of great climatical changes; in 
 fact, must have been an interdiluvian one.
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 OCEANIC DOWNFALLS AND AUGMENTATION OF TERRES- 
 TKIAL WATERS. 
 
 A CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF 
 
 THE CLAIM THAT THE WATERS OF THE OCEAN 
 
 HAVE BEEN GREATLY INCREASED IN 
 
 VOLUME IN VERY RECENT 
 
 GEOLOGIC TIME. 
 
 The reader must now see there is no possible escape 
 from the conclusion that if the Noachian waters fell 
 to the earth, as our theory predicates, there is now a 
 greater volume of ocean on the earth than before the 
 deluge. That the shores of the ocean are further in- 
 land; that the estuaries and bays, straits and seas com- 
 municating with the ocean are wider and deeper; and 
 further, that this must be the condition of the world 
 at large, except where recent elevation has taken place. 
 If, then, it can be shown that this condition of the 
 oceanic world does obtain, it will be taken as another 
 link of valuable evidence. Again, when this evidence 
 is confronted by that now universally held, that all the 
 submerged regions of the earth merely sank and let 
 in the waters of the ocean upon them; if the unphilo- 
 sophic nature of the claim can be shown, the evidence 
 becomes positive and conclusive; for the submerged 
 tracts of the earth either sank or the oceans have been 
 augmented. 
 
 It is true that many portions have sunk; that some 
 parts of the earth are sinking to-day, and others stead-
 
 132 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ily rising. This phenomenon must needs be, while 
 rivers bear their measureless burden to the sea; while 
 currents transport solid matter from one part of the 
 earth to another, and the conservation of energy re- 
 mains a fixed law in the universe. It is calculated 
 that the solid matter annually carried down by the 
 great Mississippi is sufficient to cover 640 acres to the 
 depth of 240 feet. This floated matter is deposited in 
 the Mexican Gulf, or carried by currents into the 
 adjacent oceans; and we must not forget that every 
 pound of matter thus transferred is an energy trans- 
 ferred! In the course of one thousand years, one 
 thousand square miles of oceanic bottom would be cov- 
 ered 240 feet, by an actual accumulation, and the un- 
 derlying beds would support a pressure measured by 
 millions of tons. This enormous pressure upon the 
 underlying rocks is so much transferred energy con- 
 verted into mechanical heat. This mechanical heat 
 must of course, expand the rocks thus under increased 
 pressure; and as there is apparently no measure of this 
 expansive force, what rock can there be that will not 
 yield to the force exerted? At the mouth of the Mis- 
 sissippi the continued additions of mechanical pressure 
 by the constant deposits, borne down by the river, give 
 rise to bubbling and steaming hillocks of mud, veri- 
 table miniature volcanoes. As increase of pressure 
 must give rise to increase of heat, unit for unit, it is 
 plain that excessive increase of pressure must produce 
 corresponding increase of heat. Is it not a legitimate 
 conclusion, then, that if all the sediment and precipi- 
 tated matter carried into the Gulf of Mexico were de- 
 posited on its bottom, and not borne to a great extent 
 into the Atlantic, its coast would be like that of the
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 133 
 
 Mediterranean Sea, lined with numerous mountains and 
 the scene of active volcanoes? 
 
 The great Mediterranean is certainly a grand exam- 
 ple of the conservation and transfer of energy. Many 
 large rivers pour into it from all sides, bearing such 
 enormous volumes of sediment that is not carried to the 
 ocean, but is constantly settling upon its bottom; and 
 the frequent and appalling eruptions so well known in 
 modern times, cannot but be pure results thereof ? Can 
 scientists find any other vents than volcanoes and earth- 
 quakal agitations for this force employed? It must 
 be accounted for. It cannot be lost. And the ques- 
 tion might well be asked: Can volcanic eruptions have 
 any other cause than that of transmitted or transferred 
 energy? As we look around the globe and see all its 
 volcanoes located in regions where transported sedi- 
 ment is accumulating i.e., in and around the ocean 
 borders, and see that no volcanoes are located where 
 no sediment can accumulate, can we for one moment 
 doubt that we have here the true cause of volcanic 
 eruptions. As the underlying rocks expand by the in- 
 crease of heat, arising from additional sediments con- 
 tinually gathering upon them in the seas, they must 
 fracture and crush into neighboring rocks; which 
 crushing must give rise to centers of fire susceptible of 
 fusing the beds around them. And it is conceivable 
 that sufficient sediment may gather over a bed of rock 
 to liquefy the latter. About 65,000 feet of steel blocks 
 piled one upon another will give rise to sufficient heat 
 to melt the lowest blocks, or at least to render them 
 plastic. Hence, the reasonable conclusion that the 
 lava that issues from a volcano is the deep bed-rock 
 fused by pressure, produced by lateral expansion. Thus
 
 134 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 we may behold even here the grand effort of solar 
 action. Solar heat raises the vapor on high; it falls 
 as rain, on hill and plain, swells into a stream, or feeds 
 a fountain, and gathers sediment as it runs through its 
 channel to the sea, where it adds its increment of me- 
 chanical heat to fuse the rock. So that the force em- 
 ployed in the grandest volcanic eruption ia the same 
 in amount as that employed by the sun-beam in raising 
 that vapor from the sea to the clouds. 
 
 This little digression will prepare the reader to un- 
 derstand that as sediment is continually accumulating 
 in some regions, and being removed from others, there 
 must be rock expansion going on continually in some 
 regions, and continual contraction in others. Expan- 
 sion must elevate the earth's crust. Contraction must 
 lower it. The reader must see that this is law, and 
 must also see herein an adequate cause for the sinking 
 of some coast regions, and the elevation of others. It 
 is an extremely slow motion, which, arguing an ex- 
 tremely slow accumulation or diminution of mechani- 
 cal energy would seem to point alone to the cause here 
 supposed. 
 
 But while in the neighborhood of the ocean's boun- 
 daries such oscillations may occur, we surely could not 
 expect such to obtain to any extent among islands in 
 mid-ocean, or on coasts where for many thousand miles 
 no rivers of importance exists. The elevation and 
 submergence of such coasts must be attributed to other 
 causes. Now the continents have all been lifted from 
 the oceans, and can it be possible that they could be 
 raised to their present position by any other than a 
 solid bed of intruded or expanded matter. They were 
 lifted by a force directed from the oceans, as all will
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 135 
 
 admit. Did the slow accumulations of sediment ac- 
 complish this grand result ? If so, why was that energy 
 put to work at successive periods, and attended with 
 sudden and abrupt changes, and extermination of 
 specific forms? The same force at work to raise the 
 coast of Norway could not lift a continent and put eter- 
 nal props under its adamantine sills. Wherein, then, 
 can we find a competent cause ? Can the annular theory 
 supply it? 
 
 Let us suppose a downfall of water at this age should 
 raise the surface of the ocean 50 feet above its present 
 level. The reader will see that every ton of water thus 
 added to the pressure on the ocean's bed must be con- 
 verted into so many units of mechanical heat in the 
 granite foundation of the aqueous beds, causing an ex- 
 pansion which nothing could resist, and directing this 
 measureless force towards the continents. The only re- 
 sult that could take place is evidently the forcing of 
 matter, solid or plastic, from pressure under them, end- 
 ing in their elevation ; or the plication of their margins 
 into mountain-folds. Now such things have taken 
 place again and again in the past ages of this planet. 
 Grand convulsions, coupled with universal oceanic bap- 
 tisms, and change in life-organisms, have repeatedly 
 taken place; and the up-lift always directed from the 
 ocean. As an installment of annular matter is neces- 
 sary for the baptism; necessary for the transfer of a 
 competent energy; necessary for general extermina- 
 tion of species, how can we avoid the conclusions that 
 the oceans have many times by immeasurable addi- 
 tions climbed upon the shores of the world? 
 
 It is clear, then, that the waters of the deluge re- 
 ferred to in a former chapter, if anything nearly so tre-
 
 136 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 mendous as claimed, must have resulted in crust-fold- 
 ing, or elevation, especially in the neighborhoods where 
 great river systems carried their detritus into the seas. 
 It surely is not necessary for me to enumerate and spe- 
 cialize the localities of the earth, well known to the 
 geologist, that have in the most recent geologic times 
 been lifted from the ocean's wave, with the shells of ex- 
 isting species. The New England coast was elevated, 
 as all know, many feet since the last advance of glaciers 
 there. This being the case, we must look around us 
 for the rivers that bear their burdens of continental 
 detritus to the seas. Well, the great St. Lawrence 
 washes the feet of New England on the north, in a val- 
 ley so new that thousands of rock-bound islands gem 
 its waters. So new, I say, that it has not yet swept its 
 channel clean, and must therefore have been recently 
 elevated, with its surroundings, from the sea. It is one 
 of the mightiest excavations of the earth. One can 
 not look upon its wide reach of flood-ground, and lofty 
 facades, and not ask, what has became of all the mat- 
 ter borne from this valley ? One comprehensive glance 
 at the great banks of Newfoundland will answer the 
 question. And now when we see the thousands of 
 square miles of detrital offspring of the Hudson's 
 waters, how can we conclude otherwise than that those 
 great beds were the products of diluvial times? In 
 short, does not everything seem to argue the transmis- 
 sion of a competent energy by an adequate cause, by 
 means of which New England's recent elevation was 
 effected? As this phase of mountain-making will be 
 fully treated elsewhere we will now turn our attention 
 to the more direct question of oceanic augmentation in 
 modern times.
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 137 
 
 Suppose the reader could see at one view all the river 
 estuaries of the earth ! Knowing their delta approaches 
 to have been built up by enormous accumulations of 
 detritus, forming in many instances, as in the cases of 
 the Mississippi, the Nile and the Ganges, beds several 
 hundreds of feet thick; and knowing, too, that the same 
 sedimentary deposits are being made at the outlets of 
 rivers, emptying into inland lakes, we can readily un- 
 derstand that there must be a difference in the appear- 
 ance and character of lacustrine deltas and estuaries, 
 when compared with those of the oceanic borders. Let 
 us examine the great Lakes of North America, empty- 
 ing through the St. Lawrence into the ocean. It is 
 readily seen that the waters in these lakes cannot 
 rise permanently while their present channels of out- 
 let remain; that however abundant the additions to 
 their waters, so long as river erosion continues, these 
 lakes must grow more shallow with the flow of cen- 
 turies; that in a few thousand years cities now 
 planted upon their shores must become inland towns, 
 unless they follow the receding waters. This reces- 
 sion of lake waters, and falling of the lake level in the 
 region referred to, have been going on for unknown 
 time. But it must be seen that as the waters fall, the 
 pitch or decline of the river current, as it enters the 
 lake, must also increase and follow them; so that in 
 course of time the river's course through a lacustrine 
 delta, would be between walls continually increasing in 
 height. How emphatically true this is of the lakes of 
 all the earth, I need not say. It is simply a matter of 
 observation, which every one can verify. And the 
 question here maintained is then apparent : the reces-
 
 138 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 sion of waters from an estuary deepens the channel and 
 increases the pitch and flow of a river current. 
 
 The high sand banks contiguous to the lake estuaries 
 of this country, which many of my readers must have 
 noticed, simply prove that the lake level has fallen. 
 Then, again, we must see that if the level of the lake 
 waters should be elevated, the results would be just the 
 reverse. The pitch of estuary currents would decrease; 
 the mural escarpments of river courses would decrease 
 in height and the delta formation become one level 
 expanse of detrital accumulations. We may now apply 
 a decisive test to the river deltas on the oceanic bor- 
 ders of the world. In the search of twenty years I 
 have been unable to find an oceanic delta, with its ac- 
 companying estuary, that possesses the lacustrine char- 
 acteristic of increasing pitch. Where the land has 
 been elevated so as to show walls and deep delta chan- 
 nels at the mouths of rivers there are features which 
 the keen eye of the geologist may readily see, as strik- 
 ingly different from those in lake regions. The eleva- 
 tion of a river mouth throws a volume of water back 
 upon itself, and the deposit is no longer the same as 
 before. All the great rivers of the earth present, how- 
 ever, the very same appearance, we would find, as 
 stated above, in a lake delta and estuary, whose water 
 level was elevated by an increase of the volume of 
 water. It is the rarest circumstance to find a river of 
 much importance flowing with a rapid rush of waters 
 into the sea. There is a wide expanse of land scarcely 
 above the sea level, washed daily by the tides, and the 
 river flows lazily along continually dropping its load of 
 sediment. No river bluffs. Almost every sign of 
 channel or river escarpments has been obliterated, if
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 139 
 
 such ever existed. Why is this so universally the case ? 
 It simply proves that land elevation at the mouths of 
 rivers is exceedingly rare. It proves that while the 
 accumulations of sediment, or delta deposits, are con- 
 tinually pushing the wave oceanwards, by the growth 
 of land area, the level of the oceanic waters has been 
 elevated in modern geologic times, so as to obliterate 
 channels and walls that must inevitably grow in the 
 lapse of ages, at river mouths. For, with a call cease- 
 less as the flow of time, and with an appetite as in- 
 satiate as death, the hungry earth is absorbing its 
 waters. 
 
 The problem, then, is reduced to this: Either the 
 oceanic waters have been augmented in volume, by ad- 
 ditions thereto, in modern geologic times; or, the land 
 at the outlets of almost all the rivers of the globe has 
 been sunk. Which of these is the more probable ? Nay, 
 can it be possible, that so nearly all the oceanic deltas 
 of the earth could present the actual appearance of an 
 increase of oceanic waters, unless such an increase had 
 taken place ? If these deltas, even to a limited extent, 
 exhibited the inclination due to local elevation, we 
 might calculate between the probabilities of land de- 
 pression and emergence; but when it is all depression, 
 there can be no probabilities, and certainties only come 
 within the purview of our calculations. 
 
 Again, look at the great Pacific, studded with island 
 gems, that are, as is well known, the summits of moun- 
 tains submerged. Here are millions of square miles 
 of submerged lands, as proven by coraline formations,* 
 
 * " A Melbourne journal describes a remarkable piece of coral 
 taken from the submarine cable near Port Darwin. It is of the 
 ordinary species, about five inches in height, six inches in diam- 
 eter at the top, and about two inches at the base. It is perfectly
 
 140 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 that have in modern geologic times succumbed to 
 oceanic inroads (i.e., oceanic elevation), and which 
 would to-day be a grand continent peopled by indus- 
 trious millions, and covered by luxuriant tropical 
 vegetation, if its waters could be lowered to the extent 
 of 80 or 100 fathoms. Then when we turn to the east- 
 ern coast of North America, we find a vast region of 
 coast-line just submerged, and glean from the " Coast 
 Survey " the remarkable fact that from Nova Scotia 
 to Florida, and from Florida around the whole boun- 
 dary of the Mexican Gulf, there are the submerged 
 shore-lines of a former continent, far out from the pres- 
 ent shore. That for nearly the entire extent of many 
 thousands of miles of coast, these shallow waters of 
 about 30 or 40 fathoms deep, roll shoreward from the 
 mighty depth of the ocean. Beyond this actually known 
 and surveyed ancient shore-line, now from 80 to 100 
 fathoms under water, the lead and line plunges sudden- 
 ly to a depth of 200, 400, 1,000 or 1,500 fathoms. 
 From the British coast-survey we learn that the British 
 Islands are surrounded by the same character of coasts, 
 a mere playground for waves. Gradually the waters 
 deepen from the present shore ocean-ward, until we sud- 
 denly arrive at the old coast-line beyond which lies the 
 abyssal deep.* The German ocean and the Norwegian 
 waters are so shallow that if they were lowered 30 or 
 
 formed, and the base bears the distinct impress of the cable, and 
 a few fibers of the coil rope used as a sheath for the telegraphic 
 wires still adhering to it. As the cable has been laid only four 
 years it is evident that this specimen must have grown to its 
 present height in that time, which seems to prove that the 
 growth of coral is much more rapid than has been supposed." 
 
 * For the first 100 miles out from New Jersey the ocean deep- 
 ens only three feet a mile, or 300 feet in all, while 18 miles 
 farther out the water is 6,000 feet deep, and 250 miles out is 
 2y 2 miles deep.
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 141 
 
 40 fathoms they would expose a vast stretch of level 
 continent on the northwest of Europe. The whole 
 coast of northern Europe and Asia presents the same 
 characteristics. When we turn to the waters washing 
 the eastern shores of Asia we find the same; and wher- 
 ever the southern shore has been surveyed from 60 to 
 100 miles from land, throughout the whole coast from 
 Java to the Gulf of Aden, we find the same shallow 
 oceanic water; and beyond its boundary, the deep ocean. 
 Turning again to North America, from Columbia River 
 to Behring's Strait we find shallow ocean. From the 
 Columbia River southward to Cape Horn, I have but 
 little information respecting the character of the sea 
 bottom; but from many places come authentic informa- 
 tion that the Pacific waters now roll over submerged 
 forests near the shores. The same kind of reports are 
 heard from the Atlantic coasts of South America and 
 Africa. 
 
 But most fortunately we have information that none 
 will dispute from the very midst of the Atlantic Ocean, 
 many portions of which have been surveyed and 
 mapped. The U. S. sloop Gettysburg several years 
 ago, when about 300 miles west of Gibraltar, anchored 
 where the sounding line revealed a depth of only 32 
 fathoms. The British ship Challenger and the U. S. 
 ship Dolphin have traced the course of a submerged 
 continent in mid-ocean, and seem to have demonstrated 
 the former existence of a long insular continent, nearly 
 mid-way between the two existing continents, and run- 
 ning nearly parallel with the general trend of the At- 
 lantic Ocean. The character of the deeply cut and 
 channeled bed of these mid-ocean ridges shows that they 
 were in recent geologic times subject to aerial denuda- 
 tion.
 
 142 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 Thus it seems there is an abundant evidence, so far as 
 we are able to glean from the physical testimony of 
 the universal oceans, that its waters, the world over, 
 stand higher to-day upon the shores of the continents 
 than they formerly did, than they did in recent geo- 
 logical times ! How can we conclude otherwise ? Can 
 it be possible that during the same age the great 
 Pacific continent covering millions of square miles was 
 submerged; the whole Atlantic bed; the Indian Ocean, 
 and the North Polar seas, should all climb from 30 to 
 40 fathoms upon the shores, because of a subsidence 
 of the land alone ? When Behring's Strait was made 
 to connect the polar waters with the Pacific; when the 
 Strait of Dover separated England from the continent 
 of Europe; when the Strait of Gibraltar connected the 
 Atlantic with the Mediterranean, the oceans either in- 
 creased in volume or the continents sank. And when 
 we know that every drop of the immense oceans that 
 now wash the shores of the world, has actually fallen 
 to the earth's surface since its igneous era closed, and 
 since the very pointing of eternal law, from whatever 
 field we may view them, shows that these oceans may 
 have fallen in terrific and overwhelming cataclysms 
 through the measureless lapse of ages, and not all in 
 primitive times, why should we be slow to admit the 
 grand and philosophic thought, that recent geologic 
 times closed with a vast augmentation of the waters of 
 the earth? Most impressively is this consideration 
 forced upon us, as we turn to the records of the gla- 
 ciated continents, and reflect upon the immensity of 
 the snow-fields that filled the valleys of almost every 
 land, till the face of the planet gleamed in universal 
 ice. And when we take one step further in the inves-
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 143 
 
 tigation, and find that the closing of the glacial period 
 was the commencement of modern oceanic inroads; 
 that the oceans climbed up the shores as the glaciers 
 melted away; and further find that terrific deluges of 
 water were urged for unknown time down the innumer- 
 able valleys of the earth, there seems to be no foothold 
 for skepticism on this point. 
 
 I will now collate some interesting facts relative to 
 this phase of the annular theory, some of which have 
 been presented by well-known authors and scholars. 
 (From Geikie's "Ice Age," page 91.) "From these 
 and similar facts geologists have been inclined to infer 
 that at the time the mer de glace covered Scotland the 
 whole of our country (Britain) stood at a higher level 
 relative to the sea than now; in other words, that a 
 large part of what in these days forms the floor of the 
 sea was at that time in the condition of dry land." 
 
 Again (same page), " The German Ocean between 
 England and the coast of France, and the Netherlands, 
 does not average more than some 150 or 160 feet in 
 depth; and the soundings show that the water deepens 
 very gradually northwards." 
 
 And while we are considering this part of the geo- 
 logical field, we will examine some further evidence of 
 oceanic elevation. Submerged peat-beds containing 
 trees and trunks of oak, pine, hickory, walnut, etc., are 
 witnesses of recent advance of oceanic waters. These 
 are found in abundance around the coasts of England, 
 Scotland and Ireland, not only in connection with the 
 main land, but in the small outlying islands of the Brit- 
 ish seas. (Geikie, pp. 294 and 295.) (See also Sin- 
 clair's Acct., vol. xvi, p. 556.) 
 
 On the Frith of Tay are larger tracts of submerged
 
 144 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 peat-moss, containing hazel-nut and alder, many feet 
 below full tide. (Edin. Hog. Soc. Trans., vol. ix, p. 
 419.) The same are found on the shores of Tirce and 
 Coll. (Edin. Jour. Phil, vol. vii, p. 125. They are 
 found in abundance on the northern coast of the con- 
 tinent, from France to Denmark and Sweden. Sub- 
 merged forests abound along the coasts of Brittany, 
 Normandy, and the Channel Islands, as well as off the 
 shores of Holland, and also on the Alaskan and Siberian 
 shores. 
 
 Can we come to any other reasonable conclusion than 
 that the northeast Atlantic and the German Ocean 
 have largely augmented their domain, in comparatively 
 recent times? We have reports of submerged forests 
 on the wide circuit of the ocean world. Scarcely any 
 considerable part of the globe whose boundaries lie by 
 sea, does not exhibit some such evidence. 
 
 Captain Herandeen, who spent many years on the 
 Pacific Ocean, has given some interesting and valuable 
 evidence in regard to the great insular continent that 
 now sleeps under its waters. I draw briefly from one 
 of his narratives: "But there is other evidence which 
 is more interesting, because it relates to the great decay 
 of a great race of people that once inhabited the region. 
 A few years ago I stopped at Pouynipete Island, in the 
 Pacific, in east longitude 158 22' and north latitude 
 60 50'. The island is surrounded by a reef, with a 
 broad ship channel between it and the island. 
 
 " At places in the reef there were natural breaks that 
 served as entrances to the harbors. In these ship- 
 channels there were a number of islands, many of 
 which were surrounded by a wall of stone five or six 
 feet high, and on those islands there stood a great many
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 145 
 
 low houses built of the same kind of stone as the walls 
 about them. These structures seem to have been used 
 as temples and forts. The singular feature of these 
 islands is that the walls are a foot or more below the 
 water. When they were built they were evidently 
 above the water and connected with the main-land, but 
 they have gradually sunk until the sea has risen a foot 
 or more around them. The natives on the islands do 
 not know when these works were built; it is so far back 
 in the past that they have even no tradition of the struc- 
 tures. Yet the works show great signs of skill, and 
 certainly prove that whoever built them knew thor- 
 oughly how to transport and lift heavy blocks of stone. 
 Up in the mountains of the island there is a quarry of 
 the same kind of stone that was used in building the 
 wall about the islands, and in that quarry to-day there 
 are great blocks of stone that have been hewn out ready 
 for transportation. The natives are in greater ignor- 
 ance of the phenomena that are going on about them 
 than the white man who touches on their island for a 
 few hours for water. There is no doubt in my mind 
 that the island was once inhabited by an intelligent race 
 of people, who built the temples and forts of heavy 
 masonry on the high bluffs of the shore of the island, 
 and that as the land gradually subsided these bluffs be- 
 came islands. They stand to-day with a solid wall of 
 stone around them, partly submerged in water." 
 
 Thus we not only meet with the strongest evidence 
 that the waters have arisen on the shores of the con- 
 tinents, severing in numberless instances islands from 
 the main land, as England from Europe, and the West 
 Indies from the American continent, but in the very 
 heart of the oceans we find the same testimony in im-
 
 146 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 perishable monuments. How often has this aged world 
 of ours been shaken by the mightiest revulsions ! How 
 many races similar to man, the masterpiece of the 
 Creator, have felt the blow of inexorable fate ! races 
 of sentient beings that may have lived amid the flour- 
 ish of empires, and the shock of death, till swept as by a 
 stroke from the earth, before the Adamite or Edenic 
 man came upon the scene. Here, blocks hewn from 
 the mountain quarry have significant meaning. Left 
 in confusion they argue that the workmen were sud- 
 denly driven from the quarry, just as in many other 
 cases in other parts of the earth. The ancient copper 
 mines of Lake Superior, in several instances, show that 
 the old miners that used the flint and other stone im- 
 plements, were suddenly swept from their place of 
 work, never to return. Their axes > hammers, wedges, 
 etc., left lying around in the utmost confusion, and cov- 
 ered with flood-detritus in deep excavation, tell an un- 
 mistakable tale of sudden and violent catastrophe. 
 
 All over the ocean world then where rivers empty 
 their waters; where inlets lie embosomed in forest and 
 rock; where straits separate mighty continents, and 
 connect ocean with ocean, and sea with sea; where 
 islands rise from the restless wave, in the very midst of 
 boundless oceans; wherever we may chance to turn our 
 gaze upon the watery world, we see, it seems to me, 
 the most surprising evidence that the earth's waters 
 have been greatly augmented in modern times. Tell 
 me, what else could have raised the waters so generally 
 over the earth ? Is it not plain that the vast expanse of 
 the Pacific continent subsiding, would have drawn such 
 vast volumes of water from the shores of other con- 
 tinents, that rivers would be free to pour their waters
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 147 
 
 with rapid flow into the sea ? Dana says the sunken 
 continent of the Pacific is 6,000 miles long, and from 
 1,200 to 2,000 miles broad, and makes out that it has 
 sunk more than 3,000 feet. If we make this less by 
 100 times, we must even then, by some means, find a 
 source for those waters which again filled the estuaries 
 after they were drained by the ocean's sinking bed. 
 We cannot conceive of such an enormous area of sea 
 bottom, sinking even to the extent of a single foot, with- 
 out increasing the rapidity of the flow of river waters 
 at their outlets. But where, on the wide face of the 
 earth, do we see this to be the case ? Since we see the 
 reverse to be almost the universal rule, it seems to me 
 we are simply compelled to admit that the ocean's 
 waters have climbed upon the shores of all the conti- 
 nents. Now the fact that such coasts as those of Nor- 
 way and Sweden and some islands in the North Pacific 
 have been elevated in modern times does not in the 
 least oppose these ideas; for the fact that we are able 
 to prove that they have been elevated from the sea, 
 only proves that they, too, were submerged, increasing 
 the necessity of admitting the fact of oceanic augmenta- 
 tion. 
 
 What, then, does that buried continent prove ? Does 
 it not prove that a mighty deluge did desolate the 
 earth? And as it is a fact which every one is forced 
 to admit, that in the Noachian period a vast deluge of 
 waters did come from beyond the region of clouds and 
 rains, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the ocean's 
 volume was then increased. 
 
 Now let me ask the reader, what conclusion must we 
 draw from the array of facts now before us ? Did the 
 primitive vapors return to the earth as they condensed
 
 148 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 in primitive times, contrary to law universal and un- 
 changeable ? Is it not within the conception of every 
 one, that if all the waters of the earth fell on the 
 archsean sphere, then there never was a deluge? That 
 there never were waters above the firmament ? That 
 the sun came into view in primitive times ? That con- 
 sequently there never was a day of physical rest; nor 
 a day when it did not rain, nor a time when man dwelt 
 naked on earth; nor an Eden clime? Then the rain- 
 bow was a common occurrence in all times, and can in 
 no sense be a token of God's promise to man. Then 
 man always lived in this present environment, and his 
 days were always three score and ten years. In short, 
 the whole Edenic narrative becomes one meaningless 
 tissue of contradictions, beyond the pale of law. If 
 the waters of the earth were not increased under the 
 cognizance of the human race, what can the first eight 
 chapters of Genesis mean ? Refuse to admit this philo- 
 sophic necessity, and we are plunged into the darkness 
 of midnight. Ineffable harmony and beauty becomes 
 hideous disorder and deformity. And now when we 
 take a comprehensive glance at the seas of the earth, 
 and can find but one grand chain of evidence in support 
 of "upper waters;" in short, as we find the globe to- 
 day one marvelous and comprehensive argument, in de- 
 fense of Edenic history, an argument which is the 
 voice of law; I must say, with emphasis, the earth's an- 
 nular system was a physical and necessary fact. 
 
 We started on our tour of investigation with the in- 
 fant earth wrapped in the swaddling garments of 
 flame, and rocked in the cradle of primitive fire. Meas- 
 ureless cycles rolled away, and then we saw the youth- 
 ful orb flying through space, a glowing and vitalizing
 
 Oceanic Downfalls. 149 
 
 sun. Revolving around the eternal throne of implacable 
 law, as its fires smouldered away its oceans gathered 
 around it. Away down the vistas of time we see plans 
 perfected. The world unfolds at the beck of Deity. 
 Man, the masterpiece of the Omnipotent Designer, 
 familiar by actual, contact and knowledge with the 
 great canopy of vapors, has sent down to us a most 
 faithful and inexpressibly harmonious history. The 
 rock-bound records confirm its details. The ocean 
 unites with the inevitable verdict, and the annular 
 theory stands a citadel of rock. We have proven it 
 first by mathematical reasoning and philosophic neces- 
 sity. Then we have proven it by the mineral character 
 and philosophic disposition of strata. And again 
 we have proven it by analogous facts relating to our 
 sister worlds, belted and ringed under the reign of law. 
 Then, again, we have proven it by the action of our 
 own satellite. Then we have taken the records of man, 
 rude and mysterious, and have shown by the very na- 
 ture of those ancient writings that they declare and re- 
 declare, again and again, the truth of my claim. So 
 that if all other evidence were cast aside, if all the 
 demonstrations, and doubly riveted links of testimony 
 before adduced, were entirely left out of the argument, 
 the first eight chapters of Genesis alone afford a proof 
 so abundant and positive that no sane man, it seems to 
 me, can for a moment doubt that they are a true and 
 faithful delineation of the earth's annular appendage. 
 
 What kind of a chain of evidence have we then, with 
 all these witnesses testifying to the same thing? And 
 after we have so firmly established this thing; when we 
 examine the waters on the earth and find that they bear 
 witness to the same thing in such a way as to become
 
 150 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 a demonstration in themselves, surely my readers will 
 pardon the egotism : I have proven so far as positive evi- 
 dence can prove anything, that this earth had an annu- 
 lar appendage from the remotest period of archsean 
 time, through the ages to the days of Noah. 
 
 Now if the reader choose he may cast all this evi- 
 dence aside, and we will begin a new series of demon- 
 strations. He may throw away every page of testimony 
 I have given, and I will prove the same great truth to 
 him by testimony from other fields of investigation. 
 We have scarcely entered the field. Our work has just 
 begun.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SOME TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES THAT PEOVE THE 
 DECLENSION OF EXTEBIOK MATTEB. 
 
 It must be admitted by all who concede the truth 
 of the nebular hypothesis, by all who admit that this 
 planet was ever in a state of igneous fusion, that the 
 mass composing the great ocean of primitive vapors 
 that surrounded it was impregnated with vast quan- 
 tities of elementary mineral and metallic matter. This 
 is so evident that I need do nothing more now than call 
 the reader's attention to it. I also need but call his 
 attention to the fact that when the upper waters, or 
 vapors, with their associated matter, fell to the earth, 
 they must have made temporary seas, lakes and ponds, 
 etc., in all parts of the earth where they fell. The 
 narrow channels of thousands of rivers could not permit 
 the mighty floods to immediately retire. In those 
 lakes and seas would be deposited the precipitates and 
 exotic solid matter of the annular waters, and especially 
 so in regions beyond the tropics; and the nearer we ap- 
 proach the polar regions, the more abundantly we 
 would find this exotic matter. This must be essen- 
 tinally the case, if there be a polarwise tendency to de- 
 clining belts, etc. But what kind of precipitates must 
 we expect to find? Let us determine this matter 
 before we search for it. First and most important of 
 all the elements of the earth's crust is carbon. Of the 
 sixty thousand feet of aqueous beds there is probably 
 none of which this element does not form an important 
 constituent. Hence we have no possible means of
 
 152 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 escaping the conclusion that the earth's primitive atmos- 
 phere, largely the products of igneous action, con- 
 tained vast quantities of carbon sublimed or distilled 
 in the earth's glowing crucible. Let the reader see, 
 before he proceeds farther, that we are irretrievably 
 committed to this conclusion. As it would be an utter 
 impossibility for this earth to be now reduced to a 
 molten condition without sending up an immensity of 
 unconsumed carbon, in the form of smoke, so it must 
 be a settled and absolute fact that the primitive burn- 
 ing earth, from the very day it became the seat of fiery 
 fusion, repelled from its heated bosom, and held in sus- 
 pension, unconsumed carbon or smoke. Every chem- 
 ist familiar even with the rudiments of his science, will 
 tell us this must have been the case. To conclude 
 otherwise would force the admission that the primitive 
 atmosphere was an ocean of oxygen, which simply could 
 not have been the case. Hence we are driven to this 
 unavoidable end.* The primitive earth was a burning 
 world, and therefore a smoking world, and that uncon- 
 sumed carbon commingled with the annular vapors 
 just as it would to-day, in the form of black, sooty, 
 pitchy matter. As we cannot avoid the conclusion that 
 unconsumed carbon was mechanically combined with 
 the upper vapors, so also we are made to admit that it 
 mingled with them in the form of soot. Can the 
 reader find a flaw in these statements? But if this 
 sooty, carbonaceous matter mingled with the exterior 
 
 * All the matter composing the earth fell to it, either before 
 aqueous attrition began, or afterwards, or partly before and 
 partly afterwards. Then all the matter composing the aqueous 
 crust fell to the earth in the later stages of its evolution. What 
 reason, then, can be urged against the fall of the tellurio-cosmic 
 matter being continued all through the geologic ages, at the same 
 time that aqueous denudation went on?
 
 Some Topographical Features. 153 
 
 vapors, then they fell in company. And the waters 
 that stood in " seas," " lakes," " ponds," etc., at the 
 time of the deluge, deposited this carbon as a layer of 
 black carbonaceous mud upon their bottoms; for we 
 cannot admit that even the last remnants of the annular 
 waters were not associated therewith, just as the belts 
 of Jupiter and Saturn are darkened by such sooty mat- 
 ter to-day. Now we may see some meaning in some of 
 the flood legends, which declare that the waters of the 
 deluge were a " pitchy blackness." 
 
 If, then, we succeed in finding this black carbona- 
 ceous matter at the bottom of inland seas, lakes, etc., or 
 spread out over extensive plains, that were formerly 
 covered by standing water, we must see a wonderful 
 dovetailing of facts, that add strength to our theory. 
 I hold such deposits must be found in order that the 
 theory be fully vindicated. I have no need to tell 
 geologists of the tens of thousands of lakes, planted in 
 the drift deposits of North America and Northern 
 Europe, whose bottoms are known to consist largely of 
 the very carbon we need to find to sustain our views. 
 Hundreds of them have been drained in Northern Ohio 
 and in Michigan and other States, some for agricultural 
 purposes, some in the construction of canals and rail- 
 roads, and almost invariably they present the same feat- 
 ures. Many of these ponds that I have personally exam- 
 ined had no vegetation, and therefore the carbon could 
 not have been a peat formation. While those which had 
 been converted into swamps, and covered with peat- 
 growth, had the peat formation underlain by the primi- 
 tive carbon which everywhere presents its own charac- 
 teristics. These things are subjects of ocular demon- 
 stration, which any one can verify for himself. There
 
 154 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 are more than ten thousand ponds and lakelets in Min- 
 nesota alone, and so far as I have been able to learn 
 from them, they abundantly support the claim here 
 made. They are found in many parts of northern In- 
 diana, Illinois and Iowa, where I have personally ex- 
 amined some of them, and find the same evidence. A 
 layer of black carbonaceous mud lies at the bottom of 
 the lakes that have been thus far explored, carbon 
 that cannot be called peat ! and since there can be but 
 one other source, its origin is apparent. 
 
 I suppose there are but few of my readers who are 
 not aware of the fact that a black carbonaceous soil is 
 the superficial covering of many of the northern and 
 northwestern States, a coating of exceedingly black, 
 soot-like matter, strikingly different from that of the 
 adjacent States. Now since it is well-known to geolo- 
 gists that all this region thus overlain was once the bed 
 of a vast inland sea, covering more than half a million 
 square miles; in the eyes of the geologists at least, we 
 have one feature established that points to a deposit 
 of light, primitive carbon from on high viz., the fact 
 that a sea existed, which was necessary for its distri- 
 bution and deposition. But as these pages are intended 
 for all readers, my next duty evidently is to prove that 
 such a sea did exist, and then to prove that the super- 
 ficial covering is a deposit of annular soot. 
 
 Again, let us see that we start with known and uni- 
 versally admitted premises. On the west of this great 
 basin rises the mighty wall of the Rocky Mountains, 
 and since the close of the tertiary age it has been a 
 great divide between the waters running westward and 
 those running eastward. Between the waters of the 
 Arkansas and those of the Missouri, is another divide
 
 Some Topographical Features. 155 
 
 running eastward from the Rocky Mountains through 
 southern Kansas, and abruptly terminating at the Mis- 
 sissippi River, as the spurs of the Ozark Mountains. 
 This Ozark range is another wall vastly older than 
 either the Allegheny or the Rocky Mountains. The 
 archaean beds that compose much of its course prove 
 that it was one of the oldest wrinkles on the continent. 
 
 With the exception of the gap through which the 
 Mississippi flows this ancient wall is continued un- 
 broken till it joins with the mountains of Tennessee and 
 Kentucky. Here, then, we have a western wall dating 
 back to the tertiary, and a southern wall, much older, 
 broken only by the waters of the Mississippi. Now 
 from a point a few miles south of the mouth of the 
 Kaskaskia River, the Mississippi River runs between 
 walls more than 700 feet higher than the bed of the 
 stream. A wide channel has been cut through this 
 southern wall in modern geologic times. For there is 
 the gap through which the waters now run; and there 
 is the ancient wall continued on either side of the 
 stream. Suppose, then, this great gap were again 
 rilled up; any one can see that it would dam up the 
 waters which would again arise and submerge much of 
 the Western States, and cause the waters to run 
 through the only other outlet possible the St. Law- 
 rence valley, thus forming a great inland sea, the very 
 object we desire. Thus when the Ozark were upheaved 
 among the oldest plications of the earth, the new-born 
 continent, from about the 35th or 36th degree of north 
 latitude, drained its waters northward, and those from 
 the Rocky Mountains afterwards ran eastward. But the 
 great Canadian highland, separating the waters of the 
 St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes from those emptying
 
 156 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 into Hudson Bay, is considered by all geologists as the 
 oldest range of highlands on the earth. Here, then, we 
 have a north wall bordering the Great Lake or inland 
 sea-basin, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
 Rocky Mountains, and interrupted only by the elevated 
 depression of the Red River Valley of the North. As 
 these are simple facts which all geologists will admit, I 
 need not advance any further evidence to prove that the 
 Great Basin drained by the North Mississippi and its 
 tributaries is bounded on the north, west and south by 
 walls of great age. But if this be true, we must admit 
 that immediately following the tertiary age all the 
 waters of the North Mississippi Valley, and those of the 
 Ohio, flowed eastward and northward, and emptied 
 their waters through the St. Lawrence into the Atlan- 
 tic; for it is a matter of universal consent that the New 
 England mountains are geologically of very recent 
 origin. Hence there was a time when there was a vast 
 basin, walled on all its sides, except the eastern, an 
 age when New England was covered by the sea, and a 
 vast river running from the Rocky Mountains received 
 its hundreds of tributaries from all sides and emptied 
 its waters as the St. Lawrence now does. One glance 
 at the ancient rim of this basin must force this conclu- 
 sion. What a wonderful revolution must have taken 
 place in the drainage lines of the continent ! To con- 
 ceive the great Missouri, threading its way among 
 mighty forests across the States of Iowa and Illinois, 
 and emptying into Lake Michigan, may seem to border 
 on the visionary. But let us remember that grander 
 and mightier changes have left their way-marks upon 
 the earth. It is the only conclusion we can come to, as 
 we reflect, that two great parallel primitive mountain
 
 Some Topographical Features. 157 
 
 ranges the Ozarks and the Laurentian Ridge ex- 
 tended east and west across the infant continent, when 
 the Cordilleras were heaved from the deep. But lest 
 the reader may think I have strained the evidence here 
 produced, I will compromise so far as to only claim a 
 probability that this was the drainage system of this 
 Great Basin, and we will bring in other testimony to 
 establish this point. 
 
 If it be true that this was the condition of the basin 
 at the time referred to, then, when the New England 
 Mountains were lifted from the ocean, it threw a great 
 barrier across the St. Lawrence, and forced its waters 
 back upon the valley commingling the marine fauna? 
 with those of fresh water. How truly this is the case, 
 all geologists familiar with this territory know full well. 
 Imagine then a new wall raised upon the eastern shore 
 of the basin. Inch by inch the confined waters accumu- 
 late. The St. Lawrence Valley becomes first the bed 
 of a salt water lake. As the waters increase it grows 
 brackish, and finally fresh. The location of marine 
 faunae in abundance in the country east of Montreal, 
 and fresh water shells on the west, and the com- 
 mingling of them in the elevated terraces near Quebec, 
 certainly strengthen the claim I have advanced. But 
 when we behold the wonderful mural heights a few 
 miles below Quebec, between which the St. Lawrence 
 now flows, a still stronger evidence is added. How did 
 this river ever force its way through this embrasure ? 
 On either side of the river are mountain heights that 
 doubtless were once joined as a natural breast-work 
 across the stream. Geologists will all admit that this 
 eastern wall must have been lifted more than 500 feet 
 above the level of the ocean, in very recent times.
 
 158 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 But this much of a wall across the St. Lawrence would 
 have backed its waters, and have buried Lake Ontario 
 more than 300 feet. Lake Erie would have spread its 
 waters into Lake Michigan, and all northern Illinois 
 and Indiana, and much of Iowa would have been under 
 water. Then if the Ozark wall were at the same time 
 joined across the Mississippi, the four sides of the Great 
 Basin would be completed. And when I survey all 
 the evidence, it seems to me that this must have been 
 the precise way in which the waters of this vast inland 
 sea were confined. 
 
 Then for a more complete verification of this claim 
 let us imagine a great mediterranean sea, more than 100 
 times as large as Lake Michigan, to have existed in this 
 basin, and its waters to have accumulated on account 
 of Eastern upheaval. We all can see that this vast 
 stretch of territory is a veritable basin whose sides are 
 of more than sufficient height, if filled with water, to 
 form an inland sea more than one hundred times the 
 size of Lake Michigan, more than 600 feet deep in the 
 lowest part of the basin i.e., in the region of the Great 
 Lakes. If we could build a wall across the Mississippi, 
 or rather restore the wall which countless ages have 
 worn away, and again build up the mighty parapet that 
 once stretched across the St. Lawrence a short distance 
 below Quebec, a great sea would again accumulate. 
 Step by step we would see the waters gathering in these 
 two valleys. Year by year the broad expanse of 
 prairie would become submerged, millions of acres of 
 forests and numberless animals would become involved 
 in universal death. Now, I hold that such an inland 
 sea did accumulate over all this vast extent of land 
 immediately after the New England mountains arose
 
 Some Topographical Features. 159 
 
 from the sea, and that this conclusion is supported by 
 the most overwhelming evidence. Then, as before 
 stated, let us imagine such a sea to have accumulated 
 over a territory once teeming with abundant life, while 
 we examine the evidence. 
 
 First, then, there are the three primitive walls on 
 three sides of a great basin. Secondly, the fourth or 
 eastern wall was reared across the only probable (may 
 I not say possible ?) drainage outlet. Thirdly, the 
 greater part of this basin of more than 500,000 square 
 miles in area, presents uncontested and incontestable 
 evidence of having, in very recent geologic times, been 
 the bed, over which, for unknown centuries rolled the 
 waves of a fresh water sea. 
 
 A few facts may now be stated still further confirm- 
 atory of this view : Over all this territory lie entombed 
 in a fresh water bed of recent origin, the remains of the 
 mammoth, mastodon, and other huge pachyderms of 
 interdiluvian times, while in the New England moun- 
 tains there are none, save possibly here and there a 
 single bone, carried perhaps by rivers from the basin 
 into the ocean. This, it will be seen, argues that while 
 these great. quadrupeds luxuriated in the Great Basin 
 Valley, the body of New England was sleeping in the 
 sea. Again over this Great Basin Valley, are innumer- 
 able old river channels now filled with detritus, where 
 no streams now flow, and which have been filled in re- 
 cent times by over-towering waters. And again in al- 
 most every part of this basin, where examinations of 
 these superficial deposits have been made, are found the 
 remains of ancient forests, trees, stumps, limbs, leaves, 
 seeds, grasses, etc., etc., plainly attesting that this cov- 
 ering was quietly deposited upon a vast area of grow-
 
 160 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ing vegetation. There is the buried soil; there is the 
 vegetation it bore; and there are the animals that 
 luxuriated thereon, all forever shut up in a mighty 
 charnel house. Could this ever have happened; could 
 these conditions ever have been brought about except 
 in the manner here suggested? Thus, link after link 
 added to the chain of evidence seems to banish every 
 doubt, that there was, over this vast territory before 
 named, long after the close of the last glacial epoch, 
 a wide expanse of fresh water. After the glacial 
 epoch, for the mud and silt was quietly settled upon 
 a surface almost universally glaciated; and of fresh 
 water, because of the total absence of marine shells, 
 except as before stated in the lower part of the St. 
 Lawrence Valley ; and perhaps an occasional one carried 
 from its original bed by transporting agencies. Again, 
 where can there be found any other barrier to confine 
 such a sea as all geologists admit gave rise to this super- 
 ficial formation ? We will search in vain for any other 
 boundaries ! 
 
 It seems then that the very presence of such a vast 
 body of matter collected upon this area, must have, by 
 actual mechanical pressure, depressed it somewhat, so 
 that the surrounding ocean must have stood higher on 
 the shores of the continent while that pressure existed 
 than before or afterwards. Now this is a feature well 
 known to geologists. Who is he that does not claim 
 that the continent, or at least a great part, has recently 
 been raised to a higher level? Can it make any differ- 
 ence whether the earth's interior be a molten mass, or 
 a solid, plastic under the reign of implacable heat, when 
 this transfer of mechanical energy from the continent 
 and the ocean is accounted for? I cannot conceive
 
 Some Topographical Features. 161 
 
 how the measureless weight of a great mediterranean 
 sea, could be removed from one part of the earth to 
 another, without changing the water-line of the con- 
 tinent relieved of that weight. It is not far back in the 
 geological history of the lower Mississippi, when the 
 waters of the Gulf of Mexico reached the mouth of the 
 Arkansas, and again retired, but to again approach as 
 the ocean's waters were augmented. And one who is 
 familiar with the features resulting from these great 
 changes can, with but little difficulty, link them in order 
 of time with the recession of these inland waters. 
 
 But we have now so nearly approached an unavoid- 
 able conclusion that but little is needed to reduce it to 
 a demonstration. The great hypothetic sea has long 
 since retired. Can we not find the tracks, the way- 
 marks of its retreat, and make them depose in support 
 of our claim. Let us attempt it. 
 
 The great waters thus hypothecated, I will call the 
 Millerian Sea.* Considering the depressing eifects it 
 likely had upon its bed, it must, at the time of its ex- 
 istence, have received the waters from a large expanse 
 of Canadian highlands. The Millerian Sea by some 
 grand process made for itself two great outlets i.e., 
 the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. Making due al- 
 lowance for all likely depression, as shown by marine 
 estuary deposits in the present river valleys, that sea 
 must have towered from 700 to 800 feet above the 
 
 * I have thus named it in honor of my aged friend, Morris 
 Miller, who many years ago directed my attention to the south- 
 ern boundary of this sea, and who outlined it almost precisely 
 as the late geological surveys have outlined the glaciated area. 
 Now if this boundary be true for the glacier, it must also be true 
 for the sea. Those desiring to learn further of the Millerian sea 
 and the great floods attending the rupture of its boundaries, may 
 obtain much from the author's lecture on the same in Volume 
 II of the annular theory.
 
 162 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ocean. We can then faintly imagine with what terrific 
 force its waters rushed to the boundaries of the con- 
 tinent when their ramparts by some process were rup- 
 tured. 
 
 We are now brought face to face with a question that 
 apparently defies solution without the aid of " upper 
 waters." How did this sea make for itself two outlets ? 
 Can we imagine a lake bursting its walls and rushing 
 to the sea through two outlets, and continuing to cut 
 down deep channels until it is drained? How did it 
 ever occur that the St. Lawrence break accommodated 
 the Mississippi rupture by not drawing the waters east- 
 ward and away from the latter? How did it happen 
 that the Mississippi break did not close the St. Law- 
 rence outflow, by drawing the waters thence? How 
 did it happen that both breaks in opposite extremities 
 of the boundary were made at the same time? Why 
 did they mutually keep pace with each other, until the 
 waters cut downwards and backwards channels for two 
 of the greatest rivers of the earth ? It is scarcely pos- 
 sible that in ordinary course of drainage the waters 
 would not all have been drawn to one outlet. To ac- 
 count, then, for the two breaks and the two river sys- 
 tems, we are forced to admit that some vast and meas- 
 ureless supply of descending waters made the Millerian 
 Sea to leap its barriers at both points, at one and the 
 same time, and that that supplying-source kept up the 
 waters so long that the excavations were far advanced 
 under its government; after which each excavation con- 
 tinued independently. 
 
 But, if such a source supplied the retiring sea with 
 waters, it must also have supplied a black sooty car- 
 bon, that settled to the bottom of the sea, forming the
 
 Some Topographical Features. 163 
 
 very superfice of the sea bed, when the waters receded. 
 Now where must we find this carbonaceous covering, if 
 it did fall ? Certainly more abundantly in the north- 
 ern, middle and western part of the basin. For the 
 northern and northwestern slopes of the continent must 
 have supplied it, for there alone were the rivers that 
 could bear it seawards. And when it once reached the 
 sea, the tendency would be for it to move with the 
 moving waters toward the southern break. Then the 
 carbonaceous matter, which I beg leave to denominate 
 carbonite, must have settled more largely over the 
 States adjoining the Mississippi. 
 
 Well, when one travels over the great prairies of the 
 States referred to, he sees nothing more striking than 
 the carbonite that covers this vast reach of territory. 
 It covers all the hills, it fills all the swamps and sloughs; 
 it is the foundation of all peat deposits, and it spreads 
 over all the plains a black top covering, varying from 
 a few inches in thickness on the uplands to a few feet 
 in the valleys. 
 
 I know I am now, as well as at many other times, 
 rejecting popular opinion that this black, superficial 
 coating is the result of a slow accumulation of carbon 
 from the annual fires, that probably swept over the re- 
 gion in former times ; but while law presides in nature's 
 high court of order, this cannot be so. While that uni- 
 versal and inexorable devourer, oxygen, is present in 
 the atmosphere, every particle of unconsumed carbon 
 arising from incomplete combustion, is afterwards con- 
 sumed, nothing being left but the ash of vegetation. 
 So that so far from being a carbonaceous product, 
 black and pitchy as it is, the soil would rather consist 
 of the mineral ash accumulation of centuries. We see
 
 164 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 this process continually going on around us. The 
 dense, black column of unconsumed carbon rising from 
 every locomotive, and chimney, is soon seized upon 
 and dissipated. Besides it is found in the bottoms of 
 ponds and lakelets, where fires did not devour, and 
 where streams have not transported it from the sur- 
 rounding regions. So surely then as a fire sweeps 
 over a plain, leaving blackness in its path, so surely the 
 unburnt carbon it leaves behind is re-burnt and made 
 to disappear. But there are things that must forever 
 set this question at rest. The carbonite when sealed 
 from the atmosphere by a covering above it, is a 
 purer carbon, and when dug up and exposed to the air 
 will sometimes take fire spontaneously, but neverthe- 
 less leaves a black, ashy compound. This certainly 
 proves that it had been covered and sealed from the 
 action of the air ever since it fell, and never was the 
 product of a burning vegetation. But if unyielding 
 law is not sufficient to force compliance in one way, it 
 may be in another. If the ten thousand lakelets and 
 ponds of the great northwest on whose bottoms rests a 
 stratum of carbonite, are not able to settle this ques- 
 tion, there is one witness that none will fail to honor: 
 Millions of boulders lie in and upon this pitchy soil. If 
 prairie fires formed the black soil that covers the fields, 
 they did not form that which underlies these lost trav- 
 elers of a former day. Some boulders, when brought by 
 ice floating upon the sea, were dropped upon a black, 
 pitchy bed at the bottom of that sea. Thus, again, are 
 we driven by the logic of facts to the eternal rock of 
 Law, and the annular theory is settled still deeper 
 upon its immutable foundation. 
 
 Here we find, also, lying immediately under the car-
 
 Some Topographical Features. 165 
 
 bonite, the same kind of clay that accompanies the car- 
 bon deposits of the world. The same tellurio-cosmic 
 dust of clay that accompanied every carbon downfall, 
 and separating therefrom settled first because of its 
 greater specific gravity. Now we may readily under- 
 stand why, over so much of the great northwest, there 
 is such a lack of forest growth. Is it not a fact with- 
 in the comprehension of everyone, that if the treeless 
 prairies were not covered by this seedless deposit from 
 on high, they would be covered with forests as other 
 lands? Is it not also a fact, well known and easy of 
 demonstration, that whenever this seedless covering 
 has been removed, there forests have sprung up? The 
 rock-soil from which the oak, the hickory, ash, etc., in- 
 variably spring, has been covered by an impervious 
 bed, seedless as the dust of space, and forest growth is 
 an impossibility. There seems to be no other possible 
 reason why the deep soil of the prairies is not as other 
 strata. In short, it certainly is a fact, that if this 
 deposit were the detritus of other and neighboring 
 lands, they would be timbered as other lands. Here, 
 then, is solved another perplexing problem. 
 
 A sufficient amount of evidence of sudden accessions 
 of water throughout the vast lapse of time, during 
 which the Millerian Sea was retiring, might be collated 
 to fill a volume of itself; and it would be a pleasing task 
 to give it now to the reader, but I must move on to 
 other fields. 
 
 Look at the millions of valleys, channels and minor 
 corrugations that have been made by the excavating 
 power of running water! I can count fifty of them 
 from my window to-day, through which no water runs, 
 except during a rain. From yonder range of hills
 
 166 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 radiate deep channels that evidently could not have 
 been made by such rains as fall at this age. Fifty 
 years ago these hills were covered by the primeval for- 
 ests, and rains could make no more impression upon 
 them then than now. The autumn leaves gathered in 
 these long trenches and hindered excavation. There the 
 grass, shrubs and bushes are growing, and only when 
 it rains, a powerless stream threads its way to the creek 
 below. Did such transient puny streams make these 
 deep gaps in the hillside? It cannot be. Yonder is 
 a valley two miles wide, and the merest rill is the only 
 excavating agent that occupies it. It is only one of 
 thousands and millions that ramify in all directions the 
 world over. And as I contemplate the puny agent and 
 the grand result, I am forced to say that nothing less 
 competent than appalling down-rushes of devouring 
 floods could have made these streamless channels. And 
 when I have stood before the grand old ocean, driving 
 its devouring waves against the shore, and tossing its 
 flowing mane on high, and have remembered that there 
 are waters enough there to make one thousand floods, 
 each of which would cover the entire earth fifteen or 
 twenty feet deep; and remembering that these water* 
 fell from "above the firmament" as fearful cataclysms; 
 I see the world again and again writhing in the serpent 
 folds of the deluge. I see man in the mysterious plan- 
 ning of Deity, the victim of immovable decree. Oh, 
 Thou incomprehensible mighty One ! Shall man's 
 mortal eye ever penetrate this veil and read what lies 
 beyond ?
 
 Fig. G. THE CLOSING SCENE. 
 (EAKTH WITH BELTS CAPPING THE POLES.) 
 
 Fig. G represents the earth stripped of its annular appendage 
 and with its last lingering canopy suspended over the regions of 
 both poles as vast clouds. Over the tropics and much of the tern 
 perate /.ones the vapors had become so thin that the clear sky 
 could be seen at times and in places. The sun shone into this thin 
 vapor sky and made it a most brilliant illuminator. The sun itself 
 was dimly seen in this effulgent heaven as a conquering hero wag- 
 ing victorious contests with vapor fees. I have found this white 
 and shining heaven with a hidden sun in the ancient thought of 
 many peoples. This was the " Peplos " that Penelope wove in 
 the day and unwove at night a brilliant veil of vapors that il- 
 luminated the whole earth. But the God of nature had decreed 
 that it should be taken down, and He destroyed " the face ol the 
 covering cast over all people and the veil that was spread over 
 all nations." Is. 25: 7.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GLACIAL EPOCHS AND EDEN RUINS. 
 ANNULAR SNOWS THE ONLY COMPETENT CAUSE. 
 
 Perhaps about 80,000 years ago,* the earth, now 
 teeming with multifarious forms of life, was a scene of 
 death and almost boundless desolation. The unmis- 
 takable language of the geologic record is that there 
 had just closed a long era of perpetual spring, f The 
 mammoth, mastodon, and a multitude of other huge 
 quadrupeds, whose giant remains are found in the 
 world's stupendous wreck, fed upon the products of a 
 tropical and semi-tropical earth. Contemporary perhaps 
 with these lived that race of beings upon whom we 
 must look as the precursors of man. That was pre- 
 eminently the age of huge pachyderms and other giant 
 races. Their remains indicate that they were much 
 larger than their living representatives of to-day. In 
 looking over this pre-glacial it may be inter-glacial 
 world the investigator is forcibly struck with its mani- 
 fest completeness. It would seem that if there ever 
 was an age when the earth came forth from the hand 
 of the Great Architect in perfection, ready for the 
 advent of man, and all that was necessary for his com- 
 fort and happiness, it was then. It was unmistakably 
 a green-house world. The primitive elephant, and 
 many of his congeners and contemporaries, fed in lux- 
 uriant forests, and grassy plains, where now the glaciers 
 
 * Geikie's " Great Ice Age," page 135. 
 
 I Belcher's " Last Arctic Voyage," Vol. I, page 380.
 
 168 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 of the arctic world are holding them in relentless 
 grasp, or grinding their bones to dust. How shall we 
 account for this wondrous change a comprehensive 
 and universal change, so sudden and appalling as to 
 leave upon the mind the impression that a far-reaching 
 and all-involving destruction had overtaken the fair 
 planet ? This change is a well-known way-mark in the 
 geologic past. Could the powers of heaven and earth, 
 the tornado and the earthquake, combine in one 
 grand revulsion to crush out the present life-forms of 
 the earth, obliterate its cities, and cover in one vast 
 rock-covering all that is now seen upon its surface, it 
 could be but a repetition of the change that involved 
 the pre-glacial world of universal life.* 
 
 Now, the geologist knows full well what the imme- 
 diate cause of this great change was. He knows that, 
 as the earth became peopled bj an infinitude of living 
 forms, under the influence of perpetual spring, in a 
 tropical or semi-tropical world, so it became desolated 
 by refrigeration, and the spread of snows and ice over 
 the continents. These Titan plows, glaciers and ice- 
 bergs, from the polar regions, again moved toward 
 the equator, and continued to increase until almost 
 every valley within the temperate zones was filled with 
 ice. The glaciers plowed the plain, scarred the hill- 
 tops and carved the mountain side. Nay, hills were 
 pushed aside by their resistless progress; valleys and 
 river-systems obliterated and a living world made a 
 panorama of universal death; in short, ground up and 
 remodeled the surface of the luxuriant earth, for the 
 introduction of new, but similar, forms of life. 
 
 It is a part of the labors of geologists to read and 
 
 *Geikie's " Great Ice Age," page 460; also pages 484 and 341.
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 169 
 
 study the " records," and give, if possible, a competent 
 cause of these great revolutions. Many theories have 
 been advanced in order to explain them, but few of 
 them possess even the air of plausibility, and have been 
 relegated to quiet oblivion. Among those having 
 claims to our consideration, is that proposed by Dr. J. 
 Croll, and which has the powerful endorsement of Gei- 
 kie, in his admirable volume, the " Great Ice Age." It 
 may be a lack in my power to comprehend it, and yet 
 there seems nothing puzzling in it, but I am un- 
 able to see how a man of deep penetration can find 
 natural law to defend it. To examine it in detail would 
 swell this volume beyond its intended limits. I shall, 
 therefore, state but few objections which I think must, 
 in the mind of reasonable men, be fatal to it; and then 
 advance the aqueous falls of the earth's annular sys- 
 tem as the competent cause. 
 
 It will be necessary to explain some parts of the 
 Crollian theory of glacial epochs to the common 
 reader. It is well known that the earth's orbit is not 
 circular, but in the form of an ellipse. So that in its 
 annual circuit around the sun the earth once in the 
 year approaches much nearer to that luminary than it 
 would were its orbit an exact circle. Consequently, 
 once in the year it recedes to a greater distance from 
 it. The sun also being located not in the center of the 
 earth's orbit, but, as it were, in one end of an ellipse, 
 the earth whilst in the other end is far removed from 
 solar warmth. Again the orbit is subject to exceed- 
 ingly slow changes in shape, by which, in time, it is so 
 far removed from the form of a circle that it becomes 
 very eccentric, and the earth, of course, must recede to 
 a vast distance from the sun. Now, Dr. Croll con-
 
 170 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ceives that the globe, when in the aphelion part of its 
 path, or farthest from the sun, accumulates more snows 
 in its polar regions during its winters than the heat of 
 summer is able to dissipate, which after ages of accumu 
 lation amounts to a glacial fund, and causes long 
 periods of refrigeration or excessive cold. While this 
 theory appears plausible at first sight, it is far from 
 able to abide the test of analytical reasoning and philo- 
 sophic law. 
 
 First: It ignores the law, long ago laid down by 
 that prince of philosophers, John Tyndall, which may 
 be briefly stated thus : Snows, to be formed, require the 
 expenditure of solar energy, and the greater the amount 
 of snows, the greater the energy required. To take 
 the earth from the sun, then, robs it of snows, and of 
 the possibility of the accumulation of snows. One 
 would not think of increasing the working force of his 
 engine by robbing it of fuel. I know there are a great 
 many circumstances and qualifying conditions that may 
 be pointed to; but under all conditions the fact remains, 
 that, to cover the earth with ice and snow, you must in- 
 crease rather than diminish the engine force. 
 
 Second: It makes almost an infinite number of gla- 
 cial periods, in the vast ages of paleozoic and subsequent 
 times, whereas they are few and definite, which both 
 the silurian and devonian order of stratification abun- 
 dantly declare. 
 
 Third: It makes the glacial periods regularly recur- 
 ring visitations, while there is not the slightest evi- 
 dence to be gleaned from the vast ages of geologic 
 time that they did so recur. On the contrary, the evi- 
 dence is that they came after long and very irregularlv 
 intervening periods.
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 171 
 
 Fourth : It is evident that a continent encased with 
 ice by means of solar evaporation of the oceanic waters 
 could never again become freed from its fetters; for, 
 since it requires a great expenditure of solar heat to 
 secure the formation of vapors, before snows can pos- 
 sibly accumulate, it is plain that the glaciers could 
 not be melted unless the heat should become greater. 
 But this increased heat would increase evaporation, and 
 increased evaporation means, to some extent, at least, a 
 greater precipitation of snows, and an increase of gla- 
 ciers. The very energy required to melt the glaciers, 
 is the same that would necessarily augment and per- 
 petuate them. So that if a continent should once be- 
 come refrigerated by increased vaporization how could 
 it possibly become free from the grip of ice ? 
 
 Thus in the very outset we meet most insuperable 
 difficulties. We cannot expect the earth to become 
 covered with snows by cooling it, and stopping the for- 
 mation of aqueous vapor, and the sooner we abandon 
 this most unreasonable claim, the earlier will the ques- 
 tion be settled. Glacial theories have been rejected 
 because they do not present a natural scheme of causa- 
 tion and sequence, and as it would be difficult to con- 
 ceive of a theory more antagonistic to natural law than 
 this one is, is it strange that such men as the illustrious 
 Tyndall should hesitate to adopt it? Prof. Geikie 
 says : " No half -explanation will suffice ; the key which 
 we obtain must open a way into every obscure hole and 
 corner; each and every fact have full recognition in the 
 theory which may be ultimately adopted." The con- 
 sideration then of such difficulties as here presented, 
 and which are far from obtaining even a " half-explana-
 
 172 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 tion," renders it strange that the Crollian theory should 
 ever have received the support of such powerful minds. 
 
 If glaciers in all ages were always formed as local 
 glaciers are to-day; if the vast continental ice plateaus 
 that accumulated mountain high above the ocean's 
 level in both hemispheres were formed in the same way 
 as they are made to-day in the Andes, the Alps, and 
 the Himalayas, then vaporization under solar energy 
 went on synchronically with condensation and precipi- 
 tation. But can it be possible that during the glacia- 
 tion of a hemisphere, that hemisphere can be both 
 warm enough to vaporize the aqueous element, and 
 cold enough at the same time to build an ice-continent, 
 embracing millions of square miles? In order to 
 produce the mighty ice continents of the glacial periods 
 in the Northern Hemisphere, according to the current 
 theory, one-half the earth must have maintained a 
 genial climate, while the other had a temperature ex- 
 cessively arctic. We can imagine the Alpine glaciers 
 to be constantly increasing by the vapors wafted over 
 them from adjacent lands, warmed by solar heat, the 
 only way that glaciers now are formed, but we can- 
 not conceive of vapors carried from heated lands, by 
 accommodating currents on a frozen world? To ac- 
 count, then, for the glaciation of the interior of conti- 
 nents, the snow and ice must have accumulated on its 
 borders, and have flowed inwards and upwards from the 
 oceans, which as all know was not the case. Hence it 
 is conclusive that the glacial periods were not produced 
 by glaciers formed as they now are formed. But there 
 is no other competent cause for the accumulation of 
 such snows than the decline of annular vapors. 
 
 Again, the well-known and peculiar properties of
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 173 
 
 glacier ice must always hinder its great accumulation, 
 unless it accumulates more rapidly than it moves off. 
 It flows, and it cannot be heaped up without limit. Its 
 rate of motion is in proportion to the slope of its bed 
 and the fund of ice. As water, by flowing, exhausts 
 the supply, and cannot accumulate unless the supply is 
 more rapid than the flow; so a glacier cannot increase 
 unless the snows that form it are supplied more rapidly 
 than it can retire. What, then, must have been the 
 source of those snows that built a mighty continental 
 ice-cap over the Northern Hemisphere during the last 
 glacial epoch? With every opportunity to move down 
 a thousand valleys and slopes to the south, or toward 
 the seas, with every foot of increase in the depth of ice 
 necessarily increasing its outward flow, I must claim 
 that the earth has not now any source from which such 
 a mass of ice could be supplied; and I am therefore 
 driven to the grand and all-competent source of tel- 
 lurio-cosmic snows in the earth's annular system. 
 
 As during the Noachian deluge the earth could have 
 been desolated by surging and heaping floods from no 
 other source than the " waters above the firmament," 
 falling in medial latitudes; so we cannot expect to 
 cover a continent with towering snows from any other 
 source. Men of science must not conclude that glaciers 
 always accumulated by the puny process that now 
 builds a local ice-heap in a mountain valley. They must 
 rise to a grander conception. The foundation of the gla- 
 ciation of planets was laid in the igneous era. The im- 
 placable heat of the primitive earth necessitated the 
 glacial epochs, and the present process of vaporization 
 and congelation under solar influence is an insignificant 
 process in the same direction by different means. Is
 
 174 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 it not a fact within the comprehension of all persons 
 that if glaciers had no other source at any time than 
 they now have, the arctic ice could never have moved 
 over the Northern Hemisphere ? Is it not a fact that 
 they do not now accumulate in any land? The great 
 Humboldt Mer-de-glace of Greenland, moves toward 
 the sea, and the more rapidly the snow accumulates and 
 hardens into glacier ice the more rapid is its motion 
 coast-wise. So that neither in temperate latitudes 
 nor in frigid climes can glaciers indefinitely accumulate 
 by evaporation and congelation. But during the gla- 
 cial epochs the tendency of indefinite glacier accumula- 
 tion is apparent.* Therefore they did not accumulate 
 as glaciers do now ! This is the great enigma that puz- 
 zles so many. 
 
 It is the privilege of the annular theory to make 
 this plain. Now it must be admitted that every drop 
 of the terrestrial waters has fallen to the earth from 
 tellurio-cosmic space ! and more largely than otherwise 
 these have fallen in polar regions ! All that is needed 
 for men to understand this is first to abandon the un- 
 reasonable and unnatural claim that these waters all 
 fell to the earth in archaean and pre-glacial times; and 
 admit the purely philosophic and natural fall of the 
 same from over-canopying belts spreading and moving 
 through the ages with a step as sure as the movement 
 
 * We have but to read such works as Agassiz's " Geological 
 Sketches " to understand the immensity of the ice field that 
 moved over the Northern Hemisphere during the great ice age. 
 Glaciers accumulated in the St. Lawrence Valley several thousand 
 feet thick. In their limitless sweep they towered over the New 
 England Mountains, scoring and planing their rocky side six 
 thousand feet above the ocean. I have seen their tracks indelibly 
 chiseled 1,500 feet above glaciated valleys in the Blue Ridge. The 
 same glacier that was urged up the St. Lawrence Valley no doubt 
 filled the basin of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley.
 
 Fig. 7. ASTERIE, Oil STAttUY ISLE. 
 
 To. 
 
 (aTpa. ztti df>%d<f /JLSV 
 
 aJS &ve%0%V(U. Diogenes Laertivs. 
 
 I have here illustrated what must be more fully explained in another volume, the vaulted 
 enclosures of the northern sky, the last form of every falling world-belt. The (Ireek quotation 
 here taken from the writings of Diogenes Laertius is the " Moabite Stone " of th's problem, and 
 though translated variously, it simply tells us that the "Arctic stars once rtrolvrtl in a tholos." 
 Now a tholos is a vaulted enclosure a space enclosed by an arched roof or dome. The author 
 I have here quoted tells us that this was the doctrine of the earliest astronomers, and cites 
 Anaxagoras as its advocate. Hut it matters not who first said that the "archaic stars revolved 
 (or dwelt) in a dome-shaped chamber." It affirms that the stars spoken of were north polar 
 stars, for as surely as the earth had a canopy, as I have proved, man saw the stars first in a 
 dome-shaped enclosure, and they were called " archa'c stars" because they were seen among these 
 polar archff, not because they were ancient stars.
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 175 
 
 of worlds, toward the poles, where they descended as 
 mighty and terrific down-rushes of snow. Men may call 
 this the Vailian theory, or by whatever name they 
 choose, but it must stand the test of law through all 
 time, because: 
 
 First : It is natural, and it cannot be denied that the 
 oceans now on the earth reached its surface as snow, 
 at least to a great extent. 
 
 Second: It is evidently the only natural means by 
 which great polar ice-caps could accumulate more rap- 
 idly than they could move or flow toward the seas, by 
 means of which the earth became filled with snows and 
 the continents ground and pulverized into mud. 
 
 Third: It is the only means by which great snow- 
 fields could suddenly entomb a living world, which, as 
 arctic lands demonstrate beyond a doubt, has taken 
 place. 
 
 Fourth : It is the only competent means of explain- 
 ing the presence of carbonite in great layers between 
 strata of ice and snow, as seen in polar lands. 
 
 I have given sufficient reasons in foregoing chapters 
 for advancing the claim that the oceans in great part 
 fell at the poles as snow. I will certainly be allowed 
 to make this claim at this stage of the investigation, 
 considering the cumulative evidence pointing to the 
 annular system in the whole line of discussion in the 
 preceding pages. But let us now examine the ipse dixit 
 of the polar worlds themselves. 
 
 Were we to turn our gaze upon the mighty wall of 
 ice on the antarctic continent; washed in its grand cir- 
 cuit by the waves of the Southern Ocean, we would no
 
 176 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 longer doubt that such a mass of snows came upon that 
 land from beyond the atmosphere. From what can be 
 determined from discoveries by Ross and Wilkes, the 
 imaginary " Antarctic Continent " is one mighty field 
 of glacier ice, nearly 2,000 miles across. In many 
 places where the glacier is washed by the ocean, it rises 
 perpendicularly to enormous height, and extends below 
 the surface of the sea to an unknown depth. It is an 
 ice continent beyond the reach of snow-falls from vapor 
 congelation. The vapors from warmer seas fall long 
 before they reach this ice-field; and exist as impenetra- 
 ble and almost perpetual fogs in latitude about 65 to 
 70 south. 
 
 Captain Foster, of the Chanticleer, spent several 
 months at Deception Island, in latitude 65 south, and 
 he particularly refers to this region of fogs. Though 
 in the middle of summer, the air was so intensely cold 
 and raw that some of his companions who had previous- 
 ly wintered in the arctic seas, declared they did not 
 suffer more there than they did in the Southern Ocean. 
 The fogs were so thick and frequent that for nearly two 
 weeks neither the sun nor the stars could be seen. Here, 
 on islands where almost continual fogs are encountered, 
 glaciers might accumulate. These fogs are met with 
 by all who sail over these waters, and are referred to 
 by many voyagers on account of their prevalence. Here, 
 it seems, in the circle of air between the line of eternal 
 frost, and that of aqueous vaporization, the frozen 
 vapors descend, as we would reasonably expect. I 
 think it was Lieutenant Maury who reasoned from this 
 fact, that aqueous vapors raised in warm parts of the 
 earth never reached the polar world, but descended in 
 the temperate zones. From what source, then, came
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 177 
 
 this mighty casement of ice ? Since it is unreasonable 
 to suppose it came from warmer latitudes, since par- 
 ticles of redundant aqueous vapor must fall before the 
 temperature of the atmosphere is reduced to that of the 
 average in the polar worlds, it must be a mere accident 
 that snow-storms ever occur in extreme polar latitudes. 
 When sledge-tracks were seen by Dr. Kane nearly 20 
 degrees from the pole, though several years had elapsed 
 since they had been made; when the bleaching skeletons 
 of unfortunate explorers, articles of clothing, etc., are 
 found uncovered in arctic snow, where it is possible 
 snows might occur; when the bones of mammals such 
 as the musk-ox remain for years exposed to view, as seen 
 by arctic explorers, it seems indeed reasonable that 
 snows seldom fall in the extreme polar worlds. How, 
 then, did these boundless reaches of snow and ice accu- 
 mulate ? 
 
 Again, since it is well known and now generally ad- 
 mitted by geologists that glaciers did increase and ac- 
 cumulate, so that whole continents were covered by 
 them; since there is no doubt that the arctic snows 
 so gained upon glacier motion and decrease, as to push 
 a stupendous field of ice through British America to 
 its southern highlands, and then over these highlands 
 into the basin of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence 
 Valley, thus glaciating a great part of the North Ameri- 
 can Continent; and since such gains cannot take place 
 except by and through sudden increase of precipitation, 
 no more than a river could overflow its banks except 
 by and through sudden precipitation; and since the 
 great ice-flood was almost limitless in extent and in its 
 effect, we are forced to admit that the source of the 
 snows that formed it and forced it forward in its deso-
 
 178 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 lating march, was equally boundless, and the fall com- 
 paratively sudden and far-reaching. But such a source 
 manifestly did not exist upon the earth. It seems to me 
 as vivid as the noon-day sun, that if this earth had never 
 been a molten mass, it would never have been carved 
 by this mighty plow of the gods. For no such world of 
 snows could have been formed. 
 
 And now, as we begin to examine the means by which 
 the arctic glaciers were made the winding and burial 
 sheet of an animated world, I would I could impress 
 the reader with the majestic grandeur of the field be- 
 fore us. More than three-quarters of a century have 
 passed away since by mere accident it was discovered 
 that animals of a pre-historic period were entombed 
 beneath and in the frozen soil and snows adjacent to the 
 Arctic Ocean. Since the beginning of the present 
 century, vast numbers of these animals, mostly entire, 
 and remarkably well preserved, have been found, so 
 that it is now a well-authenticated fact, that lands im- 
 mediately under the arctic circle are to-day great 
 charnel-houses of the interdiluvian dead. For a long 
 time an extensive trade in ivory, dug from the frozen 
 soil, was carried on by the Russian and Siberian trad- 
 ers, and it is still one of the staple objects of commerce 
 in some parts of the frozen north. 
 
 An interesting account of some remarkable discov- 
 eries in this direction may be here introduced. The 
 following is transcribed from the Penny Cyclopaedia, 
 Vol. IX., article Elephas : 
 
 " Mammoth bones and tusks occur throughout Russia 
 and more particularly in Eastern Siberia, and in the 
 arctic marshes. The tusks are very numerous, and in 
 so high a state of preservation that they form an arti-
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 179 
 
 cle of commerce, and are used in the same works, as 
 what may be termed the living ivory of Asia and 
 Africa. . . . Siberian fossil ivory forms the principal 
 material on which the Russian ivory-turner works. 
 The tusks most abound in the islands and shores of the 
 frozen sea; and the best are found in the countries near 
 the arctic circle; and in the most eastern regions, 
 where the soil in the very short summer is thawed only 
 at the surface, and some years not at all. ... In 
 1799, a Tungusian, named Schumachoff, went to seek 
 mammoth tusks near the mouth of the Lena. One day 
 he saw among the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, but 
 did not then discover what it was. In 1800 he per- 
 ceived it was more disengaged, and in 1801 the entire 
 side of the animal, and one of its tusks, were quite free 
 from the ice. The summer of 1802 was cold, but in 
 1803 part of the ice between the earth and the mam- 
 moth, for such was the object, having melted away more 
 rapidly than the rest, the enormous mass fell by its own 
 weight on a bank of sand. In 1804 Schumachoff came 
 to his mammoth, cut off his tusks and exchanged them 
 with a merchant for goods of the value of 50 rubles 
 (about $38.00). 
 
 " We shall now let Mr. Adams, from whose account 
 the above is abridged, speak for himself : ' Seven years 
 after the discovery of the mammoth I fortunately vis- 
 ited those distant and desert regions, and I congratulate 
 myself on being able to prove a fact which appeared so 
 improbable. I found the mammoth still in the same 
 place, altogether mutilated. The Jukutski had cut off 
 the flesh, with which they fed their dogs, during the 
 scarcity. Wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, wol-
 
 180 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 verines and foxes, fed upon it, and the traces of their 
 footsteps were seen around. 
 
 " 'The skeleton, almost entirely cleared of its flesh, 
 remained whole except one fore-leg. The spine from the 
 head to the os coccygis, one scapula, the basin and the 
 other three extremities, were still held together by liga- 
 ments, and parts of the skin. The head was covered 
 with a dry skin; and one of the ears well-preserved was 
 furnished with a tuft of hairs. All these parts have 
 necessarily been injured by 7,330 miles of transporta- 
 tion, yet the eyes have been preserved, and the pupil 
 of the eye can still be distinguished. This mammoth 
 was a male with a long mane. . . . The skin, of which 
 I possess three-fourths, is of a dark gray color cov- 
 ered with reddish and black hairs. The carcass of 
 which I collected the bones, is 9 feet, 4 inches high, 
 and 16 feet, 4 inches long. The tusks (afterwards re- 
 covered) were 9 feet, 6 inches long, and weighed to- 
 gether 360 pounds. The head alone weighs 414 pounds. 
 The skin was so heavy that ten persons found great 
 difficulty in transporting it to the shore. I collected 
 36 pounds of hair trampled in the sand, by bears, etc.' 
 This traveler goes on to state that the escarpment in 
 which the animal was found, was more than 200 feet 
 high, and made of pure, clean ice, and adds : ' Curiosity 
 led me to ascend two other escarpments of the same 
 material (ice), where I found in the hollows great quan- 
 tities of mammoth tusks, etc., of astonishing freshness. 
 How these things could become collected there is a ques- 
 tion as curious as it is difficult to solve.' ' (Italics 
 mine. ) 
 
 From my notes taken at the time the above was 
 copied, I learned that this mammoth, while imbedded in
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 181 
 
 the escarpment of ice, was 40 feet above the surface of 
 the earth. Horses that have fallen in the crevasses of 
 the Alpine glaciers, and remained hidden for many 
 years , have finally made their appearance upon the sur- 
 face of the ice. From this it appears that there is a 
 tendency in the glacier to eject such remains. 
 
 A German traveler, named Erman, many years ago, 
 visited the northern coast of Siberia, and has given, 
 some valuable information respecting that perpetually 
 frozen land. In the summer-time the soil is thawed 
 for a very few inches below the surface. I think it was 
 he that refers to a well, sunk in the vicinity of Yakutsk 
 more than a hundred feet through frozen mud and ice. 
 In a great many places along the Siberian coast are 
 huge ice-hills from 100 to 300 feet high, made up of 
 alternating beds of ice, frozen mud, sand and carbonite, 
 by some called peat. Imbedded in these masses are 
 found vast quantities of mammalian remains, valuable 
 for the immense amount of ivory they yield. The 
 islands along the coast are apparently composed of these 
 frozen fossils in a matrix of mud and ice. The island 
 of New Siberia, more than a hundred miles long and 
 thirty broad, seems to have been literally built of these 
 materials, and whole cargoes of elephantine ivory are 
 annually dug from their frozen hills. 
 
 Almost the whole territory of Alaska, so far as 
 known, is covered with evident glacial deposits, and in 
 many places mingled with abundant mammoth remains. 
 In Kotzebue Sound, rise hills of considerable size, com- 
 posed of ice of great thickness above the water, and ex- 
 tending below its surface to an unknown depth. On 
 the top of this glacier ice, and covered with carbonite 
 and mud surmounted with snow and ice, are found
 
 182 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 mammoth bones and tusks of remarkable freshness. In 
 Europe, on the northern coast, these bones have been 
 found in the same kind of deposits. Now as the ten- 
 dency of all these northern drift deposits is to move 
 from the north, southward, it is evident that the arctic 
 lands, near and about the poles, previous to the last 
 glacial epoch, was as much the land of the living as it is 
 now of the dead. But before I draw any definite con- 
 clusion as to the origin and cause of this great catas- 
 trophe we will still further examine into the nature 
 and character of these remains. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell says : " In 1772, Pallas obtained 
 from Wiljuiskoi in latitude 64, from the banks of the 
 Wiljui, a tributary of the Lena, the carcass of a rhin- 
 oceros taken from the sand in which it must have re- 
 mained congealed for ages, the soil of that region being 
 always frozen to within a slight depth of the surface. 
 This carcass, which was compared to a ' natural 
 mummy,' emitted an odor like putrid flesh, part of the 
 skin being still covered with short, crisp wool, and with 
 black and grey hairs." Professor Brandt, of St. Pe- 
 tersburg, under whose care the above remarkable fos- 
 sil has been made to speak to a modern world, says: 
 " I have been so fortunate as to extract from the cavi- 
 ties in the molar teeth of the Wiljui rhinoceros, a small 
 quantity of its half-chewed food, among which frag- 
 ments of pine leaves, one-half the seed of a polygona- 
 ceous plant, and very minute portions of wood with por- 
 ous cells, were still recognizable. . . . The blood ves- 
 sels discovered in the head, appeared filled with coagu- 
 lated blood, which in many places showed its red color." 
 
 Thus if we were cut off from every other source of 
 information as to the character of this animal's habitat,
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 183 
 
 this simple accidental circumstance of finding a part 
 of a cotyledon of a plant in the hollow tooth affords 
 evidence the most positive, and conclusive, that the race 
 of extinct quadrupeds, represented by these frozen and 
 mummied mammals, in the far north, not only was ab- 
 ruptly and suddenly overwhelmed by some mighty and 
 immeasurable revolution of the forces of nature; but 
 it also shows on what kind of food the animal fed, on 
 the very day it was entombed, and that it was frozen up 
 on the self-same day, and remained in that condition, as 
 it were, in winter's eternal midnight, until found and 
 dragged from its icy matrix. " In its stomach were 
 found undigested fragments of coniferous wood," and 
 therefore eaten a few hours, at most, before it was 
 locked up in its wintry prison. Seeds undigested and 
 so little changed as to tell plainly what kind of vege- 
 tation grew in the land where the animal lived and died, 
 have frequently been found in the stomachs of these 
 mammoths thus imbedded in ice and mud. " Even the 
 capillary blood vessels," still retaining their contents, 
 show that there was not the slightest decomposition in 
 the body; all of which force upon us the conclusion that 
 sudden and complete was the destruction that involved 
 this wondrous race of pachyderms. 
 
 In the year 1843 Middendorf, of Russia, found sev- 
 eral carcasses of these extinct animals, some of them 
 remarkably well preserved. From one, the bulb of the 
 eye was secured, and is now preserved in the Museum 
 at Moscow. Among these remains were found marine 
 fossils of northern species, characteristic of the northern 
 drift, which shows that both were likely carried to- 
 gether from the north, in arctic glaciers. In the year 
 1866 many mammoths were found on the arctic coasts
 
 184 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 of Siberia, most of which still retained the skin and 
 hair. They have also been found floating in icebergs 
 out upon the open sea. One instance of this is related 
 by Kotzebue, who was an indefatigable worker among 
 the frozen seas. 
 
 By what natural means were these animals entombed I 
 I trust this mysterious problem is approaching a philo- 
 sophic solution. Lyell, from whom I have drawn 
 largely in this chapter, looking back upon this great 
 charnel-house of the mammoth, is forced to the conclu- 
 sion that " the ice, or congealed mud, in which the bod- 
 ies of such quadrupeds were enveloped, has never once 
 been melted since the day they perished, so as to allow 
 the free percolation of water through the matrix; for, 
 had this been the case, the soft parts of the animals 
 could not have remained undecomposed." This con- 
 clusion is arrived at by pure logic, and I cannot see how 
 any man can avoid it. But what agency on earth, or in 
 the heavens, known to man, could have thus involved 
 them suddenly in ice and frozen mud, and kept them 
 thus entombed unto this day? It is plain that a rise 
 and rush of water over their forage ground is utterly 
 inadequate to account for the facts. Consequently, a 
 sudden tilting of the earth's polar axis, by which, as 
 some scientists have supposed, the oceans of the South- 
 ern Hemisphere have been transferred to the Northern, 
 also fails to explain the phenomena. The change of 
 climate was sudden. In one day the animated races of 
 the arctic zone, then supporting a luxuriant vegetation, 
 were gathered down to the grave. Even if a transfer 
 of oceanic waters could take place, this could not have 
 changed the climate as by a stroke, and have congealed 
 and sealed the land in ice ; and no theory that does not
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 185 
 
 agree with immediate and sudden change of climate, 
 that locked the mammoth in " pure, clear, glacier ice," 
 without rush of waters and transportation of sand or 
 mud, can be accepted, as all debacles of urging floods 
 leave the principal features unexplained. 
 
 Listen to the emphatic declaration of Cuvier : " If 
 they had not been frozen up as soon as killed they must 
 quickly have decomposed by putrefaction." Again let 
 me call the attention of my readers to the remarks of 
 this illustrious man, in contemplating the physical 
 change the earth underwent, by means of which per- 
 petual winter involved the polar world. " But this 
 eternal frost could not have taken possession of the 
 region which these animals inhabited except by the 
 same cause which destroyed them." A physical truth, 
 more profound, and more in harmony with the annular 
 theory could not be uttered. The same mighty down- 
 rush of snows, from the earth's annular system, was 
 the " eternal frost " that took " possession of the region 
 which these animals inhabited," and, of course, was the 
 " cause which destroyed them." Those telluric-cosmic 
 snows took possession of the whole polar world. 
 
 Having shown how necessary it is to admit that the 
 cause was such as to produce immediate death and im- 
 mediate refrigeration, let me ask the reader to find, if 
 possible, any other competent cause than such a fall of 
 snows. Now let us see how natural and how neces- 
 sary such a snowfall is, and how admirably it accords 
 with facts. The question to be determined is: What 
 cause, suddenly and immediately destroyed the mam- 
 moth and his congeners, and froze them up in glacier 
 ice, and kept them there till released by solar heat ? 
 
 Is this proposition too exclusive ? Since many of
 
 186 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 these animals are really found in glacier ice " pure and 
 clear"; since they have been found in icebergs in the 
 open sea, and since an iceberg is a fragment of glacier 
 ice; since those which are found imbedded in mud on 
 the plains of Siberia, have evidently been dropped from 
 icebergs, when that land was under the sea, for mar- 
 ine arctic fossils are sometimes found with them (and 
 if even one be found having these associations, it is 
 strong evidence that all found in that region were once 
 frozen in glacier ice, and floated thither in icebergs 
 and dropped on the floor of the sea, among the living 
 and dead fauna of the deep), since the same may be 
 said of the Alaskan remains; since it is well-known that 
 these remains are fresher and newer near the polar sea, 
 and must therefore have been released from the glacier 
 in more recent times; and since, if they had been 
 originally buried in the mud, without being trans- 
 ported, they must have been ground up by the great 
 continental glacier; and that so many of them are en- 
 tire, and well preserved even in the mud; and, finally, 
 since their remains are yet being found in the glaciers 
 on the Siberian coast, and frequently dredged up from 
 the bottom of the ocean* whither they must have fallen 
 from icebergs; we shall hardly escape from the conclu- 
 sion that the mammalians now found fossil in frozen 
 mud in the polar world or near it, were originally a part 
 and parcel of the mighty moving glacier; and that as 
 the last remnant of that glacier, the present ice-cap of 
 the arctic world is still moving southward and down- 
 ward and giving up its " mighty dead." 
 
 As we stand with this great problem before us, in 
 the light of the annular theory every shadow disappears. 
 
 * Geikie'a " Great Ice Age," page 300.
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 187 
 
 We see the mammoth frozen up in a glacier, and we 
 know that that glacier was originally snow; and we also 
 know he was frozen up in that mass, in the land in 
 which he lived, immediately after he died; or, that he 
 perished in his grave of snow, and has ever since re- 
 mained there. Then it was snow that imbedded him in 
 ice. That is, a fall of snow was the " cause that de- 
 stroyed him " i.e., was the " eternal frost that took 
 possession of the region." Now, is there any possibil- 
 ity of escaping this conclusion ? They are imbedded in 
 ice that once was snow, and there they have remained 
 from the day they fed on polygonaceous plants in that 
 region. Then all that remains for us to do is to find a 
 source of snow competent to supply it in sufficient quan- 
 tities. 
 
 Since we know that every drop of the terrestrial 
 waters must have come from the earth's annular sys- 
 tem at some age of the world, and since there can be no 
 doubt that some of those waters fell upon the earth in 
 early historic times, and since it must be admitted that 
 they fell largely as snow in the polar regions; and since, 
 if not more than one-tenth of the waters now on the 
 earth had fallen in the form of snow it would have cov- 
 ered the entire land-surface more than 30,000 feet 
 deep; and since it can scarcely be possible that one-tenth 
 of the oceanic waters did not fall in polar lands, as 
 snow; the annular system comes boldly forth as a com- 
 petent source of the snows that entombed the mam- 
 moth and his compeers. And when we see we are 
 forced to find a source not only for a vast amount, but 
 also one capable of affording it so suddenly and so rapid- 
 ly as to suddenly change the climate and involve the
 
 188 The Earth's Annular tiystem. 
 
 land in death, we may emphatically declare that that 
 source is the only one that can be found ! 
 
 Imagine, then, those giant quadrupeds feeding in 
 their natural habitat, until on a certain day, in autumn 
 of the year, when seeds were ripe, the over-canopying 
 belt of snows, having been approaching for ages that 
 point where it is no longer moored to the skies, poised 
 for a space in equilibrio, begins its downward course on 
 the fated earth. In a moment's time a land that was 
 rich and fat with life, a world apparently launched 
 in perfection from the hand of the Great Architect, 
 is chilled with eternal snow and frost. Inch by inch, 
 foot by foot, and yard by yard, the snows fill the plains, 
 fill the forests, fill the valleys, and chill the seas. Yes- 
 terday a world pregnant with exuberant life; to-day 
 rocked with the mightiest revulsion, wrecked in the 
 shock of ruin and disorder and discord, then wrapped in 
 the white pall of universal death. 
 
 There may be some minor mysteries involved in the 
 peculiar distribution of these animal remains in some 
 parts of the drift, which at first sight will appear irre- 
 concilable to the theory here advanced. These will 
 vanish as the theory in its almost boundless conception 
 is understood by scientists. I have no space in this 
 volume to consider these in detail, and a brief consid- 
 eration of them would be unsatisfactory to the general 
 reader. 
 
 Having therefore taken the same position that intel- 
 ligent geologists of all schools have adopted, and must 
 stand to, viz., that the great catastrophe which over- 
 whelmed the antediluvian animals at the poles and en- 
 cased them in their icy tomb, was a sudden one; and 
 that the same material that entombed them was the
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 189 
 
 " cause or agent of their destruction," as Cuvier de- 
 clares ; if we follow this line of thought to its legitimate 
 conclusion we are finally brought face to face with 
 tellurio-cosmic falls of snow. For the material that 
 entombed them is ice glacier ice and this was 
 originally snow! And it was snow that fell upon the 
 animated earth and froze it up. But such a fall of 
 snows could not possibly have accumulated in the at- 
 mosphere as it now does and have fallen therefrom! 
 Therefore it must have come from a source lying be- 
 yond the atmosphere. But beyond the atmosphere 
 were the " waters above the firmament," recognized by 
 primeval man. This recognition has been transmitted 
 to us by tradition and mythology in such a way as to 
 prove that a part, the last remnant of those waters, 
 or rather vapors, fell upon the earth after man came 
 upon the scene; fell too at that time as snows at the 
 poles, and as a flood of water in warmer latitudes. But 
 if water existed beyond the region of atmospheric 
 clouds during that early historic period, or pre-historic 
 period, if we choose to call it, then we know they were 
 there in the mammalian age. That is, we know that 
 while the mammoth fed on arctic vegetation there was 
 a mighty over-arching fund of vapors, either frozen or 
 otherwise, revolving around the earth, a mass of 
 vapors competent to involve the earth in ruin. What 
 has become of those vapors? They are not there now; 
 and the oceans are on the earth, and they stand deeper 
 to-day, the world round, than they did before the last 
 glacial epoch. If we deny the existence of this great 
 abyss of snows and waters, so frequently referred to in 
 the oldest documents and legends of man, we plant 
 ourselves as opposed to law, and we will forever grope
 
 190 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 in darkness, and never find the true cause of the extinc- 
 tion of the prototypes of mammalian races, including 
 pre-glacial, and, it may be, an inter-glacial race of men. 
 On the other hand, as this investigation shows, if we 
 admit the former existence of rings and belts of tellu- 
 rio-cosmic matter which law requires, a thousand dark 
 things are illuminated that otherwise meet with unsat- 
 isfactory explanation, or are wholly left in the night. 
 
 We may add strength to our position by other evi- 
 dence. It is more than probable that if the mammoth 
 was destroyed by a downfall of such snows as is here 
 claimed, that previous to its fall, as in all former cases, 
 as in the case of the Noachian deluge, for instance, 
 the over-canopying fund of vapors acted as a mighty 
 robe to the earth, keeping out the cold of space and 
 confining terrestrial warmth, as well as equally distrib- 
 uting the solar heat over the globe. This equalization 
 of temperature as in a mighty greenhouse, would 
 melt away all existing glaciers and clothe the earth in 
 verdure to the very poles. Let us not cast this concep- 
 tion aside without reason. It is plain that the solar 
 beam of heat could reach the earth in a modified degree 
 only, and earth would bloom as under a glass roof col- 
 ored to prevent excessive light. 
 
 !N"ow it would seem scarcely necessary for me to pro- 
 duce evidence to prove that the earth during the mam- 
 malian period did enjoy a greenhouse climate. The 
 mere fact that these huge quadrupeds lived in arctic re- 
 gions in vast numbers is proof that such masses of ice 
 and snow as now are there were not there then. The 
 mere fact that those animals were larger than their 
 representatives of this age shows that they lived in a 
 different atmospheric environment, that the atmos-
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 191 
 
 phere was heavier, possessing more buoyant power by 
 the mere pressure and presence of a vast ocean of va- 
 pors in its higher regions. But the ordinary reader 
 may need something more than mere reference to these 
 things. I will therefore briefly refer to some direct 
 evidence. 
 
 Wherever we are able to find marine shells imbedded 
 in the clays and other formations immediately below 
 the glacial deposits they are known to be the repre- 
 sentatives of warmer waters proving that warmer seas 
 then occupied these northern lands. The presence of 
 tropical and sub-tropical animal fossils in what are 
 termed pre-glacial formations representatives of those 
 now occupying the warm regions of Asia, Africa and 
 America, shows that animals of the tropics migrated 
 to the far north. Among the frozen cliffs of Siberia 
 and Alaska are buried products of a vegetation of a 
 warmer world. All these evidences exist in the super- 
 ficial formations of Great Britain and Europe, as well 
 as North America.* They are the index finger of time, 
 pointing to a period of sub-tropical warmth in lands 
 sleeping in eternal snows. But this is the very condi- 
 tion of climate needed to harmonize with the annular 
 theory, and I take it as one more link in the great chain 
 of evidence. 
 
 Now, as we have here laid before the reader a com- 
 petent and, without doubt, the true cause or source of 
 the snows that overwhelmed the mammoth and his co- 
 temporaries, have we not also in the annular system 
 a true cause and competent source of all the glacial 
 epochs the world has ever known? This warm period 
 
 * See Geikie'a " Great Ice Age," and any of the geological 
 reports on the surveys of the States.
 
 192 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 immediately preceding excessive refrigeration can be 
 no accidental intervention. It was the product and re- 
 sult of eternal law. We find it, as previously intimated, 
 again and again taking its place in its own proper order, 
 in the harmonious gradation so conspicuous in the 
 geologic column; and anyone must see that each repeti- 
 tion of it must add new strength to the edifice we are 
 building. 
 
 But it is evident that other conditions must follow, 
 which are so related, and dependent upon these stated 
 previous conditions (as a warm climate followed by re- 
 frigeration), that we must attempt to hunt them up. 
 I have shown that the natural associate of a downfall 
 of snows from on high was a subsequent down-rush of 
 water in medial, or extra-tropical latitudes. Now if 
 we find in the record before us that immediately suc- 
 ceeding the great fall of the mammalian snows there 
 followed a vast down-rush of devouring floods, the 
 philosophic reader will not fail to see that the natural 
 network of evidence is growing stronger and stronger, 
 and wider and wider at each step. In the chapter on 
 " Geological Topographical Evidence," the reader will 
 find in addition to the evidence I now present the most 
 overwhelming testimony naturally pointing to such 
 correlative conditions. 
 
 I will first point the reader to the manifest evidence 
 contained in what are known as the modified drifts 
 along the valleys of the world. I say valleys of the 
 world, for they are not confined to glaciated districts. 
 Says Dana * : " The fact that such a flood, vast beyond 
 conception, was the final event in the history of the 
 glacier, is manifest in the peculiar stratification of the 
 
 * Dana's " Manual." pages 552 and 553.
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 193 
 
 flood-made deposits, and in the spread of the stratified 
 drift southward along the Mississippi Valley to the 
 Gulf, as first made known by Hilgard. Only under the 
 rapid contribution of an immense amount of sand and 
 gravel and of water from so unlimited a source could 
 such deposits have accumulated." Again, " we learn 
 that the region of the Great Lakes was probably one 
 immense lake, and that the waters spread far south over 
 the States. . . . The Mississippi waters, in the Cham- 
 plain era, below the mouth of the Ohio, had an average 
 breadth of fifty miles, and along by Tennessee and 
 Northern Mississippi of seventy-five miles; so that it 
 was indeed a great stream." This vast flood is supposed 
 by Dana to have resulted from the rapid melting of the 
 great expanse of glaciers; and he cites the spring floods 
 of this age caused by the melting snows. But the 
 melting of snows and glacier ice afford no similarity. 
 Even spring floods are the productions of rains, as any 
 one ought to know, upon fields of snow and ice, though 
 the latter by its melting necessarily augmented the 
 flood; yet it is known that the very presence of ice in 
 the streams of a river system is a great safeguard to a 
 more sudden rise of rushing floods. By it the flood is 
 prolonged and modified in degree, and the presence of 
 a continental glacier would not only check the natural 
 or ordinary rainfall, but its melting, while it would 
 vastly extend the duration of a flood, must have been 
 slow indeed were it not for excessive rains. But 
 imagine a rainy season over the surface of the ice fields 
 of the present polar world ! Imagine, if you can, majes- 
 tic and sweeping floods occasioned by the melting of 
 arctic glaciers. It is neither reasonable nor natural 
 that the great ice sheet of the Northern Hemisphere
 
 194 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 should melt so rapidly as to fill all the tens of thousands 
 of valleys radiating from it over the continents south- 
 ward. And to suppose that such melting was greatly 
 aided by ordinary rains is also unnatural, so that it 
 seems evident that a flood in a glacial age requires a 
 rain from a super-aerial source, and such a fall of waters 
 must have been sudden and terrific. Besides, the very 
 condition of the stratified superficial beds shows that 
 the flood came and passed away before the glacier had 
 nearly subsided. " There is direct evidence that the 
 flood reached a maximum just before the close of the 
 melting."* Now it must be plain that if this flood was 
 occasioned solely by melting glaciers, unaided by de- 
 scending waters, this fact could not be determined. 
 The change in the deposits would be so gradual that no 
 definite point of change could be readily determined. 
 " The transition was a sudden one, as the abrupt tran- 
 sitions in the beds prove."* The same evidence may 
 be gathered from other continents, from almost every 
 valley in the north temperate zone the testimony is 
 the same.f So that it is not necessary to burden the 
 reader with a detail of facts when he must see that the 
 evidence is conclusive that before the close of the last 
 great age of ice the Northern Hemisphere was swept by 
 a stupendous deluge of waters strongly pointing to 
 the source heretofore named. Those upper waters, 
 even though they may have been in the form of vapor 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 554. 
 
 1 1 might largely quote from European authors in confirmation 
 of this. I will refer the reader to the twenty-ninth chapter of 
 Geikie's " Great Ice Age " for an exhaustive treatise upon this 
 feature of post-glacial beds, also to Sir J. Lubbock's " Prehistoric 
 Times," and fourth volume, page 305 et seq. of the Trans. Geol. 
 Soc. Also Dana's " Manual," page 556.
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 195 
 
 in a greatly attenuated state, possessed the power of 
 absorbing and diffusing the solar heat, and their very 
 presence in the atmosphere in medial latitudes must 
 have largely assisted in melting the ice, and perhaps 
 for unknown centuries the falling waters and the melt- 
 ing glaciers deluged the land. But putting aside all 
 other questions we see that the converging testimony 
 of the continents is that an epoch of stupendous cat- 
 aclysms of water followed immediately the epoch of 
 down-rushing and all-involving snows, the very thing 
 the annular theory demands. 
 
 But there is one lacking feature that we must now 
 refer to. It will be shown in another chapter how 
 necessary it is that all such downfalls of water and 
 snows when they have receded to the ocean and found 
 their own natural level, must finally result in continen- 
 tal upheaval and mountain-making. Let us see whether 
 this expected sequence follows in order. Suppose this 
 triplicity of changes cannot in this case be established ! 
 Then it must be seen that the annular theory shall have 
 met with a defeat. But if it be found without a doubt 
 that the continents or even a part of them were lifted, 
 attended or not attended with visible plication, I will 
 certainly be permitted to take it as evidence corrobora- 
 tive of the views heretofore defined. 
 
 Let us first examine the coast of our own country, 
 for bordering the oceans must the evidence be found, 
 if found anywhere. In a great many places around the 
 coast of North Amercia we find terraces of the Cham- 
 plain period that must have been formed in the sea, 
 for the reason that marine fossils are contained in them. 
 At San Pedro they are now from 60 to 80 feet above 
 the ocean, showing that the coast has arisen more than
 
 196 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 to that height since they were formed. They stand as 
 conspicuous way-marks on the Pacific Coast. Also in 
 the neighborhood of San Francisco there are many 
 shell-bearing formations of this period more than 70 
 feet above the tide. Still further south, on the Mexican 
 Coast, they rise almost to an equal height. There is 
 but little doubt that an examination of the Pacific 
 Coast will reveal many such beds between Oregon and 
 Alaska. The eastern coast, however, north of Cape 
 Cod, presents the most remarkable evidence of eleva- 
 tion in the quaternary at the close of the glacial 
 period. It would require much space to specify all 
 points. We will therefore epitomize from Dana,* who 
 condenses from a vast field as follows : " The elevated 
 sea-border formations that have been described prove 
 that in the Champlain period the land where such for- 
 mations occur was at the water's level." (Italics mine.) 
 From a critical examination of these beds by many 
 competent geologists, from Lyell down, there can be no 
 doubt that the New England mountains were elevated, 
 immediately after the Champlain flood-beds were de- 
 posited, to the extent of 450 or 500 feet. The same 
 authority says in another connection : " We hence learn 
 that in the Champlain era salt waters spread over a 
 large coast region of Maine, and up the St. Lawrence 
 nearly to Lake Ontario." The sea was 500 feet deep 
 at Montreal. The remains of whales and seals have 
 been found in the St. Lawrence Valley, and a part of 
 the skeleton of a whale was dug from the soil 60 feet 
 above Lake Champlain. From these it is demonstrated 
 that some portion of North America was elevated, and 
 that mountain-making was a part of the work of the 
 
 " Dana's " Manual on the Quaternary."
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 197 
 
 Champlain period, which immediately followed the 
 great flood of the glacial period. 
 
 Turning our attention to the Old World we find the 
 same unmistakable evidence there. Around the Brit- 
 ish coast, and the shores of Norway and Sweden, there 
 has been a general elevation of the land from 300 to 
 500 feet. Geikie, after reviewing the testimony 
 afforded by an immense number of shell-bearing ter- 
 races in the various regions, summarizes as follows: 
 " During the deposition of the clays and sands with 
 arctic shells, the land, as we have seen, stood relatively 
 at a lower level. . . . The sea continuing to retire, the 
 British Islands became at last united to the continent."* 
 
 Thus it appears that men who stand highest in au- 
 thority on these especial subjects without any particu- 
 lar theory to champion, have laid, as it were, the cap- 
 ping-stone demanded by the annular hypothesis. Its 
 first demand was that there should be among the last 
 of terrestrial revolutions a mighty down-rush of snows 
 upon a tropical or sub-tropical world. It came, and it 
 came, too, upon a world of life and bloom! But this 
 demanded its associated downfall of water from the 
 super-aerial "deep," and its demands were responded to 
 through the open flood-gates of the skies. But these re- 
 quired that the foundations of the continents should 
 respond to the measureless increase of energy exerted 
 by additional oceanic pressure, through the evolution 
 of heat and rock-expansion, a response, a force which 
 neither mountain height nor breadth of continents 
 could withstand. Earth trembled at the demand, and 
 the mountains lifted their heads to loftier heights. 
 What theory heretofore advanced has explained these 
 
 *" Great Ice Age," pages 321 and 322.
 
 198 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 things ? When we see that the co-linking of these great 
 changes necessarily requires an explanation not only of 
 the wondrous changes themselves, but that it also de- 
 mands a theory that accounts for the marvelous order 
 in which they have transpired; for the cause of this 
 co-linking; when we see the earth during a vast period 
 of time characterized by a warm climate and a vigorous 
 vegetation, just previous to refrigeration, precisely as 
 in the Adamite period, and know that the latter was, 
 with scarcely a doubt, caused by super-aerial vapors 
 spreading from the equator to the poles; when we know 
 that a spreading thus of vapors, while at the very time 
 it must force a warm climate upon the earth, is but an 
 inevitable preparation for a down-rush of snows, we can 
 readily understand the reason of this order. And 
 when we see the far-reaching and sudden result in the 
 extermination of specific forms, in mountain making, in 
 the advent of new forms; when we see this exhaustless 
 energy used in upheaval, always directed against the 
 continents from the ocean-world, we are forced to ad- 
 mit that some portions of the ocean's bed have been 
 forced deeper into its plastic foundation by increased 
 pressure, the very thing the spreading and declining 
 of annular matter must have effected. 
 
 Then, again, as we see this annular matter remain- 
 ing in the firmament, and becoming the primary cause 
 of the warm period of the Eden world, and the decline 
 of that matter the cause of its destruction, it requires 
 no strain of reason to claim that all such changes have 
 had the same all-competent cause. Now the fact that 
 such vapors did remain on high until the time of the 
 historic deluge, and produced that deluge, warrants the 
 conclusion that the post-glacial floods had the same an-
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 199 
 
 nular origin. And as it is utterly unreasonable and 
 unphilosophic to claim that the melting of great con- 
 tinental glaciers could form floods " vast beyond con- 
 ception," unless succeeding canopies of annular matter 
 forced a tropic temperature upon the frozen world, and 
 as that matter was present in and beyond the firmament 
 till the Noachian flood, the very means necessary to 
 force such temperature existed at the very time that 
 earth was wrapped in a mantle of snows and ice, and 
 could not have descended from the annular form with- 
 out over-canopying the earth, as with a greenhouse 
 roof; I feel then that I am justified in the claim that 
 the great telluric glaciers of recent geologic times were 
 melted under the tropic influence of the annular vapors 
 and accompanying deluges from that source. 
 
 It seems to me that the solar heat diffused among 
 these upper vapors (after they once became a part of 
 the attenuated atmosphere) by constant accumulation 
 and radiation necessitated excessive rains in medial lati- 
 tudes. The cold air moving from the frigid continents 
 toward the warmer oceans and the warmer equatorial 
 lands becoming laden with the moisture of those 
 regions and returning in the circuit of currents must, 
 it seems to me, have constantly deluged the lands adja- 
 cent the ice-fields; and no doubt much of the phenomena 
 attributed to diluvial action in glaciated regions can 
 thus be accounted for. However, one thing seems very 
 evident: such deluges need and imperatively demand 
 a tropical temperature, and a tropical temperature in- 
 volving a frozen world emphatically demands an annu- 
 lar system! 
 
 Thus it appears that the very fact that the earth was 
 even once glaciated compels us to admit, not only that
 
 200 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 an annular system did exist as its philosophic cause but 
 also that such a system was necessary for the dissolution 
 of the great ice fields. What feature of the " Great 
 Ice Age " is there that does not confidently point us to 
 that all-sufficient builder and destroyer? A ring of 
 vapors and the telluric and cosmic dust it must have 
 gathered throughout almost infinite time, at the begin- 
 ning of the quaternary or mammoth period, declined 
 from the ring-system over the equator, into the earth's 
 atmosphere. As a pure result before explained, this 
 ring as it declined into the resisting atmosphere, spread 
 laterally into the form of a belt, and in its effort to 
 reach the poles of the earth overarched the planet and 
 formed a greenhouse or tropical world. Thus per- 
 petually falling and perpetually widening, in the course 
 of time its polar edges hung, as it were, betwixt 
 heaven and earth, pass that point where they can no 
 longer hang in air, and they at once, as if broken from 
 their anchorage in the skies, descend to the surface. 
 Upon the very fields of luxuriant and abounding life 
 that the overarching vapors had necessitated, they fell 
 as snow, and overran the earth. As unknown centuries 
 pass away, amid flood and tempest they reach the ocean, 
 and the latter climbs the receding shores, and the 
 ocean's bed goes down but to force its plastic founda- 
 tion under the continents. This intruding mass of mol- 
 ten or plastic mineral must lift the margin of the con- 
 tinents as no other force can, and the crumpling and 
 rupture of strata in many places must give rise to vol- 
 canic phenomena. How strange, and yet how consistent 
 and philosophic, that the exhaustless and measureless 
 energy of the molten earth, transferred, I might say, 
 to the annular system, and after millions of years had
 
 The Glacial Epochs. 201 
 
 rolled away, be spent in making the aqueous crust of the 
 earth, lifting its rocky frame to mountain peaks by 
 under-thrusts, and sinking some portions of its crust 
 to abyssal depths. 
 
 It is plain that if the fall of annular snows be the 
 true cause of the last glacial period, as here shown, it 
 is reasonable to claim that there must have been glacial 
 periods of greater or less importance in almost all the 
 geologic ages, and that the same cause essentially pro- 
 duced them all. We will, therefore, give a brief chap- 
 ter upon this grand and exhaustless subject.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A BRIEF EEVIEW OF THE GEOLOGIC AGES AND A 
 
 PRESENTATION OF THE EVIDENCE THEY 
 
 AFFORD OF PRIMITIVE GLACIATION, 
 
 ETC. 
 
 Let us suppose that by some great change in the 
 ocean's level the present continents, with their abund- 
 ant evidences of glacial action should become covered 
 by its waters. In the course of ages the way-marks of 
 this age would become deeply buried under the detrital 
 matter of other lands. The countless millions of bould- 
 ers now seen upon the surface where the northern drift 
 prevails, and denoting the track of the glacier or the 
 iceberg; the vast beds of morainic matter; the assorted 
 sands and clays; the striated surfaces, and the living 
 vegetation, now so well known to the botanists, would 
 become hidden under a covering of silt, which in the 
 lapse of ages would become solid rock. Suppose, then, 
 the eyes of the future geologist in an age to come 
 should investigate this continent again heaved from 
 the deep. What signs of our last glacial period would 
 he see ? Striations obliterated could afford him no evi- 
 dence, and only where denudation and erosion should 
 accidentally expose the buried drift could he find evi- 
 dence that the quaternary was an age of ice. He 
 might notice the paucity of fossils, an old drift bed, or 
 peat swamp. With these he might find an occasional 
 tropical plant, but with these he could come to no posi- 
 tive conclusion as to the climate. The plain evidence 
 we now have of alternate warmth and refrigeration
 
 A Brief Review. 203 
 
 would be in great measure lost, or so confused that it 
 would take a long time of careful and patient investiga- 
 tion, and comparing of testimony by the geologists of 
 the world, before any definite conclusion could be at- 
 tained. Such difficulties as these perpetually confuse 
 the investigators of this day. In the grand carbonifer- 
 ous piles there is the most unimpeachable evidence that 
 it was an age of tropical growth, in the lycopods, ferna 
 and calamites of that era; but in the very heart of this 
 evidence we find the track of the mighty glacier. In 
 the penman age, amid its abundant evidence of a tropi- 
 cal life; in the Eden world of the tertiaries, the great 
 ice king has again and again set his heavy feet. Then, 
 just as we see in the last great ice age strong evidence 
 of warmth at the very foot of the glacier we may expect 
 to find this conflict of evidence in all ages. No won- 
 der, then, as we look into the archsean formations we 
 find the same difficulties. But as we admit the sudden 
 downfalls of snow in the efforts of the upper deep to 
 find its level the ocean we can readily see why we 
 find so much evidence of death in the midst of life. As 
 it seems impossible to explain these mysteries, so num- 
 erous in the quaternary, without the aid of these great 
 cataclysms, so we will ever find it of the utmost import- 
 ance to have their assistance in every geologic age. The 
 great objection to these sudden changes has been the 
 want of a competent cause; but a source having been 
 found, not only a competent but a necessary one, there 
 must needs be much less difficulty in the road of the 
 geologist. 
 
 The geologist has never yet found the base of the 
 aqueous stratified rocks. We know not how deeply 
 these formations extend, and therefore know not how
 
 204 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 nor where to find the first evidences of glaciation. One 
 thing, however, we do know; when the laurentian 
 stratified beds were deposited there was an ocean on the 
 earth. Then we also know that a part at least of tel- 
 lurio-cosmic waters had fallen; and further that they 
 fell according to law more largely in those parts of the 
 earth distant from the equator. Still further, we know 
 that it is possible they fell there as snows, and if not 
 prevented by too great heat in the earth, these must 
 have formed into glaciers, so that if we find among 
 these laurentian beds even scanty evidences of ice ac- 
 tion, we have reasonable grounds to predicate the ex- 
 istence of glaciers. For, as above stated, time obliter- 
 ates, and we are justified in putting our magnifiers upon 
 all evidence and drawing conclusions from the enlarged 
 image. A single pebble known to be such, a boulder, 
 even of small size, imbedded in rock, must be admitted 
 as evidence. There are small areas of archaan strata 
 exposed in various parts of the earth, besides the exten- 
 sive ridge in British America. They are found in most 
 of the great mountain ranges; as the Appalachian, the 
 Cordilleras, as well as in New England, and in many 
 places on the Eastern continent. In many of these 
 places some evidence of ice action exists. In the laur- 
 entian of the Blue Ridge I have seen rounded stones 
 more than a foot in diameter, firmly imbedded in the 
 native rock, and strikingly different from the concre- 
 tionary forms in the same matrix. In some places, as 
 in the archaean of Michigan, as well as in the Ozark 
 Mountains, there is an evident tendency to conglomer- 
 ate formation. Among the laurentian quartzite are 
 boulders of such dimensions as to require the power of 
 floating ice to transport them. In some of the later
 
 A Brief Review. 205 
 
 archsean, pebbles became an important factor in rock 
 making. These pebbles and boulders are derived from 
 pre-existing beds, and many of the boulders a foot or 
 more in diameter.* So that if conglomerate beds are 
 evidence of ice action it is strongly evident in the later 
 archsean. If the whole field were exposed to view, no 
 doubt we would see some of the grandest monuments of 
 urging floods and eroding glaciers; old moraines and 
 polished pavements. But if we are disposed to doubt 
 the legitimacy of such conclusions as this, from the evi- 
 dence thus afforded, let us look a little further. 
 
 We have already had abundant evidence that aqueous 
 additions to the oceans must increase the potential en- 
 ergies sleeping in mechanical pressure; that every 
 pound of additional pressure upon the ocean's bed adds 
 additional heat to the underlying strata, already pressed 
 to the point of fusion; that every additional pound of 
 pressure adds somewhat to the volume of melted mat- 
 ter, which additional rock expansion must force aside. 
 Hence, though the ocean's bed may be hundreds of 
 miles in thickness, the expansion of the lowest beds lat- 
 erally must produce crushing and plication, and this 
 must form elevation. And as we have before seen, we 
 cannot conceive of continent-formation by any other 
 process. When more than 30,000 feet of archaean beds 
 were formed as sediment from the first ocean, it was 
 that much of the mineral and metallic frame; each foot 
 of thickness only adding weakness to the mighty case- 
 ment. The lowest beds possessed a certain degree of 
 heat as a result of mechanical pressure, and possessed 
 certain dimensions resulting from that degree of heat. 
 The waters at that time had their beds, and as those 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 159.
 
 206 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 beds deepened, the mechanical pressure in such places 
 increased on account of the gravitation of waters 
 thither. This increase of pressure augmented the heat 
 of the lower beds; this augmentation increased their 
 dimensions and necessarily produced local plication. 
 This occurring in the deep-seated beds naturally forced 
 rocks between others, and this from necessity produced 
 elevation upon the surface. Here the evolution of con- 
 tinents began. But this beginning was not until late 
 in archsean times. This continent-making and strata- 
 bending did not take place until the laurentian period 
 closed; for the conglomerates and coarser beds which 
 show violent agitation and movement of waters, lie un- 
 conformably upon the lower beds.* Now why is this 
 order? Thus we see the laurentian proper closes at 
 the very time the conglomerates are formed; and up- 
 heaval of continents occurred at the very time we would 
 expect it, on the supposition that snows and deluges of 
 water came upon the earth. Now we will see how this 
 same order, beginning at the very time the grand struc- 
 ture lines of the continents were laid, continues un- 
 broken throughout succeeding ages. A vast period of 
 time rolls away, and many thousand feet of rock are 
 formed over this first glacial deposit. A long quiet 
 prevailed, and if no further downfall of water or other 
 matter had taken place, there would, as I think, have 
 been no more rock-folding and mountain-making, ex- 
 cept in a local way. I mean if all the waters and their 
 associated matter had descended to the earth in archaan 
 or laurentian times, there could have been but one 
 general upheaval and plication. We now pass from the 
 quiet waters of the closing archaean across the boundary 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 159.
 
 A Brief Review. 207 
 
 of paleozoic time. We enter almost immediately upon 
 a cold and stormy age; for its first epoch is a time of 
 boulder transportation and formation 'of coarse sand- 
 beds. These are followed by finer beds, indicating 
 succeeding quieter waters. The acadian epoch of Daw- 
 son, or the lower cambrian of English geologists, is 
 still more plainly the time of glacial action than the 
 archsean. Bordering on the archasan, in Clinton and 
 St. Lawrence counties, also in Franklin Co., N. Y., the 
 conglomerates occur in heavy masses. In some places 
 beds more than 200 feet thick are found. In East 
 Tennessee and North Carolina occur the Oconee con- 
 glomerate beds extending over a wide horizon. And 
 according to Dr. Hayden, conglomerate beds lying on 
 the archsean are found in the Black Hills of Dakota. 
 In Northwest Scotland, in Lapland, Norway and Swe- 
 den, conglomerate beds are placed low down in the 
 cambrian (lower silurian), where they lie unconform- 
 ably upon the older rocks. Geikie, looking at these 
 facts, is inclined to assign some of these conglomerates 
 to a glacial origin.* And when we see in some places, 
 as in the eastern part of North America, there was a 
 general extermination of primordial forms of life, at 
 the very time these beds were formed,f the evidence 
 of refrigeration and glaciation becomes very apparent. 
 For it is well-known that species that lived in the 
 acadian or lower cambrian are not found in the upper 
 beds, and in the former some crustaceans of enormous 
 size became extinct forever; while no trilobites, so far 
 as known, so common in the lower beds, are found in 
 the next period. This appears to be the case not only 
 
 *" Great Ice Age," page 478. 
 fDana, page 181.
 
 208 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 in this country, but also in the lingula flags of the Eng- 
 lish division, showing that both hemispheres were 
 likely subjected to similar changes from the same causes. 
 There was, as the evidence seems to show, a far-reaching 
 cause of extermination; and as this destruction of spe- 
 cies took place at the time the great conglomerate beds 
 of the lower silurian were formed, the evidence is cer- 
 tainly strong that paleozoic time began with the close 
 of a glacial period. But we have seen that a glacial 
 period necessitates a sudden accumulation of snows, fol- 
 lowed by rushing floods; and as one glance at the con- 
 glomerate and boulder beds and their associates will 
 convince the most incredulous that they show violent 
 agitation and rapid deposition as well as catastrophic 
 change, we are still further confirmed in the belief of 
 annular downfalls. Compared with the succeeding 
 beds of the Canadian and Trenton periods, no one can 
 doubt a radical and general change of conditions; the 
 latter periods indicating a long time of calm and quiet 
 seas, and a warm climate over a great part of the earth ; 
 and the former pointing to conditions antagonistic to 
 life, and evidently a step backward, preparatory for a 
 grand leap in the line of progress. 
 
 But here again we are met with a decisive test. If 
 these coarse formations were glacial deposits, or the re- 
 sult of urging floods from on high, then the oceans were 
 augmented at the time they were formed, and upheaval 
 and crumpling of strata must have immediately fol- 
 lowed this increase of pressure upon the ocean's floor. 
 It is with but little astonishment, then, but yet with 
 a deep satisfaction, that an investigation of these hoary 
 rock-volumes reveals the very test at the very time we 
 need it. Geologists the world over know that such
 
 A Brief Review. 209 
 
 continent-making and crust-disturbance occurred then 
 and there. The conglomerates and their related beds 
 lie unconformably upon the lower beds, and in turn 
 have similar relations to the overlying strata. The 
 snows evidently came some time between the archsean 
 and mid-silurian. The waters rolled away to the seas; 
 the crumpling came, and the lingering glacier and the 
 tottering iceberg, working as they do to-day, during un- 
 known time, formed rock accumulations upon the up- 
 turned beds. Thus it seems that the archaean was 
 closed by glaciation and flood, and that the resulting 
 disturbances reached far into the cambrian, and that the 
 paleozoic strata were planted upon the glacial ruins of a 
 former world. 
 
 Now kaving closed a rough and stormy age resulting 
 from aqueous and snowy downfalls, as the very nature 
 of annular formation requires a period of quietude and 
 rest, while the next ring is preparing during countless 
 ages perhaps for its final fall, as it overcanopies the 
 earth, it is plain that we must find the next phase of 
 the silurian age to agree with this demand. We must 
 expect a warm age, favorable to organic evolution; and 
 as these are the very conditions, as announced above, in 
 the Canadian and Trenton periods that followed this 
 great disturbance, we can only add one more link to 
 the great chain of evidence. Immediately following 
 this great plication during the lower silurian there 
 came a long period of comparative quiet. During this 
 long age it is likely that icebergs from the polar world 
 continued to transport foreign materials and drop them 
 over the sea-bottom as at this day. 
 
 After many thousand feet of calcareous and silicio- 
 ealcareous matter were deposited, there came a time
 
 210 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 which we may call mid-silurian, when many species in 
 the midst of life's full tide passed away. Vast num- 
 bers of lower silurian species never passed this gap in 
 silurian time into the upper beds. This fact is well 
 known. In peering into this remarkable hiatus, ap- 
 parently in the very noon-tide of primordial life, well 
 might the illustrious Dana exclaim : " This wide exter- 
 mination shows change and catastrophe."* As all 
 organisms of that age known to the geologists were 
 oceanic forms, this catastrophic change proves a radical 
 and abrupt change in the constitution of the terrestrial 
 waters, which in the very start drives us to concede 
 the fall of additional waters from on high. But this 
 conclusion necessitates the augmentation of polar snows 
 and a wide expanse of continental glaciers. If, there- 
 fore, we find the glacier's track and the dead forms of 
 exterminated life side by side, the argument would 
 seem to be complete, and we would look to annular 
 downfalls as the cause of both. 
 
 Now the existence of boulders and conglomerated 
 pebbles, the inevitable products of glaciation in the 
 medio-silurian, is known to all. On the American con- 
 tinent the first step we take in upper silurian lands is 
 among the Oneida conglomerated, a formation in many 
 places literally filled with pebbles and water-worn 
 boulders dragged from older beds. The Oneida con 
 glomerate extends from Central New York, almost 
 through the entire length of the Appalachian range. 
 European geologists repeatedly refer to these boulders 
 and conglomerates in the upper silurian. Dr. Dawson, 
 of Canada, viewing the angular fragmental blocks in 
 the Nova Scotia beds of this age, says: "These materials 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 212.
 
 A Brief Review. 211 
 
 seem precisely similar to those which are at present 
 produced by the disintegrating action of frost," etc. 
 The heavy blocks and angular boulders in the Scottish 
 highlands are claimed by some authors to belong to 
 the inter-silurian age of ice. But this argument be- 
 comes most complete when we find that these features 
 of inseparable extermination and ice action culminated 
 in the tilting of strata and mountain upheaval, proving 
 that an energy was added to the ocean's pressure. At 
 that time the great Cincinnati anticlinal was formed. 
 The Green Mountains were lifted on high, with their 
 beds of the lower silurian upon them; and other parts 
 of New England were then raised from the ocean. In 
 Europe, also, were extensive upheavals, and coincident 
 exterminations, so that I presume all geologists will ad- 
 mit that that age (medio-silurian) was one of extensive 
 upheaval. Thus a remarkable triplieity of events is 
 known, and each member of the union points to annu- 
 lar declension. 
 
 Again the glacier and the iceberg melt away, and a 
 long period of comparative quiet, during which stupen- 
 dous formations of calcareous rock were deposited, in- 
 tervenes. The old silurian ocean grew warm, and new 
 life-forms filled its waters.* Why did it grow warm? 
 Why did many of its inhabitants perish as by a stroke, 
 and new tribes take their places? Here is where the 
 heavy dolomitic or magnesian limestone beds were 
 formed. If their constituents were in the waters that 
 
 * It must be evident to the philosophic mind that new life-forms 
 could not and would not take possession of our oceans, unless 
 their waters were radically changed by a vast addition. Now 
 while at the same time such additions would exterminate old 
 forms as well as demand new ones, and said additions also cause 
 upheaval and glaciation, it is plain that the annular system must 
 come in as the great cause of all these changes.
 
 212 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 fell in more primitive times, why were they not de- 
 posited long before this ? If they were deposited long 
 before, why did the waters take them up again and de- 
 posit them anew ? And how did the waters work 
 through the great mass of Canadian and Trenton lime- 
 stones, refusing to appropriate their constituents in or- 
 der to get at those more deeply buried beneath them? 
 Now, as we are forced by other circumstances, it seems 
 to me, to admit this oceanic augmentation, and are 
 here again compelled to face some of the most unphilo- 
 sophic and impossible propositions, if such a conclusion 
 is not conceded, our claim that a new ocean had de- 
 scended upon the earth, and from its waters the vast 
 beds of dolomites were deposited, as so much of the 
 great fund of telluric-cosmic dust native in the annular 
 system, is one that under any circumstances, it must be 
 conceded, should be respected. When we admit an- 
 other downfall in the medio-silurian, we can see the 
 new environment that necessitates new life-forms, on 
 the ashes of the old; we can see why the deposit was 
 magnesian lime and not a carbonate; why there were 
 signs of rushing floods and refrigeration; why there 
 was curving of strata. Uncounted millenniums moved 
 down the tide of time as this great limestone formation 
 progressed; and as the waters became relieved of their 
 burden other organisms came into existence. In some 
 parts of the earth, the oceanic waters approached that 
 condition adapted to the proto-typical forms of the ver- 
 tebrate races; for even before we pass the boundaries 
 of silurian time some of the ancestors of devonian life 
 appear as timid pioneers upon the scene, while at the 
 same time some coral and crinoidal forms become ex- 
 tinct. These changes the sudden dying out of specific
 
 A Brief Review. 213 
 
 and even generic forms, and the sudden advent of new 
 ones, without any intermediary link of relationship to 
 existing forms points to the annular system as the 
 seed-bed of organisms. Of this more hereafter. 
 
 As geologists have long recognized the fact that 
 there is a definite boundary line between the silurian 
 and the next succeeding age, or devonian; and as I 
 have before intimated that each geologic age was closed 
 by a fall of annular matter, this boundary will be our 
 field of observation. In many places the passage from 
 the silurian into the devonian is quite abrupt. Through- 
 out the Appalachian field the transition is marked by 
 the presence of vast beds of mechanical sediment, in- 
 dicative of great agitation of waters, and known gener- 
 ally in America as Oriskany sandstone. This forma- 
 tion is an extensive, one, and in many places is so coarse 
 as to be a veritable conglomerate, indicative of ice ac- 
 tion. In the Old World there does not appear such 
 positive evidence of ice movements; but in its place is 
 other evidence of either a cold age, or a new supply of 
 ocean waters. The deposits of the two continents are 
 marked by a scarcity in many places of organic remains. 
 In my own State where the Oriskany is widely lain, 
 they are almost entirely absent. Now as the beds im- 
 mediately below this formation indicate by their fos- 
 sils warm and quiet waters, it becomes more positively 
 indicative of climatic refrigeration. In the lower beds 
 more than 300 species have been found and known, and. 
 what is more important and striking, they are in great 
 part characteristically distinct from those above. That 
 a wide reach of calcareous fossiliferous rock should be 
 overlain by an equally extensive and sparsely fossilifer-
 
 214 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ous sand and conglomerate formatio*n it must be ad- 
 mitted shows catastrophic change, flood and disaster. 
 
 Sometimes the shells of the lower beds are packed in 
 great numbers in the upper, and this has caused some 
 geologists to place the Oriskany in the silurian division. 
 But its forming simply a passage-bed between this and 
 the devonian, and laid down by ice and flood, will read- 
 ily account for all these things. Thus as we move up- 
 ward we see the same expected evidence of sudden and 
 exterminating changes. If we consider the Ludlow 
 beds of Europe as the representatives of this passage- 
 bed the Oriskany and Helderberg and protected 
 somewhat from the full effects of refrigeration, the 
 gradation upwards is so far complete. And when we 
 find the former in no small degree placed uncomfonn- 
 ably upon the upper silurian, and the same unconform- 
 ability on the Western Continent, we simply find the 
 same adequate cause of crust-breaking and mountain- 
 making at work. We find in both continents the full 
 effects of stupendous additions of oceanic waters, and 
 extensive continental uplifts immediately resulting. In 
 many places, and notably upon the eastern border of 
 this continent, the strata were upturned immediately 
 after the first devonian beds were laid down. This 
 places the operating cause of mountain-making in com- 
 pany with the extermination of species, the urging of 
 floods and climatic changes, as in all other cases, and 
 directs us to the annular waters. 
 
 There were many minor changes of this character 
 in the long ages of the devonian, but we will pass over 
 them all to the border-land of the so-called carbonifer- 
 ous, where we find abundant evidence of ice action in 
 the passage beds of the two ages; not alone in the
 
 A Brief Review. 215 
 
 numerous beds of massive conglomerates, but in their 
 wide spread over the continents. Dr. Dawson has said, 
 in speaking of Nova Scotia : " In passing downward 
 from the carboniferous, we constantly meet with un- 
 conformability." And Dana : "An epoch of disturbance 
 of the eastern border region intervened between the 
 devonian and carboniferous."* Great beds of con- 
 glomerate at the base of the carboniferous are formed 
 into actual glacial moraines in different parts of Scot- 
 land.f Beds of sub-carboniferous moraines are authen- 
 tically reported from Australia. I believe it is gener- 
 ally conceded that these are the work of ice, and geolo- 
 gists stand perplexed and amazed over the numerous 
 morainic beds among the coal-bearing strata of Amer- 
 ica. Without a competent source of snows we might 
 well feel perplexed in our efforts to explain the source 
 of a glacier, reaching from the north polar world, be- 
 fore the birth of the Himalayas, to the Australian con- 
 tinent. If there be any reliance in the autobiography 
 of transported materials, which make up these ancient 
 moraines, that space of time between the formation of 
 the upper devonian beds and those of the lower carboni- 
 ferous must have been one in which the earth was 
 severely under the dominion of the Ice King. Any one 
 whose eyes are accustomed to fall daily upon the mor- 
 ainic matter of the great North American ice-sheet of 
 modern geologic times, will not fail to put the consoli- 
 dated boulder-drift found below and among the lower 
 coal measures in the same class. 
 
 There are some facts connected with the carbonifer- 
 ous quite remarkable. One of these is the repeated oc- 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 289. 
 
 t Geikie's " Great Ice Age," page 479.
 
 216 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 currence of conglomerated beds intercalated between 
 seams of coal.* There are at least four coal seams 
 opened in Pennsylvania around Shamokin, between 
 five beds of conglomerate, in a vertical space of 250 
 feet; and in the body of the conglomerate itself at 
 Pottsville important coal beds have been opened. But 
 these are not rare occurrences. They occur in other 
 parts of the United States. Also in Nova Scotia (Daw- 
 son), as well as on the continent of Europe (Godwin- 
 Austen). So that it must be admitted that conglom- 
 erates and coal are natural, not accidental associates. 
 (Let the reader remember this very important fact.) 
 
 Now, reasonable men will concede the fact that these 
 conglomerates necessitate the movement of glaciers 
 and icebergs. But what a marvelous puzzle! Float- 
 ing icebergs and continental glaciers in a hot-house 
 world! glacial epochs repeated again and again in the 
 very land where and at the very time a luxuriant vege- 
 tation was forming vast beds of coal ! ! and these all ac- 
 companied by rushing, impelling and devouring floods. 
 " Geologists are staggered by these appearances," so 
 says Geikie. And they must and will be sorely puzzled 
 until they admit the philosophy of sudden downfalls of 
 snow and other annular matter that brought each age 
 to a close, and frequently characterized the age through- 
 out to a greater or less extent. But be that as men 
 choose to make it; here in the very field, bearing un- 
 impeachable testimony to a warm climate, are multi- 
 tudes of witnesses establishing beyond a doubt the fact 
 of glaciation. We must reconcile these things by tlie 
 administration of Law. 
 
 One glance at this complex system of carboniferous 
 
 * Report of Progress, Penna. Geol. Sur., page 628.
 
 A Brief Review. 217 
 
 strata forces, it seems to me, two very important con- 
 clusions. The intimate, and as is often the case, the 
 immediate contact of the remains of a luxuriant vege- 
 tation, with massive conglomerate beds, the well- 
 known products of excessive glaciation, proves that 
 the snows of that olden age came suddenly and repeat- 
 edly upon a world of life. From this again comes the 
 necessary conclusion that the oceanic waters were great- 
 ly increased in volume, and we must therefore expect 
 as a legitimate and necessary consequence a system of 
 upheavals and strata-folding correspondingly stupend- 
 ous and grand. Must I point my brother geologists to 
 the well-known facts that support this latter conclusion ? 
 Need I tell them that the continents grown more stable 
 with time would resist oceanic pressure longer, but 
 when they began to move would move with grander 
 strides ? Need I point to the great convolutions of the 
 earth's crust, known to have been formed immediately 
 after the carboniferous beds were laid down? The 
 geologists " know these things by heart." But to the 
 general reader I must devote a little time. 
 
 It is manifest, even to a common observer, that the 
 strata of the so-called carboniferous age were bent, 
 crushed and folded into thousands of corrugations after 
 the coal and conglomerate beds were formed, and be- 
 fore the penman wave rolled by. In the Appalachian 
 coal field this is eminently the case. In this region the 
 rocks to the inmost depths took part in the general pli- 
 cation. The stolid piles of laurentian, the universal 
 casement of the world's silurian, confined under the 
 heavy beds of the devonian, and the devonian beds 
 themselves, all moved in response to the potential 
 energy accumulated as the waters increased, and other
 
 218 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 matter from the annular system gathered upon the 
 ocean's floor. It was emphatically a mountain-forming 
 era. Some of the greatest mountain ranges were then 
 lifted from their ocean beds. Speaking of this age, 
 Dana, whose authority few will venture to question, 
 says :* " There were no Alleghanies, for this region 
 was a part of the coal-making plain; there were no 
 Rocky Mountains, for these, as the carboniferous lime- 
 stones prove, were mainly under the sea." Again he 
 says :f " The coal period was a time of unceasing 
 change; eras of universal verdure, alternating with 
 others of widespread waters, destructive of all vegeta- 
 tion, and other terrestrial life except that which cov- 
 ered regions beyond the coal measure limits." 
 
 Now when we reflect that such extensive extermina- 
 tions, such great mountain upheavals, such great beds 
 of conglomerates were produced while yet the fund of 
 annular matter was unexhausted, where else can we look 
 for the true cause of these changes? Why were such 
 wide reaches of coal beds formed in the lap of the gla- 
 ciated world? Well might geologists stand perplexed 
 and amazed over such inconsistencies. In England and 
 Scotland the same mountain forming went on, at or 
 near the same time. We cannot close our eyes to this 
 wondrous co-relation of phenomena. The light cast 
 upon these questions in recent times is penetrating and 
 dissolving the mists, and thoughtful men are now be- 
 ginning to read the ipse dixit of the living rock; and 
 will not cling much longer to the unnatural and un- 
 philosophic theory of geological growth as now main- 
 tained. We have seen the grand and stupendous up- 
 
 "Manual," page 355. 
 t " Manual," page 359.
 
 A Brief Review. 219 
 
 heaval of continents, and the rearing of mountains that 
 closed the so-called carboniferous age, and yet the car- 
 bonaceous deposits never ceased to form, never ceased 
 to fall as carbon dust, till the last remnant of upper 
 waters had descended to the earth after man was placed 
 thereon. 
 
 Let us now take a glance at the permian, evidently 
 a transition period of the carboniferous, a time when 
 the old life-forms began to decline and " run out," and 
 a new environment demanded new ones, and in response 
 to which a new page in geological history was written. 
 But the permian, in order to be a time of such transi- 
 tion, must have been a time of great physical changes, 
 whereby new environments were made; and conglom- 
 erate beds found in strata belonging to this period 
 plainly tell us that such changes did take place. We 
 find in different lands these conglomerates made up 
 largely of exotic stones, some of large size, and I have 
 no doubt that if we could see the broad fields of the per- 
 mian we would see a glacial period well defined. As it 
 is, however, the rocks of this age are not so largely ex- 
 posed as those of former ages, at least in North Amer- 
 ica. But in addition to conglomerate beds the permian 
 has also large deposits of coal. Those who have ex- 
 amined stones of the former beds in fact, and who have 
 expressed a sentiment as to their origin, I believe gen- 
 erally favor the view that they were carried to their 
 resting ground by ice. Both Geikie and Ramsay are 
 of this opinion. Geikie says : " Ramsay has given a de- 
 tailed account of the occurrence in permian conglom- 
 erate of blunted and well-scratched stones, which seems 
 conclusively to prove the existence of glaciers and ice-
 
 220 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 bergs." The same authority claims that the permian 
 conglomerate of Germany shows a like origin. 
 
 These things being well-established facts we can no 
 longer doubt that the permian witnessed one or more 
 glacial periods. Then if our theory be true that such 
 periods were brought about by measureless reaches and 
 down-rushes of snow, the oceans must have again in- 
 creased in volume and depth, and we must find evi- 
 dences of this in the flexures and curves of strata, in 
 connection with the glacial beds. As according to 
 these indications in the carboniferous era and all previ- 
 ious ages the upheaval came, we will look as confidently 
 for permian upheaval as we would expect thunder to 
 follow the "lightning's fiery wing." "Murchison," says 
 Dana, " remarks that the close of the carboniferous (in- 
 cluding the permian, of course) was especially marked 
 by disturbances and upliftings" (Italics mine.) 
 Again, Dana remarks that all the country between the 
 Atlantic and the Mississippi arose from the ocean in 
 the permian period.* Again, "At the close of the per- 
 mian there were great dislocations." And, again, the 
 same authority says : " It is manifest that the period 
 between the close of the carboniferous and the triassic 
 was one of enormous disturbance." De Beaumont's 
 " System of the Netherlands " includes the dislocations 
 of the permian beds along the base of the Hartz Moun- 
 tains; also those in Nassau and Saxony, which preceded 
 the triassic beds, as well as many cotemporaneous dis- 
 turbances in the permian of Wales and France. In the 
 Ural Mountains permian flexures also occur; and it 
 seems likely that the ruptures noticed in Australian 
 permian occurred at the same time. These oscillations 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 368.
 
 A Brief Review. 221 
 
 " show cotemporaneous movements on both sides of the 
 Atlantic Ocean."* 
 
 Here let me call the reader's attention to these co- 
 temporaneous displacements in both and perhaps all 
 continents. How did it happen that over much of the 
 American continent, and over lands separated from it 
 by the expanse of oceans, elevations should occur, just 
 at the time the snows and floods of the permian reached 
 the oceans? Why a feature in such remarkable har- 
 mony with annular declension ? But suppose those ex- 
 terminations which our theory demands should here 
 fail to support us. It would be a disastrous failure of 
 the annular theory. Such witnesses will not forsake 
 us. They crowd around us in greater profusion as we 
 move down the great tide of geologic changes. The 
 carboniferous cataclysms reveal the dead forms in 
 abundance; they lie thickly strewn over the permian 
 world, and new species spring, as it were, from their 
 dust. Forms weakened and depauperated in the car- 
 boniferous age cease to exist before the close of the per- 
 mian. Coral animals that formed oceanic reefs in olden 
 time far more extensive than those in modern waters, 
 so nearly perished that but a few straggling members 
 of the great family Cyathophillus appeared afterwards; 
 and some of the ganoidal fishes at the close of the per- 
 mian had passed away. On the other hand, crocodilian 
 forms came upon the scene, and finally almost possessed 
 the earth. f The great family of Trilobites became ex- 
 tinct, as well as many mollusks. Many vegetable forms 
 also died out. It was the last of the Sigillaria and 
 Lepidodendra. Now it must be admitted that while 
 
 Ibid., page 394. 
 tlbid., page 371.
 
 222 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 this extermination of old forms was in many instances 
 a gradual process, we cannot avoid the conclusion that 
 " at the close of long periods and epochs there were 
 more general exterminations,"* catastrophic changes 
 that abruptly closed the life-period of many organisms. 
 So far then as our investigations have been carried we 
 find a most remarkable connection and co-relation of 
 phenomena. We find there has been a regular routine 
 of changes individually dependent upon the grand 
 cause we have herein set forth. We have seen a fall 
 of annular matter in the historic period, and we there- 
 fore know that the same kind of changes took place 
 many times in the geologic ages, and when we examine 
 these changes more minutely we see how harmoniously 
 the indications point to the great conclusions here 
 drawn. Not a link is missing in the great chain, and 
 we must now see that our conclusions are in the main 
 correct. 
 
 I might follow the geologic record exhaustively 
 through these changes, from the close of the permian, 
 through the triassic, Jurassic, cretaceous, etc., and 
 show that in each period there are unmistakable signs 
 of recurring glacial epochs, by which wide and sweep- 
 ing exterminations of species were effected. In each 
 epoch is the evidence of boulders and conglomerates. 
 Each epoch is brought to a close by crust disturbance, 
 and each disturbance preceded by flood and violence; 
 and we need no longer be puzzled by the fact that at 
 each period the continents took a " plunge bath in the 
 seas " before they were lifted to greater height. They 
 were simply lifted higher by the waters as they sought 
 their level. If this be not the true explanation of this 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 384.
 
 A Brief Review. 223 
 
 puzzling enigma, where shall we look for another ? To 
 suppose that each time the continents are raised a few 
 feet from the ocean they must first take this baptismal 
 plunge is too ridiculous and unphilosophic for this en- 
 lightened age. And yet we read it as the deliberate 
 conclusion of eminent men. The continents were in- 
 deed baptized and lifted from the deep, but under the 
 eternal fixity law. This digression will prepare us 
 for an examination of the more recent periods. These 
 things are to-day within the purview of all investiga- 
 tors. I have looked over the more obscure and diffi- 
 cult periods and ages, and shown their necessary de- 
 pendence upon annular falls, and I will now leave the 
 more apparent path for other men, and will draw my 
 conclusion here by a rapid run over the remaining field. 
 Some of the more recent periods were characterized by 
 the most stupendous revulsions and upheaval. The 
 Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas were lifted in these 
 modern times. At the close of the Jurassic period oc- 
 cured one of the grandest series of mountain-makings 
 the world ever saw. Not only at that time were the 
 Rocky Mountains lifted higher, but the great Nevada 
 range, the Humboldt and TJintah Mountains, were 
 heaved from the bosom of the Pacific, and all the con- 
 tinents were to some extent moved to their very cen- 
 ters. At the close of the cretaceous period they were 
 again moved to their profoundest depths, and again we 
 see the track of the glacier and the stroke of death. Be- 
 ginning in the pennian period the reptilian forms finally 
 had unbounded sway upon the earth at the beginning of 
 the cretaceous; but this period passed away with the 
 almost complete destruction of mesozoic forms. Those 
 monstrous members of the reptilian family, as the pie-
 
 224 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 siosaurus and ichthyosaurus, fell victims of that univer- 
 sal catastrophe. The Old World was passing by with 
 sudden and giant strides. Again and again the man- 
 tle of bloom and life overspreads the earth, and again 
 and again it falls as the winding sheet of the giant dead. 
 As reptilian forms gave way the ancestral forms of the 
 mammal family (horse, elephant, ox, etc.) began their 
 long and universal control of the earth. But through 
 ice and flood they finally passed away. As I look over 
 the ancient forage ground of the tertiary mammals, 
 and see also the great telluric graveyards, where in im- 
 mense numbers they have been gathered, doubtless by 
 driving and sweeping floods, I am so vividly impressed 
 with the suddenness and completeness of these visita- 
 tions that it seems to me we need nothing more than a 
 simple prospect of the battle-grounds and battle-scenes 
 of the tertiaries to convince us that the claims I have 
 here made are essentially true, even if no other evidence 
 could be found. If some appalling flood should in this 
 day sweep every animal from the Mississippi Valley, 
 and bury it in the Gulf of Mexico, the latter could be- 
 come no more really the home of the dead forms of this 
 age than the great West and Northwest is to-day the 
 burial ground of eocene, miocene and pliocene forms 
 packed in countless numbers. 
 
 Now a short rehearsal may be in place. In the fore- 
 going chapter I have labored to show that the glaciers 
 of the quaternary were caused by a sudden down-rush 
 of annular snows; and that from the condition in which 
 the imbedded animals are found no other reasonable 
 cause or source can be found. I then point out the 
 philosophic and necessary consequence of such an ava- 
 lanche from on high, such as specific extermination, wide
 
 A Brief Review. 225 
 
 flood deposits and rock displacement. We then find 
 the same signs of glaciation in all the geologic ages, 
 save, perhaps, the true archaan, and find also that 
 such glacial evidence is accompanied by the same inevi- 
 table results of continental disturbance, mountain up- 
 thrusts, flood-baptisms and exterminations, and that at 
 each of these visitations a new ocean is formed, as 
 shown by new life forms. These natural associates we 
 find continually in company, running through the en- 
 tire series of ages, a four-fold cord of evidence that no 
 argument can break witnesses that no force can sever 
 while the general exterminations found attending 
 them force the conviction upon us that our conclusions 
 are correct. Now in the first place we cannot account 
 for these universal exterminations of life-forms, whereby 
 whole races of animals inhabiting different continents 
 vanish, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye, except 
 through catastrophic flood, or universal snows. In the 
 second place, we cannot account for morainic and other 
 drift diffusion except by rushing waters and moving ice ; 
 and, thirdly, we cannot satisfactorily account for the 
 grand and universal uplifting of strata from the oceans 
 as radiating centers of force, except through augmenta- 
 tion of volume and weight, by water and other exotic 
 matter. We know that the forces that have upheaved 
 the continents have always acted from the oceans, and 
 that they have acted again and again, and we know that 
 the oceans cannot of themselves give or use this force 
 again, after it is once applied, except through force 
 stored up as potential, either by additional waters or 
 solid matter. Every boulder dropped by an iceberg in 
 the Atlantic acts as an atom in the balance of conti- 
 nents, and so sure as the day comes when the ocean's
 
 226 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 weight in the scale becomes so great as to move the 
 beam, its bottom must go down ! It matters not whether 
 the inmost depths are a molten sea; the pressure upon 
 the sea-bottom can become so great as to fuse the deep- 
 est strata, and force it laterally under the continent. 
 So that the latter are to-day, without doubt, supported 
 by rocks or molten matter interpolated between the 
 solid center and the surface by pressure from the seas. 
 Thousands of feet of conglomerate and other foreign 
 matter have been formed into beds on the sea bottom, 
 and thousands of feet in depth have been added to the 
 oceans. And when we see that many times the upward 
 movement of the crust has been simultaneous in differ- 
 ent continents, and occurred with a flood or ice period, 
 we have, it seems to me, no possible way of avoiding 
 the conclusions here drawn. Now when we take a com- 
 prehensive glance backward upon these numerous down- 
 rushes of matter from on high we cannot wonder longer 
 at the constant oscillation of sea and land throughout 
 the geologic ages. We see forces employed competent, 
 and causes adequate to accomplish these grand results, 
 and we see them acting in harmony with law; in har- 
 mony with nature in every field, astronomical or geo- 
 logical. 
 
 Now as we look over the hotly contested field where 
 the glacialists and anti-glacialists meet in interminable 
 war, we can plainly see the real cause of the conflict. 
 It is an honest difference. Since no competent source 
 of snows can be found on earth, Prof. Dawson has de- 
 clared substantially that a great continental glacier is 
 a physical impossibility, and so long as such a source 
 cannot be found, the professor stands upon a rock im- 
 pregnable to all assault. But he stands a hero sur-
 
 A. Brief Review. 227 
 
 rounded by fearful odds. A dozen, glacialists, with. 
 Prof. Newberry, one of America's great geologists, at 
 their head, have examined the great drift areas of the 
 world with honest intentions, and their practiced eyes 
 have seen too much not to know the glacier track, and 
 the universal verdict is that it has been. Its indelible 
 way-marks are carved as with an instrument of iron in 
 and on the living rock. The blooming valley, the lux- 
 uriant forests, and the mountain's rock-ribbed sides, 
 have felt its rude embrace. 
 
 Now this is the actual state of the question. A great 
 continental glacier, without a competent source! I 
 presume the great champion of the " iceberg theory " 
 would be one of the very first men to admit the univer- 
 sality of glacial action, provided an efficient source of 
 snows could be found. His powerful mind is too 
 familiar with known facts not to see that this is now the 
 desideratum, and while it will not bend to unphilosophic 
 demands it will follow the dictum of law. The mistake 
 of the glacialists is that they claim the earth now pos- 
 sesses an adequate source of snows when every feature 
 of philosophic law is against such a conclusion. 
 
 But where are the glaciers that the super-aerial va- 
 pors must have formed as they gravitated to the earth ? 
 If both these parties could be led to see the irresistible 
 conclusion demanded by the philosophy of the heavens 
 and the earth that the oceans that now dash around the 
 world could never have reached the surface of the 
 planet, except by snow and flood, this otherwise inter- 
 minable conflict would cease. There can be no terres- 
 trial source of continental glaciers. The interior of a 
 continental glacier could not be fed by snows from 
 the oceans without the fraction of all law. The decline
 
 228 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 of the earth's annular system is, I think, in harmony 
 with every requirement both of the glacial and anti- 
 glacial schools. May I not challenge either one to pre- 
 sent a feature it cannot explain? For nearly twenty 
 years I have seen with profoundest regret these honest 
 efforts of opposing parties, spent as they ever must be, 
 so I think, in fruitless labor. It must be so. It must 
 be true that every pound of the grinding, carving 
 energy of the mighty glacier was stored up in the 
 earth's annular system by Pluto's potential arm. The 
 solar beam now only supplements that action in a con- 
 tinuation of the process ever circumscribed by law. 
 
 It is well known that the famous Sir Charles Lyell 
 during the active part of his life urged upon geologists 
 the important fact that almost from the dawn of recog- 
 nizable changes in the earth, the change in climate, the 
 extermination of species and the change of ocean's level 
 were a triplicity of changes that always remained un- 
 broken in the order of their occurrence. If there was 
 a climatic change there was a new distribution of 
 oceanic waters, and at the same time old organic forms 
 died out, or were depauperated into races of underlings, 
 and new forms came into existence under a new environ- 
 ment. This triplicity in the grand processes of world- 
 making is most significant in the light of annular de- 
 clension. Those great warm ages in medial and later 
 geological times, when the world enjoyed a tropical or 
 sub-tropical temperature, were followed by ages more 
 or less arctic; and the world of animals that sprung into 
 existence in the warm age gave way to species of a 
 hardier type. Just as in the Adamic period races of 
 weaklings gave way to more dominant types, so in all 
 ages the same physical changes must have had the same
 
 A Brief Review. 229 
 
 far-sweeping causes. The warm climate of the adam- 
 ite period, and the competent cause, before set forth 
 are the grand keys that unlock this midnight mystery. 
 
 As in a greenhouse it would be impossible to keep 
 a tropical temperature amid the cold of the wintry 
 world without a protecting roof, so it seems to me it 
 would be as impossible to convert this earth into a tropi- 
 cal world as it hurries on its way amid the more than 
 arctic cold of interplanetary space, unless guarded by 
 a protecting canopy of vapors, of which the annular 
 deep was a necessary source. But the same protect- 
 ing roof, under which the hothouse world brought 
 forth its hothouse organisms, by its fall became the 
 very source and cause of refrigeration that brought in 
 hardier types, and mingled them together on the same 
 floor. 
 
 When we see animals of a temperate or sub-temper- 
 ate climate solidly frozen up in eternal ice, how can we 
 but conclude that here is the adequate cause of the cli- 
 matic changes that have so frequently swept over the 
 earth in the geologic past? The record is plain. The 
 organisms of a warm climate were crushed and buried 
 under the heel of winter. Winter could not have set 
 his heavy foot upon a tropical land except through a 
 fall of snows in the polar region. Neither could the 
 mighty grip of the Ice-King have been softened, and 
 the universal sweep of glaciers transformed into urg- 
 ing floods, except through the involving canopy. And 
 now when we see the unmistakable track of floods, 
 " vast beyond conception," at the very time the glacier 
 stretched its naked front across the continents, need we 
 longer marvel at this triple order of changes? A vast 
 debacle of snow and water, continuing for unknown cen-
 
 230 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 turies ! The pure result, a new distribution and condi- 
 tion of oceanic waters, refrigeration and consequent ex- 
 termination of species! 
 
 If the illustrious Lyell had but caught one glimpse 
 of the cause of this co-linking of changes so comprehen- 
 sive, what an imperishable monument that master-mind 
 could have reared for the admiration of the world ! See 
 the limitless snow-fields, covering much of the Northern 
 Hemisphere, filling the valleys, and towering over 
 mountains, until one vast winding-sheet hides the living 
 continents! The revolving vapors having fallen, the 
 sun shines down upon the snows, but as powerless as it 
 now shines upon the glaciers of the Alps or the Him- 
 alayas; the ice-cap could not by this have been softened 
 into floods. But, lo ! Another telluric ring gradually 
 descends into the atmosphere and over-arches the earth, 
 and the ice-bound continents come directly under the 
 influence of a hothouse temperature. Glaciers could 
 not but soften and melt into deluges, " vast beyond con- 
 ception," in such a world. Time rolls on; the great 
 glaciers are transferred to the sea. A measureless 
 pressure is lifted from the continents, and placed upon 
 the ocean's bed, and that bed under the beck of law 
 expands ! The plastic matter against which that bed is 
 planted is forced latterly under the edges of the con- 
 tinents, and these rise in the balance of energies. If 
 this be not the process by which this order of changes 
 is brought about, where else shall we look for efficient 
 causes ? Where else shall we find a philosophic reason 
 for the lifting of continents, the folding of strata, 
 and outbursts of liquid rocks at the very time of 
 climatic changes ? At the very time old forms die out ?
 
 A Brief Review. 231 
 
 At the very time the ocean's wave leaves its accustomed 
 shores and rolls to other lands ? 
 
 The well-known fact, then, that majestic and far- 
 sweeping floods closed the last glacial epoch, it seems 
 to me, forever demands a rapidity of ice dissolution that 
 the solar beam could not produce through the clear at- 
 mosphere of to-day. And since we must, at the same 
 time we are looking for a sufficient cause for this rapid 
 melting and overwhelming water, also look for the 
 grand cause that made a tropic climate succeed refrig- 
 eration, the grand cause of exterminations and moun- 
 tain-making, the task is infinitely more difficult to ex- 
 plain without the aid of terrestrial ring-falls. If 
 geologists then would simply admit this little fact that 
 the oceanic waters could not, and did not, all descend 
 to the earth in primitive times, the mystery will vanish 
 at once. The great panorama of terrestrial changes 
 will unfold; for it must be seen that such waters upon 
 reaching the earth in after ages could not but cause re- 
 frigeration; could not but cause excessive floods; could 
 not but cause extermination of specific forms; could 
 not but cause new distribution and conditions of Oceania 
 waters, and finally could not but cause crust-folding and 
 crumpling of strata.
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 EVIDENCE ADVANCED IN SUPPORT OF THE CLAIM THAT 
 
 THE EARTH'S ANNULAR SYSTEM WAS THE SEED-BED 
 
 OF ORGANISMS, AND CONSEQUENTLY A 
 
 REGION OF MICROSCOPIC LIFE AND 
 
 INFUSORIAL FORMS. 
 
 Not many years ago I clipped the following from a 
 newspaper after it had gone the rounds of publication 
 in some of the leading magazines, and was accorded by 
 them the importance of an established fact : 
 
 " The somewhat rare phenomenon of a fall of golden- 
 yellow snow occurred in the midst of a severe storm on. 
 the afternoon of the 27th of February, at Peckeloh, in 
 Germany. A specimen of the water melted from the 
 snow, after being kept a few days, was microscopically 
 examined by Weber, who describes it in the ' Wochen- 
 schrift.' He found that it contained principally four di- 
 ferent kinds of germs or organisms, shaped respective- 
 ly like arrows, coffee beans, horns and dark flat discs." 
 
 In the year 1846, Tenth month (October) 17th, fell 
 the memorable shower of microscopic organisms, near 
 Lyons, France. This shower of microscopic germs con- 
 tained more than one hundred different organized 
 forms, so different from anything terrestrial, as even in 
 that day to suggest to many of the French savants a 
 " cosmic origin." 
 
 A shower of strange organisms, described by Darwin, 
 which fell near the Cape Verdes, covered more than a 
 million of square miles, thus proving by its vast extent
 
 Fig. 8. SUN WITH PERIHELIA. 
 
 Here is an attempt to approximate the general features of the 
 solar forms that must have whirled their daily course across the 
 vapor heavens, " A flaming sword that turned every way." 
 These cherub features necessarily accompanied the knowledge- 
 giving tree, and at the same time were most effective world- 
 guards of the way of the life-giving tree. While they flashed 
 amid the vanishing vapors, neither man nor any living thing 
 could partake of or behold those life-prolonging features that 
 thus became a happy type of the Life and Way. 
 
 It is now freely admitted that the sword and the cherubim 
 of Eden were solar features of some kind. When, then, we ad- 
 mit the canopy as the true solar vicegerent, we see how these 
 perihelia must be allowed.
 
 Evidence Advanced. 233 
 
 that it had an origin beyond the limits of the terrestrial 
 atmosphere. 
 
 In the year 1803 a great shower of exotic organ- 
 isms fell over a vast territory of Italy and Southern 
 Europe. 
 
 In the year 1813 a shower of organic germs fell in 
 Calabria, and from specimens subjected to microscopic 
 examination sixty-four different species were obtained. 
 
 In the year 1755 one fell in Northern Italy, " cover- 
 ing about two hundred square leagues," and covering 
 the earth in places to the depth of an inch, and at the 
 same time a shower which reached into Austria fell as 
 colored snow in the Alps to the depth of nine feet. As 
 modern researches have proven that colored snows are 
 filled with organisms, giving the color thereto, we can 
 scarcely imagine the immensity of organic matter in 
 such showers, and can hardly conceive it to have had a 
 terrestrial origin. Homer speaks in the Iliad of one of 
 these organic showers. In Northern Europe such 
 snows have frequently been seen, and sometimes they 
 have been accompanied with carbon dust, which must 
 have had its origin outside of the realm of atmospherics 
 oxygen. A few years since such a shower fell in West- 
 ern Kentucky. They also have been seen in Asia 
 Minor and Palestine. Microscopic examination of polar 
 snows shows that they are permeated with organisms 
 and particles of cosmic dust. Dana has said the origin 
 of these organisms and dust is unknown. One signi- 
 ficant feature in the case is the great similarity of the 
 organisms in all showers; more than 300 different forms 
 have been determined by microscopists, and all attempts 
 to find a terrestrial origin for them have failed. If 
 they had been taken up from the earth in whirlwinds
 
 234 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 and tornadoes, the fact could easily be proven. Those 
 which fall in Europe, one would suppose, would be 
 traced to Africa, but the species so far examined prove 
 that they do not come thence. Out of the 300 species 
 only fifteen have been found in South America (Dana) 
 In the showers above mentioned (1803 and 1813), the 
 two had twenty-eight species in common, or about one- 
 half. Says Dana, the " zone in which these showers 
 occur covers Southern Europe, Northern Africa, with 
 the adjoining portion of the Atlantic and the corre- 
 sponding latitudes in Western and Middle Asia."* 
 Some decisive tests are well-known a common origin 
 and a common region of declension. A common origin, 
 because of so many species in common, and the impossi- 
 bility of finding a terrestrial source show that these or- 
 ganisms have their source either in the atmosphere of 
 the earth or beyond it. If we admit that source to be 
 in the terrestrial atmosphere, we at once contravene 
 eternal law; for in that case we presuppose that the vast 
 amount of matter descending as dust showers, filled 
 with organisms, was made in the atmosphere, which 
 could not be. The shower that fell at Lyons, in 1846, 
 was estimated by Ehrenberg at 360 tons, and 45 tons 
 of it consisted of organic matter of more than 100 dif- 
 ferent species. Well might Dana exclaim, after con- 
 sidering the numberless instances of such falls : " With 
 these facts before us, how many millions of hundred- 
 weight of microscopic organisms have reached Europe 
 since the days of Homer?" 
 
 Now I suppose some of my readers will hesitate to 
 admit that organic germs exist co-extensively with mat- 
 
 * Dana's "Manual." page 634; pee also Ehrenberg's "Blood 
 Rains," 1847.
 
 Evidence Advanced. 235 
 
 ter. When we know that there is not a spot on the 
 earth, nor within the earth beyond the limits of pres- 
 ent or former igneous activity that may not possess or- 
 ganic germs; scarcely a spot where life of some kind 
 does not exist or has not existed; when we see the at- 
 mosphere everywhere contains floating germs; that in 
 hot springs and in polar snows, in the lava-built walls 
 of volcanoes, and even in the massive beds of the arch- 
 sean rocks are found the remains of life-forms, it seems 
 to me we are forced to admit the universality of mater- 
 ial organisms ; that they are co-existent and co-extensive 
 with matter. Can we even imagine a nebula, anywhere 
 floating in the immensity of space, that does not contain 
 life-germs in that potential condition necessary in the 
 evolution of life? Because we are familiar with cer- 
 tain life-forms, life-conditions and life-habits in a com- 
 pleted world, we are not to conclude that other forms 
 cannot exist in an incomplete one. The dust showers 
 that from time to time fall upon the earth, then, have 
 either a cosmic or tellurio-cosmic origin. They may 
 be, it seems to me, micro-cosmic clouds moving in inter- 
 planetary space, which meeting with the earth in its 
 path are precipitated upon its surface. Since the his- 
 tory of the earth reveals the fact that it has been in 
 many conditions, and each condition has had its pecu- 
 liar forms of life organisms; and since every environ- 
 ment now has its own forms adapted thereto; and since, 
 as each environment becomes modified or changed, 
 the organic forms are also changed to harmonize there- 
 with; we see it to be the declaration of law that almost 
 every condition of the earth has had its peculiar forms 
 of organic matter. Therefore in looking back to any 
 condition of terrestrial elements, save perhaps that of
 
 236 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 plutonian activity, we must predicate some forms of 
 life. Is it more probable that the omniscient Dispen- 
 ser and Planner would place life-germs, or living forms, 
 in an ocean of water on the earth than that He would 
 plant them in potential attitudes in those oceans before 
 they reached the earth's surface ? Take into our minds, 
 for instance, the last or outmost vapors that fell at the 
 time of Noah. Having remained for unknown mil- 
 lions of years on high, receiving constant addition of 
 meteoric and cosmic dust from without, and having 
 originally received material distillations as vapors aris- 
 ing from the primitive earth, can we upon mature re- 
 flection conclude philosophically that that revolving 
 fund of matter was not filled with organisms as surely 
 as the gaseous envelope that forms our atmosphere con- 
 tains them now ? I, for one, cannot conceive of matter 
 in a nebulous condition, which is not yet pregnant 
 with life; since life is the original and primal force- 
 element that developed into all we now behold. Can 
 any philosophic mind, familiar with the grand history 
 of this planet's evolution and development of its life- 
 forms, under the intelligent direction of a God of law, 
 look back upon the earth's annular system then, and not 
 conclude that it was a region of microscopic life and in- 
 fusorial forms ? Can we look out upon the annular sys- 
 tem of Saturn with a Designer its eternal Pilot, and 
 disconnect it with primordial life ? Can Jupiter's belts, 
 necessarily composed of the elements common in the 
 frame-work of worlds, illuminated and warmed by the 
 electrifying and vitalizing power of the solar beam, 
 heaven's material vicegerent in the development and 
 maintenance of physical life, roll through space for 
 millions of years, lifeless and spiritless ?
 
 Evidence Advanced. 237 
 
 Now if Jupiter's belted system of mineral, metallic 
 and aqueous matter should have long ago descended 
 upon the planet's surface, and we could see his conti- 
 nents and oceans, as we now can see those of the planet 
 Mars, we would conclude that animals trod its conti- 
 nents, swam in its oceans and flew in its air, in a world 
 of completeness, a congeries of completed life-forms. 
 Then we are only following a line of philosophic reason- 
 ing to conclude that a world of incompleteness must 
 contain incomplete or primordial life-forms forms 
 that must in time develop according to the design of an 
 Omnipotent Planner in the beginning. We see, then, 
 in the organic yellow snow-cliffs of Bathurst and Green- 
 land, in the dust-showers and " blood-rains " that reach 
 the earth, evidence that finally leads us to the conclu- 
 sion that organic forms are the natural accompaniments 
 of the nebulous and elementary forms of matter. As 
 we move along in this discussion we will see how true 
 this must be. If such were not the case, then the 
 eozob'n canadense and its related forms were made as 
 an immediate and separate creation after the archsean 
 ocean fell to the earth, and following this the silurian 
 forms in all their variety formed an individual and 
 separate creation after the silurian annular matter fell. 
 If these life-germs were planted in the earth alone, af- 
 ter the oceans declined to its surface, then they were 
 planted there in all their potentiality at that time ; and 
 the whole scene of organic evolution would be one un- 
 interrupted transition, without a " break," without a 
 " gap." The rocks would contain all the transitional 
 forms, or so-called " connecting links." But how very 
 different from this are the facts scientists are well 
 aware. The "breaks" are there; the "gaps" are
 
 238 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 there, and the geologist cannot fill them. The " links " 
 are not there, and he can never supply them. Here 
 now we have room and material for a volume on organic 
 evolution placed upon the only philosophic foundation 
 that was ever laid for it an evolution from mona to 
 man under the guide of law that began in the earth's 
 annular system and terminated in its fall. As I cannot 
 follow these ideas very far without swelling this volume 
 beyond proper limits, I must refer the reader to Vol- 
 ume II of this series. 
 
 Some of my readers have doubtless heard of the " at- 
 mospheric spider." These little insects have legs, and 
 apparently all the organs that the common spider has, 
 but its home is in the air. It has the power of throw- 
 ing an exceedingly subtle spider line with an actual 
 float on the end of it that rises like a balloon in the air, 
 and the little animal clings to its web or line, and floats 
 off in the atmosphere. I was once authentically in- 
 formed by an eye-witness of the fact that during a cer- 
 tain condition of the atmosphere countless thousands 
 of these spiders descended to the earth, like a real 
 shower of cosmic dust, and that for several hours they 
 existed in immense numbers on the earth. However, 
 toward the evening of the day, these all had disap- 
 peared, and they were noticed to spin lines which 
 floated on the air as above, and then clinging to them 
 took their flight into the air. I have at different times 
 beheld real gossamer showers; countless millions of 
 lines descending from the heights of the air, so thick in 
 the atmosphere as to counterfeit the glare of the sun. 
 
 My readers will likely remember reading in White's 
 " History of Selborne " his account of gossamer show- 
 ers which he had seen. One in particular which con-
 
 Evidence Advanced. 239 
 
 tinued to settle for nearly a whole day on the earth, all 
 coming down from unknown heights. 
 
 Darwin saw a spider shower in 1832 off the coast of 
 South America, 60 miles from land. He also spoke of 
 their spinning a floating line or lines, which, balloon- 
 like, bore the little aeronauts aloft. A writer in Cham- 
 bers' Journal says : " These gossamer showers are 
 great mysteries, the air on these occasions becomes lit- 
 erally crowded with tiny parachutes composed of a few 
 threads of almost invisible gossamer, each of the para- 
 chutes being occupied by a Lilliputian aeronaut in the 
 shape of a very small but active spider." This same 
 writer speaks of having seen one spider shower in 1875 
 and another in 1880. He says : " Fixing my eyes upon 
 one of the spiders, I observed that as it left the gossa- 
 mer pathway it selected a clean spot on the iron railing 
 and gathering its limbs closely together, it projected 
 from its spinnerets several threads which expanded 
 outwards and stretched upwards from nine to twelve 
 inches. Then this parachute seemed to show a buoy- 
 ant tendency, and suddenly the tiny creature left hold 
 of the iron rail, or was lifted off it, and quickly ' van- 
 ished into thin air.' ' 
 
 Dr. Martin Lister, on one occasion, in York City, 
 went to the top of the Minster, and from that lofty 
 height still saw spiders there descending from heights 
 unknown.* Here is evidence sufficient to prove that 
 in the heights of the atmosphere beyond the points per- 
 haps yet reached by man lives a race of spiders which 
 are as much at home in thin air as man is on earth. 
 There they live and propagate; there exists their food. 
 Thin air is their peculiar habitat, as water is the home 
 
 ' " Friend," Vol. LVI, pages 172 and 173.
 
 240 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 of fishes. Now if in such a location can live little ani- 
 mals in countless numbers with legs and perhaps all 
 the organisms peculiar to spiders, we may reasonably 
 conclude that a cloud of vapor and cosmic dust floating 
 in interplanetary space is also the abode of some form 
 of life. If a spider can live in thin air, and also de- 
 scend and live a while on the earth's surface, it could 
 live in a nebular or a planetary belt. If a toad can 
 live for unknown ages immured in solid rock, where 
 neither air nor food can reach it, it could live, I pre- 
 sume, in a revolving belt of aqueous and mineral mat- 
 ter. 
 
 Now I am not going to advance the claim that batra- 
 chians or spiders lived in the earth's annular system. 
 But I must claim, however, that the manner in which 
 specific living organisms have succeeded each other on 
 the earth as revealed by the geologic record demands 
 that that system was the cradle of infant life, the pro- 
 pagating beds in which the life-germs were placed by 
 the great Gardener of nature. Men may laugh at this, 
 but it is not half as ridiculous as to claim that all life 
 came from monera or the rizopods in the primeval ocean 
 on the earth. It is just as reasonable to suppose that 
 germs took form in the waters, under the Creative 
 Hand, before they fell to the earth, as afterwards, and 
 when we see that each and every downfall brought in 
 new life-forms which exhibit no specific relation to 
 previous forms, we are forced to admit that either the 
 seed-beds of the annular system provided the undevel- 
 oped organisms or there was a special creation at each 
 period. We are, I say, obliged to admit this, or con- 
 cede the hiatus separating age from age, and form from 
 form. We are obliged to admit this, or forever con-
 
 Fig. 9. URANUS. ( RINGS FORMING.) 
 
 Uranus to-day seems to possess an uncompleted annular sys- 
 tem. As the centuries roll by the astronomer may see the two 
 dark bands near that planet's equator joined into one, and lifted 
 into the Uranian skies, an actual ring-appendage, approximating 
 at least the completed grandeur of the planet Saturn.
 
 Evidence Advanced. 241 
 
 cede the " missing link." The germs that came in with 
 the first ocean were adapted to the peculiar waters that 
 fell at that time, and the germs that came in with the 
 second downfall were adapted to the waters containing 
 them, and the two kinds of germs were necessarily dif- 
 ferent, and hence the different forms afterwards devel- 
 oped from each. Hence the hiatus, hence the specific 
 difference in forms with no " connecting link." 
 
 The geologist of the future in examining the in- 
 fusorial beds of the earth, as well as the compound na- 
 ture of some of the earth's giant prodigies, will, I am. 
 sure, welcome the annular theory to his aid. It seems 
 to me that if all the upper vapors and their accompany- 
 ing matter had descended to the earth in primitive 
 times the constitution of the aqueous crust would re- 
 veal the fact by a very different structure. The reader 
 can now see that the ring system, before it had taken 
 the annular form consequent upon the cooling and con- 
 densation of the mass, must have contained some of the 
 vapors of all the vaporized minerals and metals of the 
 seething globe. That as the vapors cooled and con- 
 tracted on the outer boundary of the mass first, but a 
 small part of the heavy metals would be contained in 
 the outermost ring and the greatest part would be con- 
 tained in the innermost one. And that when the inner- 
 most ring fell to the earth a vast amount of the heavy 
 mineral and metallic matter introduced into the vapors 
 when in a heated or even superheated condition could 
 not be held in solution when cold, as it could be when 
 heated, and must therefore have been thrown down 
 from the archsean waters as precipitates. The next 
 ring would contain minerals and metals, but to a small 
 extent, and the prevailing minerals and metals of the
 
 24:2 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 outer rings would be of a lighter character or in a 
 lighter condition. Doubtless there would be traces of 
 all minerals and all metals in all the rings even to the 
 very outermost. So that every time an ocean of mat- 
 ter descended to the earth there would be some prevail- 
 ing element in that downfall, and consequently one pre- 
 vailing series of organisms. Any one can see that this 
 would be the arrangement according to law. Now 
 geologists must know that in each grand age this was 
 the case; that in the earliest period of aqueous deposi- 
 tion the metals by all odds prevailed. In the silurian 
 heavy calcareous matter prevailed. In the devonian 
 the silicious and silicio-calcareous matter prevailed. In 
 the carboniferous age carbonaceous matter was the 
 characteristic element, and each ocean had its charac- 
 teristic life-forms. Now suppose that all the oceans 
 had reached the earth's surface in pre-laurentian times 
 with all these elements held in solution and suspension. 
 In this case it is plain that all these mineral and metallic 
 substances would have been precipitated or deposited in 
 and from the primeval ocean, and all subsequent forma- 
 tions would have to be derived from these early formed 
 beds, or from cosmic space, and life would have been 
 one continued evolution without a break. But how can 
 we imagine that after 40,000 feet of the first formed 
 beds had been laid down, and the oceans expurgated, we 
 may say, the terrestrial waters the world round took 
 up another vast fund of matter, first in the shape of 
 the carbonate of lime (which it could not have obtained 
 in such vast quantities from the laurentian beds), which 
 being also deposited, the same waters after covering up 
 a great part of the earth with a massive bed of lime, in- 
 stead of re-charging themselves from this lime bed, re-
 
 Evidence Advanced. 343 
 
 fused the opportunity, and went thousands of feet be- 
 low it, and took up an enormous load of magnesian limei 
 and deposited it upon the carbonate (having called in 
 the creative fiat to fill the ocean with new organisms). 
 A well-known geologist, after having been staggered 
 by these inconsistencies, concludes that " We seem 
 compelled to ascribe the difference in the composition 
 of the limestones to a vital rather than to a chemical 
 or physical cause." With all due deference to high 
 authority, I must ask, Is this question settled ? Are we 
 to expect men to make brick without dirt, or mortar 
 without mud? By what imaginary process are the 
 marine organisms, such as the millepores and other in- 
 vertebrates, to build thousands of feet of magnesian 
 lime rock, extending over millions of square miles, un- 
 less they are supplied with building materials ? Whence 1 
 did these lithophites get the magnesian lime with which, 
 they built this mighty casement of rock? This same 
 authority says : " A preponderance of these or similar 1 
 organisms might produce a magnesian limestone." 
 (Italics mine.) This question is not settled here. 
 Neither a millepore, nor any number of them, nor any 
 " organisms," " similar " or dissimilar, can make a lime 
 rock of any kind unless that kind of material was at 
 hand as a magazine of supply. Again the same geolo- 
 gist says, as if to share the responsibility with another : 
 " Prof. J. D. Dana has shown that the millepore con- 
 tains magnesia," etc. 
 
 Now I presume we all understand that these animals 
 built the dolomites of the silurian out of the materials 
 within their bodies! This, the vital process that built 
 the magnesian lime beds? Thousands of feet of lime 
 rock of continental extent, built by marine organisms
 
 244 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 out of their own bodies ! But where did these animals 
 get the magnesia that formed a " large percentage " 
 of their bodies? Answer: From the ocean in which 
 they lived ! Here, then, we are forced back to our very 
 starting point. We have an ocean strongly impreg- 
 nated with magnesian lime, and yet no adequate source 
 beneath the annular system. What would my readers 
 think of my logic if I should attempt to show the source 
 of this magnesia in the Silurian ocean by putting count- 
 less millions of organisms in it? We do not want to 
 know how the millepore secreted the lime rock, nor 
 how he got his magnesia. We want to know how the 
 ocean got it! Now we know very well that if this 
 silurian ocean did not contain magnesian lime in solu- 
 tion the millepore would not have been there. If the 
 waters of the ocean did not contain oxygen, where 
 would we find the whale? Here is the logic of this 
 question: My poultry-house contains a chicken-thief 
 with a " large percentage " of fowls in his possession; 
 this explains how my chickens got into the house? 
 Moreover, if a " large per cent." of feathers should be 
 precipitated on the floor we must conclude that the 
 thief made them. 
 
 But leaving all humor for the pure administration of 
 law we find a great downfall of annular waters with 
 their accompanyiny life-germs, a body of waters 
 strongly impregnated with magnesian lime, and as a 
 pure result the millepore and such other organisms as 
 found here a natural habitat, came into being therein, 
 and contained a " large percentage of magnesia " in 
 their bodies because it was their home ! The formation 
 of the magnesian limestones came as a legitimate con- 
 sequence of its presence in the water, so also came the
 
 Evidence Advanced. 245 
 
 organisms according to the demands of law. Such 
 limestones as were not precipitated from actual solu- 
 tion, of course were formed by vital processes. No one 
 will hesitate to admit that such a process will build a 
 lime stratum. But unless lime is contained in the 
 ocean as a solution the stratum cannot be formed; 
 neither can the builder be there. Then since we are 
 obliged to find a source competent to supply this meas- 
 ureless fund of lime, independently of the millepore, 
 both carbonate and magnesian, we are compelled to 
 bring in the aid of the annular system. Here the diffi- 
 culty vanishes. For, as before shown, there was a 
 down-rush of snows, a glacial period, an extermination 
 of species, and a great uplift of strata just previous to 
 the formation of this precipitated bed, which now comes 
 in as a master-link of evidence, and which shows that 
 there had been an addition to the ocean's volume at this 
 very time, and which must have come from the annular 
 system. 
 
 I presume, then, that this question is a legitimate one : 
 Why was there a silurian age when the oceanic waters 
 of the entire world were changed, as shown both by 
 their fossils and the character of strata ? All geologists 
 know that the change from the eozoic to the silurian 
 waters was a world-wide one, and how could it be possi- 
 ble for the same waters that gave origin to the Potsdam 
 sandstone at the base of the silurian system, in Amer- 
 ica, and the kindred lingula flags of Europe, supply the 
 stupendous world casement of lime unless there had 
 been a vast augmentation of lime-waters? These lime 
 beds are too vast and measureless to be made by the 
 same process that obtains to-day. Now the ocean must 
 have obtained its lime and its organisms together. It
 
 246 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 is extremely doubtful whether there were river systems 
 in that early period, and consequently river erosion was 
 a very small and unimportant and uncertain factor; and 
 the evidence is daily accumulating that rains and foun- 
 tains and streams were reduced to a minimum. It was 
 not until the continents had been worn into corruga- 
 tions (hills and valleys) that fountains could burst from 
 the hillsides, and not until living fountains existed could 
 there be perennial streams. How, then, did the infant 
 continents supply detritus? By running streams? 
 Surely not, unless these were fed by constant and ex- 
 cessive rains. But almost every evidence of the record 
 points to the fact that the pre-existing continent whence 
 it is claimed that the silurian seas obtained their lime 
 was a very small affair. Thus it makes no difference 
 how the geologist supports his claim that the lime beds 
 of the silurian were derived from older continents, he 
 is continually arrested by the demands of law. I pre- 
 sume the lime beds deposited in the silurian waters are 
 vastly greater in volume than all the lime that has been 
 carried from the existing continents. 
 
 But the difficulty does not stop here. The silurian 
 lime was laid down. The stupendous piles of devonian 
 rock were placed upon them. The carboniferous came 
 and placed a heavy mass of rock of all kinds upon the 
 devonian. The permian ocean rolled its waves over 
 these, and left its load. Thus, for countless ages, the 
 continents were worn away. Then the triassic flood de- 
 posited its load. Then the Jurassic. The most of 
 these were oceans peculiar and characteristic of their 
 times. All had their peculiar organisms. As before 
 shown they began their career in the midst of violence 
 and change. Immediately after the Jurassic period
 
 Evidence Advanced. 247 
 
 came the cretaceous, an ocean that washed the shores 
 of the whole known world. Now geologists are well 
 aware that the waters of the cretaceous period were 
 radically different from those that preceded it. In 
 many parts of the world cretaceous or chalk beds were 
 deposited calcareous beds radically different from any 
 other lime-formation. From what continents did this 
 ocean get its lime that it should be so different from 
 every other lime-rock of the earth? As we have in 
 this case, as in all others, the glacier and flood, crump- 
 ling and death, it is indeed fitting that a new deposit 
 at the same time should predicate a new ocean. But a 
 new ocean points to the waters on high ; so does the gla- 
 cier, so does the flood, the crumpling of crust, and the 
 death of races. If the cretaceous deposits were only 
 local we might attribute the change to local causes. 
 But it was a change that left its way-marks around the 
 circuit of the earth. It is these far-reaching and some- 
 times universal changes that direct us unerringly to the 
 tellurio-cosmic matter of primitive times.* Before we 
 close this chapter let us examine one more feature. 
 
 At the base of the silurian is a well-known forma- 
 tion in America known as the Potsdam sandstone, and 
 in Europe as the lingula flag. This is claimed to be 
 the product of the retiring waves after the archaean 
 upheaval; or the advancing waves of an encroaching 
 ocean. Were I to advance the claim that this entire 
 
 * The cretacious beds of chalk are made up of microscopic 
 organisms, strikingly similar to those found in dust showers and 
 colored snows, and could not have been derived from terrestrial 
 beds. Hence, I see no escape from the conclusion that the chalk 
 beds and their organisms were derived from the annular system. 
 It would also seem that the flint and other concretionary forms 
 therein had the same origin, and the claim that that system waa 
 the seed-bed of organism becomes well-grounded.
 
 248 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 deposit was rather the wreck of rings than the wreck 
 of continents, my readers might think it was rather 
 the wreck or spoils of intellect. But look at the vast- 
 ness of this formation. It underlies the silurian of the 
 world. It spreads from Canada to Texas, and from the 
 Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and for all we 
 know it is a casement surrounding the world. Waves 
 must have had this stupendous wreck to work upon, 
 or they could never, so I think, have laid such a general 
 bed over the continents. The whole mass shows pre- 
 eminently a mechanical and rapid accumulation. All 
 that is required for this wonderful outspread of silicious 
 beds over the continents is a telluric ring of silicious 
 matter, in which was an opportunity, nowhere else 
 afforded, for granulation and the growth of concretion- 
 ary structures and infusorial germs. Indeed, if tne 
 countless millions of aerolites that reach the earth's sur- 
 face can form in interplanetary and interstellar space 
 into solid stones and pebble-like forms, what reason can 
 be shown that a ring of vapors surrounding a world 
 once melted and glowing, a world in whose inveterate 
 fires silicious matter was vaporized and made to com- 
 mingle with the vapors of the ring system, I say what 
 reason can oppose the idea that these silicious vapors 
 did not strongly impregnate the aqueous vapors and 
 call in its life-germs at that time since they were both 
 in the system together ? But if in the system together 
 they must have separated and segregated as the system 
 condensed into granular, crystalline and concretionary 
 forms, the very materials in the stupendous outspread 
 at the base of the silurian system. 
 
 Let it be distinctly understood that the annular 
 theory admits the universal eroding powers of rivers and
 
 Evidence Advanced. 249 
 
 waves; the transportation power of currents and the 
 continental process of strata-building from detrital mat- 
 ter. But with all this admitted, the wave of ocean can 
 do nothing in this line of work unless it is supplied with 
 matter with which to work, and the simple question is, 
 Where did the wave get this crystalline and granulated 
 and infusorial matter to spread over the floor of the 
 Silurian ocean ? An ocean so far as the accompanying 
 strata show was spread over the American continent at 
 the time of its deposition. It underlies, so far as our 
 information shows, the whole continent of North Amer- 
 ica. ISTow it is altogether out of reason to suppose that 
 this wonderful mass is a detrital formation worn from 
 surrounding continents unless we admit that every foot 
 of it was a playground of shore waves, either advanc- 
 ing or receding. But we cannot find that there was, 
 either before or after, a continent here surrounded by 
 such an ocean. We can, however, find a fund of silicious 
 matter all adequate and necessary in world-making, 
 a fund that existed before a wave ever washed the 
 earth, and which must be found in the earth's crust. 
 When it fell with the descending waters we can con- 
 ceive how naturally it would form a world-wide bed of 
 matter. I presume no man who is led to admit the 
 former existence of a great primitive aqueous envelope 
 surrounding the earth will for a moment hesitate to 
 admit that those primitive vapors did contain calcar- 
 eous, silicious, carbonaceous and metalliferous regions 
 consistent and favorable to some forms of life-germs, 
 and that when the ring segments fell to the earth these 
 very substances spread over the ocean's floor as indi- 
 vidual beds. We have seen the great metallic beds in 
 the foundation rocks of the continents just where we
 
 250 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 would expect to find them according to annular ar- 
 rangement with primordial forms. We have found 
 great primitive calcareous beds in harmony with this 
 order; and when we take a comprehensive glance at the 
 Potsdam beds and their kindred and co-temporaneous 
 beds under other names, spreading as a coarse mechani- 
 cal deposit over so much of the known world, what 
 philosophy can be urged in support of the claim that all 
 parts of this wide expanse have successively been the 
 ocean's playground of shore-waves ? Thus we find that 
 our theory leads to astounding conclusions. The 
 ocean's waters have built numberless beds of limestone 
 through the instrumentality of marine organisms, but 
 the annular waters supplied the builders with materials 
 and set them to work. Vast beds of metals kave been 
 laid down from the ocean's waters as regular stratified 
 deposits, which could never have been borne from arch- 
 aean terranes, and must therefore have been supplied 
 from the only other source, the primitive vapors that 
 we know contained them. All over the world, in all 
 times subsequent to the archsean, great sand beds have 
 been formed, and these originally came from the annu- 
 lar fund. But let it be remembered that while this 
 must have been the original source of these materials, 
 the ocean's waves have never ceased to work upon the 
 wreck of rings, devouring the original beds and trans- 
 ferring them to other lands. Rivers wherever they 
 ran have eroded with resistless appetite, and fed the 
 ocean with its own beds formed again and again. I 
 freely admit that this work has progressed from that 
 early day when the first ocean baptized the infant earth ; 
 but in addition to all this great labor of tearing down 
 and rebuilding, a hundred times or more the annular
 
 Evidence Advanced. 251 
 
 waters have descended, and in their rush to the seas 
 have laid mechanical beds of materials torn from mil- 
 lions of valleys, which could never have been otherwise 
 formed, and at the same time added their own fund of 
 exotic matter to these beds. Exotic matter of all 
 kinds lime, iron, sulphur, salt, etc., etc. have hereby 
 entered into the various formations of the later ages. 
 We have seen in almost all lands great beds of iron 
 in the mechanical deposits of later ages. In the hills 
 of my own State and country are stupendous masses of 
 iron ore true sedimentary formations, more than 400 
 miles distant from any primitive metallic beds. Tell 
 me, how was this metallic matter carried from older 
 beds and deposited here ? If I am told that it was the 
 product of organic distillation I must demur, and the 
 rocks themselves are my witnesses. If told that the 
 annular system was permeated by metallic dust, and 
 that as it reached the earth in almost all lands beyond 
 the tropics, we can readily understand why there is so 
 much metallic ore of lighter specific gravity in the 
 more recent geologic strata; and when I turn and see 
 these beds more abundant in regions outside of the 
 tropics, where upper matter must have fallen, if it ever 
 fell, and when I reflect that if these ores had been a veg- 
 etable product they ought to be more abundant within 
 the tropics where vegetation is most abundant, I am 
 led to conclude that much of the iron ores of the car- 
 boniferous beds had an annular origin. 
 
 Suppose a grand decline of annular matter from near 
 the middle of the system should occur. Where would 
 we expect to see its effects? If they were, registered 
 in the rocky volume, would we not expect to find them 
 in that geological horizon embracing the later devon-
 
 252 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ian, the carboniferous, etc., perhaps extending into the 
 cretaceous? Since then we would expect to find the 
 very heaviest matter in the innermost rings, and the 
 very lightest in the outermost, and having found this 
 heavy matter in the first formed beds, and the lightest 
 prevailing in the latest, we must expect to find this mid- 
 horizon characterized by a more abundant supply of 
 matter of medium specific gravity from the middle of 
 the annular system. We certainly would not expect 
 to find the salts of soda and lime largely developed in 
 the same annular region with iron, lead, silver, copper, 
 etc., nor on the other hand would we expect to find 
 these salts to much extent developed in the latest 
 formed beds. The last descending vapors must have 
 been nearly free from these. But where in the geo- 
 logic column do we find such substances more largely 
 deposited? In this mid-empire of the ages! Where 
 are the salt and gypsum formations of the world ? Even 
 those on the very surface of the earth, as in the Rocky 
 Mountain region, have been derived from beds of these 
 middle ages. I am sure a full history of these medial 
 formations, when written, will present this philosophic 
 order of original deposition, and that all more recent 
 beds may be traced to these first deposits. Enough is 
 already known to show this order; this intelligent plan 
 laid in the earth's primitive envelope. Can we at most 
 show any reasonable method by which the oceans of 
 medial ages obtained these salts from the primitive 
 beds, even if they were known to contain them ? 
 
 And now when we take into consideration the reliable 
 statements of Arctic explorers of the existence of salt 
 beds, salt marshes, etc., in polar lands, where, above all, 
 we would expect to find the least, according to the old
 
 Evidence Advanced. 253 
 
 theory, and the greatest quantities, according to the 
 new, what can be urged against the claims here set 
 forth? These are the considerations that will bring 
 the annular theory to the test. To these I freely sub- 
 mit it. 
 
 Thus the annular system, the great seed-bed of organ- 
 isms, in its final wreck and new arrangement in the 
 super-crust, not only becomes a self-supporting argu- 
 ment of an intelligent plan in strata-building, but it 
 affords the key that unlocks the deepest mysteries of 
 organic evolution in the measureless ages of the past. 
 If men of this age refuse to use this key, other men will 
 gladly embrace the opportunity when we are in our 
 graves. My chief desire is that some persons more 
 competent than I am may take these things here pre- 
 sented in their rude state, and prepare them for the 
 majestic building which the faultless Architect has 
 planned, and who is calling for builders. 
 
 Can these be overdrawn conclusions ? What do the 
 great " gaps " and " missing links " in the record mean 
 these evolutions of life-forms brought up to a certain 
 limit, then a cessation, then a leap forward on the plane 
 of progress ? If we admit that each ring-section neces- 
 sarily held its own peculiar life-germs, and each suc- 
 ceeding one germs one step nearer perfection in the 
 goal of life, as demanded by their position in the sys- 
 tem, how the confusion vanishes ! How harmonious 
 the gradation, from the moneron of the first or primi- 
 tive life element in the dark deep of chaos, to the 
 grand platform of physical light and life ! If we spurn 
 these conclusions, where do we stand? Spurn them, 
 and we are compelled to admit either numberless 
 specific and especial creations, or a most unreasonable
 
 254 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 and unphilosophic evolution of one species from an- 
 other. Reject these conclusions, and we will then be 
 forced to admit that all the multifarious forms of life 
 now on the earth, including man, were planted poten- 
 tially in organisms of the archaBan waters; and further, 
 that this plan of evolution was so directed by the Crea- 
 tive Hand that it stopped short again and again, and 
 started again upon a loftier platform of life i.e., with 
 new forms, only to stop and leap again. Which line of 
 evolution will the reader choose: That which carries 
 the whale from the rhizopod of the primitive seas over 
 numerous breaks in the line, or that which leads it to 
 perfection from its own original life-germ planted in its 
 own soil ? Is it not more reasonable, and in the line of 
 law, that man should arise from his own especial or- 
 ganisms in his own environment, a germ of God's right- 
 hand planting, than that he should descend from the 
 little moneron of the eozoic seas by innumerable sud- 
 den starts through countless millions of years in the 
 specific organisms of a thousand environments, as the 
 oyster, the ammonite, the fish, the bird, the ape, etc., 
 etc., to the illustrious Darwin ? I am not willing to ad- 
 mit that that great man, to whose memory the world 
 owes a debt it cannot pay, came through such a line of 
 descent when a more philosophic and intelligent one is 
 open to my view.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A CONSIDERATION OF THE EVIDENCE THAT INEVITABLY 
 LEADS TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE CARBON STRATA 
 OF THE WORLD WERE DEPOSITED AS AN AQUEOUS 
 SEDIMENT FROM THE EARTH'S ANNULAR SYSTEM 
 WHERE IT HAD REMAINED FOR COUNTLESS 
 AGES AS A PRIMITIVE DISTILLATION, 
 EXPELLED FROM THE INCANDES- 
 CENT OR BURNING EARTH. 
 
 In millions of bogs and swamp marshes in the north- 
 ern part of the Northern Hemisphere the decay of a 
 characteristic vegetation gives rise to carbonaceous beds 
 of matter called peat. This peat when placed in the 
 retort of the gas furnace, and subjected to heat, as in 
 the manufacture of burning gas, may be made to give 
 rise to various products or distillations, from the heavy 
 form of graphite and asphaltum to the lighter forms of 
 oily hydro-carbons, such as are found in the earth's 
 sedimentary crust, under various names, and chiefly as 
 stone coal, or simply coal. It was very natural for the 
 philosopher to conclude that the coal strata of the 
 earth were mineralized or metamorphosed vegetation, 
 since it was well-known that peat, subjected to the 
 proper treatment, might be made to yield these pro- 
 ducts. And as there is now no other terrestrial means 
 than rock pressure, and the native heat of the planet's 
 crust, adequate to produce these products, men were 
 honestly led to the conclusion, which now prevails, that 
 the coal beds of the world are of vegetable origin. It 
 will thus be seen that I admit that all men must ad-
 
 256 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 mit that vegetation, when the necessary conditions are 
 present, must become a mineralized carbon fuel. To 
 conclude otherwise would be a fraction of inexorable 
 law. Hence no future criticism upon the theory I shall 
 presently advance would be in order upon this branch 
 of the question, since I am forced to stand upon the 
 self -same foundation that all scientists must stand upon. 
 
 But standing upon this foundation we must erect an 
 edifice in harmony therewith. We must not allow a 
 stone to enter the structure that has not been squared 
 and dressed by the Master Hand of Law. Stones, lying 
 ready prepared in the vast quarry of nature, must be 
 our building material. 
 
 Then with the full understanding that the slow com- 
 bustion in a swamp marsh or peat bog under favorable 
 conditions gives rise to fuel carbon of various degrees 
 of mineralization, we will begin our examination of this 
 momentous problem. 
 
 First: It will be fully conceded by every scientific 
 and philosophic mind that the natural change of vege- 
 table organisms to the form of elementary products in 
 peat formation is a combustion, or slow distillation, by 
 which the elements of the compounds forming the body 
 of the plant are dissociated and made to pass into other 
 forms. And in which combustion carbon particles re- 
 leased from their associations remain in an unburnt con- 
 dition. In other words, the carbon comprising the peat 
 bed is simply unconsumed carbon. 
 
 Second : This unconsumed carbon product of swamp 
 combustion is the same as the unconsumed carbon of 
 any other combustion or distillation in which the car- 
 bon element is involved, under whatever circumstances 
 said combustion takes place.
 
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 .C *" a; 
 
 a K = 
 
 - 
 
 *> '3 = 
 
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 gsl 
 
 I - * 
 
 .S 
 
 | I a 
 
 u : 
 
 H -s 
 
 e s 
 
 ^ 
 
 ca 
 
 2 -S r 
 
 = = f- 1 
 
 o| 
 
 > 3 
 t- cfi 
 
 5 B 
 
 ta^ 
 
 60 
 
 r S 
 
 rt 4J 
 
 5 II 
 
 v H 
 
 j= rt 
 
 = 
 
 S a
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 257 
 
 These are, as all can see, self-evident propositions 
 propositions to which we are all irretrievably commit- 
 ted, and I want the reader to see that we diverge not 
 from this in our line of argument. I ask my brother 
 geologists to give me their attention for one hour; and 
 I will give them in return for their kindness a theory 
 of coal formation planted upon this rock. A theory 
 that must be true from the very nature of the problem, 
 and which, if true, must explain every difficulty in- 
 volved therein. 
 
 From these considerations it is manifestly certain that 
 the combustion that takes place in a stove or fire-place 
 is precisely similar, except in intensity, to that which 
 evolves unconsumed carbon from swamp vegetation, 
 and that the unconsumed carbon that arises from our 
 chimneys and locomotives in the form of smoke is the 
 same carbon element which, resulting from the decay 
 of peat vegetation, sinks to the bottom of the marsh. 
 The processes are necessarily parallel, producing the 
 same elementary changes and the same products. 
 
 One process deposits its unburnt carbon in the bog. 
 where it is sealed away from that universal devourer, 
 oxygen, and where it remains a veritable fuel. The 
 other process sends its unburnt carbon into the air, 
 into an ocean of oxygen, a veritable fuel, which is im- 
 mediately re-burnt and converted into invisible carbonic 
 anhydride by its union with this free oxygen of the air. 
 If no oxygen were in the air ready to seize upon this 
 carbon fuel, the atmosphere would in a short time be- 
 come filled with it, and as it became saturated with the 
 moisture with which it comes in contact it would set- 
 tle upon the earth as carbon-dust a veritable fuel, the 
 very same in kind that is sealed in the peat bog. Some
 
 258 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 portion of the unburnt carbon which arises in our fire- 
 places does actually escape this devourer, and adheres 
 to the back wall, chimney or stove-pipe as an uncon- 
 sumed carbon product a veritable fuel, which takes 
 fire and burns as every one will admit. Who has not 
 seen the " chimney on fire ?" Who has not seen the 
 oily carbon on the back wall where wood or bituminous 
 coal is burnt take fire and burn thus proving to 
 every beholder the unavoidable conclusion that the car- 
 bon or smoke that arises from every chimney and fur- 
 nace of the earth when measurably shut up from imme- 
 diate union with oxygen remains an unburnt fuel, pre- 
 cisely the same in kind as the unburnt carbon fuel of 
 the peat bog? 
 
 If we were to collect the unburnt carbon from our 
 chimneys into piles, where moisture and air could have 
 free access, it would take fire spontaneously and burn; 
 as it is well known that many a disastrous fire has oc- 
 curred from this source alone ; just as peat dug from the 
 bog sometimes takes fire spontaneously. 
 
 Thus in every particular the smoke that arises from 
 every combustion in which carbon is an element is an 
 exact counterpart of the carbon arising from the decay 
 of swamp or peat vegetation, and hence we are com- 
 pelled to accept this conclusion: that the millions of 
 fires, foundries and volcanoes of the globe that pour im- 
 measurable volumes of unconsumed carbon into the at- 
 mosphere are forming fuel wherever soot is formed; 
 and that if it were not for the ever-active oxygen of 
 the air it would all descend upon the earth as a fuel, 
 and become incorporated in the forming sedimentary 
 beds of the earth as such, and under favorable circum- 
 stances it would be collected by water currents into
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 259 
 
 beds of fuel ! Here, then, just as we are entering the 
 threshold of the coal question, while starting commit- 
 ted to the fact of peat formation, we are driven by the 
 implacable demands of law to the conclusion that there 
 is another and a parallel process producing the very 
 same effects! How can we possibly avoid the conclu- 
 sion, then, that if a terrestrial fund of rising smoke 
 should be in sufficient quantities, and should arise, 
 amidst a fund of aqueous vapors beyond the reach of 
 the devourer oxygen, that all the coal beds of the earth 
 could have been formed by that returning fund ? There 
 is no avenue of escape from this conclusion ! 
 
 Our next duty, then, is apparent. If the coal beds of 
 the world were not formed by a process of vegetable 
 decay, they were, in whole or in part, formed by this 
 parallel process! And we must now proceed to show 
 that although a fuel carbon is necessarily formed when 
 vegetable decay is arrested in a swamp marsh, yet this 
 decay or combustion is so complete that the products 
 are utterly inadequate to form great continental coal 
 strata. When we shall have shown this we will pro- 
 ceed to show that an immeasurable fund of unconsumed 
 carbon, or simply smoke, went up from the igneous 
 earth for countless ages, pouring a vast fund of fuel 
 carbon into the primitive vapors that surrounded the 
 burning and incandescent sphere and which fell with 
 those vapors from our annular system, and floating 
 away into the ocean settled upon its floor, with the 
 vegetation involved. 
 
 Men to-day are in the habit of pointing to peat bog 
 distillation of carbon as the origin of coal in its earliest 
 formation. This is only one more illustration of the 
 universal disposition of the human mind to accept con-
 
 260 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 elusions drawn immediately from appearances only. 
 Such illusory evidence has more than once involved 
 some of the sublimest truths in the deepest clouds. 
 
 When the plant dies and begins to decay one of its 
 constituent elements, carbon, oxidizes in a process of 
 slow combustion, and returns to the air as an invisible 
 gas. Now it is only when as by accident a particle of 
 this carbon fails to become oxidized that it remains 
 as an unconsumed atom, and then by accident becomes 
 sealed away from oxygen, ever alert and active. It is 
 therefore an exceedingly small part of the world's vege- 
 tation that is left as unburnt fuel in peat bogs. Let 
 us not forget that this swamp combustion is precisely 
 that which takes place in every furnace and fire-place 
 on earth (time being left out of the account). Just as 
 a very small part of the smoke ascending from the 
 coke oven or volcano is left and formed into a fuel, and 
 fails to combine with the oxygen of the air, and con- 
 sequently adds but an infinitesimal amount to the un- 
 consumed carbon of the earth, so is it with vegetable 
 decay. Now we all will admit that all the carbon in 
 the earth's crust was derived in a primitive distillation 
 from the mineral world that originally contained it. 
 Were it not for this primitive process an atom of peat 
 carbon could never have been found; for the plant 
 could never have obtained it. The formation of peat 
 carbon, then, is at most a secondary process; and who 
 will fail to see that if through vegetation and peat alone 
 carbon or coal had its origin, then the primitive pro- 
 cess is entirely ignored? But every man of reason 
 must own that the very primitive process that gave car- 
 bon to the primitive atmosphere for the use of the plant 
 gave it forth in the same form that the plant itself does
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 261 
 
 as an unconsumed carbon fuel ! Why, then, should 
 the earth in after times institute a secondary process 
 to produce the fuel form of carbon it already had 
 formed by the primitive process? Then I repeat that 
 on the very threshold of the coal problem we find that 
 we are forced by unyielding law to admit that there 
 was a stupendous fund of fuel carbon produced by a 
 process parallel to peat distillation, but previous to it 
 in time. In short, there is no way of escaping the con- 
 clusion that every atom of carbon in the coal beds of 
 the earth, even if they were wholly a vegetable product, 
 was previously produced from the mineral earth by an 
 original process. Consequently the discussion of this 
 problem in the very beginning demands serious consid- 
 eration from men of thought. 
 
 It cannot but be then that a secondary and fortui- 
 tous process of fuel making must fall behind the 
 original one in importance. As in the great supply of 
 lime to the primitive ocean there was a call and de- 
 mand for organisms to use up the surplus of calcareous 
 matter in aqueous solution after the beds were precipi- 
 tated, so after the deposit of the fuel carbon was 
 there a demand from the earliest ages for vegetation to 
 use the surplus carbon in the atmosphere. But what 
 a puny process compared with that grand sublimation 
 and distillation in the igneous earth! 
 
 But let us admit that by some unseen and fortuitous 
 means the original carbon fuel was afterwards meta- 
 morphosed into plant food, and was eventually retrans- 
 f ormed into fuel. Let us admit this just to see how we 
 can come to the erudite conclusion that coal is a vege- 
 table product. On this supposition every atom of car- 
 bon in the carbon-beds of the world has existed in the
 
 262 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 air, or elsewhere, in union with oxygen as an invisible 
 gas (carbonic anhydride). For in this form alone 
 can it enter into the economy of the plant. But to in- 
 sure this production of plant food the carbon, as it is- 
 sued from the fires of the igneous earth, must have 
 been poured into an ocean of free oxygen. For if this 
 were not the case the carbon still remained an unburnt 
 fuel, which the plant could not use. Now while it is 
 very unphilosophic to suppose an ocean of free oxygen 
 attending an igneous or incandescent world, it is also 
 susceptible of the plainest proof that if all the oxygen 
 in the super-crust had been present in the primitive at- 
 mosphere it could not have saturated the carbon of the 
 coal measures. Then, again, if this remaining unburnt 
 carbon ever afterwards became plant food, in order to 
 produce coal, it did so through the process of spontan- 
 eous combustion, after it had been once formed in the 
 presence of oxygen and sealed away from its ravages. 
 But if this be true, how does it happen that the very 
 same unburnt carbon, in the form of peat, having the 
 same opportunity to spontaneously burn, does not also 
 undergo the same change ? The conclusion, then, is in- 
 evitable that unburnt carbon fuel of the igneous era 
 was stored away in the earth's crust. And if not still 
 there has suffered spontaneous combustion, and has 
 been again converted into fuel, which cannot spontan- 
 eously burn, which is simply preposterous and absurd. 
 The fact that the carbon in the peat beds of the earth 
 has not thus disappeared is substantial evidence that 
 the combustible unconsumed carbon of the igneous era 
 did not, since they were necessarily the same in kind. 
 Now where are we? The advocate of the vegetable 
 origin of coal is compelled to hang upon one horn of
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 263 
 
 this dilemma, or both, if he choose. If he advocate the 
 existence of a universal sea of free oxygen around the 
 igneous earth then he must admit that there were no 
 residual carbon products, and we will grant this con- 
 clusion, for argument's sake. 
 
 No residual carbon products mean no primitive car- 
 bon beds, and that all coal beds are mineralized vegeta- 
 tion. But these necessitate an ocean of oxygen. Let us 
 grant this. But this forces us to the conclusion that 
 immediately after the igneous era and during all the 
 ages from the archaean to the later tertiary there ex- 
 isted about the earth a universal sea of plant food (car- 
 bonic anhydride). Dana, seeing this inevitable con- 
 clusion, says : " The atmosphere now contains less car- 
 bonic acid than it did at the beginning of the carbon- 
 iferous period by the amount stored away in the coal 
 of the globe," and yet the same high authority says 
 " much more carbonic acid [than now exists in the air] 
 would be injurious to animal life." * 
 
 I must take a little time to examine this, remember- 
 ing that even during the carboniferous era, air breath- 
 ing and water breathing animals existed in abundance ;f 
 remembering that water is a great absorbent of carbonic 
 acid, and that " much more carbonic acid " than exists 
 now in the atmosphere would kill every mammal, fish, 
 bird or salamander on the earth. 
 
 Admitting that every foot of the earth's surface sup- 
 ports an amount of oxygen equal in weight to at least 
 420 pounds, as the best authorities teach, and allowing 
 a cubic foot of coal to weigh 70 pounds, considerably be- 
 low the average, and the average of charcoals as 10 
 
 * Read Dana's " Manual " from page 340 to 353. 
 t See Dawson's " Acadian Geol."
 
 264 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 pounds per cubic foot, and taking the conclusion of 
 chemists that a bushel of charcoal will yield 2,500 gal- 
 lons of carbonic acid, we find one cubic foot or ten 
 pounds of charcoal will yield a little more than 2,000 
 gallons. Novf a cubic foot of coal yields from 40 to 60 
 pounds of carbon; we will put the average at 50 pounds 
 of pure carbon. Then it is plain that if 10 pounds, or 
 one cubic foot of charcoal, or nearly pure carbon, will 
 yield 2,000 gallons of carbonic acid, that 50 pounds will 
 yield five times as much, or ten thousand gallons, and 
 a column ten feet high and one foot square will yield 
 ten times as much, or 100,000 gallons. Then calling 
 eight gallons equal to one cubic foot, it would make a 
 column of carbonic acid 12,500 feet high and one foot 
 square. Here, then, is revealed the astounding fact 
 that if all the coal of the earth (including the graphitic 
 coals of the archsean, etc. ) combined would make a bed 
 of pure carbon 10 feet thick around the earth, it actual- 
 ly drew from the atmosphere an ocean of carbonic acid 
 12,500 feet deep extending around the entire sphere. 
 Now if my hypothetic vein of 10 feet be not an exag- 
 geration, this is at least the amount of carbonic acid the 
 carboniferous atmosphere contained more than it now 
 'does. 
 
 According to Youman there is enough carbonic acid 
 in our atmosphere to make an ocean only 13 feet deep. 
 And eminent physiologists say that three or four per 
 cent, of the present atmosphere in the shape of carbonic 
 acid would be fatal to life. 
 
 But is my estimate of the hypothetic coal vein of 10 
 feet too high ? Is there enough carbon in the coal beds 
 to make a world stratum ten feet thick? Late discov- 
 eries of coal in almost all lands outside of the torrid
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 265 
 
 zone would induce me rather to increase than diminish 
 the estimate. Taking the vast coal fields of the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley, Texas, and the great region of the Cor- 
 dilleras, I presume one-fourth part of the United States 
 is underlain with coal veins varying from 1 foot to 25 
 feet. In Pennsylvania it will aggregate over 40 feet 
 in thickness. In Eastern Ohio it will reach almost the 
 same thickness. In Eastern Pennsylvania a single vein, 
 sometimes attains the thickness of 30 feet, with from 
 7 to 10 massive veins. In Nova Scotia there are more 
 than TO veins; one of these is 38 feet thick, another 15, 
 and another 12. In Great Britain there are at least 
 100 coal veins, amounting, it is said, to a thickness of 
 300 feet. In France are coal veins 100 and 120 feet 
 thick. When we turn to the vast coal fields of Asia 
 and Southern Africa, South America and Australia, 
 Alaska and Greenland, and then count in the calcula- 
 tion the vast beds of carboniferous shales and oil-bear- 
 ing strata of carboniferous limestone, and remember 
 that Dr. Dawson has said that there is likely as much 
 carbon in the archsean rocks as in any subsequent for- 
 mation, and that these beds are world-wide, I think we 
 need not diminish our 10 foot seam. 
 
 But lest the reader may think that I am claiming too 
 much I will diminish this stratum to five feet, and we 
 will yet have an ocean of carbonic anhydride more than 
 six thousand feet deep. Or if I am compelled to re- 
 duce it to one-half this much we will have more than 
 3,000 feet, or three times as much as Youman's four 
 per cent., or two hundred and forty times as much car- 
 bonic acid as now exists in the air. And yet Dana's 
 fishes and amphibians survived ! ! 
 
 No wonder that a modern chemist, investigating
 
 266 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 these measureless carbon beds, came to the conclusion 
 that there is not enough oxygen in the air and crust of 
 the earth combined to saturate the carbon of the coal 
 veins without the deoxidation of its salts and ores.* 
 
 Hence it is plain that there could not have been such 
 an ocean of plant food. The existence of breathing 
 animals in the very midst of the coal-forming period 
 forbids it: The simple fact that at the very time the 
 primitive carbon was being distilled in a burning world 
 the oxygen under chemical law had a choice in com- 
 bining with other elements present in the great alem- 
 bic, forbids it. We are, therefore, left without the 
 slightest chance to oppose the claim that the primitive 
 fires in the molten earth did produce measureless 
 quantities of fuel carbon, and which has always re- 
 mained such. Where is it? 
 
 Now as the formation of fuel in a swamp is the same 
 as that in every fire-place, foundry, furnace and solfa- 
 tara on earth, and both secondary processes producing 
 secondary products, and as the latter, as all must ad- 
 mit, is utterly powerless to add materially to the fuel 
 forms of the earth as coal, so must the former be power- 
 less to add greatly to coal formation. 
 
 If there be so much as one feature of the coal prob- 
 lem which the primitive carbon theory fails to explain 
 after a fair test, then it must be a failure. It is then 
 with the utmost confidence that I prepare it, knowing 
 that according to eternal law we shall find beds of 
 primitive fuel carbon in the earth. I will now in as 
 brief a manner as possible specify some conditions that 
 must prevail in the coal beds as decisive tests: 
 
 First: As the annular system was without doubt a 
 
 Phin's " Six Days of Creation," page 66.
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 267 
 
 region of microscopic life and infusorial forms, I pre- 
 sume a coal bed must be largely characterized through- 
 out its mass by the presence of microscopic organisms. 
 While at the same time, being a deposit from sea 
 waters, it must have carried down organic forms exist- 
 ing in those waters, and remaining for a while lying 
 upon the sea bottom before it became covered up by 
 other beds, it must have become as other oceanic ooze, 
 more characteristically marine upon its surface (in ma- 
 rine waters) than in other parts of its bed. 
 
 Second: These carbon sediments must have borne 
 down a vast amount of marine vegetation, and buried 
 it upon the sea bottom, and must also have accumu- 
 lated in beds on the land surface, but here only in the 
 lowest region i.e., in swamp marshes and here the 
 involved vegetation would be different, the marine 
 character being largely absent. 
 
 Third: Where a carbon-fall was borne to the seas, 
 that part of it which settled where limestone strata pre- 
 vail would indicate great distance from the shore, and 
 here the roof shales of the coal seams must be meas- 
 urably free from land fossils. While coal beds among 
 intercalated sand strata would indicate deposits nearer 
 shore, and here the roof-covering of the coal beds would 
 likely be more truly mechanical beds, or at least con- 
 tain land fossils to a more liberal extent. 
 
 Fourth: As all downfalls from the annular system 
 must take place more largely in regions distant from 
 the equator, the coal beds must be more heavily devel- 
 oped toward the polar regions than elsewhere. Those 
 located nearest the poles must be the nearest free from 
 terrestrial or marine impurities, and yet with such im- 
 purities eliminated must be specifically heavier; while
 
 268 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 those floating farthest from the region of downfall 
 toward the equator, or into bays and gulfs of the ocean, 
 would contain a greater amount of impurities or ash, 
 and with the ash eliminated would be specifically 
 lighter. 
 
 Fifth : All carbon downfalls must have been attended 
 by great cataclysms of snow or water, or both, and 
 more likely than otherwise the periods of coal accumu- 
 lations were those essentially indicative of violence, if 
 not of cold. 
 
 Sixth: While a bituminous coal vein deposited in 
 regions subject to volcanic strains and mechanical heat 
 arising therefrom, would necessarily be metamorphosed 
 into heavier and harder carbon forms, as into anthra- 
 cite, etc., yet as there must have been all the light and 
 heavy forms of carbon in the annular system, as primi- 
 tive distillates, it is certain that all these forms of car- 
 bon may be found in lands where no strata disturbance 
 has taken place. 
 
 Seventh : When a carbon-fall took place, and the car- 
 bon was borne to the deep seas, the heavy carbon such 
 as the anthracite and semi-bituminous particles would 
 settle in the deep ocean, while the lighter, not being 
 able to reach bottom, would float to shallower waters 
 and settle as lighter coals, and according to this view 
 a submarine valley might have a deposit of anthracite 
 carbon, while a neighboring bed on an elevation might 
 be a bituminous deposit. 
 
 Eighth: These facts must lead us to the inevitable 
 conclusion that in both the Northern and Southern 
 Hemispheres the coals must be more valuable as we 
 proceed from the equator and the least valuable coals 
 must, as a rule, be nearest the equator, and also in
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 269 
 
 smaller quantities. I will offer this as a decisive test, if 
 the reader choose. 
 
 Ninth : As there must have been carbon disseminated 
 throughout the annular system there must have been 
 carbon-falls in all ages! And the earliest falls neces- 
 sarily the heaviest and purest, and the last falls of car- 
 bon must have been the lightest and of the poorest 
 quality; and if any downfalls from the annular system 
 have occurred in recent times then this light carbon 
 must be found on the very surface of the earth, and im- 
 bedded in the snows that fell with them in the polar 
 regions, and must also form the foundation of recent 
 peat formations in cooler regions. 
 
 Now some of these points I have not had time or 
 opportunity to investigate fully. But I propose them 
 with the utmost confidence, for all must see that they 
 are legitimate conclusions, and men of science can by 
 these confirm the theory or hurl them with deadly effect 
 against it if they are not true. They are all important 
 and decisive tests. The ninth or last embraces a vol- 
 ume in itself, and I regret that I have so little space 
 in this to consider it. I have elsewhere referred to 
 the vast reaches of carbonite spread over so much of 
 the Northern Hemisphere, but it is important that the 
 peat bog question should be settled before we venture 
 far into the coal problem. We will attempt to settle 
 it now. 
 
 Why is this carbonite covering confined so exclu- 
 sively to regions glaciated and submerged during the 
 last reign of ice and flood ? To go back a little in or- 
 der of time, why are the terraces that were built up by 
 the flood-waters of the retiring glaciers in the ungla- 
 ciated valleys so frequently characterized by the pres-
 
 270 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ence of carbonite called " peat," " lignite/' etc. ? Is 
 it not a demonstrable fact, for instance, that the great 
 terrace beds of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers were 
 carried by floods from the glaciated regions of the Great 
 Central Basin? And are we not compelled to admit 
 that the so-called lignite seams or peat bands in those 
 terraces were also borne from the same basin ? Then 
 they must have come from the melting glaciers or fund 
 of snows! These carbonite streaks, plainly visible in 
 the Mississippi embankments from Vicksburg to the 
 mouth of the Ohio, and planted deeply beneath the 
 waters of the lower Mississippi at New Orleans, were 
 formed as the flood deposits were formed, and must 
 have been borne by the same waters that carried the 
 body of the terraces themselves. 
 
 I have shown how this vast spread of carbonite was 
 the result of the last great debacle of snow and floods. 
 It is evident that if this black carbonaceous deposit 
 were covered up, as the lignites and peat of the valleys 
 of Europe, Asia and America are, it would be called 
 lignite or peat, and no man would question the infer- 
 ence. But it does lie at the bottom of thousands of 
 lakes and ponds. It has been dredged from the waters 
 of the northern oceans, and the dredge will surely bring 
 it from the Great Lakes, from Hudson Bay, and from 
 the Arctic Ocean. 
 
 But in thousands, nay, millions of these ponds and 
 swamps grows a so-called peat vegetation. And this is 
 the question we must now endeavor to solve. Peat- 
 bog vegetation or moss, known by the generic name of 
 Sphagnum, is characteristic of the swamp, and grows 
 only where peat is forming a circumstance which 
 alone should teach us to look back bevond the era of
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 271 
 
 vegetation for its origin. It is plain that if no peat 
 (carbonite) had originally and previously been de- 
 posited where the plant now grows, it would never have 
 grown there. As the millepore and its kindred organ- 
 isms would never have lived and flourished in the seas 
 if lime had not previously existed there as the food, so 
 neither could any of the sphagnous mosses have planted 
 themselves over the medial and colder latitudes of the 
 earth, if the carbon beds necessary to sustain them had 
 not been previously planted there. As we are forced 
 to look beyond the era of oceanic organisms into the 
 annular system for a primitive supply of lime, so we 
 must also look beyond the plant through the igneous 
 and smoking world into the earth's primitive envelope 
 for the food that called the peat vegetation into exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Now as we simply know that unconsumed carbon did 
 exist in the annular system, and that its lightest forms 
 were the last to descend upon the earth, not in the equa- 
 torial regions, but nearer the polar world, and since we 
 find such an enormous outspread of such carbon not in 
 the tropics but in the colder regions, accompanied by 
 the plant demanded by its existence, how can we avoid 
 the philosophic conclusiou that if there had not been a 
 downfall of carbonite in the very last geological epoch, 
 the sphagnous vegetation would not now exist there? 
 
 As the marine organisms came into existence after 
 their food was supplied to the seas, and began their sub- 
 sequent work of rock making, and are thus employed 
 to-day, so the peat vegetation came and began its offices 
 of peat making after its food was supplied, and is thus 
 employed to-day. Then it must be apparent to every 
 man of reason that peat vegetation now forming a sec-
 
 272 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ondary product of carbon is our first and unimpeachable 
 witness of the primitive and annular origin of coal. 
 There is no reason why peat vegetation should not grow 
 more abundantly in the tropics than in colder regions, 
 if the carbonite or sphagnum food existed there. There 
 is every reason for believing that if coal is a vegetable 
 product it should more abundantly exist in the equa- 
 torial regions. Does not the vegetation theory demand 
 this? Why, then, are the great carbon formations 
 planted where the annular theory demands that they 
 should be found, and not where the vegetarian wants to 
 find them ? Is it not plain that if such beds of coal ex- 
 isted under the equator as are found in zones of eternal 
 ice, that our theory could not be supported thereby? 
 The presence of every coal bed in the polar world is 
 an eloquent testimony against the current theory. The 
 coal was planted where it affords the vegetarian no con- 
 eolation. But with what an air of triumph could he 
 point to it, if it were planted within the tropics, the 
 very home of vegetation ! 
 
 If we could by any means change the character of 
 the bed of peat, the vegetation would languish and die, 
 and another species of peat plant would succeed. This 
 is abundantly proven by the fact that where lime 
 waters or marine waters saturate the peat-bed, other 
 species of sphagnum flourish and form other kinds of 
 carbon. Thus we see that law leads us directly away 
 from the current theory. The law that guides the 
 acaleph of the sea guides the sphagnum of the bog. 
 Each had its food supplied before it flourished in its own 
 habitat. Each is to-day continuing the process of 
 strata-building. But we must call it a secondary and
 
 Fig. 11. JUPITER. (RINGS FALLEN.) 
 
 Jupiter, the King of Planets, is very likely an inhabited world. 
 But what must be the canopy forms that are to-day directing 
 thought and intellect on such a world? The face of Jupiter here 
 presented was seen several years ago, but here are some forms 
 that we cannot fail to recognize in the legendary annals of earth. 
 J can only allude to Leda and the egg, which, under the power of 
 Jove, the true sky, brought forth the "twins," day and night 
 (Castor and Pollux), a problem that Max Miiller well-nigh solved.
 
 Consideration of the Evidence. 273 
 
 puny work, indeed, compared with the original and 
 primitive one. 
 
 If a colony of ants build a mound a foot high, must 
 we conclude that Mont Blanc is an ant hill ? 
 
 If the hickory, the ash, the pine and the lycopod 
 must each have its peculiar foundation soil, previously 
 laid down, before it can take root and flourish, so must 
 the sphagnum and the hypnum of the marsh. The 
 pipsissiwa must have its shade ; the epiphegus must have 
 its beech tree, or it will not grow, and the bog moss 
 must have its carbon bed as surely as it must have its 
 air before it could begin its offices. And further, the 
 succession of species and tribes of plants in the geologic 
 ages as clearly demands a succession of downfalls of an- 
 nular matter as the other witness in the record. 
 
 Having then, as I think, planted the primitive car- 
 bon problem upon the rock of philosophic law, or rather 
 having found it planted thereon, we will next examine 
 the ipse dixit of the coal beds themselves, and note the 
 inevitable harmony.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IS COAL A VEGETABLE PRODUCT? 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF THE COAL BEDS UNDEB THE LIGHT 
 OF THE ANNULAR THEOEY. 
 
 The accepted theory of the origin and formation of 
 coal is simply this : It was formed of the remains of an 
 ancient vegetation that grew largely in peat and swamp 
 marshes. The adoption of this view has led to the 
 inevitable conclusion : 1st. That coal is vegetable car- 
 bon changed to a hydro-carbon, and subsequently par- 
 tially changed to an oxidized hydro-carbon. 2d. Each 
 coal seam, however vast and boundless its extent, was 
 universally submerged beneath the sea to receive its 
 superposed beds of sand, clay and lime, and afterwards 
 re-elevated essentially to the ocean's level to receive the 
 next coal seam placed above it. 
 
 These points so warmly maintained by the great fra- 
 ternity of geologists we will now examine by the pierc- 
 ing light of philosophy. 
 
 First let us remember that every atom of the great 
 mass of carbon now forming the coal deposits of the 
 world must have been a distilled product of a primi- 
 tive igneous process, even before the plant could pos- 
 sibly appropriate it; and that we are forced to admit 
 that this primitive and original process, which took 
 place long ages before a plant ever existed, must have 
 supplied the very same chemical products now found in 
 the coal beds. 
 
 Every philosophic chemist is thus unavoidably
 
 7s Cod a Vegetable Product? 275 
 
 bound to the conclusion that a process a thousand-fold 
 more stupendous and competent to produce all the 
 forms of carbon now found in the crust of the earth ex- 
 isted in the great telluric gas furnace of primitive 
 times. 
 
 Let us imagine two worlds, one covered with a swamp 
 vegetation, amid which a slow and puny distillation is 
 giving rise to the accumulation of carbon fuel; the 
 other a boiling, burning and smoking planet, distilling 
 and subliming from millions of furnaces carbon in all its 
 forms. Which of these imaginary worlds would form 
 fuel carbon more rapidly ? Which would, for the time 
 occupied and the means employed, be the more compe- 
 tent agent in the grand process of strata-building? If, 
 in the primitive world-furnace, the unconsumed carbon 
 fuel should form in the least degree, it would return 
 in after-times, with its aqueous and other matter; and 
 the mind is utterly at a loss to find figures wherewith 
 to multiply the vegetative process to make it at all com- 
 parable with the igneous. 
 
 On the other hand we see the great gas retort of the 
 molten earth, distilling every carbon product, from the 
 heavy graphite of the archsean rocks to the light car- 
 bonite of recent times, and we know this process did ob- 
 tain, if the earth ever was in a molten state. On the 
 other hand, a process which we know could never, and 
 would never have obtained, if the foundation had not 
 been precisely laid and the food elements previously 
 supplied by the former. On the one hand we see a 
 process commensurate with creative effort; on the 
 other, a process belonging to a world in its complete- 
 ness. On one hand, we see, in short, a fuel carbon 
 formed in immeasurable quantities, gathered from the
 
 276 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 only possible terrestrial source, and stored away as an 
 aqueous sediment in the earth's crust ; on the other, we 
 see this ready-formed carbon as a fuel, etc., entirely 
 ignored and disregarded in spite of law, and made by 
 some mysterious process into plant food, an invisible 
 gas; a non-supporter of animal life; a non-supporter of 
 combustion, and again transformed into a solid car- 
 bon, and then by a secondary combustion transformed 
 accidentally into a fuel oxyhydro-carbon, the very same 
 thing previously formed. Looking back upon these 
 hypothetic worlds as we start upon our tour of investi- 
 gation, who will not say that the primitive carbon 
 theory has a foundation a thousand times more per- 
 manently planted ? Why force the puny process of 
 peat formation to supply carbon already on hand? 
 These questions must address themselves to our notice 
 in every step of our progress. Previous chapters have 
 so fully established the fact that there was an annular 
 system, which in part remained on high till man came 
 upon earth, that all we now need to do will be to show 
 more clearly that that system was filled, as it were, with 
 unconsumed carbon. 
 
 I suppose there is no man of reason who will upon 
 mature reflection deny that the earth was once in a 
 fiery molten condition. But if the earth ever was in 
 a molten condition, can we possibly avoid the conclu- 
 sion that it was a smoking world ? Suppose this earth, 
 or any orb constituted as this is, should be by some 
 means suddenly changed into an igneous or glowing 
 sphere. That the immensity of carbon contained in its 
 rocky frame would be under such conditions driven out- 
 ward in the form of smoke, or unconsumed carbon, will 
 not be questioned by the philosophic student. And is it
 
 7s Cod a Vegetable Product? 277 
 
 not an axiomatic fact that that ocean of expelled carbon 
 would possess all allotropic forms of that element from 
 the heaviest to the lightest? Is it not an axiomatic 
 fact that these forms of carbon would, to a great extent, 
 arrange themselves in that ocean of vapors in positions 
 determined by their specific gravities the heaviest near- 
 est the earth ? My readers certainly would not require 
 me to supply witnesses to prove these things, ques- 
 tions so evidently true that no further evidence can add 
 to their force. 
 
 Hence, it is a conclusion to which we are all com- 
 pelled to assent that the primitive atmosphere waa 
 largely an ocean of distilled carbon; and as we know 
 that nearly all unconsumed carbon arising from every 
 furnace is a fuel (since it unites with oxygen and dis- 
 appears), we know that that primitive carbon in some 
 of its forms was also a fuel. And as we know (as any 
 one can prove by experiment) that carbon particles or 
 atoms in their nascent state rising among aqueous vapors 
 will decompose them and unite with their oxygen form- 
 ing an invisible gas, and also with their hydrogen form- 
 ing a hydro-carbon,* then we also know that the primi- 
 tive atmosphere contained a fund of fuel hydro-carbon. 
 Soot is deposited in infinitesimal smoke particles. 
 Hence we know that smoke from burning carbon is sim- 
 ply a fuel. And we are thus, by the inexorable demands 
 of law, driven to the conclusion that the smoke that arose 
 from the igneous earth was a fuel hydro-carbon; and 
 further, that when the primitive vapors, segregated 
 and aggregated into an annular system, these forms of 
 carbon were present in that system, and also that when 
 
 * Even soot, placed away in a vessel of water, will in time 
 decompose the latter, appropriating its oxygen and a small part 
 of its hydrogen.
 
 278 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 the same rings declined from the annular form into ter- 
 restrial belts, this same carbon was present, over- 
 canopying the earth on its way to its surface, near the 
 poles, or at least beyond the temperate zones. 
 
 Now when we turn our eyes to Jupiter and Saturn, 
 and see their dark belts in perpetual motion inter se, 
 and can find nothing in the whole laboratory of nature 
 competent to produce such belts, except carbon, and 
 know from analogy that these planets also have been 
 burning and smoking worlds, we simply see the Jovian 
 and Saturnian carboniferous strata revolving as annu- 
 lar matter; and the process of primitive carbon distilla- 
 tion becomes a universal one in the economy of world- 
 making. 
 
 There is yet another feature to be examined before 
 we are quite ready to examine the coal beds. I pre- 
 sume that every one of my readers can see that if the 
 condition of the primitive or annular carbon be true, 
 as here predicated, the annular theory is being nar- 
 rowed down to a few decisive tests. It must be seen 
 that if the annular matter arranged itself in the sys- 
 tem according to its specific gravity, then the heaviest 
 forms of carbon such as graphite were located nearest 
 the earth, and therefore fell to it long before the 
 lighter forms. Now, this being the case, where must 
 we find this heavy carbon? Certainly in the first- 
 formed aqueous beds. That is, if the annular theory 
 be true there must be found in the archaean beds vast 
 quantities of carbon of the greatest specific gravity. 
 Now this carbon having fallen directly after the igneous 
 era closed, must be found unassociated with fossil vege- 
 tation. And if thus found, it becomes absolute proof 
 that carbon, contrary to the opinion of geologists, was
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 279 
 
 formed without the aid of vegetation, and consequently 
 supplied directly by the primitive process in the igneous 
 earth. Now let us hunt this primitive carbon to its 
 hiding place. If we cannot find it, the annular theory 
 is a failure. If we do find it, it is once more trium- 
 phant; and if found unattended by a fossilized vegeta- 
 tion, the theory will again be vindicated. 
 
 At this stage of the argument, then, it is with de- 
 light that I turn to the highest of human authority, and 
 find the wished-for carbon away down amid the primi- 
 tive piles of aqueous beds. Dana tells us graphite, a 
 form of carbon, is " very common material "* in the 
 oldest beds. Prof. Dawson claims that " the quantity of 
 carbon in the laurentian [oldest beds] is equal to that in 
 similar areas of the carboniferous system."! It is 
 mined for graphite in many parts of both hemispheres, 
 and sometimes occurs in massive beds; sometimes 
 forming from 20 to 30 per cent, of the laurentian lime- 
 beds. It is an important constituent of some of the 
 iron strata of the archsean of the old world. Some 
 of the purest and best deposits are found in the archaean 
 of New England. That is, enough is known of these 
 oldest beds to establish beyond a doubt the claim that 
 they contain the very material we are in search of to 
 vindicate our theory. And as we have previously 
 shown that these heavy mineral and metallic beds were 
 largely an annular product the presence of heavy car- 
 bon in some only adds strength and philosophic value 
 to the claim. 
 
 But where are the evidences of vegetable life? 
 Where can we find a fossil bud, leaf or stem? For 
 
 * " Manual," page 152. 
 t Ibid., page 157.
 
 280 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 fifty years an army of geologists with eyes open and 
 keen as the eagle's, has explored the archsean world 
 in vain for a satisfactory trace of a vegetable. Can it 
 be possible that plants grew on the old world shores 
 without leaving a trace? Why did the delicate forms 
 of the eozob'n leave their impress on the imperishable 
 granite without a trace of a plant ? Simply because no 
 plants were there ! Then how are we to avoid the con- 
 clusion that amid the oldest sedimentary beds are vast 
 deposits of carbon in whose formation the plant never 
 took a part ? Dana says emphatically " no distinct re- 
 mains of plants have been observed " in these ancient 
 beds; and as the carbon beds themselves are the only 
 evidence found, and these no evidences at all, where is 
 the hope of the vegetarian ? 
 
 All geologists admit that if coal be a vegetable pro- 
 duct graphite must also have had a vegetable origin; 
 compromising only so far as to admit that animal or- 
 ganisms may have aided in the process, which of course 
 only adds to the difficulty, since it is carbon that makes 
 the organism, not the organism the carbon. Here, 
 then, is a problem which the vegetarian can neither cir- 
 cumvent nor climb over without the aid of the annular 
 theory. The foundation stone upon which the vege- 
 tation theory stands has vanished in primitive fire, and 
 the whole edifice tumbles into a mighty mass of ruins. 
 Here we are compelled to admit that the graphite is a 
 primitive carbon; that carbon did exist, and was placed 
 as a sedimentary bed in the earth before a plant ever 
 grew upon its surface. Hence the plant did not form 
 the carbon, but the carbon formed the plant. Upon 
 this eternal plan the world was built. From the car- 
 bon beds locked amid the metallic and granite sills of
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 281 
 
 the earth's crust to the peat swamp of the present day, 
 carbon has been king, and the plant its pliant product. 
 But suppose an abundant vegetation did exist in 
 archaean times, could it in the least invalidate the 
 philosophic claim that graphite found in the lauren- 
 tian beds was derived from the great telluric furnace ? 
 Inexorable law demands that graphite carbon must be 
 found in the oldest sedimentary rocks. There it is. 
 It also demands that it must there be found as an ig- 
 neous product. The entire absence of organic fossils 
 asserts that it is an igneous product. Now suppose 
 in the coming centuries, some leaves, some stems or 
 other forms of vegetation should be found in graphite; 
 these would, according to law, become graphitic, mere- 
 ly because they were imbedded in graphite, for the 
 same reason that if the plant form had fallen in a sand 
 bed it would have been a silicious fossil. This law 
 must hold good at all times. Now if men should find 
 abundant vegetable fossils in graphite it is simply 
 ridiculous to argue from this fact alone that graphite is 
 of vegetable origin. There is an abundance of vege- 
 table fossils in clay beds, and in sand beds, etc., but who 
 would claim from this fact alone that the clay bed or 
 the sand bed in which they are found is of vegetable 
 origin ? The simple fact that organic fossils are found 
 in carbon beds, and changed to carbon, affords no evi- 
 dence at all that those organisms made the bed. They 
 are simply carbon fossils because they were imbedded in 
 a carbon stratum, for the same reason that fossils 
 found in a lime bed are calcareous fossils. Human re- 
 mains have been found in calcareous formation, but it 
 does not follow that limestone is of human origin. And 
 yet in defiance of this very law, regulating the fossiliza-
 
 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 tion of organic forms, men claim that the carbon strata 
 of all ages are of vegetable origin because vegetable fos- 
 sils are found in some of them. Thus it must be ad- 
 mitted that he who claims that the graphite of the arch- 
 aean strata is of vegetable origin advocates the miracu- 
 lous suspension of natural law; first, because there was 
 no vegetation existing at that time,* and second, be- 
 cause the law requires the existence of carbon in those 
 strata that is not of vegetable origin. 
 
 The reader can now judge for himself which theory 
 is supported by the facts. He can also see that the 
 vegetation theory is mortally weakened by the simple 
 fact that the earliest carbon beds cannot by any possi- 
 bility be of vegetable origin. 
 
 Men may call the non-existence of vegetation a nega- 
 tive evidence; but since its existence is no evidence, 
 either positive or negative, that the bed is a vegetable 
 product, of what value is it to vegetarians? Even as 
 we enter upon paleozoic time we look in vain for any 
 forms of vegetation, but the very lowest cryptogamic 
 species, and these in very scanty exhibits, and also 
 marine in habit. 
 
 Now as graphite is not a vegetable product, it is very 
 probable that other forms of carbon, as bituminous and 
 anthracite coals, are not. Considering that we must 
 reverse the law of fossilization in order to conceive of 
 any stratum itself made out of the fossils it contains, it 
 is scarcely possible that a coal stratum can be a vege- 
 table product. 
 
 * Dana only echoes the universal opinion of geologists when he 
 says: "No distinct remains of plants have been observed" in the 
 archaean rocks, and as even in the huronian no satisfactory 
 traces of plants have been found, we are safe in the claim that 
 there are no plant remains in or among the graphite beds.
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 283 
 
 We find vegetable remains in coal seams just as we 
 find them in any other rock. Sometimes a coal-plant, 
 as a lepidodendron, planted in the under-clay rises 
 through the coal bed and extends into the overlying 
 shale and sandstone. But here we find it a clay fossil 
 in the under-clay, a carbonaceous fossil in the coal bed, 
 a silicious fossil in the sandstone; that is, if it has at all 
 become mineralized. Now the very presence of an 
 upright stem, or a trunk of a tree, in such beds is proof 
 positive of the rapid accumulation of the beds around 
 it. A tree standing while 5 feet of vegetable carbon ac- 
 cumulated around it indicates a fall and accumulation 
 of 40 feet of vegetable debris. Can it be possible that a 
 tree would continue to grow in a swamp or marsh while 
 the growth of vegetable matter sufficient to make a bed 
 of 40 feet in thickness is deposited at its base, and then 
 continue to stand till massive beds of sand and clay are 
 deposited upon the layer of carbon, according to the 
 usual slow process of strata-building? On the suppo- 
 sition that such accumulations are deposited, as they 
 now are, we are forced to face the miraculous. On the 
 supposition that the carbon fell from the annular sys- 
 tem we are led to the conclusion that a bed of carbon 
 five feet in thickness might accumulate in a few months; 
 nay, it might be in a few days. 
 
 There is one important feature that has been greatly 
 misapprehended by geologists in considering the coal 
 question. It is a fact easily demonstrated that the 
 vegetable carbon in the coal beds is generally not 
 bituminous even in a bituminous bed. We often find 
 a thin layer of vegetable carbon in the solid coal. It 
 is an accumulation of vegetable debris carbonized. 
 Any one who will take the pains to collect this vege-
 
 284 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 table matter can readily satisfy himself that it is scarce- 
 ly combustible. If a plant should fall in a bed of car- 
 bon, and afterward, by the aid of pressure and heat, 
 become saturated with oil, or bitumen, it would thus be 
 made combustible; but nine times out of ten the true 
 vegetable matter found imbedded in coal burns with 
 difficulty. Such is also the case with true lignites and 
 vegetable peat. Now this could not be the case if the 
 coal beds were made of vegetable carbon ; for the abun- 
 dance of bitumen in the oily coals necessitates that the 
 vegetation should contain the elements of the same. 
 And if the coal plants contained a resinous eap, as is 
 now claimed by some scientists, even the vegetable char- 
 coal would be bituminous. Thus the very fossil vege- 
 tation speaks plainly in opposition to the vegetable 
 origin of coal. Now why is it the very plants which 
 geologists claim are necessary for the formation of a bed 
 of coal, when gathered from the body of the coal, will 
 scarcely burn if these plants formed both the body of 
 the coal and the bitumen or oily matter which exists as 
 an essential part of it? The conclusion, it seems to me, 
 is inevitable that the vegetation found in coal is to a 
 great extent foreign matter, just as the ferns so abund- 
 ant in the clays over the coal are foreign to the clay- 
 beds, i. e., simply an involved vegetation. The fact 
 that coal has been considered a vegetable product, and 
 the statement that vegetation is found in coal are so 
 misleading that the common reader has the impression 
 that plants and the remains of plants -are found in 
 abundance in a coal seam, while the fact is that -in many 
 coal veins there is a paucity of vegetable matter ob- 
 servable by the naked eye, and in some coal veins it is 
 almost entirely absent. For one visible plant impres-
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 285 
 
 sion in the coal itself there are ten in the roof of the 
 coal. Did this great abundance of vegetation give rise 
 to the clay beds and shales composing the roof? They 
 are clay fossils because they were imbedded in clay, as 
 the fossils in coal are carbon because they were im- 
 bedded in carbon. And the simple fact that there are 
 fewer fossil remains in some coal than in the superim- 
 posed beds, shows that the carbon occupied less time in 
 collecting and forming into a bed. 
 
 Again, it is claimed that the original form of coal is 
 that of ordinary peat, now accumulating in peat bogs 
 and marshes. I have given no little attention to the 
 formation and nature of peat beds in a former chapter, 
 but I wish to say in this connection that if peat were 
 compressed as coal has been the delicate lamination so 
 prevalent in coal would not exist. I have frequently 
 counted a dozen or more leaves or laminae in one ver- 
 tical inch of coal; sometimes these are not thicker than 
 brown paper. And in the examination microscopically 
 of a vertical section of coal no fibers can be seen run- 
 ning through the mass, as would be the case if coal were 
 compressed peat. 
 
 A mass of peat has been compressed with a force of 
 20 tons to the square inch, and yet the vertical structure 
 of the mass was apparent. Now it matters not, I pre- 
 sume, what amount of pressure is employed; it cannot 
 make the fibers, roots, carbonized twigs, leaves and 
 stems that are well known to " run up and down " in 
 a mass of peat to change their position, and lie horizon- 
 tally as they do in a coal bed. And this would be the 
 more evident as the mass of coal was the more exten- 
 sive. Now lest some of my readers think I press this 
 view too strongly, I will call their attention to Dana's
 
 286 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 description of peat,* who says it is " commonly pene- 
 trated by rootlets." Will some one tell us what amount 
 of pressure is required to make all these rootlets lie hor- 
 izontally in the coal? It is very rarely that we find any 
 roots and rootlets in any position in the coal itself, and 
 they are much more rarely found running vertically or 
 across the laminations. 
 
 Since we find an abundance of rootlets in the under- 
 clays of coal, running in all directions, vertically as well 
 as horizontally, it seems conclusive that coal is not 
 metamorphosed peat. Now imagine a world filled with 
 marshes and peat beds; not like the thousands of peat 
 bogs that are found on every continent, but great con- 
 tinental coal marshes 10,000 or 100,000 square miles in 
 extent. Imagine these marshes but little or any above 
 the sea level, and covered with calamites, ferns, sigil- 
 laria and lepidodendra, plants of the carboniferous 
 era, and after remaining for countless centuries as a 
 motionless continent, to suddenly sink beneath the 
 waves of the sea, in order to receive a sea-formed bed 
 for a covering; and in this universal burial to preserve 
 but a paucity of vegetable fossils, and these mostly in 
 horizontal laminations, while in the clays imme- 
 diately under as well in those immediately above the 
 coal to be a profusion of fossilized vegetation. This is 
 the character of some of the coal formations. 
 
 Now in order that a second coal seam should be 
 formed after 20, 50 or a 100 feet of clay, sand and lime 
 has accumulated over the buried carbon bed, this great 
 expanse must arise just as high above the waves as it 
 stood for the first vegetation. If the accumulated sand 
 was 20 feet, then the first formed coal beds arose to 
 
 * " Manual," page 616.
 
 7s Coal a Vegetable Product ? 287 
 
 within 20 feet of the surface of the sea. If 50 feet of 
 sand, clays, etc., had accumulated over it, then it arose 
 to within 50 feet and then ceased its upward motion, 
 and remained a fixed expanse for ages, until another 
 bed of coal had accumulated, and then sank again. 
 N^ow if these changes had taken place but once or twice 
 we might conclude that as it was a remarkable coinci- 
 dence, chance might explain it. But when we are 
 forced to add miracle to miracle by admitting that these 
 changes took place to a large extent simultaneously in 
 all lands, in all continents, our credulity becomes un- 
 duly stretched. And when we are compelled to admit 
 that this oscillation of sea and land lost its regularity 
 at times on some continents and was repeated from fifty 
 to one hundred times to form the coal beds of the same, 
 and that the submergence was frequently to abyssal 
 depths in order for the accumulation of limestone 
 strata, the question amounts to a ridiculous absurdity. 
 
 It is plain that if the oscillating bed had arisen as 
 far above the waves as it sank again and again be- 
 neath them that no swamp vegetation could have accu- 
 mulated. But how did it occur that it stopped so often 
 just in the right place, and became so often a permanent 
 fixity in an age of constant unstableness? How did the 
 beds of other lands join simultaneously in this process ? 
 
 Thus it seems that the coal is planted immediately 
 upon an aqueous-formed stratum, and all the beds be- 
 tween coal beds are also aqueous strata, and as we must 
 find some primitive carbon beds as aqueous formations 
 here in the midst of sedimentary beds we will put in 
 our claims. Beneath the peat-bog carbon of this age 
 there is frequently a shell bed of fresh-water species, 
 and the carbon is deposited immediately upon it, while
 
 288 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 the fire clays and dirt beds of the coal formations show 
 that the conditions of carbon accumulation were entire- 
 ly different at the very beginning of coal-forming. 
 Peat forms in fresh-water swamps. But the coal strata, 
 locked between marine beds, show that if they are a 
 vegetation the plants were marine. But right here 
 we will quote from high authority.* " Algse can 
 therefore produce nothing in the shape of coal." . . . 
 " They cannot burn or emit any amount of caloric." 
 . . . " All remains of plants found either in the shales 
 which cover the coal beds, or in the body of the coal itself 
 are land plants, . . . none of it is of marine origin." 
 (Italics mine.) Now what are we to do? The same 
 authority states: " The remains of the plants are only 
 found in the roof -shales of a coal bed."f From this 
 we are forced to conclude that the vegetation thus pre- 
 served as fossil is simply an involved one, and came into 
 the roof-shales of the coal after the coal-bed was sub- 
 merged in the sea, and we simply have no means at 
 all to show that the coal is a vegetable product. Thus 
 every step we take leads us deeper into difficulty. We 
 must find some way to account for the fact that coal 
 was deposited over a vast area of sea bottom in different 
 regions at the same time. We must find a process that 
 abnegnates the ridiculous and accommodating submer- 
 gence and re-elevation of beds a hundred times re- 
 peated, which the old theory necessarily maintains. 
 We must find a process of fuel-formation in beds that 
 contain but little visible vegetable remains, locked, as 
 all marine formations are, between marine beds. Thus, 
 as we take a comprehensive glance at the difficulties, 
 
 " Leo Lesquereux Report of Prog. Pa., page 609. 
 t Thid., page 618.
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 289 
 
 we find the vegetation theory to be unnatural, and not 
 to be admitted, whether any other explanation is within 
 our grasp or not. " A half-way explanation will not 
 do." And an unphilosophic explanation cannot be tol- 
 erated. 
 
 Now I wish the reader to understand that I do not 
 oppose the idea of local submergences, for such things 
 do naturally occur. But I do claim that the whole 
 world could not have been flooded except by a down- 
 rush of super-aerial waters. The structure of the con- 
 tinents proves that when once formed they forever con- 
 tinued to be continents. 
 
 Dana, in referring to the grand structure lines and 
 frame-work of the continents, is forced to say: " There 
 is strong reason for concluding that the continents have 
 always been continents; and that while portions may 
 have at times been submerged some thousands of feet 
 the continents have never changed places with the 
 ocean." Now if there be any truth to be derived from 
 the carboniferous conglomerate beds, it is the fact that 
 they were synchronously formed the world over. It 
 would be as vain to deny this as to assert that the de- 
 posits of the last glacial period were not formed all over 
 the Northern Hemisphere during one and the same 
 period, extending through unknown centuries. But 
 the intimate relation of these conglomerates to the coal- 
 beds shows that both were involved in whatever sub- 
 mergence or whatever change of level took place. 
 
 It must be apparent that coal veins formed, accord- 
 ing to the general view, in swamps of vast extent, must 
 have a general parallelism; and this is the view gen- 
 erally held by geologists. On the other hand, if coal 
 be an aqueous deposit upon the sea bottom it is plain
 
 290 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 that the parallelism depends entirely upon the thick- 
 ness of the intercalated beds in different places. Sup- 
 pose a downfall of carbon dust should occur to-day. 
 Borne away into the ocean it would settle upon its bot- 
 tom over all its irregularities and its plains, of course 
 subserviently to directing currents. Then the sand- 
 beds accumulating for ages are placed upon it. These, 
 of course, would form a greater thickness in some 
 places than in others. Hence a succeeding fall of car- 
 bon settling upon the ocean's floor could not form a 
 bed parallel with the first. It is a matter of ocular 
 demonstration that there are actually no such things as 
 parallel coal veins. Sometimes for short distances they 
 appear to be so. In my own neighborhood the distance 
 between the several coal seams varies from 20 to 4:0 
 feet in less than one mile. The main coal seam of the 
 Leatherwood Valley, five miles west of the Barnesville 
 coal shaft, is ninety feet lower at the former place than 
 in the shaft. As there is no strata fracture here these 
 beds are evidently lying now as they were placed, which 
 at once refers them to aqueous formations on the sea 
 bottom. A careful measurement of hundreds of locali- 
 ties, given in the geological surveys of the different 
 States and Territories, as well as of Europe, demon- 
 strates it beyond a peradventure that there is a general 
 and universal want of parallelism among coal-veins. 
 Prof. Newberry has shown this so clearly in his report 
 on the Ohio coals* as to leave no room for doubt that 
 the coal beds did not thus accumulate. Hence, we are 
 again driven to the only other source i. e., an accumu- 
 lation of carbon upon the undulatory floor of the sea.f 
 
 * Volume II, " Ohio Reports," pages 126 and 169. 
 
 t While I am presenting this feature, I must, even at the risk
 
 7s Coal a Vegetable Product? 291 
 
 Cannel coal is another unimpeachable witness of the 
 aqueous deposition of carbon beds. It is admitted, I 
 believe, by the principal geologists of America, that 
 cannel coal is derived from vegetable matter complete- 
 ly macerated in water, and therefore actual aqueous, 
 sediments. 
 
 Within three miles of my dwelling is a mine of coal, 
 on one side of which the formation is bituminous, while 
 not 100 yards distant the coal is true cannel, and the 
 gradation from the bituminous to the cannel region is 
 so gradual that it is impossible to tell where one ter- 
 minates and the other begins. The annular theory 
 would make both an aqueous sediment, and just as the 
 fine sand would separate from coarser by the direction 
 of currents, and form a bed of its own, so would the 
 finer particles of floating carbon and clay separate and 
 form a bed of cannel coal by the side of a bituminous 
 bed in such a way that no man could point out the line 
 of transition. 
 
 I am glad thus to be able to quote so reliable author- 
 ity on this subject, so vital and yet so fatal to the vege- 
 table theory. Prof. Andrews, with the keen eye of a 
 practical philosopher, saw that the coal-veins must be 
 parallel, or the vegetation and submergence theory was 
 opposed by law. At least he knew very well that all 
 
 of prolonging this discussion, give Prof. Newberry's opinion on 
 the parallelism of coal seams. He says : " Prof. Andrews ac- 
 counts for this claimed parallelism by supposing that the different 
 coal seams were formed at or near the line of water level, and 
 that the subsidences which have caused the successive layers of 
 carbonaceous matter were continental or uniform. To these 
 views I have been unable to subscribe, inasmuch as I have failed 
 to detect the parallelism claimed, and on the contrary, have, as 
 it seems to me, in numerous instances, discovered very marked 
 inequality in the distances, that at different localities separate 
 coal seams which are unmistakably continuous."
 
 292 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 continents could not simultaneously plunge into the sea 
 again and again, and not maintain a general parallelism. 
 Prof. Newberry, with, the rich stores of an indefatiga- 
 ble and correct observer, announces the very opposite 
 conclusion, and backs his views with an array of facts 
 that none will dare dispute. I cannot follow him in 
 detail, but must refer the reader to the report itself. 
 But when he tells us that coal, No. 1, is so exceedingly 
 variable as to show a series of waves, whose summits 
 are in many places 50 feet higher than the trough 
 " within the limits of a few hundred acres " ; again, 
 when he states that in the northwest corner of Carroll 
 County, Ohio, within an area of 1,200 feet, the distance 
 between coals, No. 3 and 4, varies from 20 to 45 feet, 
 and at another point from 20 to 90 feet, and another 
 110 feet, and when he says that the interval between 
 No. 4 and No. 6 is equally variable; that the intervals 
 between No. 6 and No. 7 vary from 54 to 100 feet; 
 that the distance between the great Pittsburgh seam and 
 the Ames limestone varies from 140 to 225 feet; and 
 again when he states " it has been proved that between 
 Barnesville and Bellaire the space between coals No. 8 
 and No. 10 increases by more than 100 feet," he only 
 states a philosophic and necessary fact. 
 
 We will consider the famous cannel mine at Cannel- 
 ton, Pennsylvania, as a representative of this class of 
 coal. In the bottom of the mine is an 18-inch bed of 
 pure bituminous coal. On the top of this is a heavy 
 mass of true cannel. Here, then, as usual, we are at 
 once confronted by the unnatural fact that two veins of 
 coal, one placed immediately upon the other, without 
 one-tenth of an inch of vertical gradation ; not the space 
 of the thickness of common writing paper between
 
 7s Coal a Vegetable Product? 293 
 
 them, so as actually to make one solid seam of coal, 
 yet one part is claimed by high authority to be an aque- 
 ous deposit and the other not. The bituminous is made 
 to be a vegetable bog-growth, and yet is clear of any 
 permeating rootlets; shows hundreds of fine lamina- 
 tions, just such as one would expect to see in a fine sedi- 
 mentary deposit from water. The cannel, a massive 
 accumulation of black carbonaceous mud, with very lit- 
 tle evidence of lamination, is made to be a completely 
 macerated mass of vegetation. The bog, then, in which 
 the bituminous mass was accumulating, sank not as 
 slowly as is the natural process of to-day, but suddenly 
 from the swamp level to the condition of a lake or 
 pond, and the hypothetic slow and long maceration be- 
 gan instantly to supply the cannel carbon. There was 
 simply no time given for " maceration " before the 
 vegetation was macerated, and began to fall on the bit- 
 uminous bed. J^o conscientious geologist can stand in 
 this cannel mine, seeing these things as plainly as 
 the light of day, and say, this is the tale of the cannel ! 
 The bituminous bog could never have sunk and re- 
 ceived the cannel vegetation as thus claimed, and when 
 I find this the case in hundreds of places, sometimes 
 the cannel above, sometimes beneath the bituminous 
 and so often is it the case that no parting exists between 
 them, that we may call it the rule rather than the ex- 
 ception. The subsidence, if it ever took place in these 
 cannel beds, should have made a parting of something 
 that in-rushing waters must have conveyed to the spot. 
 Thus, while it is impossible to explain this sudden 
 change in the character of the two deposits by the old 
 theory, if we will but admit that the same process that 
 plants a bed of limestone immediately upon a sand bed
 
 294 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 without any signs of gradation by simply depositing 
 the bituminous carbon first, and then by a slight 
 change of moving currents bringing in another form of 
 carbon, the solution is plain. 
 
 We must conceive this carbon as susceptible of trans- 
 portation and change as any other sediment, and local 
 beds of fine carbonaceous mud, which the cannel car- 
 bon really is, could not avoid formation while currents 
 ran, any more than sand or clay. Admit all such 
 beds to be sedimentary deposits of annular carbon and 
 every mystery in their formation vanishes. 
 
 Black carbonaceous shales, so universally prevalent, 
 must have had this same origin. Sand and clays mixed 
 by intermingling currents with floating carbon in black 
 carbonaceous waters could not fail to give rise to black 
 shales, and as many of these shales are almost devoid 
 of fossil organisms, and especially of plants, to attribute 
 their color and the presence of carbon to vegetation is 
 unnatural. And all must see that if the earth was ever 
 in a molten state, its annular carbon, falling in after 
 ages as so much primitive soot, could not have failed to 
 blacken the waters of the ocean wherever currents 
 moved, and the sediment deposited therein must have 
 mingled with the carbon. If the carbon had been in 
 excess in these shales the result would have been a de- 
 posit of cannel coal ; on the other hand, if the clays had 
 been in excess in the Cannelton mine, the result would 
 have been a black shaly deposit. If no mud had inter- 
 fered, the whole deposit would have been a bituminous 
 coal. 
 
 A remarkable deposit of coal exists in eastern Penn- 
 sylvania, at Summit Hill, a spot made historic by the 
 great Lyell. Here seven coal veins at first occupying
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 295 
 
 a vertical range of 134 feet (including intervening 
 strata of rock) so rapidly approach, each other that they 
 all unite into one seam in less than five miles from their 
 beginning. Now, according to the old theory, that 
 part of the bog where the one heavy seam is, stood firm 
 and was never once submerged, while the space imme- 
 diately adjoining went down and returned seven differ- 
 ent times until 134 feet of rock were intercalated and 
 seven seams of coal were formed out of seven successive 
 swamps, and finally the whole swamp went down to- 
 gether. Every man must see how unphilosophic this is ! 
 And yet how easily explained as sedimentary beds. A 
 carbon bed was formed, currents carried other matter 
 and covered up a part of the bed. Another supply of 
 carbon settles down upon the whole, and the process is 
 repeated again and again; the strata having thus been 
 formed as other strata are at this day. This simply is 
 a refutation of the swamp theory, and the idea of the 
 parallelism of coal veins. 
 
 It is well known that " quite a number of boulders 
 of rock foreign to the localities where found have been 
 met with in the coal seams of Ohio." (Newberry.) 
 Here is another emphatic and decisive test. Boulders 
 in a coal seam mean a coal seam formed under water, 
 and a foreign boulder in a coal seam means a coal seam 
 formed at the bottom of the ocean. 
 
 The vegetarians so far concede this as to admit that 
 " the ocean must have been very near," that " the ocean 
 must have made an inroad upon the coal swamp," etc. 
 Now since the ocean must have been " very near " to 
 have deposited the bed upon which the coal seam was 
 placed, and " very near " to have formed the bed 
 placed immediately upon the coal, and very near, when
 
 296 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 boulders were floated over its surface and dropped in the 
 coal deposit, let us. admit the inevitable truth that the 
 ocean was " very near " all the time ! 
 
 And since the ocean was so " very near " as to per- 
 mit some floating body, as a tree or moving ice, to drop 
 a boulder into a forming coal bed at the bottom of the 
 sea, it was about as close as we need to have it in order 
 to crush the swamp theory forever. 
 
 In conversation with the intelligent proprietor of the 
 Cannelton coal mine, above refered to (I. Mansfield), 
 I learned that water-worn pebbles had been found in 
 the coal there. A boulder now in the museum at 
 Columbus, Ohio, and found in the middle of a coal seam 
 at Shawnee, " weighs not less than 200 pounds," and 
 showed the marks of glaciation. The coal above this 
 boulder " was normal in all respects,"* showing that 
 the vein finished forming after the boulder fell into it. 
 Now it is plain that if there had been a submergence 
 and a re-elevation of a coal swamp that the condition of 
 the vein would have left indisputable evidence of the 
 change, but as all the evidence is positive and directly 
 opposed to a submergence, and in favor of a continued 
 and uninterrupted deposition of carbon upon the 
 boulder and its new surroundings, it is impossible to 
 avoid the conclusion that the Shawnee coal seam was a 
 sedimentary aqueous formation, one of the seams that 
 the igneous world under the dictum of law declares 
 must be found in the aqueous crust. Boulders foreign 
 to the locality are found at Carbondale and Nelsonville, 
 and I have been repeatedly informed by intelligent 
 miners, who have worked in Scotland and on the con- 
 tinent of Europe, as well as among the Rocky Moun- 
 
 *"0hio Report for 1884, Vol. V, pages 136, 100G.
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 297 
 
 tain coals, that they had met in coal mines with water- 
 worn boulders and pebbles (not concretions) of differ- 
 ent colors. When we take into the account the num- 
 bers that never came before the gaze of the geologist, 
 and remember that but a small part of the field has ever 
 met the eyes of man, we may be allowed to magnify the 
 evidence these "boulders afford. If men are not bound 
 by the merciless fetters of antiquated opinion they must 
 see that the vegetable theory has here an obstacle that 
 they cannot remove. 
 
 But other evidences are found in the coal veins quite 
 as positive as that of the boulder. There is scarcely a 
 coal vein in the United States, to say nothing of other 
 countries, that is not divided at least once, and many 
 of them are divided into many horizontal sections by 
 clay seams that were deposited from the ocean's 
 waters while the coal seam was forming. These clay 
 partings are generally very persistent, varying in 
 thickness from a few inches to that of writing paper. 
 In some seams these extend over thousands of square 
 miles, and few of them contain vegetable fossils; a few 
 of them animal organisms; but the greater part are 
 wide reaches of barren clay. These seams declare 
 what no man will contradict, that all the coal veins of 
 the United States, during some period at least, and 
 many of them during frequent periods, were under the 
 waters of the sea. I only go one step farther than my 
 brother geologists, and instead of admitting that " these 
 things demand that the oceans were near at hand " 
 when these clays were deposited, I admit that they 
 were present, not only when the clays were deposited, 
 but also when the coal veins containing them were de- 
 posited.
 
 298 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 But the testimony of these clay-partings does not 
 stop here. Supposing that the lower bench of a coal 
 seam really was a vegetable product, " grown in situ," 
 with its root bed below the coal seam, as is claimed; 
 after a seam of carbon is thus formed the swamp is 
 submerged, and an outspread of mud covers up the 
 vegetation to the depth of half an inch without enclos- 
 ing a trace of that vegetation in the parting itself. Now 
 it is simply impossible that a parting of clay should set- 
 tle down upon an expanse of submerged vegetation 
 without preserving that vegetation in itself. But it 
 is the rarest thing that even a trace of a plant, stem or 
 leaf, is observable; what conclusion, then, must we 
 draw? 
 
 But how in the name of reason did the vegetation 
 that formed the next bench of coal take root in this thin 
 seam of clay ? Have the roots of this succeeding vege- 
 tation been found in this thin clay-parting? I have 
 never known of such an instance, and yet I have lived 
 among coal mines the greater part of my life, and have 
 carefully examined hundreds of localities for them. We 
 are plainly forbidden by the evidence and the verdict 
 of law to claim either a submergence or a vegetation. 
 But suppose that to-day a great carbon fund should 
 float from the Arctic Ocean into Hudson Bay. This 
 carbon would settle upon an undulating bottom, and 
 if a flood of muddy waters from the surrounding rivers 
 should empty into the Bay while the carbon bed was 
 forming, a thin clay parting over wide areas would in- 
 evitably follow. The clay being heavier than the car- 
 bon would immediately settle, and allow the carbon to 
 complete its deposition afterwards. And further, as 
 this inpouring of carbon from the ocean might continue
 
 7s Coal a Vegetable Product? 299 
 
 for years there would be ample opportunity for many 
 clay seams. 
 
 Now it must be admitted that if there ever was car- 
 bon dust in the annular system; in short, if there ever 
 was an igneous and smoking earth, such carbon veins 
 with such clay-partings do now exist in the aqueous 
 crust. Have we not found them in the United States 
 coal-formations ? 
 
 Microscopic organisms in coal so far from being op- 
 posed to the theory here advanced become valuable aids 
 to it when intelligently considered. I have elsewhere 
 referred to the axiomatic claim that the annular sys- 
 tem contained the seed beds of animal and vegetable 
 organisms. It is beyond our power to determine how 
 far the evolution of organisms continued in this annu- 
 lar world. Trusting that others more capable may in 
 the future come to a philosophic conclusion in the mat- 
 ter, I will not press it further than to reiterate the 
 necessity of the claim that the floating mass of primi- 
 tive carbon clouds, after they entered the atmosphere 
 and floated away, perhaps for centuries, toward the 
 polar regions, in their efforts to reach the earth, became 
 a tissue or web of evolving vegetable organisms, accom- 
 panied with an immensity of microscopic forms. Now 
 I know not to what extent microscopic forms exist in 
 the mass of the coal. I only know they should be 
 there, and that in the deposition of the coal they 
 should be segregated upon definite surfaces. Let it be 
 understood that I am not drawn to this conclusion from 
 any suspicion that criticism will force me to it, but 
 from careful study and long research in experimental 
 work. I have taken fresh soot from the furnace, with- 
 in a few minutes after it was formed, subjected it to the
 
 300 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 hot vapors from boiling water, and stored it away in an 
 open vessel of water, and have seen vegetable and ani- 
 mal organisms start into being, live, propagate and die 
 therein. This same experiment any man can perform. 
 Now this having been done, I want to know what is 
 there that can possibly hinder floating or revolving soot- 
 clouds in attenuated air, or even in the annular system, 
 an ocean of matter where every disposition and po- 
 tency of matter existed, from being regions of organic 
 development. For this reason it is impossible for me 
 to look upon the belt system of Jupiter as any other 
 than an ocean of organisms, adapted to their own pecu- 
 liar environments. It seems to be the inevitable and 
 universal summation of a disposition in matter, akin to 
 spirit, under a controlling intelligence. Then looking 
 back at the carbonaceous downfalls, ranging through 
 countless myriads of years, I behold floods of micro- 
 scopic and other organisms, I know then, experiment- 
 ally, that carbonaceous waters are favorable to the evo- 
 lution of organic matter, and theoretically that carbon- 
 aceous clouds are also. What other conclusion, then, 
 can we come to than that a fund of carbon floating in 
 the ocean, or lying in lakes and ponds, would give rise 
 to vegetable and animal organisms adapted to the con- 
 ditions existing; and that this carbon as it reached its 
 destination, in the tedious and protracted round and cir- 
 culation of currents, would involve these forms in the 
 accumulating mass? 
 
 If the clay mud at the bottom of lakes, or the cal- 
 careous ooze on the ocean's floor, as it accumulates into 
 beds, involves its own peculiar life forms, and presents 
 a mass of microscopic and other organisms, I cannot for 
 any reason see why the carbonaceous ooze in the same
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 301 
 
 lake beds, on the same sea bottom, could fail to involve 
 its characteristic forms, and that the same as fuel car- 
 bon would not to a large extent exhibit them. Hence, 
 I predicate that future researches in this direction will 
 reveal the fact that the mass of coal contains just such 
 organisms as the ancient carbonaceous environment de- 
 manded. 
 
 As is well known, an abundance of marine vegetation 
 exists upon the sea bottom in all favoring localities 
 creeping stems, with roots and leaf -like forms; floating 
 vines with reaching tendrils, and with roots fixed in the 
 mud. A carbon sediment rapidly accumulating would 
 involve all this. 
 
 Now the geologist will not fail to see that another 
 important question is here involved. Under almost 
 all the carbon veins there lies a bed of fire clay, a 
 " dirt bed." It is a little strange that immediately ad- 
 joining a highly combustible bed a substance should 
 be so invariably planted so refractory as to form cru- 
 cibles for the fusing of almost every known metal. In 
 this bed lies entombed a profuse marine vegetation, and 
 the fact that its delicate lineaments have been so well 
 preserved proves that it was suddenly involved. The 
 fact that it is practically infusible argues that it was a 
 fire-born distillation of primitive times. The fact that 
 it so generally accompanies a primitive carbon product 
 argues the same. The fact that it is more generally 
 present under coal veins that are more distant from the 
 tropics, and invariably present in the most distant ones, 
 leads to the same conclusion. While the fact that fire- 
 formed clay dust, sublimed in the great telluric crucible, 
 must have arisen and commingled with the primitive 
 vapors, and returned with them, impels to the conclu-
 
 302 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 sion that when a carbon-fall occurred, this clay matter, 
 necessitated by its greater specific gravity, separated and 
 fell first upon the ocean's floor.* This fire clay is found 
 in a modified form under beds of primitive graphite 
 where no vegetation is involved, and therefore cannot 
 be a vegetable distillation. It is found between mas- 
 sive beds of glacier polar ice, immediately under a car- 
 bonite deposit, as at Kotzebue Sound, which enforces 
 the same conclusion. This fire-born clay is found in 
 such stupendous masses in almost all glaciated districts, 
 whose glaciers radiated from polar regions, as to utterly 
 confound the geologist in his efforts to find a philosophic 
 source. It is found in lands a thousand miles from 
 abraded mountains; in beds which prove by analysis to 
 be peculiar, and not what we would expect, as mud pul- 
 verized by the moving ice. The persistency of these pe- 
 culiarities in all lands, whether the abraded region be si- 
 licious or calcareous, micaceous or f eldspathic ; whether 
 the neighboring hills and mountains could yield such 
 clays or not, must, it seems to me, lead us to look to 
 the annular system as its source. It is said that not 
 one of the more than TO coal beds in the Nova Scotia 
 region is without its characteristic clay bed. When we 
 see trees standing in and surrounded by this clay, and 
 rising through the coal seam, and even penetrating 
 many feet into the overlying rock, we are forced to 
 admit a rapid accumulation. So that every standing 
 tree in such a position, so far from evincing the claims 
 of vegetable distillation either in clay or coal, during 
 immense periods of time, stands as insuperable evidence 
 against them. These beds accumulated during the 
 
 * I greatly regret that space does not permit me to follow this 
 important question further. A volume might be written on these 
 fire-born clays alone.
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 303 
 
 lifetime of the tree, and not only the coal, but the sand 
 beds above, accumulated around it; and reason urges 
 the claim that the tree could not long survive this or- 
 deal. But the most moderate estimate of the time re- 
 quired for the slow vegetable accumulation of a coal 
 bed alone, it seems to me, ought to settle this question. 
 On the other hand, admitting that every annular down- 
 fall of matter, aqueous vapor, carbon-dust or snows, 
 must have brought their associated clays, and more 
 largely in the more recent falls, all these otherwise in- 
 tractable problems are explained. The tree growing in 
 its own swamp clay bed, first involved by the aug- 
 mented ocean, must have perished then. Immediately 
 the ocean, muddied by the clay and carbon, precipitates 
 first the clay as the normal bed for the coal ; then fol- 
 lows the carbon; and the terrific flood of waters from 
 adjacent continents brings in the muddy waters, and 
 the great fund of vegetation of the upper clays; then 
 upheaval, and other changes resulting from oceanic aug- 
 mentation, supplies the other assorted beds. This 
 brings us to that point when we must consider the ques- 
 tion of lime and sand strata and their fossils, as referred 
 t 
 
 to in a former chapter. 
 
 I know not whether standing trees rising from coal 
 veins have ever been found in regions where limestones 
 predominate. The annular theory requires that such 
 should not be the case. These strata are largely a 
 deep sea formation, and only such as were deposited as 
 mechanical precipitates could be formed in shallow 
 waters, especially in regions beyond the tropics. Hence 
 it is plain that if we find an abundant fossil vegetation 
 in the clay beds above the coal in limestone regions their 
 presence antagonizes the new theory, and if not found
 
 304 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 it antagonizes the old one. While also a limestone 
 stratum deposited, manifestly near and among shore 
 deposits, or continental detritus, points directly to an 
 annular origin, and here we will expect to find vege- 
 table fossils in the upper clays. Now geologists have 
 here a chance to prove or disprove this problem. So 
 far as my observations have extended in the Appala- 
 chian coal field this theory is abundantly sustained by 
 the great limestone strata. And, again, so far as I am 
 able to gather evidence from the surveys of the west- 
 ern coal fields, it is felicitously supported by the general 
 absence of lime beds among the coal seams, and the 
 presence of immense amount of vegetation as fossils in 
 the interposed beds of sand and clay. Again I must 
 abruptly close the consideration of this wonderfully 
 rich field of thought. 
 
 I have several times referred to these as important 
 tests of the truth of the annular hypothesis. Since it 
 is self-evident that peat vegetation for the distillation 
 of carbon fuel could never have assumed a foothold in 
 any region if the peat foundation had not been pre- 
 viously laid down; and since the great peat-forming re- 
 gions of the earth increase in importance and extent 
 from the region of the tropics toward the poles until 
 we find them under the polar circles where the soil is 
 solidly frozen the year round (except a slight cover- 
 ing of soil in the short summer), it is plain that some 
 stupendous supply of carbonaceous matter has been 
 added to these colder regions in modern times. I have 
 shown why annular matter must fall in these higher lat- 
 itudes, both north and south. I have shown that car- 
 bon must have constituted a part of that matter, and 
 how that the more recent downfall supplied it, as an
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 305 
 
 accompaniment of snows, etc., but it seems necessary 
 at this point to give some further facts tending to cor- 
 roborate the claim that the peat foundation is what I 
 have called carbonite as distinct from peat itself, an 
 annular product. 
 
 In Dr. Anderson's " Practical Treatise on Peat- 
 Moss " he frequently alludes to beds of " black sedi- 
 ment," " rich loam," " black moss " sunk beneath the 
 waters of the sea, lakes and ponds. Sometimes divers 
 have reported " black mud " in the Scottish seas from 
 100 to 180 feet deep. At Loch Alsh, also at Oban, 
 more than 100 feet beneath the surface of the water, 
 the harbor bottom is covered with the same black car- 
 bonaceous matter. The same is seen at low tide on the 
 shores of the Frith of Forth.* 
 
 What is more, this same black carbon deposit " has 
 been dredged far out in the German Ocean, "f In 
 nearly all these carbonite deposits, whether on high 
 ground, or in the sea, are found trees prostrate, and some 
 in the seas with the trunks erect. And the simple fact 
 that some of these trees are such as do not grow in peat 
 bogs, is the strongest kind of evidence that they are not 
 true peat bogs. The ash, oak, fir, alder, etc., etc., 
 says Geikie, are found in them, " rooted in the kind of 
 soil they are known to prefer !" $ These trees are 
 sometimes so well preserved that they are made into 
 merchantable lumber. And as peat is an exceeding 
 slow formation, how did they become involved in peat 
 beds and remain undecayed, even if they could have 
 flourished in a bog? This carbonite, so-called peat, is 
 
 * Geikie's " Great Ice Age," page 298. 
 t Ibid., page 300. 
 $ Ibid., page 294.
 
 306 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 not confined to the lowlands. Large areas of Scottish. 
 Highlands are covered with it, just as vast portions of 
 Russia, Siberia, British America, and the United States 
 are, and which if covered by earth would be peat to 
 all intents and purposes. 
 
 But who has ever reported peat submerged in the 
 tropics those very regions where luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion grows and dies? Is there any philosophic reason 
 why peat should not be found more abundantly there 
 than elsewhere, except the fact that the foundation car- 
 bon has never fallen there ? And where in the tropics 
 can the geologist point to any important coal beds ? 
 Here is the very region above all others where vast beds 
 of coal ought to be found, if vegetation could have pro- 
 duced them. And if they could be found here it would 
 sweep the annular theory from its foundation. The 
 simple truth is that peat and coal are not found where 
 the vegetarian wants to find them. They are found, 
 however, just where the annular theory says they must 
 be found. The vegetarian must leave the very home 
 of vegetation, and in defiance of all law he must find his 
 coal beds amid vegetation stunted and depauperated by 
 cold, and find it, too, where vegetation could never 
 grow, amid rocks born in fire. Such inconsistencies 
 meet the geologist at every turn. Why is peat found 
 in the ocean? Because the ocean has submerged it. 
 Then why is it found in the thousands of lakes and 
 ponds where no peat vegetation is now growing? Sup- 
 pose we should find a peat bed 40 feet thick. As it 
 must have been at one time a lake with 40 feet of water, 
 how did the peat begin to grow? Did it begin at the 
 bottom of the lake, and fill the same, or did it begin to 
 grow on the top of the water and gradually drop its
 
 7s Coal a Vegetable Product? 307 
 
 carbon particles upon the bottom ? In either case it is 
 plain that all rains and floods must have washed mud 
 and other detritus into it far more rapidly than peat 
 could fill it. But there are peat beds from 30 to 40 feet 
 thick. This implies, according to Dana,* 240 to 320 
 feet of vegetable growth. Such beds were once lakes 
 or ponds, at least from 30 to 40 feet deep. How did 
 such lakes ever become swamps of vegetation without 
 being first " filled up ?" Did vegetation fill them with 
 carbon, in order that it might plant itself in a swamp 
 to fill the lake with carbon ? This is the pure logic of 
 the peat bog question! Then those deep coal beds of 
 Montchanin,f 100 to 120 feet thick, required vegetable 
 growth of 800 to 960 feet. If that much peat could 
 form and fill a pond 100 feet, a pond 15 or 20 feet 
 stands a fair chance at least. 
 
 Now suppose we should find the same regular grada- 
 tion in the quality of coal in the Southern Hemisphere 
 that we do in the Northern that is, the heaviest and 
 most massive beds distant from the equator, and the 
 lightest and poorest coals nearer it. It certainly would 
 place the primitive coal theory upon an impregnable 
 rock, even if other evidence failed. Through private 
 correspondence from South America, I have gained 
 enough facts in the case to cause me to place this on 
 record : If geologists will show that such gradation does 
 not exist in the Southern Hemisphere, then the author 
 of the annular theory will take a back seat, where in 
 that event he ought to remain. Here, then, is another 
 test question, with which men under favorable circum- 
 stances can either confirm or overthrow my claims. 
 
 * " Manual," page 359. 
 
 t Phin's " Six Days of Creation," page 64.
 
 308 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 There are numberless instances of the formation of 
 bog iron ore, and men suppose that the ore in the bog 
 is the product of a vegetable distillation. But how can 
 vegetation produce iron ores unless it had previously 
 a supply of iron upon which to draw ? Are we to un- 
 derstand that the plant makes iron? Or that it takes 
 iron which is already supplied and forms a secondary 
 product ? We must look back of the plant for all such 
 supplies, just as we must go back of the diatom or the 
 millepore for the matter of silicious and calcareous for- 
 mations. After these supplies are furnished the build- 
 ers go to work; and without these primitive supplies 
 there could never have been such formations, either 
 primitive or secondary. On this rock the coal question 
 must stand, and if this primitive supply of carbon had 
 fallen in tropical lands, there would the peat vegetation 
 make its greatest show. 
 
 I have elsewhere referred to coal seams among heavy 
 beds of conglomerate the work of glaciation. Around 
 the Pottsville anthracite region, Pennsylvania, import- 
 ant coal-beds have been opened in the very body of the 
 conglomerate, and must therefore have been formed 
 when the earth lay in ice fetters of a glacial period. 
 The Sharon coal of Pennsylvania, says Lesquereux,* 
 " is placed systematically in the conglomerate," and the 
 very frequent occurrence of conglomerates either di- 
 rectly above or beneath the coal, shows that fuel carbon 
 and continental snows have been frequent associates, 
 
 How can the vegetation theory reconcile these incon- 
 sistencies? But here is where annular downfalls de- 
 mand that it should be found, for carbon fuel must have 
 fallen with the frozen vapors, as surely as with other 
 
 * " Report of Progress," published 1830, page 630.
 
 Is Coal a Vegetable Product? 309 
 
 annular matter. Coal has been found in fragmentary 
 patches in the silurian beds, and in more extensive beds 
 in the Marcellus shales of the devonian. And the oc- 
 currence of bituminous patches of coal in anthracite 
 fields, and the occurrence of heavy anthracite beds, 
 where, according to the old theory, bituminous matter 
 should prevail, necessitates some further consideration 
 in another chapter.
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 SOME EMPHATIC AND POSITIVE EVIDENCE OF THE ANNULAR 
 
 ORIGIN OF COAL IN THE METAMORPHISM OF 
 
 THE CARBON BEDS ; 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 SOME CONCLUSIVE TESTIMONY FROM THE CRETACEOUS AND 
 TERTIARY COALS. 
 
 It is well known that when bituminous or lignitio 
 coal, or even peat, is subjected to a sufficient degree of 
 heat, it is converted into hard coal, or even graphite. 
 Hence, it has become a common belief that all anthra- 
 cite and other hard forms of carbon found in the earth's 
 crust are metamorphosed beds of soft carbon. Is this 
 deduction a logical one? In immediate contact with 
 volcanic chimneys or where overflowing or intruding 
 lava has heated the adjacent beds, coal has been meta- 
 morphosed for a few yards, or even rods; but such heat 
 in various instances, known perhaps to all geologists, 
 has not materially affected such beds except in that im- 
 mediate neighborhood. How is it, then, that vast coal 
 fields planted in the aqueous crust hundreds of miles 
 from any igneous agencies, except those consequent 
 upon rock pressure, are now in the anthracite, or semi- 
 anthracite, state? If such forms of coal are metamor- 
 phic matter, there must be some infallible tests. Let us 
 hunt them up. 
 
 In the first place the only purely logical conclusion 
 that can be drawn from igneous intrusion and meta- 
 morphism is: That the igneous earth the great distil-
 
 Fig. 12. EARTH IN EDENIC TIMES. 
 
 (CANOPUS AND POLAR OPENINGS.)
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 311 
 
 lery of carbon must have made its share of anthracite 
 out of the carbon it had control of. If volcanic fires in 
 contact with carbon can produce such beds in a limited 
 way, then the primitive fires of tens of thousands of vol- 
 canoes in the incandescent earth, in contact with meas- 
 ureless oceans of carbon, must have made unlimited 
 quantities of the same. Can there be a man of reason, 
 who has ever given the constitution of this orb one 
 attentive and intelligent thought, that does not know 
 that the immensity of carbon now in the earth was in it, 
 or around it, when it rolled through space, a burning 
 orb? Now, if knowing these facts, these inevitable 
 and self-evident conditions, the philosopher chooses to 
 utterly ignore them and set up the claim that the last 
 puny fires of a wrinkled and aged world have metamor- 
 phosed all this fund of carbon, it shall be no fault of 
 mine. While the peat combustion inevitably points to 
 a previous one, so long as it distils an atom of carbon, 
 the volcano, so long as it changes a carbon bed at the 
 distance of a rod or a foot from it, points to the igneous 
 process, and is proof positive that beds of anthracite and 
 other hard carbons exist in the earth's crust as an inevi- 
 table product of that process. If the philosopher cannot 
 see the necessary end to which he is here impelled in 
 spite of education and prejudice I will attempt to per- 
 suade him by evidence, if possible, more apparent and 
 conclusive. 
 
 Now it is plain that the anthracite coals are either 
 bituminous coals changed by heat to hard coals, or they 
 are themselves an original and normal production; that 
 is, a carbon unchanged, but placed in beds in the form 
 of anthracite. 
 
 It is then plainly our next duty first to examine the
 
 312 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 evidence of metamorphism, and learn what it declares. 
 When bituminous coal is changed to hard coal it is done 
 by merely driving off the volatile constituents; and as 
 a matter of course, all the ash of a bituminous coal will 
 remain in the anthracite, since it cannot escape as vola- 
 tile matter. Thus, if in 100 pounds of bituminous coal 
 there were twenty per cent, of ash, or twenty pounds, 
 then by subjecting it to heat sufficient to drive off 
 twenty per cent, of its weight as volatile matter, and 
 thus make a hard coal of it, there would be eighty pounds 
 of coal remaining, including its ash. Now twenty 
 pounds of these eighty are that ash, which instead of 
 being twenty per cent, of coal as before, is now twenty- 
 five per cent. That is, all anthracite coal, changed 
 from bituminous coal, will contain a greater per cent, 
 of ash than the coal from which it is derived. This 
 seems so plain that none surely will attempt to dispute 
 it. It is therefore claimed by geologists that the 
 " average amount of ash in anthracite ought to be one- 
 half greater than in bituminous coal."* Hence it is 
 evident that a fair and candid examination and analysis 
 of coals will settle this question. Anthracite, in order 
 to be a hardened bituminous coal, must contain a 
 greater per cent, of ash. 
 
 If, then, during a fair examination we find that it 
 does not contain a greater per cent., then all men will 
 be forced to admit that it never was bituminous coal. 
 After many years of examination, I trust with a spirit 
 of fairness, I might fill many pages with authentic an- 
 alyses of coals, and hardly an instance at all that I have 
 collected will show a greater per cent, in the average im 
 favor of the anthracite. But I will lay my own tables 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 363.
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 313 
 
 aside (partly for want of space), and use only those 
 analyses that all will respect as those of well-known au- 
 thority. We will first take the analyses given by Dana 
 himself.* 
 
 The average per cent, of ash for two anthracites of 
 Pennsylvania is given as 3.46. Comparing this with 
 Pennsylvania semi-anthracites, the former, being more 
 completely changed, as any one can see ought to con- 
 tain a greater ash. Now the average of eleven sam- 
 ples of these semi-anthracites, taken from the Pennsyl- 
 vania Geological Survey, and here used by Dana, give 
 an average of 7.16 more than twice as much ash in the 
 softer coal not very favorable to the old theory, when 
 the harder should contain " more." But lest my read- 
 ers may think the above average of the anthracite too 
 small to be fair, I will take the average of all Penn- 
 sylvania anthracites as here given, and base our cal- 
 culations upon it. The average of 26 anthracites, in- 
 cluding one foreign, is 4.35; but, including only Penn- 
 sylvania coals, the average is 5.28. I might use the for- 
 mer, but that the examination may be fair in every way 
 we will use the latter. This, compared with the average 
 of semi-anthracites of the same State, according to the 
 accepted rule, ought to be greater. Eleven analyses 
 of the latter give an average of 7.16, which less 5.28 
 =1.88, all on the wrong side. Again, comparing it 
 with the six semi-bituminous coals of the same State, 
 used by Dana, we have 10.20 minus 5.28=4.92, still 
 opposed to the rule. Then comparing it with fifteen 
 semi-bituminous coals of Pennsylvania and Maryland, 
 the average of which is 10.32, the anthracite is less by 
 5.04 per cent. Now if we compare it with the ten an- 
 *" Manual," page 316.
 
 314 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 alyses of Pennsylvania bituminous coals, we have 6.47 
 5.28=1.19, still contrary to the rule. Comparing 
 with the eleven Virginia bituminous coals, we have 
 11.06 5.28=5.78. The bituminous has more than 
 twice as much ash as the average of Dana's anthracites. 
 If we go outside of the immediate Appalachian field of 
 coal, and add those of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, 
 we have 398 analyses, with an average of 6.30 per cent, 
 of ash, or 1.02 per cent, more yet than the anthracite. 
 Now as these western coals, as given by Dana, contained 
 a less per cent, of ash than the recent geological surveys 
 give, these tests are very fair. And as any one can 
 see there is not one instance where the rule is vindi- 
 cated. How it ever happened that this high authority 
 should notice this empirical law, call the attention of 
 his readers to the same, and then immediately complete 
 a large list of analyses, and not see the law completely 
 abrogated, is marvelously strange. 
 
 If, now, we leave this authority, and turn to the 
 American Cyclopaedia, article " Anthracite," we find 
 eighteen analyses of both American and foreign anthra- 
 cites, with an average of 4.25, or one per cent, less than 
 Dana's, and a stronger denunciation of the rule. Tak- 
 ing this average I find it to be below the average of the 
 bituminous coals of all parts of the United States, as 
 given by Dr. Peale,* and also below all the western lig- 
 nites, except those of California. It is not necessary 
 to burden the reader with further statistical facts that 
 may be gathered from both foreign and native coals to 
 prove the utter failure of this alleged law. If one 
 should take the analysis of an anthracite specimen that 
 
 * " Amer. Cyclo., Article ' Anthracite.'
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 315 
 
 represents a very high percentage of ash he might rea- 
 sonably conclude that that specimen had at one time 
 been a bituminous coal, and that it was a sample taken 
 from a true metamorphosed region where fire or heat 
 had actually changed it; but taking the whole list of 
 samples thus far analyzed it must be acknowledged by 
 all that the average, so far from being " one-half 
 greater, is at least one-half less." The duty, then, of 
 the geologist is plain : to drop the doctrine of metamor- 
 phism in reference to anthracite, and agree that " it is 
 as much a normal creation as the bituminous."* But 
 if he drop this doctrine he must take up the primitive 
 carbon theory. There can be no intermediary doctrine. 
 It requires the agency of excessive heat to make an an- 
 thracite, and if not heat brought to bear upon the coal, 
 after it was laid down in the earth's crust, it was 
 brought to bear upon it before it was laid down. And 
 if brought to bear upon it before it was laid, we have 
 no resort but the admission that such coals are the 
 primitive products of the igneous earth. It is only one 
 more instance of the demands of law one more in- 
 stance of positive testimony that settles the annular 
 theory upon its immutable foundation. Men who are 
 abundantly better qualified than I am, and with better 
 opportunities for gathering information from the coal 
 literature of the world, can see for themselves that an- 
 thracite cannot be a metamorphosed bituminous coal. 
 
 But let us examine the anthracite coals under the 
 light of the annular theory. Again, let us suppose a 
 heavy fall of annular carbon in the North Atlantic 
 Ocean ; and that the Appalachian Mountains were again 
 under the sea. This carbon carried by the ocean cur- 
 "Amer. Cyclo., Article 'Anthracite.'"
 
 316 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 rents southward, would fall to the sea bottom in the 
 more quiet waters. The heavy or anthracitic dust in 
 the deep waters would reach bottom where lighter 
 forms could not. Just as a log of wood, not being able 
 to sink very deeply, would float to shallow waters and 
 reach bottom there, while a heavier log, not being able 
 to float into shallow waters, would find bottom in deeper 
 seas. It is plain that if the various coals of the Ap- 
 palachian field were pulverized into dust, and cast into 
 Baffin's Bay, it would be carried southward along the 
 coast of the American continent, and the light parti- 
 cles would find a resting place nearer the coast. The 
 anthracite dust would settle in deeper basins distant 
 from the shores. That is, the re-arrangement of the 
 carbon would necessarily be very similar to that which 
 is now found in the Pennsylvania coals. The heavy, 
 hard carbon would be planted eastward in the deeper 
 seas, and the soft and light forms would be found 
 farther west. Now I suppose all geologists will further 
 agree with me that before the Appalachian upheaval 
 took place that the eastern base of the system, being 
 farther out in the sea was in deeper waters than the 
 western. How did it then so felicitously happen that 
 the present arrangement of the Appalachian coals and 
 the probable condition of the sea bottom, accord with 
 annular arrangement? It is plain that if the anthra- 
 cite had been placed in the western part of the field, 
 the new theory would here have been a failure. And 
 since we have here three conditions viz., the constitu- 
 tion of the coal itself; its arrangement and assortment 
 in the field; and the condition of the sea bottom i.e., 
 the sloping from the coast to the deep sea, all pointing 
 harmoniously to the annular origin of these carbon
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 317 
 
 beds, and finally, since we must find primitive anthra- 
 cite in the aqueous crust, and also thus arranged, what 
 need we of further evidence? 
 
 But an objector will ask: Why do the bituminous 
 coals contain a greater percentage of ash ? I reply, sim- 
 ply because bituminous dust not being able to settle 
 directly with the anthracite remained longer in suspen- 
 sion, and consequently received a greater amount of 
 marine impurities. This carbon floating shorewards 
 necessarily encountered more detrital matter, and be- 
 ing lighter, settled more slowly, thus allowing more 
 foreign matter to settle with it. Can the vegetation 
 theory in any wise account for this fact ? Again, it is 
 plain that if this theory be true, then the farther west- 
 ward and southward the carbon had to float, the longer 
 was it held in suspension, and consequently the most 
 western and southwestern coals of the Appalachian sys- 
 tem must contain the greatest quantity of ash. I need 
 but call the reader's attention to the fact that in the re- 
 cent Ohio Geological Survey,* of the 200 analyses 45 
 showed over ten per cent, of ash, 120 give more than 
 six per cent., and 176 exhibited a greater per cent, of 
 ash than the average of American anthracites, as given 
 in the American Cyclopoedia; and the average of the 
 whole list of 200, as given by N. W. Lord, chemist of 
 the survey, is more than seven and a half per cent., or 
 two per cent, greater than the average of ten Pennsyl- 
 vania bituminous coals, as found in Peale's table of 
 Hayden's report of 1874 (page 177). And one per 
 cent, greater than the ten samples given by Dana (page 
 316), and two per cent, greater than Peale's average of 
 the anthracites of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 "Report for 1874," pages 1099 to 1108.
 
 318 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 If we compare the Rocky Mountain anthracites with 
 the other coals in the same region * we find there the 
 same evidence, proving that the former were not de- 
 rived from the latter by metamorphism. 
 
 According to this view, then, when the surveys of 
 those regions shall have been completed, the coals in 
 the more southern districts will prove to contain a 
 greater per cent, of ash and the heaviest beds of anthra- 
 cite will be found planted in the northern part of the 
 great plateau, and principally in British America.f 
 
 This necessary rule in the division and assortment 
 of coals is also interestingly illustrated in the north- 
 ern medial, and more southern anthracites of the Ap- 
 palachian field. As it is evident that the great inland 
 sea, or bay, in which the carboniferous system of the 
 Alleghenies was laid down, communicated eastwardly 
 and northeastwardly with the ocean, the carbon must 
 have come in from those directions. Then it is also 
 evident that the more eastern and northeastern beds 
 should possess the greatest specific gravity, considering 
 the ash eliminated, while the western and southern beds 
 would be specifically lighter with greater amount of ash 
 to eliminate. 
 
 I have but to point my readers to the well-known 
 facts concerning these beds and prove the validity of 
 this position. From hundreds of localities examined 
 there comes but an occasional instance where the facts 
 are not entirely in harmony with this theory. But I 
 
 *"Hayden," 1873, page 112. 
 
 t Some years after the above conclusion was reached i. e., that 
 there must be a vast coal field in British America, the following 
 paragraph went the rounds of the press : " A seam of anthracite 
 coal of fine quality has been found on the Canada Pacific Railroad 
 800 miles west of Winnipeg. The seams are 14 feet thick."
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 319 
 
 do not ask the reader to depend upon my judgment and 
 observations alone. I will again draw from the Ameri- 
 can Cyclopedia. In the analysis of Carbondale coal in 
 the extreme northeast coal region, the ash is but 2.70 
 per cent., the lowest of all analyses given, except one. 
 The next two, one from the Lehigh district, the next im- 
 portant district on the south, afford 2.77 of ash. Still 
 farther southwest in the Pottsville district, forty-two 
 analyses give an average of 4.78 per cent. Still farther 
 south and west in the western district the average is 
 5.67. Thus taking the various coal fields of Pennsyl- 
 vania in regular order, from northeast to southwest, and 
 using all the analyses given (except one, exceptionally 
 small), there is a manifest gradation in the amount of 
 ash, which the annular theory imperatively demands, 
 and which the vegetation theory cannot explain. 
 
 If this anthracite coal region should extend further 
 south we would certainly expect to find a still further 
 increase of ash; and in reviewing my notes I find there 
 is in Southwest Virginia, in the neighborhood of Bush 
 and Price's Mountains, a basin of true anthracite, evi- 
 dently a prolongation of the Pennsylvania anthra- 
 cites, where an analysis shows 8.30 per cent, of ash. 
 This may be exceptionally large. But it is not a little 
 remarkable that these analyses should so accord with 
 the requirements of the new theory. Now the density of 
 these carbon-beds is a measure of their specific gravity, 
 and our theory demands that this density should in- 
 crease inversely, or contrary to the above order, and 
 beginning with the Virginia anthracite and proceeding 
 northeast, we have the following gradation of densi- 
 ties: 1.370, 1.383, 1.510, 1.554, 1.400. Is this all acci- 
 dental ?
 
 320 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 I cannot with advantage prolong this argument in 
 the examination of foreign coals, both light and heavy. 
 Enough has here been shown to cause the philosopher 
 to pause and reconsider his conclusions. 
 
 Soon after entering the devonian domain we meet 
 with a widespread deposit of black carbonaceous mat- 
 ter, known in different lands by local names, and some- 
 times divided into two or three divisions, and again 
 combined into one. In many places, as in some parts of 
 Europe, it lies upon a conglomerate and is known as 
 bituminous schists, containing remains of fishes. In 
 various parts of North America it is distinguished by 
 its bituminous or oily character, and claimed by some 
 to be the chief source of the oil flow. But be this as it 
 may, it is a dark or black carbonaceous deposit, and of 
 course it is claimed by geologists that the carbon is of 
 organic origin. Now we have not here the direct and 
 positive means of disproving this claim as we had in the 
 formation of graphite, for here we have organisms, both 
 animal and vegetable, which contain carbon. It is evi- 
 dent that if a deposit is carbonaceous because of the 
 presence of vegetable remains, the greater the quantity 
 of vegetation it contains the greater the amount of car- 
 bonacous matter it contains. Now nature will vindi- 
 cate herself. It so happens that these black shales are 
 not nearly so profusely filled with fossils as the rocks 
 either above or below them. So far as my own observa- 
 tion extends the more highly bituminous these rocks 
 are the greater is the paucity of fossils. Dana says :* 
 " The Hamilton black shale is almost destitute of fos- 
 sils, and very bituminous." Again, in speaking of the 
 Marcellus division of the black shale, he says (p. 271) : 
 
 * " Manual," page 275.
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 321 
 
 " The black shales contain but few fossils." But in the 
 face of all this he says (p. 268) : " The carbonaceous 
 material of the black Marcellus shale is of organic ori- 
 gin," and also adds that it has not yet been ascertained 
 whether it is due to sea-weeds or land-plants, or partly 
 to fishes or other animals. 
 
 Now it so happens that in these shales sometimes fos- 
 sils are well preserved, and their preservation in abund- 
 ance in the associated beds proves there was an abund- 
 ant land vegetation during the time these shales accu- 
 mulated. There were lycopods, ferns and equiseta, 
 and some of the lower orders of phanogams. There 
 were more than forty species of ferns alone. We find 
 them in abundance in such associations as to show that 
 they are there simply near shore deposits. But in these 
 very places the shales are less bituminous. Now if 
 these plants produced the carbonaceous or bituminous 
 products in the shales, why are not the associated beds, 
 which contain a greater profusion of organic matter, 
 themselves bituminous ? These dark deposits are wide- 
 spread, and it seems impossible to refer them to an or- 
 ganic origin. 
 
 Again, when we come higher up in the series we find 
 a great number of dark or black carbonaceous beds, 
 and, as we generally find that these are only expansions 
 and prolongations of coal seams, their origin becomes 
 apparent. Prof. Andrews has said : *" Every stratum 
 of bituminous shale in our productive coal measures im- 
 plies the existence of a coal marsh on the same proxi- 
 mate horizon, and should always be noted and studied 
 with this fact in mind." He also states that these slates 
 and shales were probably formed out of " carbonaceous 
 
 " Ohio Reports, 1873," Vol. I, page 357.
 
 322 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 mud that did not go to form cannel coal, but was floated 
 away by currents and mingled with mineral sediments." 
 I would like the vegetarian to state how the waters car- 
 ried the carbon away from the marsh, forming on the 
 " same proximate horizon," and first made a cannel de- 
 posit, and continuing to float a part of this carbon, and, 
 on the " same proximate horizon," made bituminous 
 shales, without the waters of the seas involving that 
 whole horizon. Again, I would like to learn from what 
 proximate horizon the Marcellus shales, and their con- 
 temporary carbonaceous beds of other continents, de- 
 rived their floating carbon. 
 
 If the primitive carbon theory be allowed to explain 
 there seems to be no mystery. Carbon that fell in the 
 water and floated directly to its resting place without 
 coming in contact with much detrital matter became 
 a bed of pure coal. The finer particles of carbon-dust 
 meeting with a small amount of foreign or floating par- 
 ticles of clay, would likely form splint coal; a larger 
 amount of clay would form cannel coal, and in the same 
 horizon a part of the carbon meeting with an abundance 
 of other matter would form black slates and shales. 
 
 There is another feature in coal that requires a brief 
 notice. I have referred to the well-known fact that fos- 
 sil plants in coal are generally mineralized charcoal, and 
 difficult of combustion. If the bed were bodily a vege- 
 table production the same difficulty would certainly 
 characterize the mass and we are therefore compelled 
 to admit that the plant is simply a foreign body in a 
 bed of mineral carbon and is itself a mineralized car- 
 bon fossil simply because it is in that bed; In short, 
 we are forced to look beyond the plant for the origin of 
 the bed.
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 323 
 
 Again, mineral charcoal, so frequently found in some 
 coal seams, contains much less percentage of ash than 
 the mineral coal itself. The charcoal frequently an- 
 alyzes from one to one-and-a-quarter per cent., and 
 sometimes as low as three-quarters of one per cent. 
 That is, the part of a coal seam known to be vegetation 
 is so free from ash as to argue the inconsistency of 
 claiming that the whole bed is a vegetation. 
 
 Again, the surface of a coal seam is sometimes 
 covered with undulations akin to ripple-marks. The 
 roof of coal, in some instances in coal mines, plainly 
 indicate that the clays or sand were deposited on a 
 ripple-marked surface, and these undulations are some- 
 times seen on the face of the coal. These things lead 
 us to conclude that such beds are aqueous sediments.* 
 
 To show some of the inequalities and lack of paral- 
 lelism of coal beds I quote from Prof. Andrews in the 
 Ohio Survey (vol. L, page 352) : " In one case within 
 the area of a county where there were five seams of 
 coal in the vertical series the intervals between each 
 two consecutive seams are given. The published fig- 
 ures show that in the subsidence, before the second 
 seam from the bottom was formed, the originally hori- 
 zontal plane of the bottom seam had sunk to depths 
 
 * Though somewhat out of its proper place, I will call the 
 reader's attention to the well-established fact that some of the 
 limestones of the silurian series are distinctly marked with wave- 
 lines or ripple-marks. In the well-known blue limestone beds 
 of the great Cincinnati uplift, are many such undulating layers 
 of wide extent. The mass seems as though it had been throws 
 into innumerable ridges of from two to six inches high, and when 
 a thin stratum has this peculiarity, the bottom of the furrow 
 thins out, and sometimes disappears. The ridges generally have 
 a uniform direction. These things certainly show that the blue 
 lime strata of the silurian were not deep sea deposits, but actual 
 mechanical sediments, deposited in waters so shallow that waves 
 and currents molded the sea bottom. Hence, the annular origin 
 of these lime beds is apparent.
 
 324 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 varying from 34 to 87 feet; before the third seam was 
 formed the second horizontal plane of coal had sunk ir- 
 regularly to depths varying from 47 to 149 feet; the 
 third plane of coal in turn settled down in some places 
 31 feet, and in others 69 feet, before the fourth seam 
 was laid down, while the plane of the fourth was found 
 to show an irregular subsidence of from 13 to 40 feet 
 before the fifth and highest marsh appeared with its 
 luxuriant vegetation. ... If these figures represent 
 facts, they, with all facts, however stubborn, have their 
 rights. These facts, however, appear to me to have un- 
 usual stubbornness." (Italics mine.) The Professor 
 goes on to say that such facts are " barely possible," and 
 this must be the conclusion of every philosophic geolo- 
 gist such irregular subsidence is in fact impossible 
 over such small areas. Again, in alluding to the pos- 
 sible elevation of a coal seam whereby it would form a 
 highland, where rivers might wash out the coal, he 
 says: " So far as my observations go, there is not a 
 shadow of proof of any such upheaval during the prog- 
 ress of the formation of our coal seams, but, on the 
 other hand, all observed facts militate against such a 
 supposition." This illustrious man saw plainly that the 
 swamp theory of coal formation did not admit of such 
 a supposition. But it is plain that such irregular sub- 
 sidence and re-elevation must produce some highlands. 
 But as highlands did not exist in the coal marshes, as 
 Andrews avers, we have no alternative but to admit 
 that the coal is a sedimentary deposit on the irregular 
 and uneven floor of the sea. 
 
 In some places fragments of solid coal have been torn 
 from a seam and carried by currents and deposited but 
 a few feet above the same coal seam from which they
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 325 
 
 were derived, showing that the seam had hardened 
 directly after it had been deposited. Now peat beds, 
 after being deeply buried for ages, remain, so soft as to 
 be easily carved with the shovel. 
 
 The late surveys in different States have revealed 
 the fact that a coal seam has become so solid as to be 
 planed off as smooth as a board, by eroding agencies, 
 directly after it was laid down, or before heavy beds 
 had accumulated upon it. These things bear witness 
 to the fact that such seams are not vegetable peat 
 formations. 
 
 Geologists are all aware that vast beds of carbon 
 were deposited during some of the epochs of the ter- 
 tiary and cretaceous periods. The cretaceous was the 
 last period of the age of reptilian monsters, and the 
 tertiary the next succeeding period when the ances- 
 tors of our mammalian races came upon the scene. 
 Both periods were characterized by great carbon falls. 
 Extensive coal beds in Asia are probably of the cre- 
 taceous period; while the vast carbon beds among the 
 Rocky Mountains, and underlying the vast plains to the 
 east of those mountains, were formed in the tertiary 
 period. I will not crowd these pages with a considera- 
 tion of these later coal formations, in other continents, 
 but confine our investigation to the so-called lignites of 
 the Cordilleras. 
 
 If it could be shown that the great Rocky Mountain 
 plateau, on which the coal beds are planted, did not 
 exist as the sea bottom over which the waters from 
 the arctic world rolled during the tertiary period 
 then here the annular theory would meet with a re- 
 pulse; but it is well known that during that long era of 
 stupendous changes the Rocky Mountain region
 
 326 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 throughout its entire length and breadth was sleeping 
 in the sea; the ocean's waves then rolled over some of 
 its highest peaks, and the great canyons that interweave 
 that vast region have been made by devouring streams 
 since the coal beds were formed. The tertiary beds 
 reach from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, proving that 
 currents ran toward the equator along the valley of the 
 Mackenzie, bearing into southern waters whatever fell 
 from the upper world. This, it may be said, is a fact 
 well known to geologists. It is easy, then, to under- 
 stand how the vast expanse of this western world be- 
 came the receptacle of tertiary carbon; while the dove- 
 tailing of these two facts that there is tertiary carbon 
 there, and that a great tertiary strait poured its waters 
 southward from the Polar sea lends strength to the 
 claims I have made. Turning now to the eastern bor- 
 der, and finding no tertiary coals there, we are led to 
 believe that a narrow continent stretched from America 
 to Europe, across the present bed of the Atlantic, thus 
 hindering the southern flow of carbon along the Atlan- 
 tic sea-board. It is now very fully conceded by geolo- 
 gists that through the tertiary epochs such an isthmus 
 of land reached from Newfoundland to the shores of 
 Europe; if this be true, what a fund of tertiary carbon 
 must lie at the bottom of the North Atlantic ! There is 
 every reason for believing that if these later coals had 
 been formed out of vegetation growing in great conti- 
 nental swamps, that the same opportunity was offered 
 by the Eastern sea border for this swamp vegetation. 
 How true, then, the claim formerly made that before 
 a peat-forming vegetation could grow, its foundation 
 bed must first be laid down ! Indeed, if there be such 
 a universal tendency for the formation of peat-coal, as
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 327 
 
 geologists must claim, if coal really was formed in that 
 way, the long stretch of coast from Long Island to the 
 Rio Grande presented a great opportunity for the 
 formation of some tertiary coal. Why is it not there ? 
 The question then presents itself: How did it happen 
 that at the very time our theory necessitated a chance 
 for the flow of carbon from northern waters, an oppor- 
 tunity was given, just where and just when it was re- 
 quired i.e., over the slope of British America, and 
 when the coal beds were forming? And again, since 
 the absence of these coals on the eastern border of the 
 continent forces the annular theory to demand a bar- 
 rier across the flood ground from the north, why did 
 this barrier come just where and just when it was 
 needed to support the theory? These, it is true, are 
 minor links of evidences, but they are links none the 
 less. 
 
 It must be within the comprehension of every reader 
 that if the vast fund of lignitic coals is a vegetable pro- 
 duction, it was present in the tertiary atmosphere as a 
 deadly poison. Now look at the immensity of the coal 
 field at present known to geologists, while every search 
 extends its known limits, and if possible conceive what 
 an atmosphere that was. Turn to the waters of the 
 cretaceous seas and behold them filled with breathing 
 animals, and, if possible, reconcile these facts: An 
 atmosphere in the highest degree destructive to life; an 
 ocean filled with fishes and reptiles in many instances 
 there were fishes akin to those of our own time, the 
 recent order of teliosts had ancestral representatives in 
 the cretaceous and tertiary seas; there were sharks like 
 the modern squalodonts, including our salmon and 
 perch; in the same seas was the populous kingdom of
 
 328 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 reptilian monsters, terrible monarchs of the watery do- 
 main, snakes twenty feet in length; the great whale-like 
 zeuglodon, seventy or more feet in length; the shark- 
 like carcharadon, with teeth more than half a foot 
 long, and five inches broad at the base. Turtles lived 
 on the shores and mud-flats, so large that they would 
 outweigh the largest ox of this age. Reptiles of the 
 higher grades, such as the ichthyosauri, combining the 
 several forms of the whale, fish, lizard and crocodile ; the 
 plesiosauri, with the body of a porpoise, the flippers of 
 a whale, the neck of a swan and the head of a serpent. 
 These air-breathing animals in vast armies swam the 
 ocean world, with hundreds of other species whose hab- 
 itat was the waters. But more than all other recepta- 
 cles of carbonic anhydride or the very poison the 
 plant required the ocean, by its wonderful powers of 
 absorption, must have been totally unfit for either 
 fishes or amphibians; and while we know that at the 
 very time the vast deposits of tertiary coals were being 
 made, in addition to the ocean fauna the mammalian 
 types of the present races in mighty hordes possessed 
 the land surface, and which could not have lived in 
 such an atmosphere as the vegetation theory requires 
 can we possibly reconcile these inconsistencies? A 
 coal-forming age, on a world of abounding life, means 
 the absolute abrogation of law, so long as we admit 
 coal to be the product of the plant, any more than it is 
 to-day. 
 
 It is plain that the tertiary earth was in all other re- 
 spects a perfected world. Fountains leaped from the 
 hillsides; rills and rivers ran to the seas. Birds flew 
 in air; flowers clothed the plain and variegated the for- 
 est. Man might have lived then as now. The un-
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 329 
 
 wieldy animals, of more than elephantine bulk, argue 
 a heavy atmosphere, which in turn argues upper aerial 
 matter on its way to the earth, which, in fact, is the 
 very thing our theory demands. 
 
 Set vast continental marshes to work in the distilla- 
 tion of carbon, how quickly it would exhaust the atmos- 
 pheric carbon now present as plant food ! Then where 
 would the peat-bog look for more to continue the 
 process ? From the decay of vegetation of course ! But 
 here the millepore fiasco appears again. Vegetation 
 must decay in order that it should produce plant food 
 for vegetation. This we can all see very plainly. But 
 this does not account for the carbon that did not decay 
 that which is stored away as carbon. Here, then, 
 we are forced to look beyond the plant food in the at- 
 mosphere for the deposited carbon. Did it come from 
 the tertiary volcanoes and solfataras as unconsumed 
 carbon ? If so it must have used up the free oxygen in 
 the air, and thus have robbed the animal kingdom, 
 which the record denies. Then we are forced to admit 
 that this plant food came during tertiary times, as 
 poisonous carbonic anhydride, directly from the inter- 
 nal fires of the earth. But this means universal death 
 at the very time the world was peopled. It means, too, 
 that the oceans were bodies of acidulated waters, and 
 not all alkaline, as they are to-day; and this means the 
 dissolution of all forms in which lime was a component 
 part, and this the record also denies. What a tribu- 
 lated path the vegetarian must lead ! Besides all these 
 insurmountable difficulties it must have been a very 
 accommodating and felicitous circumstance that the 
 world should produce this plant food at the time so 
 much of its surface was a swamp marsh ; that it should
 
 330 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 (V . 
 
 fail to feed the swamp vegetation of the tropics, or even 
 that which grew in higher latitudes, provided it was 
 not located where it was chilled and bathed by polar 
 waters. 
 
 There are some simple facts which in the philosophic 
 mind must be strong witnesses against the old theory 
 and which the geologist has scarcely yet noticed. Sup- 
 pose we should take a common limestone and saturate 
 it with coal-oil such a thing can be readily done under 
 great pressure we will then have a bituminous lime- 
 stone, just such as exists in great beds low down in the 
 bosom of the earth. If now we subject our saturated 
 stone to great heat we can soon burn out the oil and the 
 limestone will remain solid as before. Not so with the 
 nature-formed bituminous stone. Subject it to the 
 same degree of heat, the oil burns out, but the stone is 
 reduced to impalpable powder. Let us look at this a 
 little more particularly. These limestones thus nat- 
 urally formed are made up of calcareous particles ce- 
 mented together by bituminous or asphaltic matter. 
 When there is but a small amount of the bitumen in it 
 the rock is hard and solid, but when it consists of 25 
 per cent, of the mass, as it frequently does, it is so soft 
 as to be easily carved with a knife. Again, it is some- 
 times found as pure bitumen in isolated patches or 
 pockets in the body of the limestone. Now as the lime- 
 stone is an aqueous rock we must conclude that the 
 carbon matter it contains is also. 
 
 Not long since a company of Frenchmen successfully 
 impregnated solid limestone with bitumen for asphaltic 
 pavements. But heat would drive out the bitumen and 
 leave the stone hard and solid. Now this seems to con- 
 clusively prove that the bitumen was not a cement in
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 331 
 
 this case for, as stated before, when the bituminous 
 stone from the quarry was subjected to heat, the bitu- 
 men was also expelled, but the limestone reduced to 
 powder. Does it not prove that in the latter case the 
 bitumen was a cement? It does prove without doubt 
 that the lime particles and the carbon particles were de- 
 posited together in the same mass! And as the lime- 
 stone was matter in the sea, so was the former. Hence, 
 so far as asphaltic carbon is concerned, we see it can- 
 not be a vegetable product since we must look beyond 
 the limestone bed for its origin. 
 
 The " pocketed " bitumen is found in stratified 
 Beams, and, as both the carbon and the calcareous par- 
 ticles settled together to form the stone, we can readily 
 understand how the assorting power of currents could 
 separate them and form occasional beds of pure bitu- 
 men. 
 
 Another feature in connection with the anthracites 
 might be mentioned here, although a little out of its 
 proper place. Quoting from the American Cyclopae- 
 dia will serve to show how utterly baseless the meta- 
 morphic theory is : " Prof. H. D. Rogers explains the 
 formation of anthracite by supposing it to be the result 
 of altered bituminous coal, by heat induced subsequent 
 to the formation of the bituminous beds; and he fur- 
 ther explains the escape of the volatile portion of the 
 latter as gas through cracks and openings formed by 
 plication. This plication follows closely the general 
 type of the eastern paleozoic rocks which are intensely 
 crushed and folded near the contact of their edges with 
 the igneous or granitic rocks, and much less plicated 
 and contorted in a western direction." But this beau- 
 tiful picture is badly spoiled by the eminent collators
 
 332 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 of the Cyclopaedia, who, in commenting upon these 
 views, say : " The facts do not sustain the theory ! 
 First, the upper beds and strata are more distorted and 
 dislocated than the lower ones, etc. Second, the meas- 
 ures are more plicated and crushed in the western than 
 at the eastern extremity; yet the coal of the latter is a 
 dense hard anthracite, while that of the former is semi- 
 bituminous." It is scarcely necessary for me to add 
 another word on metamorphism, except to say that 
 these facts just stated are precisely what the annular 
 theory claims. If they were otherwise the theory would 
 necessarily fail. A theory that fails in one point is a 
 complete failure. Hence, metamorphism, having failed 
 in the most essential particular, is a complete failure. 
 
 Then, briefly summarizing, let us see how the coal 
 problem now must stand in the eyes of the law: 
 
 1st. The plant, when subjected to a proper mode of 
 destructive distillation, is made to yield carbon in vari- 
 ous allotropic forms. So it is with a limestone, or any 
 other mineral that has carbon as a part of its constitu- 
 tion. The earth was made of such minerals to an enor- 
 mous extent, and these were subjected to such a de- 
 structive distillation during the igneous era; and, there- 
 fore, these forms of carbon were placed in the earth's 
 crust, and placed there after the primitive fires died 
 out. 
 
 2d. All such primitive distillations existed in the at- 
 mosphere of the incandescent earth, which, upon cool- 
 ing and condensing, formed a part and parcel of the 
 earth's annular system, of meteoric and vaporous 
 matter. 
 
 3d. This matter, as it declined and commingled with 
 the true atmosphere of after ages, changed from the
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 333 
 
 ring into the belt-form and over-canopied the earth in 
 its efforts to reach its surface, and consequently fell 
 largely in regions outside of the tropics. 
 
 4th. The heaviest form of carbon fell largely in the 
 earliest ages; though all sections of the system must 
 have had some of each form, the outer sections must 
 have possessed the largest part of the light forms of 
 carbon, and the inmost sections the largest part of 
 the heaviest forms. 
 
 5th. Thus all ages were more or less characterized 
 by carbon falls, and no age could be exclusively car- 
 boniferous. 
 
 6th. Carbon, falling into the ocean directly, would 
 separate into lighter and heavier forms and settle ac- 
 cordingly in higher and lower elevations (shallower 
 and deeper parts) of the sea, thus explaining why dif- 
 ferent forms of coal are found frequently on the same 
 proximate horizon. 
 
 7th. The earliest or heaviest forms are free from or- 
 ganic remains, and must, therefore, be a primitive dis- 
 tillation ; and the other carbon beds, by their associated 
 strata, by their involved vegetation and other organ- 
 isms, by accompanying clay-partings, by involved gla- 
 cial drift, by latitudinal gradation in quantity of ash 
 and specific gravity, by their characteristic absence 
 from the tropics and heavy deposits in higher latitudes, 
 by synchronous formation in all continents, by their 
 evident formation in the very lap and bosom of the 
 glacier amid ice and flood; by the fact that they are 
 bituminous, oily hydro-carbons, and by a multitude of 
 inconsistencies and impossibilities involved in the vege- 
 tation theory, have been shown to be actual sediment- 
 ary deposits, and therefore a primitive product.
 
 334 The Earth's Anntdar System. 
 
 It has been my lot to pass the greater part of my life 
 among coal veins and coal mines. When a boy I was 
 a coal-digger in my father's coal bank, and my eyes 
 have seen the evidence embodied in this volume, and 
 much more that I cannot use here ; and though brought 
 up in the vegetarian school, and a full believer in that 
 doctrine, till forced to denounce it by cumulative and 
 crushing testimony, I must say I have never seen, in the 
 hundreds of coal veins I have carefully examined, one 
 jot of evidence that would lead a philosophic geologist 
 to say it did not evince aqueous deposition. Since 
 then there is not so much as one feature connected with 
 the formation of coal that is not readily explainable by 
 the primitive carbon theory; not one that philosophic 
 law does not resolve into harmony with annular declen- 
 sion, without even the show of conflict; and since vege- 
 tarians are forever stumbling upon inexplicable diffi- 
 culties, boulders, pebbles, pockets, doubling of coal- 
 beds, undulations, slopes, ripple-marks, clay-partings, 
 cannel coal inseparably joined with bituminous coal, 
 anthracites with less amount of ash, marine impurities, 
 carbon planted in archsean beds, air-breathing animals 
 among tertiary coals, carbon dredged from the ocean, 
 dug from the frozen world, and innumerable other ob- 
 jections over which they cannot climb, I am free to say 
 to my brother geologists : Come to this new field ! The 
 vegetation theory cannot be true ! You all know full 
 well that these stubborn facts are continually multiply- 
 ing, and before many years roll around you must know 
 full well that normal world-evolution is annular declen- 
 sion. Deny this, and you then must deny primitive 
 igneous action. 
 
 It was not until after many years of an effort to ex-
 
 Some Emphatic and Positive Evidence. 335 
 
 plain these difficulties upon the old theory that I con- 
 sented to connect it with annular matter; but when 
 once placed upon this new foundation every difficulty 
 vanished, and investigators must soon take up the coal 
 question, thus imperfectly treated in these chapters, 
 and bring inexpressible beauty out of confusion.
 
 CHAPTEK XVI 
 
 OIL, GAS AND OTHEE CARBONS. 
 
 We now come to the consideration of those com- 
 pounds which above all others stand as monumental 
 witnesses of the primitive origin of the carbon forms 
 now stored in the earth's crust. It is well known that 
 the bitumen in its rocky matrix, when subjected to su- 
 ficient heat, is driven out as an educt, not as a product 
 of the rock. Being an educt, we must look beyond the 
 rock for its origin, and where else can we look but back 
 into the igneous earth, which, millions of years before 
 a fish swam the ocean, or a plant rooted in the soil, had 
 entire and complete control of all the carbon in the 
 planet ? 
 
 When we take the sooty carbon from our chimneys 
 and make it yield oil, asphalt and graphite, it would be 
 difficult for the intelligent chemist to understand how 
 the primitive earth fires could elaborate this planetary 
 carbon into anything else than the very forms now 
 locked in the strata of the world. How can the geolo- 
 gist get around or over this rock, when he knows as well 
 as any one that it was the legitimate business of the 
 primitive heat to make hydro-carbons as we find them 
 to-day ? It is not so much a question as to what pro- 
 duced these carbons as to how a molten world consti- 
 tuted as ours is could avoid producing them. 
 
 What nature has made in measureless quantities, and 
 is yet, as a puny offspring, of an exhaustless energy, 
 making under favorable and possible conditions, man,
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 337 
 
 with his accumulated and growing knowledge of chemi- 
 cal laws, can make in his laboratory. He can take the 
 living mollusk, or fish, or the human body, or any other 
 organism, animal or vegetable, and subject it to heat in 
 his retort and make all the carbons that were made in 
 the molten earth. But while he can do this, he has no 
 right to conclude that because he can thus manipulate 
 organic matter the carbons and hydro-carbons of the 
 earth were derived from fishes and mollusks. It should 
 not be forgotten that all organic matter is in part an 
 ultimate derivative from and of the molten earth. Rep- 
 tiles, lobsters and fishes, as well as the plant, are to all 
 intents already hydro-carbons at hand for the chemist 
 to elaborate into anthracite, asphalt and petroleum, 
 and the innumerable other carbon forms. Chemists 
 have made bitumen from fish oil, and paper and shavings 
 of wood answer the same purpose ; and he need not stop 
 there, for any organic oil will fill its place. If fishes and 
 plants are to have the credit of making the vast hoards 
 of oil in the earth, why not conclude that the different 
 kinds of fish and different kinds of plants made the dif- 
 ferent kinds of oil. Of course the olive plant could not 
 make fish oil. 
 
 The simple fact that in thousands of laboratories 
 these liquid and solid distillates are being formed to-day 
 by artificial means ought to lead the scientist to con- 
 clude that the molten earth, with all the carbon, hydro- 
 gen and oxygen right at hand, could not have failed to 
 fill itself with these crude distillates. The grand op- 
 portunity thus afforded could not have been shunned, 
 and the chemist to-day redistills what the primitive fire 
 placed within his reach ; and this is just what the animal 
 and the plant have been doing all the time in the
 
 338 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 scheme of world-making. In the artificial manufacture 
 of creosote and carbolic acid man has exhibited but lit- 
 tle more skill than Dame Nature. The latter, having 
 had the monopoly in oil making, accidentally, as it 
 were, gave her survivals an opportunity to continue 
 what she had well nigh completed in the igneous age. 
 
 The organic oils are not the only source from which 
 hydro-carbons can be obtained. Limestones and all the 
 carbonates, when subjected to dissolving heat and 
 moisture, will yield the asphaltic compounds and oily 
 distillates. If the various forms of bitumen are readily, 
 formed from animal and vegetable matter, under a mod- 
 erate degree of heat, a higher degree of heat will pro- 
 duce the more refractory compounds, as gilsanite, 
 graphite, etc. All the residual compounds, such as re- 
 main last in the chemist's retort, are simply these more 
 refractory compounds. Nature left these residuals as 
 the asphalts, graphites, etc. Besides the carbon and 
 hydrogen in the asphalts, many of them contain other 
 elements, as sulphur, nitrogen and mineral ash. 
 
 I have in my laboratory a specimen of residual car- 
 bon taken from the laurentian beds near Toronto, Can- 
 ada. It is in a high degree crystalline, bright and 
 glossy, and burns as readily as anthracite, leaving the 
 merest trace of ash. If geologists must insist that this 
 is a product of an ancient vegetation, where not a trace 
 of a plant can be found, when every one must admit 
 that such a product must contain more abundant ash, 
 I can with a thousand times more reason insist that this 
 crystalline fuel is a residual product of the reducing 
 fires that sent oily vapors to the skies millions of years 
 before the earth could support a plant. The thinker ia 
 forced to admit that even the plant could never have
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 339 
 
 existed and entered upon its survival work, if these car- 
 bons had not been gathered from the earth's inmost 
 depths by reducing heat, and why in the name of rea- 
 son the plant, as an actual result and product of primi- 
 tive heat, should be made to do all this antecedent work 
 in addition to its legitimate labors is indeed strange. 
 Why should the plant present the fire-gathered carbon 
 as a secondary or inadequate distillation, when, as all 
 must know, the first one was a million times more com- 
 petent and certain in its work ? Why have men so long 
 closed their eyes to the fact that all present energies, all 
 present world-processes, are but dying efforts, and can 
 in no sense compare with the Titanic labors of the pri- 
 meval earth. 
 
 There was a day when the world-heat was beginning 
 a day when the reducing fires were starting on their 
 grand career of world-making. In that day the young 
 earth could no more avoid the evolution of the lighter 
 and readily formed hydro-carbons than the artificial 
 furnace can avoid it now. With a heat of less than 
 200 Cent, fuel gas comes from the chemist's retort to- 
 day, and I assume such tractable products arose from 
 the earth's initial fires, and as sure as fate they went 
 to the skies along with other steaming vapors. 
 
 As the earth-fires progressed and the heat became 
 more intense other and heavier products arose, until in 
 the course of eons the world shone as a star, with a 
 glowing ocean of unconsumed fuel. During all that im- 
 measurable lapse of time, let us remember, all these 
 fiery sublimations were being assorted by their affinities 
 and gravital tendencies. The lightest forms would 
 float the highest and arrange themselves in the outer- 
 most rings of the system, and as a matter of course they
 
 340 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 would be the last to descend, and these must be found 
 to-day placed in the uppermost crust of the earth. The 
 heaviest forms of carbon, such as the graphite, would 
 ride the lowest in the fiery envelope and fall early in 
 the geologic past, and must be found in the oldest beds. 
 Is it necessary for me to more than tell the fact that 
 these carbons forms are found just as this orderly 
 scheme demands? The heaviest graphitic masses are 
 met with in the oldest beds only, and the lighter are lo- 
 cated away above them. 
 
 The heaviest distillations fell back upon a hot but 
 cooling core, and as these all had passed through the 
 fire test everything with them must be incombustible in 
 ordinary heat, and we all know what crucibles of 
 graphite are capable of. Rocks of these oldest forma- 
 tions, as all can see, are not fusible by any ordinary 
 heat simply because they have passed through a higher 
 heat test. Will the old school tell us why and how the 
 readily fused rocks are thus separated from the more 
 refractory? Why have ages separated them? Annu- 
 lar world evolution only can explain it and tell how and 
 why ! It will be well to inquire somewhat into the 
 primitive deportment of the oily carbons. During the 
 great oil excitement in the Ohio Valley, when wells 
 were being drilled all along the upper branches of the 
 river, many of these overflowed and ran down into the 
 river channel. When the waters of the river were clear 
 this oil spread over a vast surface, but it was frequently 
 observed that during freshets, when muddy water came 
 down the channel, the oil on the surface of the stream 
 rapidly disappeared. It was found mixed with the fine 
 mud particles clay, lime, etc. and sunk to the bottom 
 of the stream. In other words, it was found that petro-
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 341 
 
 leum oily carbon had at least a mechanical affinity 
 for lime and clay particles. If this affinity exists to- 
 day then it existed in the igneous period. When clay 
 and lime in measureless quantities went from the world 
 furnace, as sublimated dust or fine mist, into the very 
 region of oily carbons, and if the latter would saturate 
 these particles in the Ohio River, we can see how their 
 combination occurred amid annular conditions. 
 
 When the maker of artificial gas puts carbon into his 
 retort, raises the heat, he soon discovers how light 
 hydro-carbon gas readily escapes with a moderate heat, 
 and to enrich this escaping fuel he soon tightens down 
 the valve and injects watery vapor into the retort. This 
 not only enriches his illuminant, but greatly increases 
 the amount of it. Thus we still further familiarize our- 
 selves with the deportment of the hydro-carbons. We 
 learn that if watery vapor improves the quality and in- 
 creases the quantity of forming hydro-carbons in an 
 artificial furnace, it would do the same thing in the fires 
 of the molten earth. 
 
 When the newly-formed hydro-carbons arose to the 
 skies they mingled with the steaming waters formed in 
 the same fires. They not only grew more oily by chem- 
 ical union, but the quantity was vastly increased, and 
 these oily compounds in turn mingled and mixed me- 
 chanically with the fiery mist and dust about them, and 
 when these mechanical mixtures returned to the earth's 
 crust again they became in course of time oil-bearing 
 rock, just such as is now found in the bed of the Ohio 
 river. 
 
 Any one can see the necessary deductions from these 
 experiments and practical lessons. We know that there 
 is oil-bearing rock in the crust of the earth, and we
 
 342 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 know that its quality and its quantity and its position 
 forever exclude the animal and the plant from having 
 any more part in its formation than they now have to- 
 day, and no one that has a particle of regard for testi- 
 mony will attempt to confer the grand offices of world- 
 making upon them now. 
 
 As I write these lines there are ten thousand wells in 
 the United States, each pouring forth from ten to ten 
 hundred barrels of oil per day, and in some places there 
 are from five to ten flowing wells on an acre of ground, 
 and the very thought that organic matter gave this won- 
 drous hoard is too wantonly silly to enter so pure a 
 realm as that of human reason. Then, too, those other 
 amazing oil fields of the old world ! All this and yet 
 the amount now in view is but a trifle compared with 
 that hidden away in lands where the drill has not ven- 
 tured. Amid the tropic jungles, under seas and oceans, 
 in lands eternally locked in ice and snow, the same fire- 
 formed rocks are filled with this fire-formed fuel. 
 
 The intelligent gas maker very well knows that the 
 union of hot carbon with the elements of steam super- 
 heated, makes a fuel when locked away from the attacks 
 of atmospheric oxygen, and that the amount of this fuel 
 depends upon the amount of carbon and steam. Then, 
 too, the well-known fact that this fuel was not consumed 
 in its infancy is all the proof we need that the oxygen 
 of the primitive earth found more active affinities in 
 other elements, so that the original hydro-carbons were 
 locked away from its ravages. 
 
 The scientist knows how the oxygen must be shut off 
 from his retort in order to form an illuminant, or fuel, 
 and consequently this question faces the old school: 
 How was the oxygen barred from the vegetable car-
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 343 
 
 bon ? How did the organism decay in the silurian age 
 and escape utter combustion any more than it does to- 
 day? 
 
 Did the reader ever see how spontaneous combustion 
 has consumed the piles of " slack " at the openings of 
 coal mines ? Did he ever hear of the many disastrous 
 fires occasioned by spontaneous combustion in coal piles 
 and even piles of soot? Oxygen is accountable for 
 these fires, and if it does such things now, after the fuel 
 is formed and locked up, why did it not attend to its 
 offices and complete its work when it had ample oppor- 
 tunity to do so? When a plant or animal dies how 
 often is it sealed away, as in a retort, in order to escape 
 the devourer and become a fuel ? This uncertainty di- 
 minishes the opportunity to form gas and oil rock a 
 thousand fold; and, as I see it, precious little of it was 
 ever formed as the old school claims. Then, again, in 
 the transition from the oil form to the bitumen or 
 asphaltic compounds and fireproof graphite, how did it 
 escape combustion ? I see no possible escape from the 
 conclusion that the fires of the igneous earth formed all 
 the hydro-carbons, sent them to the terrestrial heavens 
 and let them down in world order and covered them up 
 as centuries rolled by. In the world's retort was a vast 
 ocean of superheated steam, as well as an unlimited fund 
 of carbon, and if they did not form a fuel, as the fires of 
 to-day form smoke and soot, then law did not operate. 
 The order of these carbons, as they occupy their places 
 in the super-crust, is an everlasting support of the new 
 theory, and scientists may as well concede the fact now 
 or banish the thought of a molten earth, which they 
 actually do, more or less, when they advocate the claim 
 that petroleum is a species of fish oil. Was the molten
 
 344 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 earth incompetent to produce the oils out of the ma- 
 terial so abundantly on hand at that time ? Why, the 
 molten earth could not have made plant food without 
 making fuel! They are inevitable associates now, and 
 they must have been fire-born companions then. Plant 
 food, which made it possible for vegetation to exist, was 
 a collateral product of the same crucible that formed 
 the oceans and the fuel of the world, and it is just as 
 reasonable to claim that the plant formed all the waters 
 of the earth as all the fuel. The animal and the plant 
 are survival products of survival forces in this world 
 scheme of fuel forming, and all they ever did or could 
 do in the way of fuel forming must be a survival 
 product. 
 
 Knowing, then, that the first office of the world-fires 
 was the formation of vast oceans of watery vapors, filled 
 with all the mineral sublimations that heat could expel 
 from the globe to the skies, and that chief among these 
 fiery distillates were oily hydro-carbons, we cannot 
 avoid the conclusion that these must be found on and 
 within the earth's crust. Knowing that the oily com- 
 pounds went into the skies and formed a part of the 
 earth's annular system, we ought to find oil-bearing 
 rock of different ages and at different depths from the 
 surface. Reason ought to lead the thinker to conclude 
 that the oil-bearing rocks and the coal-bearing rocks 
 would be one and the same all together, if vegetation 
 gave them origin. What, then, must we conclude when 
 we find that such is not the case ? The annular student 
 expects to find them in annular order, and when he 
 finds them thus arranged in the earth's crust he will- 
 ingly leaves the problem in other hands, for the evolu- 
 tion of truth will show who is right.
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 345 
 
 Oily products sent up by moderate heat from the 
 great world-maker's retort arose much higher in the 
 primeval atmosphere than those which were expelled 
 with raging and excessive heat. The heaviest and most 
 refractory carbon would ride lowest and the lightest 
 would ride highest in the great ocean of fiery sublima- 
 tions, and in the inevitable formation of world-rings 
 these carbon forms, mixing with their natural associates, 
 would find their level in the annular system and main- 
 tain it in all time. Those in the lowest rings would fall 
 first, and as a pure result they would take up their final 
 rest amid the older rocks. Those in the higher rings 
 would fall later and become locked up in the later- 
 formed beds, and oil should be found on all continents. 
 
 Now, what are the well-known facts in the case ? Oil 
 found on all continents we might say in almost every 
 land and new oil fields being continually opened, leads 
 to the conclusion that it is everywhere. Its extent is so 
 great at least as to stultify all claims that it could be of 
 organic origin. Then, again, when we reflect that the 
 hydro-carbons, like all other primitive heat products, 
 fell to the earth from about the polar skies, we would 
 expect to find oil fields under the frozen circles; and if 
 half the reports from those frozen climes be true, this 
 point is also settled. And considering how readily 
 ocean currents can transport such matter toward the 
 equator, we would look to see equatorial beds well filled 
 with hydro-carbons, and such pitch lakes as are found 
 near the equator are witnesses in court. Then, too, we 
 find the greatest oil beds of the world away below the 
 coal beds. The Trenton lime rock, from which such a 
 vast amount of oil now comes in the United States, is 
 located away down amid the silurian beds, among strata
 
 346 Tht Earth's Annular System. 
 
 that are in no way remarkable for their organic re- 
 mains. 
 
 The formation of oily compounds must have taken 
 place to some extent in the lofty primeval atmosphere, 
 wherever glowing carbon came in contact with super- 
 heated steam, which must have existed in all parts of 
 the earth's primitive envelope. In the same region 
 where these changes were going on the appetite of oxy- 
 gen for calcium, potassium, sodium, iron, etc., so 
 largely robbed the carbon of its natural share of oxygen 
 that the former as a pure result was left as an uncon- 
 sumed fuel, and as I see it this is just the reason we 
 have so much unburnt carbon in the earth, and I can see 
 no other way to account for the fact that oxygen, ever 
 alert and active, did not consume every atom of carbon 
 in the earth. If the carbon had come in contact with 
 free oxygen, as it does to-day in the atmosphere, there 
 would now be no coal or petroleum to tell the tale, and 
 the old-school geologist might continue to rule the 
 world. 
 
 The vigor of free oxygen is shown all the time wher- 
 ever smoke or unburnt carbon rises from our chimneys. 
 The blackest and densest cloud of smoke from a locomo- 
 tive or steamboat in a very little while entirely disap- 
 pears. What becomes of it? Free oxygen has de- 
 creased it just as all through the ages gone it devoured 
 the carbon left from decomposing organic matter. 
 
 While it is utter folly to look to the mollusks, polyps 
 and fishes of the silurian age as sources of oil, one nat- 
 urally asks, how could the smoke arising from a molten 
 world, as it lodged amid its mineral vapors and was car- 
 ried back to the earth and buried as soot a thousand or 
 two thousand feet in the crust, not be made to yield oil
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 347 
 
 and gas ? I presume if all the smoke arising to-day 
 from thousands of locomotives could be shut away from 
 the atmosphere and put under as great a pressure as is 
 now put upon the carbon of the Trenton beds, it could 
 be made a source of both oil and gas. 
 
 Let us now apply the annular theory in the case of 
 the Trenton rock. It is a good test. The lime which 
 gives a prevailing character to the bed over so great a 
 part of the United States, like the calcareous matter of 
 the cretaceous beds, never came from pre-existing beds. 
 To say that it is an ancient organic deposit is supercil- 
 ious. The polyp and mollusk might have deposited 
 every atom of it, but they never made an atom of it. 
 On the other hand, the lime made the polyp and the 
 mollusk, and we are forced to look to the mineral exha- 
 lations of the infant earth for it. There we find it a 
 vast cloud of calcareous matter floating at its own 
 proper level in the world's great envelope. As it was 
 fire-formed in a molten earth, measureless quantities of 
 smoky, sooty, oily carbon mingled with it. If not, 
 why? A world constituted as this is could not be in a 
 state of igneous fluidity and not send smoky exhalations 
 to the skies; and the fact must be conceded that they 
 floated somewhere amid the mineral mist of the evolv- 
 ing planet better in the Trenton matter than else- 
 where, for there we find it to-day. From the very na- 
 ture of the Trenton matter it became a vehicle for the 
 rising carbon from its volcanic birth. The same fires 
 gave birth to the lime and the hydro-carbons, and as the 
 crystal assumes its form and place, and the plant its 
 habitat, the Trenton matter and its carbon, in order and 
 harmony, dwelt in the great ring-family. Ages rolled 
 away; our ring of Trenton dust, steeped in oily com-
 
 348 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 pounds, gradually sank to mother earth, until it reached 
 the outskirts of the atmosphere proper, at the equator. 
 There balancing in mid-heaven, perhaps for centuries, 
 it became an equatorial belt, as all rings in their de- 
 cline must do. As a matter of course the southern part 
 of that belt was drawn more largely toward the South 
 Pole, while its northern boundary settled more rapidly 
 and largely toward the arctic region. Thus polar lands 
 and polar oceans received the Trenton and its load of 
 carbon first. From these lands the movement was out- 
 ward upon the vast deep, and the moment they started 
 on their journey other conditions began to operate. 
 Other matter came in contact with the moving matter. 
 The wreck of continents was mingling with the wreck 
 of rings, so that the Trenton deposit was made to vary 
 greatly in different parts, making it difficult of recogni- 
 tion in some parts of the earth. So long as rivers and 
 ocean currents flow, this difference in the same deposit 
 must affect wide areas. Were this not the case I pre- 
 sume the Trenton rock would be a world-wide deposit 
 and oil-bearing in all lands. 
 
 When we turn to this deposit in the United States 
 we find it marvelously rich in oil in places and quite 
 barren in others. This fact would seem strange, on the 
 supposition that the lime, as well as the oil, was an ani- 
 mal production, for why should organisms make this 
 vast deposit and yet confine the oil to spots in it ? On 
 the supposition that the Trenton matter carried its oily 
 carbon from the skies, it must have given up some of it 
 to demanding currents which was carried elsewhere. 
 To show this assorting power of currents we need only 
 take a survey of the Trenton field: 
 
 According to the geologic record, as all will admit,
 
 Oil) Gas and Other Carbons. 349 
 
 during the time the vast Trenton bed was forming in 
 the ancient sea, all but the oldest and most elevated 
 parts of North America were submerged, and as a con- 
 sequence it extends over the greatest part of the basin 
 drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, and I pre- 
 sume it has its equivalents in all other lands that then 
 were submerged in waters communicating with the 
 polar regions, north and south. The Appalachian sys- 
 tem was then unformed, and where they now stand were 
 the abyssal depths of the ocean. In that ocean there 
 was a long elevated and partly submerged region ex- 
 tending from the Canadian highlands to those of east- 
 ern continent. Another long and submerged fold ex- 
 tended from Canada southward, and is known to-day as 
 the Cincinnati Arch. This submerged arch divided the 
 deep waters of the Atlantic from those of the present 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Let us have this vast body of water in mind communi- 
 cating with the North Polar Ocean, through such chan- 
 nels as the Baffin's Bay of to-day. Through these chan- 
 nels poured the northern waters as they fell from the 
 skies, and carried whatever loaded them. 
 
 In latter times, and yet long before the Appalachian 
 ranges were heaved from the sea, along these great 
 waterways the northworld poured its vast hoards of 
 bituminous and anthracitic carbon into the Atlantic. 
 Antedating all this the Trenton dust, with its associated 
 carbon, had fallen, and as we look over the great field 
 we can trace the currents that carried this carbon and 
 deposited it in favored regions of the sea bottom. Re- 
 calling the fact that different degrees of heat sent car- 
 bons of different specific gravity to the skies, we 
 recognize how the heavier oily forms floated down
 
 350 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 into the depths of the sea, and how the lighter, assorted 
 from them in the process of sedimentation, floated to 
 higher regions. In Western Pennsylvania and East- 
 ern Ohio, in the great depths of the ancient sea bed, 
 is the heavy oily carbon, while on the broad top of the 
 Cincinnati Arch the lighter forms were deposited. This 
 is abundantly attested by oil wells of the eastern field, 
 and the wonderful gas wells in the western. The world 
 has long noted the fact, and here it has the explanation, 
 without the assumption that the different kinds of fish 
 made the different kinds of hydro-carbons. 
 
 The Cincinnati Arch was a shallow in the Trenton 
 ocean, and I am led to conclude from the very condi- 
 tions here shown that when the carbon floated down 
 from the north and entered the old Atlantic, it joined a 
 current that carried it westward and southwestward. 
 
 It would seem that the great St. Lawrence Valley 
 afforded a channel for such a current. Admitting this, 
 I find many things confirming it. In the midst of such 
 a channel no carbon would be dropped, but along the 
 sides of such a current it would be deposited, and the 
 line of oil or gas wells in New York, from Fredonia 
 westward, and the occasional well on the north side of 
 the channel in Canada, all are testimony supporting the 
 claim of this southwestward oil current. No oil wells, 
 so far as I know, have ever been found in the middle of 
 this old channel, and I presume the cities of Rochester, 
 Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago, in this 
 old course, will never be able to get oil or gas. 
 
 The reader will understand how a wide current mov- 
 ing westward and up the incline of the Cincinnati fold, 
 would drag on the sea bottom and carry all the carbon 
 away from it, just as the prevailing winds carry the
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 351 
 
 leaves up a slope and deposit them in depressions on the 
 top of the hill or upon the opposite side. So the great 
 current moving westward up and over the arch must 
 have left the broad eastern slope mostly barren of oil, 
 and it is well known that it is the rarest thing to strike 
 oil or gas in that region, and the towns of Alliance, 
 Massillon, Akron, Berea, which have spent so much 
 money in the vain attempt to find oil might consult the 
 annular theory to know why. The moving waters car- 
 ried the sky-fallen carbon away to other fields. But 
 where shall we find it ? Certainly we would expect to 
 find it on the broad top of the arch in the depressions 
 and valleys that run over and along, but most abund- 
 antly on the western slope of the arch. Of course all 
 the world knows what a remarkable oil and gas field 
 both these regions are. The great " Karg well," at 
 Findlay, Ohio, was drilled into a depression on the very 
 summit of the arch, and a large number of wells in that 
 vicinity, and also at Fostoria and other places, have 
 made that region one of the most renowned oil and gas 
 fields known. Farther south is the famous oil field of 
 Lima. All these are on the broad fold of the Cincin- 
 nati Arch and on its western slope. 
 
 These well-known oil fields make the annular student 
 bold to further hypothecate. From the great St. Law- 
 rence current a branch current seems to have run 
 south into Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley. In 
 making this course it would have to pass over a long 
 ridge in the old ocean, running from southwestern New 
 York, from Chautauqua Lake southwestward, and when 
 we come to view that magnificent if not peerless oil 
 field of the Pittsburg region, on the southern slope of 
 that ridge, we are still more inclined to think this
 
 352 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 hypothesis a correct one. And when we further find 
 two lines of oil wells along the Ohio Valley one on 
 either side of it we add another link to the chain of 
 testimony. And yet another link is added by the fact 
 that the oil wells of this valley are mostly located on 
 the southern slope of the Ohio hills. I have found this 
 to be the case so often that in consultation with oil seek- 
 ers I have always advised boring in a region sloping 
 southward or southwestward and have been gratified to 
 realize success, while I have seldom known success else- 
 where in the Ohio Valley region. 
 
 The question may now be asked, Why do oil fields 
 run in lines? Oil men and geologists know very well 
 that this is a peculiar fact. They first get the direction 
 or trend of an oil field and then drill succeeding wells 
 along that course, and even locate " side lines " or 
 branches and follow these in course. Those were pecu- 
 liar fishes that died and decayed by line and plummet. 
 
 The great St. Lawrence current ran across the north- 
 west corner of Ohio, along southern Michigan, and it is 
 not a little strange that in passing northward from the 
 Findlay gas region we come into a region utterly bar- 
 ren of oil and gas. Plainly we cross the middle of the 
 old current's track, in which no oil wells will likely ever 
 be found. Farther north, toward central Michigan, the 
 north line of the current may be found. Time will de- 
 cide the case. 
 
 When we comprehend the fact that thousands of oil 
 and gas wells are yielding millions of barrels of oil and 
 countless millions cubic feet of gas, year after year, 
 until generations pass and leave them to their children, 
 we are forced to marvel that vegetarians still enjoy the 
 majestic scene.
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 353 
 
 "Why is the Trenton bed so barren of oil all along the 
 eastern slope of the Cincinnati fold? Why a field so 
 amazingly rich on its broad summit and western slope ? 
 What kind of fish and crustaceans could those ancient 
 oil- and gas-makers have been any way ? 
 
 And now a little history, however it may show the 
 egotism of the writer. It is not difficult to recall the oil 
 excitement in the seventies and eighties how thou- 
 sands of men with millions of money ran wild in an 
 effort to discover new oil fields. The author of the an- 
 nular theory and a few of its advocates urged moneyed 
 men to drill into the Trenton rock for the hoard it held. 
 The vast fund of carbon below it in the older beds 
 stoutly affirmed that a lighter oily carbon must be lo- 
 cated above the heavy graphitic carbons. But geolo- 
 gists everywhere, I believe, discouraged the attempt 
 and denounced the claim. Failure to find oil on the 
 eastern slope of the Cincinnati anticlinal confirmed 
 them, and it was not until about the year 1885 that a 
 few prospectors ventured to bore on the top of the arch 
 in northwestern Ohio. I remember how our opposers 
 called us " crazy," " cranks," etc., and how it was an- 
 nounced from official position that " No oil can be 
 found in the Trenton and no gas beyond the Maumee 
 River." But the drill was put to work almost on the 
 very summit of the " arch " and kept to work under 
 discouraging conditions until gas gushed from the well 
 with terrific force. The history of that " mighty 
 gusher " is well known, and I have no room for it here. 
 One year from that time the town of Findlay began to 
 put on city habiliments, and resolved to have an anni- 
 versary in commemoration of her " Application of Nat- 
 ural Gas to the Mechanical Arts." A gas carnival and
 
 354 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 banquet was held in the young city, and it was esti- 
 mated that fifty thousand people assembled to hear the 
 orator of the day, the great " Karg well," whose mouth 
 was opened in defence of the annular theory, and the 
 very earth trembled as it spoke. The Ohio State geolo- 
 gist was invited to be there and tell why gas " could 
 not be found in the Trenton nor beyond the Maumee." 
 The author of the annular theory was invited to attend 
 and tell why that bed was filled in places with oily 
 hydro-carbons and gas. The former was not there, but 
 the latter was present and spoke according to program. 
 It was the proudest moment of his life when he finished 
 his lecture, and the " Karg " closed the midnight ban- 
 quet with its terrific roar of approval. 
 
 In that lecture the speaker made some predictions, 
 which have been fulfilled, and here they are : 
 
 " I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the great Karg 
 gusher is not the last one to be found in this field. West 
 of Findlay, to the very bounds of the State, and on into 
 Indiana and perhaps Illinois, the western slope of the 
 Cincinnati fold extends, and it is laden it must be 
 laden with oil and gas. 
 
 " On the northern borders of the State, and in south- 
 ern Michigan, was about the center of the great St. 
 Lawrence current. You need not drill for oil in that 
 region. All the hydro-carbon was carried away by the 
 rapid waters. 
 
 " The branch current of the Ohio Valley, upon meet- 
 ing the deep sea in that region, west of the arch, would 
 have its motion checked, and perhaps an eddy was 
 formed where now is southern Indiana, and I pre- 
 dict that a great oil field will be developed there." 
 
 As these predictions were made long before the In-
 
 Oil, Gas and Other Carbons. 355 
 
 diana oil fields were heard of before it was discovered 
 that there was a barren line running from Lake Erie on 
 the southern boundary of Michigan they become in- 
 teresting links of annular testimony. 
 
 This little episode might close this chapter, but 
 I have before me the vast oil regions of the East- 
 ern Continent, from whose beds the oily floods have 
 been pouring and burning as sacred fires since the 
 night-time of history. Who can estimate the vast sea 
 that has been escaping from away back in the ages? 
 China, Japan, Persia, Russia, North and South America 
 each pours a river of oil into the world's trade and I pre- 
 sume will do so for centuries to come, and when the 
 known oil regions fail we may boast that other and 
 vaster fields remain untouched and must I believe that 
 the fish and mollusk made all this ? Are they making oil 
 to-day? If so, where? If not, why then and not now?
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE OF ANNULAB DOWNFALLS IN THE 
 TEBTIABY OCEAN OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE. 
 
 Over an extensive portion of the Rocky Mountain 
 region the tertiary beds, as might be expected, are 
 fresh water deposits. During the cretaceous age, as is 
 well known, this vast area was covered by the sea, and 
 these waters had communication on the north with the 
 Arctic Ocean, probably by way of the present depres- 
 sion in British America, along the valley of the Macken- 
 zie River ; while on the south it communicated with the 
 Gulf of Mexico, or other southern waters, by way of the 
 lower Mississippi Valley. Thus a wide channel or strait 
 passing from the Arctic Ocean fed the waters of the 
 great cretaceous sea of the Rocky Mountains, and 
 through this sea had direct communication with salt 
 waters of the south. 
 
 Now, if my claim be a valid one the beds in the 
 Rocky Mountain tertiary will present the following fea- 
 tures: The cretaceous period having been brought to 
 a close by a down-rush of waters and snows in the 
 Northern Hemisphere, a stream of water pouring 
 southward through the above named channel must to 
 a great extent have been a fresh-water current; and 
 those deposits in the extreme northern beds in the area 
 under consideration must be in a great measure fresh- 
 water accumulations. Those in the middle part of this 
 region must be fresh beds to a less extent, perhaps 
 sometimes marine and sometimes entirely fresh, owing 
 to changes in currents, etc., and here fresh-water and
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 357 
 
 marine species will be commingled. While in the 
 southern part the beds must be almost exclusively ma- 
 rine. This conclusion I came to long before I examined 
 the records. It is the conclusion which any one fa- 
 miliar with the manner in which fresh-water and salt- 
 water currents of the seas dispose of living organisms 
 will come to. And further, we will reasonably expect 
 that on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, where tertiary 
 beds are found in the same latitude, and where the 
 open seas have access to the shores, marine fossils will 
 prevail. It must be seen, then, that these conclusions 
 are based upon the fact that a stupendous addition to 
 the oceans in the closing cretaceous came via the chan- 
 nels from the polar sea. l^ow if such things are not to 
 be found our theory must receive a stunning blow. Let 
 the reader reflect for a moment on the philosophic dis- 
 tribution of oceanic life under such promoting causes; 
 and we will then endeavor to learn something of the 
 character of the tertiary beds of the Rocky Mountains. 
 Dana says : * " The general distribution of the ma- 
 rine beds is similar to that of the cretaceous . . .the 
 inner limit being about 100 miles from the Gulf in Ala- 
 bama, 150 to 200 in Texas, and along the Mississippi 
 River the Gulf border extends northward to southern 
 Illinois." Again, " the fresh-water or lake deposits are, 
 as stated, of all periods from the middle eocene to the 
 pliocene, the eocene occurring about Fort Bridger, the 
 miocene in the upper Missouri region." " It occurs, 
 also, in the Big Horn region, in Chetish Mountains, 
 about Fort Union." " It extends far north into British 
 America, and south to Fort Clark and beyond to 
 Texas." And now mark (italics mine), " In the lower 
 
 * " Manual," 490 to 493.
 
 358 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 part, on Judith River, there are brackish water deposits, 
 containing shells of oysters mingled with fresh-water 
 shells." 
 
 Again, " In the Rocky Mountain region the lignitic 
 group of the Green River basin, near Fort Bridger, 
 etc., consists of sandy beds, some of them true marine, 
 more of them having a commingling of fresh-water 
 shells with marine, which indicates very shallow brack- 
 ish waters, and a still larger part strictly fresh-water in 
 origin." 
 
 Thus there were conditions by which brackish water- 
 beds were formed in the southern part of the tertiary 
 sea, on the Rocky Mountains and almost exclusively 
 fresh-water strata on the upper Missouri. While in 
 the extreme south, as in Texas, the beds are wholly 
 marine, and in the extreme north wholly fresh-water. 
 For it is well known that there is no marine tertiary in 
 the latter.* But this condition was strikingly different 
 from that which immediately preceded it. Says Dana:f 
 " In the closing part of the cretaceous, in the Rocky 
 Mountains, there was a change permanently from a con- 
 dition of general submergence under salt-water to one 
 of oscillation," etc. 
 
 Thus we see along a wide strait running from far 
 north, southward, came in a fund of waters unsuited to 
 marine life. It was a supply of fresh-water that was 
 of sufficient volume to drive marine forms southward! 
 If this fresh-water came from rivers, where did they 
 rise, and whither did they flow? Did some river flow 
 from the north, or from the east, and empty into a sea 
 forty times as large as Lake Erie, making its northern 
 
 * See Dana's " Manual," page 488. 
 t Ibid., page 478.
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 359 
 
 part fresh, its central brackish and its southern ma- 
 rine ? It is not likely. So vast an area of fresh-water 
 formations cannot be explained by lakes or lacustrine 
 deposits. It is evidently the work of a vast bay fed on 
 one side by a fresh-water ocean, on the other communi- 
 cating with the salt ocean. 
 
 Here is a distribution of fossils that gives valuable 
 support to the claim I have made. A new fund of 
 fresh-water came in at the beginning of the eocene, 
 when its waters were filled with marine forms; grad- 
 ually but surely these gave way, so that before the 
 formation was half completed fresh waters had so 
 gained upon the marine that fresh-water formations 
 are reckoned from the middle of the eocene. Marine 
 forms are pushed southward into marine waters, while 
 about midway between the two extremes the fresh- 
 water and marine are so commingled as to be sometimes 
 fresh and sometimes salt, favoring neither true marine 
 nor fresh-water organisms. Now I suppose there is not 
 a geologist living who, upon examining these things, 
 will not claim that the fresh-water came from the 
 north ; and I am sure he will not claim that it was river- 
 water. 
 
 Now what means this peculiar arrangement of 
 strata ? Could they be more emphatic in their testi- 
 mony to the truth of a great fresh-water polar sea if 
 they had been intentionally arranged to lend it sup- 
 port? Suppose the tertiary of British America from 
 the United States border, along the line of the Macken- 
 zie to the Arctic Ocean had been marine. It would 
 have been a crushing evidence against the annular the- 
 ory. But we are not yet through with this investiga- 
 tion. Dana, our same high authority, says : " The ter-
 
 360 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 tiary of the Pacific coast is of marine origin," * and also 
 that the marine tertiary covers a large part of the At- 
 lantic border. Doubtless Davis Strait at the same time 
 poured a volume of fresh-water from the polar world 
 directly into the Atlantic close to the North American 
 coast, just as the channel of the Mackenzie. For we 
 find the same commingling of marine and fresh-water 
 fauna on the New England coast, while in the north- 
 ern part the shells are exclusively fresh-water species. 
 We are not at liberty to call these river and estuary 
 deposits, for all the estuary and river deposits farther 
 south, on the sea border, are chiefly marine. 
 
 Along the coast, from Delaware Bay to Florida, and 
 around the Gulf of Mexico, where hundreds of rivers, 
 including the Mississippi, empty wherever the tertiary 
 beds are laid down they are not considered fresh-water 
 beds. Hence the utter fallacy of the claim that the vast 
 expanse of north tertiary beds are fresh-water lake de- 
 posits, or of fluviatile formation. How could it be pos- 
 sible that, in the absence of important rivers, such wide 
 reaches of fresh-water tertiary could have the origin 
 claimed by geologists, when all the evidence is that the 
 mightiest rivers of the world pouring into the ocean 
 have failed universally to make such ? Now, if we will 
 just conceive that the vast polar ocean of the tertiary 
 period was a body of fresh-water all mystery ends. 
 
 Thus, on the California coast on one side and the 
 New Jersey shore on the other, we find marine beds de- 
 posited synchronically with the fresh water deposits of 
 the tertiary sea of the interior, showing that in these 
 parts of the earth, where the open sea or oceans washed 
 the shores, salt-water prevailed. But here were lands 
 
 * " Manual," page 492.
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 361 
 
 washed by river streams ! Virginia and Maryland, 
 skirted by marine tertiary, as is well known, had rivers 
 pouring into the sea, for the Appalachian arches had 
 been previously formed. Why did not these rivers 
 cause fresh-water deposits, or at least brackish beds? 
 The simple fact is, that the very tertiary formations 
 which we well know must have been somewhat under 
 the influence of river water, do not show such an influ- 
 ence, while in the interior tertiary sea, where, so far as 
 we can tell, no rivers emptied, the whole deposit, from 
 the National Park to the Arctic Sea, is a fresh-water 
 formation. Hence the reasonable conclusion that my 
 claim is a just one. That so-called lacustrine, or fresh- 
 water deposits, in the Northern Hemisphere are not 
 necessarily river-formed beds, nor deposits in inland 
 seas, as is generally claimed. 
 
 But the picture is not quite complete. Something is 
 needed to finish the triplicity of phenomena. We have 
 had the " plunge bath," and the extermination of spe- 
 cies, which Dana says * is " Remarkable for its univer- 
 sality and thoroughness." New waters were poured 
 into the oceans ; therefore, as greater mechanical pres- 
 sure necessarily resulted, and consequent increased heat 
 and expansion in the deep-seated rocks beneath the 
 ocean's bed, we must look for crust folding and up- 
 heaval. And as this downfall of water closing the cre- 
 taceous period was a stupendous one, and the extermi- 
 nation " universal and thorough," then the crumpling 
 must have been correspondingly stupendous. Now, 
 what do we find ? Early in the tertiary we find moun- 
 tain making on every continent a grand world-wide 
 disturbance of strata, equaled only in its universality by 
 
 * " Manual," page 488.
 
 362 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 one of the most " complete exterminations of species of 
 which there is record." * In a former chapter I have 
 shown why this order is so invariably maintained. 
 
 ' Now, here it will be seen that all these phenomena 
 combine to demonstrate the truth of the annular the- 
 ory. A downfall of water necessitates accompanying 
 snows and a change of climate; hence the world- wide 
 extinction of life-forms well-known to all geologists, and 
 since I know of no competent cause of universal strata- 
 folding, but increased mechanical pressure universally 
 upon the ocean's bed, I am simply forced to the conclu- 
 sion that the cretaceous period was closed by a stu- 
 pendous downfall of tellurio-cosmic matter upon the 
 earth. 
 
 Now, it may be somewhat interesting to look a little 
 into these changes, as recorded by the races entombed 
 in the debris of continents. At Jackson, Miss., the 
 eocene beds contain numerous marine shells, and here 
 have also been found the giant remains of the zeu- 
 glodon, a whale-like inhabitant of the cretaceous seas. 
 In the Green River basin are found the remains of fos- 
 sil fish belonging to the cretaceous waters and buried 
 in the early tertiary beds; also mammalians of the tapir 
 family, and remains of the dinoceros and uintatherium. 
 
 While on the Atlantic border, from Martha's Vine- 
 yard to southern Virginia, cretaceous animals in great 
 numbers are found in marl-pits of the lower tertiary. 
 These things seem to confirm the claim that the cre- 
 taceous world was swept by a mighty cataclysmic wave, 
 and that its animals were buried in the detrital mass 
 swept from the land into the seas and which formed the 
 lower eocene beds. 
 
 * Dana's " Manual," page 487.
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 363 
 
 So nearly are the lower eocene beds related to the 
 cretaceous that eminent geologists are unable to agree 
 as to whether they are tertiary or earlier. Dana says: 
 " It is doubtful whether they are one or the other." 
 Both Profs. Cope and Marsh discovered in eocene beds 
 remains of saurians, related to the dinosauri and 
 megalosauri, which are known to have been cretaceous 
 forms. Thus so far . we see that the " American 
 Record " shows that new waters brought in a new en- 
 vironment, involving a general destruction of creta- 
 ceous forms, and buried them in the debris of the cre- 
 taceous world, carried in a great revulsion to the seas, 
 which became the lower tertiary beds actual transi- 
 tion beds; hence the difficulty in assigning it its true 
 place in the series. 
 
 Again, when we turn to the foreign tertiary we find 
 the same general conditions prevailing; especially after 
 the eocene, or first tertiary, there is a general preva- 
 lence of fresh-water beds over a large part of Europe. 
 Let us briefly examine these things and see how they 
 bear upon a fresh-water ocean. 
 
 In a recent lecture by Boyd Dawkins, the English 
 geologist, while speaking of the former conditions of 
 the earth, in more modern geological times, he said: " In 
 the eocene and miocene periods Europe was united with 
 Iceland and Greenland, and also with the United States 
 of America, by a barrier of land extending past the 
 Faroe Isles, which was covered by a dense forest, com- 
 posed to a large extent of the same trees as in Europe 
 and in America, and which allowed of a comparatively 
 free migration of animals to and fro between England 
 and the United States." 
 
 I suppose the conclusion was drawn from the simi-
 
 364 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 larity of the fauna on the two continents the reptiles 
 and the fishes that formerly inhabited the streams and 
 lakes of both continents. Now, while I am free to ad- 
 mit the existence of land communication between 
 Europe and America by way of that great submarine 
 plateau, I am not able to draw the same conclusion 
 from the evidence, since I cannot see why land com- 
 munication is necessary for fishes and alligators to pass 
 from one continent to another, unless a fresh-water 
 channel or river ran from one extremity of the plateau 
 to the other. 
 
 But if we now admit, as I have before urged the 
 necessary fact, that the incessant fall of exterior vapors 
 in the northern ocean the measureless fund of snows 
 deposited and melted in its waters produced a great 
 fresh-water ocean, that involved the north polar world; 
 and that, with the exception of a few channels that con- 
 nected with southern waters, it washed a continuous 
 barrier that encircled the earth, the explanation be- 
 comes easy. It is claimed that during the miocene 
 period the climate was tropical, even where now the 
 winters are severe. Suppose, then, that during the 
 miocene, or earlier in the tertiary period, the Macken- 
 zie flowed as it now does, and was inhabited by fishes 
 and other animals of a tropical climate, and that other 
 rivers ran from the great plateau northward into the 
 same sea, just as the rivers of northern Europe and 
 Siberia do to-day (and it would be impossible that such 
 streams should not exist), it can be readily seen, accord- 
 ing to this hypothesis, how the same fauna that charac- 
 terized the land of the Mackenzie would characterize 
 the entire land belt of North America, Europe and 
 Asia.
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 365 
 
 These continents were all washed by the same north 
 sea. They all poured mighty rivers into the same. 
 And the waters of such a sea were fresh under the same 
 laws that to-day make Lake Superior a fresh-water sea. 
 There would be very natural facility for an intermin- 
 gling of species, and I presume such means are much 
 more reasonable than to suppose a great isthmus of 
 land, for it must be remembered that there were likely 
 straits connecting this north ocean with the waters of 
 the Atlantic, since in a part of the tertiary times fresh- 
 water and brackish-water fauna, driven from the north, 
 inhabited New England seas, and many mammalian 
 land animals are of different species. The mammoth of 
 Europe and Asia was different from the American; but 
 the hypothesis of a fresh-water ocean does not rest alone 
 on this kind of evidence. The widespread fresh waters 
 of the tertiary period do not apparently admit of any 
 other hypothesis. One-third of North America, a great 
 part of north Europe, and very nearly all of Siberia, 
 and much of China and other parts of Asia, were appar- 
 ently synchronously submerged beneath fresh waters. 
 And it certainly would not be too strong language for 
 me to say they were submerged by the north polar 
 ocean. 
 
 Geologists have long claimed that the great fresh- 
 water beds of tertiary Europe were made by great 
 rivers, running south or southeastwardly from a north- 
 ern or northwestern continent. What, then, deposited 
 the tertiary beds of Siberia and North America? If 
 this claim be true, what are now the continents were 
 then the oceans. But the evidence is accumulative that 
 an elevated arch of land, once formed in the evolution 
 of continents, always remained an arch ; and we have no
 
 366 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 evidence that such ever became a trough of the ocean. 
 Besides, the geological record of the tertiary itself does 
 not corroborate this view. The filled up estuaries show 
 that the same rivers ran into the northern ocean that 
 now empty into it, only at a higher level, and the fos- 
 sils of alligators and other inhabitants of rivers show 
 that the land was only partially submerged. If the 
 rivers ran in the opposite direction analogy would show 
 that these great fresh-water beds could not have been 
 such as they are so exclusively fresh-water deposits. 
 It seems to me, as we look over the vast field, it is im- 
 possible not to be convinced that a great fresh-water 
 ocean rolled its billows over the so-called estuary beds 
 of northern Europe, Asia and parts of North America. 
 It seems like reversing natural tendencies to conclude 
 otherwise, and I am sure when the sober calculation of 
 man is brought to bear upon this great question it must 
 gravitate into the line I have here indicated. With this 
 thought before us a hundred mysteries are explained. 
 The fresh-water beds of Norway and northern Russia, 
 those of England and Scotland, can then be explained; 
 for being identical in many respects with those of 
 France, that they have all been supplied by the same 
 northwestern continent, would seem unreasonable if not 
 impossible. 
 
 But now, with all the evidence of a downfall of 
 vapors, as shown in North American tertiary beds in 
 the grand slaughter of living forms and the folding of 
 strata, with all the evidence of a nearly isolated ocean 
 as against the evidence of a northwestern continent in 
 the formation of beds on three vast continents, let the 
 reader say which is more in accord with law in the evo- 
 lution of the earth. If we leave the continents stand-
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 367 
 
 ing, with their outlines somewhat contracted by neces- 
 sary submergence, with the same drainage system they 
 now possess, and still further admit the necessary fresh- 
 water ocean to account for the rock-recorded history, I 
 believe the interpretation becomes plain. 
 
 But what does this great ocean of fresh water prove ? 
 Does it not point with almost positive conclusiveness 
 to an augmentation of snows from the great super-aerial 
 fund? Have we not almost positive testimony in 
 abundance that the cretaceous age just closed was 
 ended by excessive and universal refrigeration? That 
 the transported blocks of stone found in the upper cre- 
 taceous and lower tertiary point to a northern origin? 
 These things being apparently true, we are again forced 
 to admit that in addition to the reasonableness of such 
 a conclusion the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of 
 an annular fall of waters in the north polar world as 
 the sole cause of the transition from the cretaceous to 
 the tertiary. 
 
 Let the reader now draw somewhat on his imagina- 
 tion. It is well-known that all the existing continents 
 were largely submerged under cretaceous waters. The 
 Rocky Mountains, the Andes, the Alps and the Hima- 
 layas, were either unborn or in their infant stages. It 
 was a universal ocean of calcareo-saline water. Then it 
 is evident that some mighty barrier was reared by some 
 resistless force that rolled the cretaceous waves south- 
 ward and made an isolated fresh-water ocean in the 
 north. But here is our hypothetical barrier, the great 
 Atlantic plateau, reaching from the coast of Newfound- 
 land to Ireland, and known by actual soundings and 
 other evidence to be a table-land submerged. It was 
 raised from the deep, according to the record, at this
 
 368 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 very time and stood for uncounted millenniums as dry 
 land. That is, we have an actual barrier at the very 
 time the fresh-water ocean was formed. We have the 
 three-fold phenomena of new waters from on high, wide 
 extermination and plication of strata. As I have be- 
 fore said, there is enough water on the earth's surface 
 to-day to make one thousand terrific cataclysms, each of 
 which would cover the whole earth fifteen feet deep 
 with water. Suppose now a fall of snow in the north- 
 ern regions sufficient to spread that amount of water 
 over the earth packed into glacier ice. The actual me- 
 chanical pressure, incalculable and inconceivable, aris- 
 ing from such an additional amount of exotic matter in 
 the polar world, forcing the lower rock-beds into a con- 
 dition of plasticity, must have had every pound thereof 
 conserved in crust upthrowal. 
 
 A vast mass of rock moving in obedience to a meas- 
 ureless directing power (just as a glacier on the earth's 
 surface moves under Titanic pressure), is simply forced 
 under the plateau, and this, with the additional force of 
 rock expansion under augmented heat, in the inmost 
 depths of the earth, which no resistance could curb, 
 gradually, but with a step as steady as time, raised the 
 plateau until the towering ice continent, at one end of 
 the telluric balance-beam, was equipoised by a new and 
 growing continent at the other. 
 
 Now, we know that this new land was raised by a 
 force directed at right angles to its axial line running 
 east and west. The southern force was evidently a re- 
 sisting or passive force; the northern an active energy. 
 We also know that a force working thus lifted a belt of 
 land reaching from western Europe to eastern Asia 
 at nearly the same time. What, then, must have been
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 369 
 
 the volume of that lifting force? No wonder a new 
 continent was made. Suppose an ice cap five thousand 
 feet thick should suddenly cover the Arctic world. 
 What would the pressure of such an ice-continent re- 
 sult in ? Is it not physically certain that it would press 
 that part of the earth inward or downward upon itself, 
 even though the planet were solid to the center ? Sixty 
 thousand feet of steel blocks piled one upon another 
 would give sufficient pressure to render the lowest 
 blocks plastic, and raise the temperature thereof nearly 
 to the point of fusion. Suppose a mer de glace were 
 placed in the bosom of the earth and covered by thou- 
 sands of feet of rock. It is evident that if a greater 
 vertical pressure than lateral were exerted the ice 
 would move laterally until the two forces became equal ; 
 and it is easy to conceive a vertical force sufficiently 
 great to press the entire mass laterally into another bed. 
 It would be just so with a granite bed or stratum of 
 steel. 
 
 A downfall of annular matter must add additional 
 pressure to rocks, perhaps already yielding to a direct- 
 ing force; add more heat and consequent expansion, 
 which no terrestrial resistance can withstand, and a con- 
 tinent, it would seem, rises because additional matter, 
 by a resistless force, is intercalated between its surface 
 and its foundation beds. 
 
 Let us remember that as the tertiary was a time of 
 great mountain making and consequent changes in sea- 
 level, those portions of the continent which necessarily 
 lay near the regions of disturbance were subject to os- 
 cillation by depression and elevation of barriers, so 
 that inlets from southern waters, reaching into or near 
 the fresh waters, sometimes commingled their fauna,
 
 370 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 so that, as in the Paris basin, salt water sometimes occu- 
 pied the ground, and again fresh water returned, arid 
 that these conditions may even have extended at times 
 far into the British Islands. One fact, however, is 
 very plain, that after the eocene the northern portion 
 of the continents, both eastern and western, were sel- 
 dom washed to any extent by marine waters. The evi- 
 dence seems to point to the fact that mountain making 
 in Europe was a very irregular process. The Pyrenees, 
 likely, were elevated during the eocene as well as the 
 Julian Alps, and some other highlands. But the Apen- 
 nines delayed until the close of the eocene. The West- 
 ern Alps, where stands Mount Blanc, arose at the close 
 of the miocene. Some of the British mountain chains 
 were likely elevated nearly the same time; while 
 there is also evidence that mountain making in Central 
 and Southern Europe was active throughout most of 
 the pliocene, showing that the tertiary was eminently a 
 period of disturbance. 
 
 Further, let us remember that if a tree grown at the 
 headwaters of the Mackenzie were to float into the polar 
 sea, as some doubtless do to-day, it would be no evidence 
 when found buried in the polar sea beds that a climate 
 of the Upper Mackenzie prevailed beneath the Arctic 
 circle. And when geologists of to-day find the Califor- 
 nia pine in the miocene of Greenland, or the cypress of 
 Arkansas in the miocene of Alaska, or Spitzbergen, 
 they have no right to claim a warm or subtropical cli- 
 mate for those regions on this evidence alone. For 
 when we assume an elevated plateau across the Atlantic 
 we must also assume river systems, drawing the same 
 into northern waters, and the transfer of southern 
 plants to northern beds; so that much allowance must
 
 Conclusive Evidence. 371 
 
 be made in the claim that a subtropical climate has ex- 
 isted in those lands when based on such evidence. 
 
 Now, as we look back over the tertiary world, and are 
 advised from its well-known record, I cannot see how a 
 geologist can come to any other conclusion than that 
 which here is evidently forced upon us. We cannot 
 shut our eyes to the overwhelming evidence that shows 
 one vast expanse of fresh waters. 'Tis not in the Paris 
 basin alone, not the whole of northwestern Europe 
 alone, nor the stretch of thousands of miles on the 
 northern coast of a single continent, that presents this 
 testimony. It can scarcely be possible that a fresh- 
 water lake of one-fourth the expanse of the tertiary 
 fresh-water beds of Europe could obtain. But when we 
 can trace the shore lines of this limitless fresh-water 
 sea around the whole hemisphere, we are driven, it 
 seems to me, beyond the possibility of a doubt, to the 
 conclusion that during the greater part of the tertiary 
 period the great Arctic Ocean was a wide expanse of 
 fresh waters. 
 
 But what does such a conclusion lead to? It leads 
 directly to the positive and permanent establishment of 
 the annular theory. A fresh-water polar ocean, coming 
 immediately after the cretaceous period, means a vast 
 down-flow of annular waters or snows the very thing 
 demanded by the cretaceous glaciers, the very thing de- 
 manded by the elevated barrier, the very thing de- 
 manded by the sweeping and universal extermination 
 of species. If no other evidence could be found to sup- 
 port this theory a polar fresh-water ocean rolling as it 
 were over the beds of cretaceous matter would seem to 
 settle the question beyond a doubt, since no other ter- 
 restrial source or cause can be found.
 
 372 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 Thus it seems that every step we have taken in this 
 long and to some, perhaps, tedious investigation has 
 added a link of testimony in favor of the grand concep- 
 tion of an annular system. We read the thought on the 
 gilded firmament the clock-work of the heavens; we 
 read it in the solid rock-ribbed earth traced in imperish- 
 able lines, from the close of the archaean time till the 
 last great fall of waters a thousand links joined and 
 inter joined a multitude of witnesses speak from every 
 field. Our knowledge of the earth is yet exceedingly 
 limited. Geology is yet in its infancy. Man is just 
 waking up and laying hold of the great volume. And 
 the earth conceived in nebulous heat, born in the 
 throes of the mightiest revulsions, rocked in the billows 
 of a molten sea, and swaddled by its inveterate flames 
 grew old and now treads its majestic round, clad in the 
 wreck of rings, its bosom filled with the dust of races. 
 From that dust man has arisen, and looks back upon 
 the bed whence he came with bewildered eyes, and 
 forth upon the possibilities in visions bright with HOPE.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 THE LAST ADVANCE OF GLACIERS. 
 
 It must seem plain to the reasoning mind that if the last down- 
 fall of exterior vapors fell at the time of Noah, and was, as is 
 here claimed, the deluge, then there must have been a modern 
 advance of polar glaciers, agreeably to a physical law referred to 
 before. 
 
 As previously stated, when exterior vapors entered the atmos- 
 phere, they gravitated naturally more largely toward the polar 
 regions, and, falling there as snows, would accumulate there as 
 glacier s, and the extent of those glaciers would correspond to the 
 amount of snows. Now, it is evident, if there ever was an Eden 
 climate on this earth, its destruction was brought about by a 
 change of climate. It is also evident, if the deluge was a col- 
 lapse of the last remnants of upper waters, that the latter must 
 have begun to fall in polar regions many centuries previous, 
 since we see that throughout all geologic times such changes 
 are spread over vast periods. 
 
 It appears that the Eden world suffered a change during the 
 Adamite age (Gen. 3: 17 to 22; also Gen. 4: 12), and it also ap- 
 pears that that change was effected by a change in climate. For 
 the race which dwelt naked in Eden became clothed in the skins 
 of animals; and whatever interpretation the opinionated may 
 draw, I draw my conclusions from law. That, if the infant hu- 
 man race ever dwelt naked on earth, the climate was then warm, 
 and if it afterwards dwelt on earth clothed in the skins of ani- 
 mals, it had then become colder. And if it grew colder, it is 
 more than probable it was caused by a fall of snows; and if 
 Eden was formed by means pointed out in these pages, then it 
 must be almost certain that the Edenic climate was changed by a 
 fall of snows from the earth's annular system.* 
 
 * See " Eden's Flaming Sword " in the author's second volume 
 on the annular theory.
 
 374 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 Hence we have reasonable grounds for concluding that for 
 more than a thousand years of the Edenic period the vapors 
 which finally involved the earth in a terrific and wide-desolating 
 flood, continued to fall as snows at the poles. And, if the physi- 
 cal conditions of the antediluvians and their environment de- 
 pended upon the conditions of upper vapors, of which there is 
 no reasonable doubt, then the question is almost reduced to a 
 demonstration that polar glaciers began to advance in Edenic 
 times; and thus we have connected into one grand and varied 
 scene, the \vhole age of antediluvian man. The same cause that 
 deprived him of his Eden home, and brought upon him all of life's 
 physical ills in a modified form, closed the scene at the time the 
 " fountains " of the aerial " deep " were " broken up." 
 
 Now, if this be true, there must be some physical evidence of 
 a change in climate. Let us briefly turn our attention to this. 
 The exceedingly slow motion of glaciers is well known. A sud- 
 den fall of polar snows would immediately and rapidly send its 
 chilling influence over an Eden world; but the full effect of the 
 same would be gradual and depend entirely upon the progress of 
 the glaciers and the volume of snows composing them. Untold 
 centuries might intervene before adjacent lands would yield to the 
 scepter of eternal winter. As the polar glacier? urged their way 
 from the dead to the living world, it changed the climates of 
 genial lands to the lifeless scenes of the glacial epochs. 
 
 More than eight hundred years ago Greenland was not the 
 frigid land it now is. Eight centuries ago the Icelanders and 
 Northmen sailed through northern seas, in the interest of com- 
 luerce, where now our hardiest seamen, in ample vessels, well 
 manned and equipped, scarcely dare to venture. They planted 
 colonies on Greenland's shores, whose very name bespeaks a 
 fruitful clime. They erected monuments on an island in Baffin's 
 Bay whose remains tell a tale of enterprise and energy. They 
 entered Lancaster Sound and Barrows Strait.* Icelandic annals 
 show that their people not only pushed forward commercial enter- 
 prises into these now inhospitable lands, but they also carried 
 their religion into the new colonies. Greenland and Spitzbergen 
 were, according to their histories, for centuries prosperous and 
 happy settlements. We must give these annals due credence. 
 What has become of these colonies? Would any nation now at- 
 tempt to colonize those dreary solitudes of eternal winter, with 
 the prospect of making prosperous settlements? Is it not evi- 
 
 * See Am. Cyc. : " Arctic Discoveries."
 
 Appendix. 375 
 
 dent that the Greenland and Spitzbergen of the Northmen age 
 were not the Greenland and Spitzbergen of to-day? It really 
 s>eems that the northern glacier has progressed so far southward 
 that once habitable lands have become desolate we might almost 
 say " without inhabitant." 
 
 Jt seems likely, then, in view of a former genial temperature 
 in northern lands, that the present glaciation of the polar worlds 
 is but a legitimate result of the decline of the last remnant of 
 outer vapors. From this it necessarily follows that the great ice 
 caps of the polar regions are moving toward the equator, and 
 consequently are continually diminishing. They are continually 
 sending off great icebergs out into the seas, where they melt and 
 drop their load of mud and dirt, gravel and boulders, and, it may 
 be, their entombed and mummied dead. 
 
 Thus, it is possible, we are approaching a day when the last 
 iceberg will be borne toward the tropics, and the last glacier be 
 made to loose its grip upon the land, and a more genial clime 
 pervade a greater part of the earth. 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 THE LOST CONTINENT. 
 
 Evidence is continually accumulating which goes to show that 
 a great Pacific continent now lies under water. Since the chap- 
 ter on " Oceanic Augmentation " was put in manuscript form 1 
 have read, with intense interest, the " Lost Atlantis," by Ignatius 
 Donnelly. The mass of evidence this author brings forth to prove 
 the existence of a submerged continent in the Atlantic waters 
 is simply astonishing. The fact that a great insular continent 
 has, in very recent geologic time, been overflowed, seems to be 
 so clearly proven that it may be looked upon as an established 
 truth. But tell me, how could such great continents sink with- 
 out drawing the oceanic waters away from the shores of the con- 
 tinents, and thus increasing the pitch of rivers near their out- 
 lets? In addition to the submerged continent of the Pacific and 
 that of the Atlantic, between the United States and Africa, 
 there is a vast submerged continent or barrier of the North 
 Atlantic. 
 
 These facts leave no room for doubt that the oceans have been 
 augmented, and stand to-day many fathoms deeper than they 
 did, perhaps, in the Edenic day.
 
 376 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 NOTE III. 
 
 ANTHRACITES IN BRITISH AMERICA. 
 
 My readers will remember the claim made in the chapter on 
 " Anthracites," that such heavy forms of coal must lie in great 
 beds along the slopes of British America. In a lecture delivered 
 by the author, before these pages were in the publishers' hands, 
 this language was used : " Long ago I predicted that great beds 
 of anthracite and bituminous coal would be found to underlie 
 the great basin and plateau of British America. England, in the 
 possession of that vast territory, is richer than if she owned all 
 the gold mines of the world." 
 
 It is now authentically announced that " a seam of fine quality 
 of anthracite has been found eight hundred miles west of Winni- 
 peg, on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The seam is fourteen feet 
 thick! 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 A SIGNIFICANT ADMISSION. 
 
 As these pages are undergoing their last revision before being 
 placed in the printers' hands, a friendly letter comes from Prof. 
 N. H. Winchell, of the Minneapolis University, and State Geolo- 
 gist of Minnesota. In this letter the writer makes the frank con- 
 cession that the primeval vapors, mineral laden and revolving on 
 high, " must have lingered in the skies much later than has 
 been admitted." This was in reply to my pamphlet, " Alaska, 
 Land of the Nugget, Why ? " 
 
 It is not likely that the writer ever imagined what a sweep- 
 ing admission he made. If we admit that the primordial waters 
 did not all come back to the earth till more recent times, then 
 the annular theory of world making is conceded. We admit the 
 geologic ages were outlined by the progressive wreck of the 
 earth's annular system. Then how can we avoid the solution of 
 the glacial problem, for as surely as the vapors fell in modern 
 geologic times they fell as snows in the polar world, north and 
 south. So, too, as surely as those primeval vapors arose from 
 a molten earth they were laden with gold vapors, which readily 
 associate with heated waters, and we are forced to the conclu- 
 sion that, as these vapors arose together, they rode together for 
 ages in the lofty skies, and, as the earth cooled, they crystalized
 
 Appendix. 377 
 
 into forms snow-flakes, hail, nuggets and gold-flakes, etc., and 
 when they fell they fell together in polar lands. So that the 
 birth-place of the glacier is the birth-place of placer gold. 
 
 Primeval vapors, lingering in the skies until recent geologic 
 times, mean an annular system with all that it implies. Then 
 how are we to face the coal and the oil problems for vapors 
 could not rise from a molten earth and not carry a world of 
 unconsumed fuel with them? It is of the utmost importance 
 that geologists be careful how and what they concede. The earth 
 in all its features is linked to an ancient ring system. Go what 
 road we may, we are perpetually meeting with its deathless sur- 
 vivals. The miners of Alaskan gold all admit, as they collect the 
 nuggets and the dust from the frozen earth, from the very sum- 
 mits of mountain peaks and from the surface of glaciers, that 
 the precious hoard was not ground from the rocks. Whence 
 came it then? A letter lying before me affirms that the "gold 
 found on the surface of Mt. Fairweather Glacier must have 
 from the heavens." How the truth struggles to the light! 
 
 THE TRUE ORIGIN OF COAL THE VEGETATION THEORY 
 DISPROVED. 
 
 The following lecture was delivered before the Belmont County 
 Teachers' Institute, at its meeting in Barnesville, Ohio, August 
 llth, 1885: 
 
 I am glad to meet with you, my friends, teachers of my na- 
 tive county, in the discussion of the coal problem. I am glad be- 
 cause it is to the student and instructor that I must confide the 
 promulgation of the theory I am about to explain. It is a most 
 important problem; important, because it involves the fate of 
 many time-honored theories. This is a day when all scientific 
 (questions are tested by the calcium light of reason weighed in 
 the philosopher's scales, and valued by the microscopic test of 
 law. 
 
 A theory that absolutely fails in one point is a complete fail- 
 ure. And, after a critical examination of the hypothesis that the 
 coal beds of the earth are a vegetable product, it is found that 
 it does absolutely and utterly fail in many points, and that it 
 has scarcely a feature that can abide these tests. 
 
 THE CHART. I present before you a chart representing a 
 planet just issuing from the igneous or molten condition a
 
 378 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 planet constituted as the earth, of water, mineral and metallic 
 matter a chart exhibiting the great and essential fact that 
 such a planet must at some time in the course of its evolution 
 become surrounded by a complex system of equatorial rings, 
 composed of matter concentrated from its nebulous empire and 
 mingled with aqueous and mineral vapors, expelled from its 
 heated center during the reign of fire. It represents the original 
 atmosphere of a burning world, which atmosphere formed into 
 rings as the suspended vapors condensed. So that such a system 
 is necessarily composed of matter, meteoric and vaporous, on its 
 downward course to a common center, and other matter driven 
 outward and upward by the measureless energy of heat, and 
 which, from utter necessity, upon falling within, becomes no in- 
 considerable part of the planet's sedimentary beds, or aqueous- 
 formed crust. It presents to your view what I have called the 
 " Annular Theory." a thing conceived in my boyish mind as I 
 gazed in confused wonder upon the ring system of the planet 
 Saturn. Believing that one unchanging and universal law pre- 
 sided in the construction of worlds, I could not divest my mind 
 of the conception that the earth also must have had at one time 
 a ring or annular system, and amid the " ups and downs " of a 
 varied life the idea has lived as a part of my mental being, until 
 it now seems to be a positive reality. In the course of time 
 the question of the origin of coal, with numerous other important 
 ones, became involved in and, as I hold, satisfactorily explained 
 by this theory, after all these crucial tests had been applied. 
 
 Now you will excuse me if I should be a little tedious in ap- 
 proaching this question, for it is no ordinary one one upon 
 which you can afford to devote, not minutes nor hours, but days 
 and weeks of thought. 
 
 The first thing for us to understand, in the evolution of this 
 theory, is the now settled fact that this earth was once a burn- 
 ing orb. Wherever we turn the telescope upon the universe of 
 worlds we see the glowing suns of a scintillating creation the 
 sparkling centers of evolving worlds. The spectroscope also 
 speaks, and in it we put implicit faith, for it cannot falsify. It 
 photographs on the philosopher's screen the flames of comets and 
 suns. It tells us that nebulae, planets and stars are composed 
 of materials the same in kind as those out of which the earth wan 
 built. Every star is a burning world, and consequently a smok- 
 ing world a mighty crucible in which mineral and metallic ele- 
 ments are fused, vaporized and sublimed; where chemical com-
 
 Appendix. 379 
 
 pounds are reduced and re-combined; where the work of creation 
 and re-creation is going on forever. 
 
 Now let us imagine a world composed exclusively of water 
 and sandstone. Let it be fused or melted to its inmost depths 
 by inveterate heat, as millions of worlds are to-day. By this 
 heat its waters would be vaporized and driven away from the 
 fiery mass, and the core would be a mass of melted silica, and an 
 atmosphere of aqueous vapors would surround it. Now, if the 
 heat be increased so as to make the mass a shining sun or beam- 
 ing star, the silica would be vaporized and also driven away and 
 made to commingle with the watery vapors, and, if the melted 
 mass contained limestone, iron or lead, these substances would 
 also be vaporized and the vaporous atmosphere would contain 
 gaseous matter of all these substances. And it must be seen that 
 in the universe of law, as the mass becomes cold, these vaporized 
 elements would condense, in order of their susceptibility of fusion 
 and vaporization, and, falling to a common center, would form 
 a spherical mass, not of water and sandstone as before, but one 
 composed of all these elements. It must also be seen that the 
 aqueous vapors would be the last to condense, and, moreover, 
 the last to fall from the position which they must have taken 
 under the reign of heat, r.epelling from a focus; and, while all 
 these materials thus vaporized and afterwards condensed, must 
 to some extent become commingled and form, just as we see un- 
 der our feet, a heterogeneous world, yet there would be upon 
 the whole some definite and regular order of strata arrange- 
 ment. For, in the condensation and consequent precipitation the 
 heaviest and most refractory minerals minerals most difficult to 
 fuse and vaporize would separate from the rest and settle first. 
 Beds of silex, almost pure, and silicious beds containing iron, cal- 
 cium and every other metal or mineral contained in the fiery 
 envelope would recur in some kind of order in our hypothetic 
 world. There would be beds of metals arising from this fiery 
 distillation nearly pure, under the law of elemental assortment 
 and segregation. We see this law abundantly and universally 
 exemplified in the entire structure of the earth's crust. We have 
 sand beds, lime beds and metallic beds, all nearly pure; and then 
 beds of every degree almost of impurity or mixture* Hence, we 
 are at once forced to face the self-evident truth that there must 
 be in the sedimentary beds of every previously molten orb the 
 very material that formerly had existed in its atmosphere. 
 If that atmosphere or glowing envelope contained carbon in 
 any form whatever, that carbon would be contained as pure and
 
 380 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 also as mixed beds in the sedimentary crust. Now let me. ask you 
 to remember this vital fact. I will state it again, so that you 
 can all certainly understand it. In every world whose fiery and 
 vaporous atmosphere contained carbonaceous matter there must 
 be beds of carbon of varying degrees of purity. For the same 
 reason that silicious minerals must form sand beds as they fall 
 from the 'great vaporous fund; for the same reason that cal- 
 careous minerals must form strata of limestone, mineral carbon, 
 in whatever form it existed, whether as graphite or carbonate, 
 as carbonic anhydride, or even as the diamond, must have sep- 
 arated in that inevitable sublimation from its associated ele- 
 ments and finally formed carbon beds in the evolving world. 
 Beds of primitive carbon! Carbon that needed not the light of 
 the sun nor the mysterious laboratory of the plant to make it 
 carbon. Carbon that existed as such millions of years before 
 a plant cell existed. 
 
 Did I call this a vital question? Is there a man who dares 
 dispute it? It is vital because it utterly abrogates the old idea 
 that a carbon bed can have no other source than that of vege- 
 tation. Here is the critical foundation upon which geologists 
 stand to-day, who say coal is a vegetable product because vegeta- 
 tion is the only competent source of carbon beds. Away down 
 amid the archrean piles of the earth, amid primitive rocks that 
 never felt the thrill of the sunbeam's touch ; where never a plant, 
 a twig, a leaf, or a bud can be found as a fossil, you will find 
 stupendous beds of primitive carbon, as all geologists know full 
 well. Then, I say, please remember the vital fact, while I go 
 around it and approach it from another side. 
 
 A molten or a burning world, rotating upon an axis, as the 
 earth does, will fling its great atmosphere of vaporized water, 
 mineral and metallic matter into rings in its equatorial regions. 
 1 cannot, in the short time I have to address you, give very 
 much evidence to prove this proposition. It is, however, sus- 
 ceptible of the clearest mathematical demonstration. I will sim- 
 ply state a few facts and ask you to admit it, and, if you are 
 ever fortunate or unfortunate enough to read the " Earth's An- 
 nular Theory," you will find the startling demonstration there in 
 full and so simple a child can understand it. 
 
 The exhaustless and measureless energy of heat exerted to 
 vaporize the refractory minerals and metals, now glowing and 
 sparkling in millions of stars grand central fires of other sys- 
 tems must drive these vapors so far into space that, as they 
 necessarily obey the mighty impetus given them by the orb's ro-
 
 Appendix. 381 
 
 tation, they accumulate so much energy that they must continue 
 to revolve independently about the central body for a long time 
 after the mass becomes cold. The day is not very far distant 
 when it will be admitted on all hands that ring or annular form- 
 ation is an indispensable part of planetary evolution. 
 
 We see this necessary and legitimate result of plutonic energy 
 beautifully and grandly exemplified in the clockwork of the skies. 
 Jupiter and Saturn, twin giants of the solar system, proclaim 
 this eternal truth across the mighty void that separates this 
 puny world from them. See how gloriously they thread their 
 course through the heavens, Titanic worlds yet unfinished. A 
 great part of their oceans and much of their future sedimentary 
 crust are yet revolving about them as vapors and meteoric dust. 
 Jupiter has belts, material belts, revolving about him, and Saturn 
 has both rings and belts. It can be readily demonstrated by 
 physical law that Jupiter's belts were once in the form of con- 
 centric rings in his equatorial heavens. Also that Saturn's rings 
 are gradually approaching the planet, and that the belts of both 
 planets are gradually falling to their surfaces by way of the 
 polar regions. So that the day will come, as sure as law presides 
 in the government of heaven, that Saturn will be stripped of her 
 glorious appendage. 
 
 Did the earth ever possess such an appendage? There is not 
 an astronomer who will say no. There is not a geologist who will 
 not say it did after he shall once have examined the geological 
 record with an impartial and philosophic eye. Examine the world 
 upon which you live! See what stupendous revolutions are 
 chronicled in its rocky volume! What is its past history? A 
 thousand volumes cannot reveal it all. But there is one chapter 
 that I will attempt to interpret to-day a noble chapter, written 
 with a pen of fire on immortal stone. What does it say? On its 
 title page we read: "When the dial finger of time pointed to the 
 dawn of ages the earth was a burning world." It rolled through 
 space a glowing sun. Its rocky beds were molten and the oceans 
 that now wash the rock-bound shores were held in suspension on 
 high by the repelling power of heat. This igneous or fiery con- 
 dition of the earth in primeval times is admitted on all hands. 
 If any question has ever been settled by the philosophy of man, 
 this one has. Then the earth was no exception in its mode of 
 evolution in the universe of worlds; and all its present oceans 
 and a part of every substance now found in its upper crust ex- 
 isted in its great primeval atmosphere. What a wondrous atmos- 
 phere that was! Twenty miles of aqueous strata tell us what
 
 382 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 it was composed of. Mixed with a mighty fund of silicon, calcium, 
 iron, copper, lead, silver, gold, sodium, oxygen and hydrogen was 
 an immensity of carbon. All the carbon now in the lime beds 
 of the world's crust was there; all the carbon in the carbonate 
 of iron, zinc and lead, and all the carbonates were there; ao 
 also the measureless fund of carbon now stored away as coal 
 was there. 
 
 But the more extensive the primeval atmosphere the more 
 likely are its condensing vapors to be whirled into rings. The 
 rim of a wheel must rotate in the same time the rest of it does. 
 And, after making all due allowance for the mobility of the mass 
 of the great fund of vapors that ever canopied the primitive 
 earth, it must be admitted that the boundary of the same moved 
 with immense velocity. Now, many eminent men of science ad- 
 vance the claim that the atmosphere was at least 240,000 miles 
 deep. We will not claim half that depth say 100,000 miles; but 
 the peripheral boundary of an atmosphere of that depth, even, 
 if the entire mass rotated once in twenty-four hours, as our at- 
 mosphere now does with the earth, had a rotary velocity of 
 25,000 miles per hour. But this is nearly 8,000 miles per hour 
 more rapidly than it need to move in order to whirl the vapors 
 into rings, even if it was not one mile deep or at the surface of 
 the earth. 
 
 By means of Kepler's third law it is an easy matter to de- 
 termine how deep the atmosphere must have been in order that 
 the revolution of the same in twenty-four hours would throw its 
 condensed matter into equatorial rings. Any one who will take 
 the trouble and make the calculation will see that it need not be 
 240,000 miles, nor 100,000 miles, but a little more than 7,000 miles. 
 Hence, we are forced to the conclusion that all the primeval va- 
 pors situated more than 7,360 miles from the earth's surface 
 continued to revolve about their primary center after they grew 
 cold and condensed, and all those situated nearer the earth fell 
 to its surface because they had not centrifugal energy enough 
 to retain them. Such are the demands of law, and I presume 
 there is not a mathematical or philosophical mind that can doubt 
 this conclusion after having sufficiently contemplated the facts 
 that the earth was once in a molten state and rotated as it now 
 does. A neglect or failure on the part of the geologists to follow 
 the effects of this fiery condition of the pi-imitive earth to this 
 legitimate end has led us into pernicious errors. Now where are 
 we? We found an immensity of carbon in the primitive form in 
 the fiery envelope of the earth; and we now find that it existed
 
 Appendix. 383 
 
 in the annular form revolving about it, associated with its aque- 
 ous oceans of vapor. These two facts stand out prominently in 
 the annular theory and challenge the world for a refutation. 
 You already know that the whole course of geology has been pur- 
 sued with the idea that the waters and their associated matter 
 all fell to the earth before any of the aqueous beds were depos- 
 ited; that is, they never formed into rings. Now, if these vapors 
 never formed into rings, then geologists are right, and I am 
 wrong. But a molten world an igneous era necessitates ring 
 formation; then, if I am wrong in my conclusions, the earth 
 was never in an igneous condition. But it must be said that we 
 simply know it was once in that condition. There is where we 
 are simply forced to the conclusion that elementary carbon, once 
 driven from the fire-born earth, revolved about it, and, therefore, 
 fell, with its aqueous vapors, in grand instalments. Now keep 
 these facts in view while we make another excursion and bring 
 up other reinforcements. 
 
 Every philosophic mind will agree with me in the claim that 
 if the earth ever was in a burning state, it was also in a smoking 
 state. The constitution of the globe is such as to render this a 
 necessary and absolute fact. From every fire-place and furnace, 
 from every volcano on earth, issues smoke. But smoke is uncon- 
 sumed carbon. This carbon is in the form of infinitesimal par- 
 ticles, and, being released from various combinations, is, accord- 
 ing to chemical law, in Avhat is called its nascent state and eager 
 to enter into new combinations. Hence its ready union with the 
 oxygen of the air, as any chemist can prove, by which smoke be- 
 comes invisible in a short time. But nascent carbon or smoke 
 has an affinity for hydrogen, and if it cannot obtain oxygen it 
 will dissolve or decompose aqueous vapor and appropriate its 
 hydrogen, forming a hydro-carbon, after which the oxygen just 
 released combines with it, forming an oxy-hydro-carbon. Were it 
 not, then, for the presence of oxygen in the air, the mighty vol- 
 umes of smoke that eternally arise from millions of chimneys 
 would, in a short time, fill the atmosphere with midnight black- 
 ness. There would be a constant deposit of hydro-carbon in the 
 form of soot upon the earth, and men might collect this carbon 
 and burn it, as we now do our coal. 
 
 Let any one watch the black column of unconsumed carbon 
 issuing from a locomotive burning bituminous coal. In how short 
 a time it vanishes in air. It is simply undergoing a second com- 
 bustion a union with oxygen. Or you may perform a more sim- 
 ple experiment by burning a rag or piece of paper in the open air.
 
 384 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 The carbonized paper or rag lying before you may be lighted 
 and made to burn again. A slow combustion will spread over 
 it again and again, until the carbon becomes invisible, leaving 
 nothing but ashes. You have seen this secondary combustion 
 many a time in your soot-clogged chimneys and stove-pipes. You 
 have seen a transient flame play over the back wall covered 
 with an oily soot. 
 
 These are manifestations of unchanging law. They exhibit an 
 ocular demonstration of the fact that smoke or unconsumed car- 
 bon, from whatever source it comes, is again formed into fuel, 
 and will burn again. And if, as it arises from the furnaces of the 
 earth, it could be stored away among watery vapors, where 
 oxygen could not play upon it, it would all be burned into an 
 oxy-hydro-carbon. What is an oxy-hydro-carbon? It is n oily 
 or bituminous substance, composed of carbon, oxygen and hydro- 
 gen the very substance stored away as coal in the earth's 
 crust. We are now ready for another vital question. What 
 has become of the vast fund of smoke that went up from the 
 burning or igneous world? What has become of the unconsumed 
 carbon distilled by the earth's inveterate fires? Every man must 
 know that it went up and lodged, so to speak, among the sus- 
 pended vapors on high, and, being in immediate contact with 
 them, in a very ocean of hydrogen, it must have become a hydro- 
 carbon. Now it does not make a particle of difference whether 
 the smoke issues from the flying locomotive, from ^Etna's fiery 
 entrails, or from millions of telluric flames, the distillation of 
 carbon is the same, and it can make no difference whether it hov- 
 ers in the atmosphere or is flying with volcanic force thousands 
 of miles into space; it is governed by the same immutable law. 
 In the atmosphere the oxygen devours it, and it vanishes; but 
 beyond the atmosphere, under the cope of heaven, among the 
 whirling vapors, it lodges as soot-black hydro-carbon. 
 
 Now, where are we? First, we had carbon as a primitive ele- 
 ment, before the dawn of vegetation. Therefore it was not a 
 vegetable product. Next, we find it revolving in the earth's 
 annular system as carbonaceous rings, and vegetation did not 
 put it there. Next, we find those rings to consist of a black, 
 sooty, oily, pitchy hydro-carbon, sent up from the fiery focus 
 of the planet, and yet vegetation has taken no part in the grand 
 metaphysis. Keep these facts in mind awhile. 
 
 The hydro-carbon seen by the mind's eye as dark rings and 
 bands surrounding the primitive earth, just as the dark carbon- 
 aceous bands of Jupiter and Saturn surround those primaries
 
 Appendix. 385 
 
 to-day, and the hydro-carbon buried in our rock-ribbed hills, are 
 one and the same thing. The vapors have fallen, and the car- 
 bon must have fallen with it. Titan hands have gathered it and 
 stored it away for the use of man he mines it and burns it 
 again. 
 
 Now, why should men conclude that vegetation is necessary 
 for the formation of carbon beds, when this element, it must be 
 admitted, existed as a combustible fuel before a plant germ ever 
 existed in the earth? The formation of carbon from peat moss 
 is a combustion or redistillation precisely similar, except in de- 
 gree, to that which took place amid the aqueous vapors on high. 
 Could we take the carbonized paper or rag in our experiment be- 
 fore it burns again, and place it side by side with peat-formed 
 carbon, they would be precisely the same in kind. As the peat 
 MOSS decays or, in other words, is consumed a charred product, 
 which falls amid the waters of the bog, remains unconsumed, 
 whereas, if it had remained in the open air, it would have van- 
 ished in air. So that the slow combustion in a peat bog becomes 
 our first witness; and a very important witness it is. Its testi- 
 mony is that, if the puny combustion that takes place in the 
 decay of peat moss can produce carbon in small quantities, just 
 as soot is formed in the combustion of wood or any other car- 
 bonaceous substance, then the mighty, stupendous and Titanic 
 combustion of archaean times must have produced an infinite and 
 measureless amount of it, and, being a primitive distillation, it 
 must have made a purer product. 
 
 It must be with a full knowledge of the fact that peat car- 
 bon is but a secondary transformation that the vegetarian takes 
 this primitive carbon, already a combustible fuel, and made so 
 by inexorable law, but disregarding the smoking furnace of the 
 infant earth, conceives it to be the unburnt product of peat 
 moss, when he must know that so sure as this earth was once 
 in a molten state its rising carbon vapors were changed into fuel 
 carbon among the aqueous vapors on high. He simply substitutes 
 for that grand distillation the slow decay of vegetation. Now 
 every one in the house must see that a necessarily stupendous 
 production of fuel carbon is thus abnegated by a mere triviality. 
 Must we deny the testimony of the geologic record; the testi- 
 mony of our sister planets; the evidence of the sun and stars, 
 in order that the vegetarian may conceive that to a peculiar 
 class of plants are delegated these grand offices of world making? 
 You see that if he admits the agency of telluric heat, he already 
 has carbon fuel on hand; and if he calls in the aid of the spon-
 
 386 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 taneous fires of the peat marsh, he only substitutes an utterly 
 inadequate process to make what was made before. 
 
 Now I must give a little history. During a long and tedious 
 series of experiments I demonstrated that the soot arising from 
 burning wood or coal would dissolve aqueous vapor and become a 
 fuel. Then I knew that the smoke that arose from the burning 
 world and entered the suspended vapors did the same. I had 
 a little sack of soot stored away in my laboratory and cabinet 
 with which I was experimenting. While I was eager to satisfy 
 myself that soot becomes a hydro-carbon in the air, nature was 
 secretly at work in an effort to draw this work to a conclusion, 
 for the sack of soot had become so far hydrogenated that it one 
 day began to oxidize in earnest. It took lire spontaneously, 
 thus proving the very thing I had been claiming. It was a 
 dearly-bought demonstration, but it was conclusive. In that 
 building I had placed my geological cabinet; specimens, many 
 hundreds of them, more valuable to me than gold, the work of 
 thirty years of search ; my telescope, the work of my own hands 
 all my tools and drawings ruined or destroyed. It seemed a 
 little severe that all these things should be offered up, a burn- 
 ing sacrifice, to prove that the unconsumed carbon arising from 
 every fire place, from every volcano, from every planet, star or 
 sun in the universe, became a fuel hydro-carbon. As I looked 
 down upon the ruins a voice seemed to whisper, " It will be 
 beauty for ashes." 
 
 That conflagration proved to me, and proves to all men, 
 that somewhere in the earth's crust must exist a combustible 
 form of carbon, sent up from the igneous world. Where is it? 
 Where is it? The man who answers this question solves a mo- 
 mentous problem. 
 
 GRAPHITE. It is evident that if coal be a vegetable product, 
 all other carbon beds must also be of vegetable origin, so that 
 geologists agree with Dana that those vast beds of graphite, 
 found in the oldest aqueous formations, are as much a vegetable 
 formation as peat itself. But right here they meet a stumbling 
 block which they can neither leap over nor circumvent. The lau- 
 rentian graphite was deposited in an age when vegetation, so far 
 as can be determined, did not grow. No vegetable fossils can be 
 found either in the graphite itself or its associated beds. Geolo- 
 gists have never found a reliable or satisfactory trace of a plant 
 in ancient graphite or near it. 
 
 Now it will avail nothing to advance the claim that vegetable 
 fossil prints have been obliterated from the crystalline rocks,
 
 Appendix. 387 
 
 for in these very rocks the delicate form of the eozoon baa been 
 preserved. 
 
 Considering the immense amount of archaean graphite, it is 
 simply impossible that some traces of plants should not be found 
 in it or near it, if it were a vegetable product. Let us examine 
 this form of carbon in the light of the annular theory. 
 
 Whenever carbon is distilled, either from wood, oil or bones 
 or limestone, many allotropic forms of carbon may be obtained. 
 We call them light and heavy forms. These are interestingly 
 illustrated in the manufacture of burning gas from coal or coal 
 oil, or in the process of refining crude petroleum. Here heavy 
 forms of carbon are distilled as asphaltum graphite, so that it 
 is well known that these are necessary products of all such 
 distillations. Hence the igneous world must have yielded all 
 such allotropic carbon, and the heaviest forms, as graphite, etc., 
 must have existed almost exclusively in that part of the annular 
 system nearest the earth, and must, therefore, have fallen and 
 became incorporated among the oldest sedimentary rocks. Its 
 weight must have located it near the earth, according to law, and 
 its position must have necessitated its fall to the earth before the 
 lighter forms. Its present position is simply a result of annular 
 arrangement previously determined by law in the vaporous at- 
 mosphere. Thus, you see, while the old theory utterly fails to ac- 
 count both for the origin and position of graphite, the new one 
 shows why there are no traces of vegetation there, why it occu- 
 pies the position it does, and gives the only philosophic origin that 
 can be given. Now, suppose it was not found in these early -formed 
 beds, but bodily among the carbon beds of the tertiary rocks. Any 
 one can see that the annular theory would fail to account for it. 
 But primitive graphite can never be found in any other position, 
 except in small quantities. Hence, we must admit its intimate con- 
 nection with the annular system. Thus, in support of the annular 
 theory, I find the graphite just as I want to find it, and, more- 
 over, just where I want to. The vegetarian finds it as he don't 
 want to, and where he don't want to. Choose ye this day whom 
 ye will believe. 
 
 AN AQUEOUS FORMATION. The general appearance of a coal 
 seam is that of an aqueous deposit. Examine it where you 
 choose among the Appalachian metamorphic centers or at any 
 point in the undisturbed beds of the Mississippi Valley, pocketed 
 in prairie lands or stored in the everlasting hills, or in that grand- 
 est and greatest of coal fields stretching from Mexico to the 
 north polar sea you cannot close your eyes to the universal
 
 388 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 evidence that all these coal seams were planted at the bottom 
 of the sea, and not in a peat swamp at its surface level. 
 
 It is everywhere planted immediately upon a sea-formed bed. 
 Thin, aqueous seams or partings run through it, and a sea-formed 
 bed is planted upon it. And, if the coal in the very center of 
 these deposits is a vegetable product, there is no human eye that 
 can tell where the sea deposit ends and swamp formation begins. 
 Every day, almost, I meet with these evidences. Sometimes a 
 limestone stratum is almost the immediate covering of a coal 
 seam, and again almost its immediate base. But limestone 
 formations were deposited in the quiet seas. There are in this 
 part of Ohio more than a dozen coal seams, and extending from 
 here to the Ohio River, Belmont County is underlain with a 
 dozen heavy lime-rock strata, and these are interspersed among 
 the coal beds; and, more frequently than otherwise, they are in 
 close proximity to the coal. Vegetarians say these things require 
 that the " waters of the ocean should be very near." This forced 
 admission is more amusing than philosophic, and yet I must agree 
 to it. The waters of the ocean were very near very. 
 
 BOULDERS. Again and again boulders are found embedded 
 in the coal in such position as to show that they were carried to 
 the spot in floating ice, or trees, at the very time the bed was 
 forming. This, as any one can see, demands that the bed was 
 forming at the bottom of the sea. In the museum at Columbus 
 is a boulder found in the midst of a coal seam. It was torn 
 from its native crystalline bed, worn and glaciated by ice, before 
 it was imbedded in the coal. Our State geologist says, " Ice 
 transport would seem almost necessary for such a block," and 
 all agree that the waters in which it was transported " were very 
 near." 
 
 Why should it be " almost necessary " for ice to be involved 
 in the transportation of ice-worn and ice-borne boulders? Sim- 
 ply because a fuller concession involves the reputed origin of coal 
 in irretrievable contradiction. 
 
 COAL PARTINGS. I would I had an hour to devote to the 
 consideration of the thin, laminated partings in coal, sometimes 
 not thicker than paper, frequently not the eighth of an inch, and 
 sometimes half an inch, extending over thousands of square miles. 
 There is not a living man who can account for the mysterious 
 features of these partings by the current theory without oppos- 
 ing law and reason. If, for instance, the lower bench of a di- 
 vided seam is a product of vegetation, the roots of which were 
 planted in the clay bed below, where is the root bed or the
 
 Appendix. 389 
 
 upper bench? In a clay parting of half an inch thickness? Where 
 is the vegetation that this thin clay or sand parting ought to 
 have involved, as it accumulated over the swamp plant, etc.? 
 Blades and twigs and moss stems should rise vertically through 
 such partings, for the mud and sand must have been deposited 
 around them. But the vegetation was not there! There can be 
 but one conclusion: These partings would show r the vegetation, 
 if it had been there. 
 
 NUMEROUS SEAMS. We have in Eastern Ohio more than a 
 dozen coal seams, varying from a few inches to nine or twelve 
 feet in thickness. A twelve-foot seam required nearly one hun- 
 dred feet of vegetation so said the illustrious Dana. In Nova 
 Scotia are more than seventy different seams; one of them is 
 thirty-five feet thick, another fifteen, and another twelve. Two 
 hundred and forty feet of accidental soot or unconsumed carbon, 
 according to the current theory, escaped the peat bed combina- 
 tion and formed Nova Scotia's heaviest bed of coal. More than 
 one hundred seams are found in England. According to the cur- 
 rent theory, each bed records a submergence of a peat swamp, 
 and subsequent re-elevation a re-elevation just above the ocean's 
 level, seventy or one hundred times, is a remarkably accommo- 
 dating series of telluric changes. 
 
 Now, let us take another glance at the annular system. t 
 You see it, darkened by carbonaceous rings, bands or belts, every 
 one of which must fall to the earth as a great installment of car- 
 bon, and each must float away and be deposited in the sea. If 
 it be a true representation, it first corrects the impression that 
 the formation of carbon beds belongs exclusively to any age. 
 While certain periods or ages are characterized by a more abund- 
 ant downfall than others, it is plain that, as smoke and vapors 
 of water are so nearly of the same gravity, all aqueous vapor of 
 the igneous age must have more or less been mixed with car- 
 bonaceous matter. The geological record is positive in the 
 declaration that carbon was more or less deposited in all geo- 
 logic times, from the very day in which the heaviest form of 
 graphite fell and was buried in the heavy metalliferous beds ot 
 archaean time to that grand deluge of modern time, yet living in 
 the traditions of man. We can, therefore, no longer marvel at 
 the number of carbon or coal veins. As superaerial carbon and 
 other matter must, under law, fall largely in the polar regions, 
 we can no longer wonder why the number of coal beds increase 
 toward the North; no longer wonder that heavy deposits of coal 
 were made in lands now locked up in eternal ice.
 
 390 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 EQUATORIAL COALS. If coal be a vegetable product, then 
 surely in those regions of the earth where vegetation in all time 
 has been the most luxuriant we should find the greatest develop- 
 ment of coal. Then, if we find such vast beds as I have before 
 alluded to, in the latitude of Nova Scotia, in the valley of the 
 Mackenzie, in the hill lands of Siberia, what must we expect to 
 find in tropical lands, under the equator? But where is the coal 
 of the tropics? It is rather scarce. Now, can it be possible that 
 there has never been an opportunity offered, in the perpetual 
 oscillation of sea and land, that the vegetarian claims for swamp 
 and peat formation in the tropics? Have the equatorial lands 
 during these subsidences and elevations always been too deeply 
 covered with water, or elevated so far above the waves 
 as not to permit swamp vegetation and coal formation? 
 Why were all these wondrously-accommodating changes of 
 sea level confined to colder regions? What a happy circum- 
 stance it would be if the vegetarian could point to such great 
 coal basins in the tropics as we find almost everywhere beyond 
 them! Now, if he could do this, it would be a bad thing for the 
 annular theory. I would be forced to admit that it essentially 
 failed in one particular, and was therefore a failure. But here, 
 as in the case of the graphite, the coal is nearly absent from the 
 very lands which the new theory claims must contain the least. 
 Tellurio-cosmic matter could have fallen directly in very limited 
 quantities in the equatorial regions, more largely in the temper- 
 ate zones, and in the greatest quantities in the frigid zone. This 
 is susceptible of the clearest mathematical and philosophic 
 demonstration. All the coal that lies within the tropics must 
 have been borne thither as carbon dust from other lands or other 
 waters, and all the coal in these lands must necessarily have the 
 least specific gravity. Those coals in the southern part of the 
 north temperate zone will in turn be found specifically lighter 
 after a fair test (and an elimination of foreign matter) than 
 those in the northern part, and the nearer we approach the 
 polar world the heavier and purer we will find the coal. I will 
 give the theory over to these final and decisive tests. If the at- 
 mosphere were filled with cosmic dust to-day this matter would 
 fall most rapidly at the poles, because gravity there is the 
 strongest. In addition to this, the centrifugal force in the rotat- 
 ing mass at the equator would somewhat check its fall there. 
 The upward currents of air, also, in the torrid, and the downward 
 motion in the temperate and frigid zones are distinct causes 
 operating to decrease the fall under the equator and increase that
 
 Appendix. 391 
 
 at the poles. But terrestrial belts, like those of the Jovine and 
 Saturnian worlds, would, according to law, move from the equa- 
 tor to the poles before they came down into the lower air. For 
 this very reason, then, the annular theory would utterly fail 
 if coal were found more abundantly in lower latitudes than the 
 middle temperate regions. It would fail if we did not find it in 
 abundance in extreme polar lands. It would fail if the northern 
 coals were not heavier and purer in carbon. Now the vegetation 
 theory utterly fails to explain these anomalies, and its advocates 
 will grope in darkness and error as long as they cling to it. Long 
 ago I predicted that great beds of anthracite and bituminous coal 
 would be found in coming ages to underlie the great basin and 
 plateau of British America. England, in the possession of that 
 vast territory, is richer than if she owned all the gold mines 
 in the world. These are only some of the decisive tests of the 
 correctness of this theory. Their name is legion. I will select 
 one more and close this evidence. 
 
 CAKBON IN ICE. The aqueous vapors above the firmament 
 must have fallen in the polar world as terrific downfalls of snow. 
 The black carbonaceous matter of the system must have fallen 
 with them. Such a downfall to-day in the polar regions would 
 soon dissipate the great polar ice caps, on account of their ab- 
 sorbing solar heat, and the extreme arctic and antarctic climate 
 would be so ameliorated that vegetation would cover all their 
 land areas as it did the great northern continent in pre-glacial 
 times. A slight downfall, however, would not affect climate to 
 any great extent. The northern snows that formed into glacier 
 ice would also contain the carbon dust. But if we should find 
 great carbon beds frozen up in everlasting snow and ice, is there 
 any man upon this planet who would claim that it was a vegeta- 
 ble product? But these ice-imprisoned beds are simply facts of 
 ocular demonstration. To-day carbon beds may be found along 
 the shores of the north polar seas. On the coast of Kotzebue 
 Sound rise masses of ancient glacier ice above the waves. This 
 ice is planted on seams of carbon, and, what is more astonish- 
 ing, just beneath the carbon beds are solid beds of ice, extending 
 downward as far as the ocean waves have permitted examination. 
 Now what does this mean? We might find carbon beds in rocks 
 baked and crystalline under the reign of fire, and imagine it the 
 product of vegetation. But here, in the snow-bound islands of 
 the polar deep, packed in eternal ice, ice above and ice below, 
 we will bury the old theory and erect the new. There it is, just 
 as the annular theory demands. Carbon beds found planted upon
 
 392 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 a pavement of ice, just where the new theory wants to find it, 
 and just where the old does not want to find it. 
 
 A vast fund of carbon is found deeply buried in the frozen 
 mud and sand in Northern Siberia. At Yakutsk, and in other 
 places, deep wells have been dug or bored, and the deepest have 
 never reached the limit of eternal frost. The strata, so far as 
 the auger has explored, are alternating beds of frozen sand, 
 frozen mud and frozen carbon, of course called peat. It is said 
 that this part of Siberia is solidly frozen to a depth of at least 
 six hundred feet. Can it be possible that the earth could have 
 frozen to that depth after the carbon beda grew as peat vegeta- 
 tion? It cannot be. These beds must have frozen as they were 
 built up. Did peat grow in that way? Thus, in every nook and 
 corner of the earth, we find the strongest evidence of the trutk 
 that the various forms of carbon now found in the crust of the 
 earth is almost wholly a primitive product of igneous time. 
 But let us remember that the coal question is only a small part 
 of the grand problem. The annular theory had been proven to 
 be true before the coal was ever thought of in connection with it. 
 
 A little reflection will now lead you to the conclusion that 
 the only difference between the geologists ot to-day and myself 
 is that they pull one way; I pull the other. We all started i 
 the same direction. I am going the same way that I started. 
 We parted company on the confines of paleozoic time. At that 
 point they said all the matter in the earth's primeval atmosphere 
 fell previous to that time. I said but a small part of it had theu 
 fallen, and the rest remained revolving, as the Saturnian rings 
 are to-day. The difference between us in the beginning seemed 
 slight, indeed. How easy it would have been to have admitted 
 the truth then! Had it been done, almost every department of 
 physical science would be to-day a century further on its way. 
 But, slight as the difference was in the beginning, there has bee* 
 a great divergence in the lines to important conclusions. One 
 has led to error and falsehood; the other to immaculate truth. 
 
 The old school utterly fails to explain some principal ques- 
 tions in geology; the new challenges the presentation of a geo- 
 logic question it cannot explain. The former antagonizes law; 
 the latter demonstrates and defends it. 
 
 . Now, if need be, I will set the carbon question aside and 
 prove the truth of this theory from other geological evidence 
 without its aid. Nay, the whole field of geological evidence may 
 be disregarded, and the theory proven by astronomical science, 
 backed by mathematical law. Or, if you choose, we will set aside
 
 Appendix. 393 
 
 all scientific evidence, and the first eight chapters of Genesis 
 will champion the cause and prove its truth, even to a world of 
 Voltaires, Paines and Ingersolls. Oh, the grandeur of this amaz- 
 ing field of thought! I invite you to enter this untrodden re- 
 gion. If we do not explore it, let me assure you, other men will 
 do it in other times. I have put my hand to the work: I cannot 
 turn back, and shall welcome all men to my assistance. I have 
 already detained you too long, but I knew it was to the teachers 
 of these times that I must expect to delegate the charge and 
 championship of this theory, that must meet the marshaled hosts 
 of veterans that will oppose it. The young and unfettered in- 
 tellects of this and coming days will see the ruins of the old 
 theory. But the change will be slow. Twenty-five years ago, 
 when I began to advocate the annular theory, men smiled over 
 the attempt of a young man to claim the discovery of anything 
 new in geologic or astronomic science; and when their attention 
 was directed to the annular system of Saturn as the grand key 
 that unlocked the deep mysteries of planetary evolution, they 
 said there was no force in the claim. When told that the primi- 
 tive earth, molten and beaming as a aun, necessitated ring 
 formation, and that astronomers and geologists, in their reck- 
 oning, had never taken into account the potential energy stored 
 up in the annular vapors revolving on high, in that day of 
 fervent heat, they still remained silent. When asked how the 
 oceans returned to the earth, after they hung for unknown time 
 thousands of miles beyond the atmosphere of the day, still no 
 answer came. When told that the oceans, in great part, fell to 
 the earth in deluges of terrific violence in modern geologic time 
 (sub-silurian), the idea was visionary and anti-scriptural. When 
 told that the coal deposits of the world could be nothing more 
 nor less, under the demands of law, than aqueous deposits of 
 primitive carbon distilled in Vulcan's mighty alembic, and which 
 was sent up amid the aqueous vapors where it became a hydro- 
 carbon, thoughtful men began to think; others turned away to 
 laugh. 
 
 When scientists put forth the astounding information that 
 a mighty ice sheet, thousands of feet thick, pushed down from 
 the far north and leveled our hills and filled our valleys, oblit- 
 erating rivers and lakes, and they were told that such a fund 
 of snow must have fallen from telluric rings of vapor in the 
 polar regions, some men said a profound mystery has been 
 solved ; others said, " Oh, no." Finally, when, in 1874, I published 
 a little volume presenting some of these questions more generally
 
 394 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 to the public eye, and especially called attention to the fact that 
 the great deluge of Noah was a down-rush of the last remnant 
 of annular waters, I received some of the most flattering com- 
 mendations on the one hand, and on the other some of the most 
 excoriating and denunciatory criticisms for thus " treading on 
 holy ground." 
 
 Now what is the result of not admitting the unavoidable 
 conclusion that the oceans did not and could not all fall in prim- 
 eval times? I need not tell you. You see the world is hard to 
 be moved, but it does move none the less, and let me tell you, 
 though the thought may savor of vanity, it is moving into a new 
 orbit. It is ripening ripening for a golden age of thought. It 
 is drifting to the border-land of the annular theory. How could 
 it be otherwise? Law, eternal and inexorable law, is its founda- 
 tion, and thither it must gravitate. 
 
 In conclusion, then, let me say I have passed over this amazing 
 field of thought so often, and have found so much incontroverti- 
 ble evidence that I no longer care for nor fear opposition, come 
 from what source it may. 
 
 This world was once surrounded by an annular system. The 
 coal now sleeping in the crust of the earth was a part of that 
 system. See the amazing wisdom of God in thus gathering it 
 from the fiery center of the earth for man, storing it away near 
 the surface, where alone he can get at it. Had the earth never 
 been in an igneous state, all the carbon must have been dis- 
 seminated through the entire earth, and there could not have 
 been a true coal bed. When men will open their eyes and look 
 they must see that the burning, smoking, boiling and seething 
 earth must have made measureless quantities of unconsumed 
 carbon, and they must see that they have been clinging to and 
 preaching a pernicious error. Geology will then be placed upon 
 its true and immutable foundation. Genesis will then stand the 
 test of philosophy in the view of all men. Revealed and natural 
 religion will walk hand in hand, and even the skeptic must see 
 that the first eight chapters of Genesis contain in simple but 
 unmistakable terms a complete and positive demonstration of 
 the annular theory, thus conveying in the noblest thoughts some 
 of the grandest truths, revealing an Edenic world the most fas- 
 cinating, and a sunlight the purest that ever illumined the world. 
 Oh, haste that glad time! Haste the day and the hour when the 
 unnatural conflict between the theologian and scientist will cease 
 forever; when the discordant elements may be allowed to rest in 
 the calm repose of death; when man, fallen and weak, may arise
 
 Appendix. 395 
 
 more nearly in the image of God, the great Philosopher and 
 Architect of the material universe, whose mighty hand has ruled 
 the evolving world in all time, whether swaddled in flames and 
 rocked in a cradle of fire, or blooming in the pure sunlight of 
 eternal day. 
 
 CAPTAIN CARTER'S ORIGINAL DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 On page 27 of this volume is a simple calculation, showing the 
 distance of a terrestrial ring from the earth's surface. Prof. 
 Carter took up the same calculation and obtained the same re- 
 sult within a very few decimals, and with this calculation sent 
 the following demonstration by a new and original method. 
 These calculations prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that 
 vapors in the primitive atmosphere, at the distance of about 
 20,000 miles from the earth's center, had a velocity in revolution 
 that kept them there, while those vapors nearer the earth fell, 
 and hence the earth had a ring or rings. Thus it is susceptible 
 of the clearest mathematical and philosophical demonstration 
 that this earth was once surrounded by a system of Saturn-like 
 rings and belts; that the aqueous-formed crust was to no small 
 extent built up under its influence cannot admit of a reasonable 
 doubt; and the measureless periods of geologic time are thus 
 necessarily shortened. 
 
 PROBLEM. Required the orbital radius or distance of a satel- 
 lite of the earth, the time of revolution being given. 
 
 Let f = centrifugal force of satellite (ring), v = velocity of 
 same, n = number of seconds in time of revolution. R = mean 
 orbital radius of satellite, or distance from the earth's center, 
 g = gravity at earth's equator, g' = gravity at satellite or ring, 
 and P = earth's equatorial radius. 
 
 27T R 
 Now V = from Mechanic's formula (1). 
 
 V 2 
 Also f = --n- from Mechanic's formula (2). 
 
 g p2 
 
 Likewise g' -^ from Mechanic's formula (3). 
 Substituting (1) in (2) we have 
 _ 47T2 R __ 47T2R 
 
 : n R : n2 
 
 But f = g' from the conditions of the problem,
 
 396 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 4 it* R g P 
 hence, j = - or 4 7T R3 g n* P* 
 
 And R = ,/* n2 J 
 
 Now, in this case, P = 20,923,600 ft., n = 86,164 second*, 
 g = 32.1937 and 7T = 3.141592, and therefore, 
 
 ._ /32. 1937 (86,164)' (20,923,600)* 
 
 W 4(3.141592)2 z6 ' 61 
 
 times the earth's equatorial radius, = 26,194.01 miles. 
 
 R. K. CARTER, 
 
 Chester, Pa. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM. 
 A LECTURE, BY PROF. I. N. VAIL. 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal., June 21st, 1900. 
 
 In this hall, not long ago, I listened to a learned discourse 
 by a prominent geologist of the current school on the origin of 
 the oily carbons. We were told that the immeasurable ocean of 
 oil now locked up in the rocky bosom of Mother Earth " was cer- 
 tainly an organic product, and that the organisms involved in its 
 formation were principally fishes." To this I may add: Such 
 is the prevailing opinion of geologists to-day, and, in view of 
 the high regard I have for many workers in this vast field, 1 am 
 not disposed to molest them in their blissful attitude, though 
 I want to assure my audience here to-night that I am not pres- 
 ent to talk on fish oil, but to give some new and burning testi- 
 mony, which more than thirty years of deep study of nature's 
 eternal processes have linked to my very being. We have come 
 to hear a lecture on the " Origin of Petroleum," or rock oil, a 
 mineral product of the mineral earth a product with which, as 
 I see it, never a fish nor a mollusk, nor any other organism, 
 either animal or vegetable, had the remotest connection. I hold 
 in my hand a little book, published in 1874. It gives, in brief, 
 the substance of my earliest lectures, delivered away back in the 
 '60's, in an effort to prove that in all geologic time the earth had
 
 Appendix. 397 
 
 an annular or ring system, such as the planet Saturn has to-day. 
 That the progressive collapse of that system made all the " ages " 
 and all the " deluges " the earth ever saw. Also, that the deluge 
 of Noah, coming from that source, closed the grand drama of 
 geologic revulsions. 
 
 With this as our basic thought, I want us to go back in imag- 
 ination to the very morn of geologic time, to see how the earth 
 got its rings, and what they were made of. We will make the 
 attempt, and my word for it now, we will find that those rings 
 were made out of the fiery exhalations that went up to the 
 skies from the molten earth. We know what those exhalations 
 were, for we know what the earth's elements are to-day, and 
 her compounds, too. We know the oceans, vaporized, were there, 
 and all else of the molten planet that inveterate heat could 
 vaporize and sublime, and force into chemical activity and union. 
 We know, too, that these fiery sublimations went to the ter- 
 restrial skies, and I want to show you that it was just as 
 natural and inevitable for an ocean of oily hydro-carbons to go 
 there as an ocean of water, and we all know that all the terres- 
 trial waters were driven aloft when the earth was rocked in its 
 cradle of flame. Let us see. 
 
 In the first place, I do not oppose the claim that organic 
 decomposition, by the aid of heat, is competent to form oily 
 compounds. I do not deny that fishes and crustaceans can be 
 treated in the chemist's retort and made to form hydro-carbons, 
 for that is nature's process when the necessary elements are at 
 hand for the work, whether in the crucible of the chemist or 
 in the world furnace of the molten era. I simply oppose the con- 
 clusion that geologists have drawn from this experiment. That 
 fishes may be thus made to form oily products is no testimony 
 to the claim that the inhabitants of the devonian and carbon- 
 iferous oceans made the vast fund of petroleum, or any part of 
 it. For it is a fact well known to the chemists that apples and 
 pumpkins, as well as oysters, may be made to yield hydro-car- 
 bons, and are we to draw these innocent organisms from their 
 legitimate field? It makes no difference whether the hydrogen 
 and carbon involved in the great world process of oil-making 
 came from animal or mineral forms. 
 
 Now, we know that there was an immeasurable amount of 
 hydrogen and carbon in the molten earth, and we know they 
 had no organic source. They came from the great unknown 
 source of elements, and the Great Chemist had them in Hia 
 retort, the igneous earth, and His fires raged about them for
 
 398 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 millions of years. In the name of law and reason, how could 
 He fail to make them combine in that Titanic furnace, and be 
 thus compelled in after ages to call in the puny aid of the 
 fish? If we are to believe the prevailing geologic proposition, it 
 was certainly a grand opportunity lost. 
 
 Let us watch the gas-maker and learn a lesson in philosophic 
 world-making as he fills his retort and starts his fires. He may 
 fill it with coal, or wood, paper, hair, or even with fish. With 
 a moderate heat he drives out the watery elements, and we see 
 a jet of steam coming out as the first product. In a short time, 
 as the heat is increased, this jet of steam gives place to one 
 of smoke. This is a form of carbon, and it is readily oxidized in 
 the air and soon becomes invisible. It is burnt up; and here 
 we learn that smoke is unburnt fuel. We also learn from 
 analogy that if the molten earth was a smoking world, it was 
 God's mighty fuel-former, before a bud or plant or an animal 
 existed on the globe. And here it is impossible to avoid the 
 conclusion that beyond a doubt a great fund of unconsumed car- 
 bon went from the molten earth to the skies, unless it was 
 caught in an ocean of oxygen and burnt up, and this was hardly 
 possible. But let us watch our retort. By raising the tempera- 
 ture further, the jet becomes a light hydro-carbon, plus carbon, 
 an impure illuminant. A still higher temperature expels a 
 heavier hydro-carbon, and, as the heat becomes intense, oily hy- 
 dro-carbons supervene. If, now, a jet of superheated steam be 
 forced into the retort, all these products are increased and en- 
 riched, and when the fires are allowed to cool, and the retort 
 opened, we find a tarry form of carbon as a residuum, mingled 
 with asphaltic or graphitic products, all this done by the puny 
 fires of the chemist. Compared with those of the molten earth, 
 we place the infinitely small beside the immeasurably great, and 
 ask what did the great world-retort expel from its boiling and 
 surging entrails? 
 
 Now, there are some things known in the proposition we have 
 in hand. It is known that this earth, in the dawn of geologic 
 time, was an igneous, incandescent mass; and, whether we choose 
 to call it the Great Chemist's crucible, a flaming sun, or scintil- 
 lating star, it is all one in the grand scheme of world making. 
 Fire held dynamic control. It is known that carbon arid hydro- 
 gen were two all-abounding elements in that primitive furnace. 
 It ia known that carbon and hydrogen, thus conditioned, actively 
 seek combination, and unless they passed through a sea of free 
 oxygen on their way to the skies, they arose as oily products
 
 Appendix. 399 
 
 of the infant earth and filled the surrounding heavens, light 
 carbons, heavy carbons, asphaltic and graphitic carbons; and we 
 know, too, that all this occurred long, long before the day of 
 fishes. It ia known that the vaporized oceans were there, a world 
 of superheated steam, and took an active part in this plan of 
 world evolution, ever active and eager to increase and enrich 
 the planet's oily products. It is known that the resolution and 
 decomposition of world matter in its primitive stage is not dif- 
 ferent from that of matter in its secondary condition, except in 
 degree of competency; hence, if the decomposition of organic 
 matter can make petroleum in infinitesimal quantities by bring- 
 ing nascent carbon and hydrogen into contact, how much more 
 must have been produced when all the hydrogen and carbon of 
 the molten earth came in contact for millions of years, under 
 conditions a thousandfold more adequate to effect rapid combin- 
 ation? It is, therefore, not so much a question as to the ability 
 of the igneous earth to make oily compounds, as to how it could 
 have failed to make them. It would be just as reasonable to 
 deny the adequacy of the chemist's retort as that of the molten 
 earth, since the selfsame elements are treated in the selfsame 
 way comparing the small with the great. 
 
 One of the great lessons we learn at the retort is, that it 
 requires a great heat and the presence of steam to make true oily 
 hydro-carbons, even with organic matter supplied. A molten 
 world supplied inveterate heat and all the elements needed, and 
 the chemist can only imitate in the most impractical way what 
 nature is continually doing in millions of molten orbs. If the 
 geologist denies this universal process he must also deny that 
 hydrogen and carbon are universe elements, and so far as our 
 world is concerned it cannot be denied, and hence he cannot for 
 a moment logically or reasonably oppose the claim I have made 
 that all the petroleum of the earth was found in the world 
 furnace when it shone out as a star. 
 
 I mention these things to show you that the claims I put forth 
 in regard to the primitive igneous origin of petroleum stand on 
 a foundation firm and eternal. Law is its basic rock, for every- 
 where we see molten orbs, and as surely as carbon and hydrogen 
 exist with them they must combine. It is hardly possible that 
 conditions can exist on such flaming orbs to prevent their union, 
 and we know their union means the formation of oily compounds. 
 The only objection that can be urged against the thought is the 
 possible surplus of oxygen in such fiery centers. But, so far as 
 the earth is concerned, that objection is forever brushed aside by
 
 400 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 the fact that there was not enough oxygen present to saturate 
 other elements and burn up other compounds more eagerly 
 Bought by it. It united with an immeasurable sea of hydrogen 
 to form the waters of the earth the vast oceans that now roll 
 around it. The scientist actually measures the free oxygen of 
 the molten globe by the aid of known conditions, and we cannot 
 but conclude that the primitive hydro-carbons were not con- 
 sumed. They are not consumed to-day in the hottest furnace, 
 unless a blast of oxygen is forced through it. Millions of fires, 
 coke-ovens and furnaces are sending up carbons and hydro-car- 
 bons all the time, and we find these fire-formed products lining 
 every chimney and smokestack, sooty hydro-carbons that take 
 fire, sometimes, and burn and we may be sure that the burning 
 earth did the same thing, for free oxygen could not have had 
 access everywhere into the recesses of the smoking globe. 
 
 This great problem has other known conditions. We all know 
 that the rock formation in which oil is found to-day was formed 
 at the bottom of the sea by sedimentation by the depositing 
 of matter which floated in the ancient seas. This being the case, 
 the hydro-carbon matter that settled in the forming bed also 
 floated in the &ea at the same time. It is also well known that 
 in many places the oil-bearing rock is utterly destitute of ani- 
 mal remains. Over wide areas not a fossil of a fish or crustacean 
 has been found, and, what is most apparent, no part of those 
 beds contain animal remains in quantities sufficient to make 
 even a show of oil. In the same field the oil varies in specific grav- 
 ity, as well as in quality. When an oil-bearing stratum is struck 
 at a moderate depth, as a rule the oil has less specific grav- 
 ity than that found in the same bed at a greater depth. The ad- 
 vocates of the fish cannot explain this. Did the different kinds 
 of fish make the different kinds of oil? On the supposition that 
 these carbons, the products of different degrees of heat, floated 
 in the sea, it is easily explained, for the heavier carbons floated 
 into deeper water and there settled, while the lighter floated 
 higher and settled on higher ground. Thus the waters 
 necessarily assorted the different grades of carbon before 
 they settled, and thus they are separated to-day. Supposing 
 a fish should become buried and heat and pressure should begin 
 the work of decomposition and oil-making, the light and the 
 heavy carbons become locked down together, on the spot, with 
 no possible chance for them to become separated. 
 
 My friends, we have seen a world rocked in its primitive 
 cradle of fire; we have learned that its waters were all formed
 
 Appendix. 401 
 
 in inveterate flames by the union of hydrogen with oxygen, 
 thus disposing with so much of the latter that the vast amount 
 of carbon escaped the devourer, and remains unconsumed and 
 locked up in the earth's crust. As all these compounds were 
 driven to the skies, we want to know by what process they 
 came back to the earth. They were made away back in the 
 igneous era, and were stored up in the silurian and later beds, 
 showing that they remained in the telluric heavens for many 
 millions of years after the earth cooled down. This being the 
 case, we are forced to admit that they revolved about the earth, 
 as an annular or ring system; for, unless they did revolve 
 thus, they would have fallen as the earth grew cold. But we 
 know the lapse of time between the molten era and silurian 
 time was immeasurably vast, and it marks the long interval 
 during which the carbons rode the skies. Now, they could not 
 have remained on high any more than a stone, unless they re- 
 volved about the earth, and this means ring formation, for it has 
 been practically determined that rotating vapors naturally as- 
 sume the ring form. Thus, it would seem that the molten con- 
 dition of a planet is the first step to ring conditions, for it is 
 then that world vapors go to the skies, until a vast world en- 
 velope of aqueous mineral and metallic exhalations is formed. 
 It is simply impossible that such an envelope would not form, 
 and we know that the earth envelope contained hydro-carbons 
 to an immeasurable amount. We know, too, that the whole 
 fiery mass rotated. This gave great momentum to the perimeter, 
 far in excess of that of the central mass. The perimeter of a 
 rotating wheel moves faster than the hub. This being the case, 
 the great rim of the primitive earth could not fall as the latter 
 grew cold. But it would fall in after times and form stratum 
 after stratum on the earth. For mechanical and philosophic rea- 
 sons, this great earth-appendage must have fallen in grand in- 
 stalments, like so many dust clouds, and was carried to the 
 oceans, and borne by currents to different parts of the world. 
 During all the time the carbons rode on high they were neces- 
 sarily associated with mineral and watery distillations, and when 
 they fell they were still thus associated and came down as vast 
 deluges of muddy waters. Carried to the seas, they sank to- 
 gether, and together they formed oil-bearing beds. Many times 
 I have seen oil from wells flow down and float on the surface of 
 the Ohio River. During high water the mud particles of the 
 stream united with the oil and fell to the bottom of the river, 
 forming a thin stratum of oil-bearing oo/e. Let us imagine
 
 402 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 a world cloud of oily particles thus carried down from on high 
 in deluges of muddy rains. Inevitably they would go to the 
 swamps, lakes, seas and oceans of the earth, and form oil-bear- 
 ing beds. Imagine such a muddy mass of waters carried down 
 the Mississippi and deposited in the Gulf of Mexico, mingling 
 with the beds now forming on its bottom, and you can form 
 some idea of how oil beds were made of fiery sublimations, first 
 formed in the molten earth and driven to the skies, and thence 
 in after ages returning to the surface of the planet. Imagine the 
 Gulf Stream of the Atlantic as it issues from the Gulf of Mexico 
 laden with this oil-steeped matter, and you can see how this 
 matter, borne to distant parts of the ocean, would become a part 
 of strata now forming there. 
 
 Thus, the oily carbons, formed in the world-alembic of the 
 Great Chemist millions of years before a planet or a fish existed 
 on the earth, arose together with other fiery distillations; to- 
 gether they revolved for long ages while the planet was cooling; to- 
 gether they fell and became a part of the world's strata, and 
 together they lay in store for the use of man. 
 
 This being the process by which the earth became stored with 
 the oily carbons, it is plain that the geologist, to be able to be 
 of any practical use in locating oil fields, must familiarize him- 
 self as far as possible with the currents of the ancient seas, and 
 forever discard the fish. 
 
 But enough of that. You want me to tell you some facts 
 some annular facts about the oil field of Southern California. 
 Well, I came to Pasadena in 1887, and in the summer of 1888 
 I spent much of the time in search for oil indications, for 1 had 
 become convinced that a vast amount of oily carbon must have 
 Taeen carried from the northward into the ancient Pacific Ocean, 
 .and you all know that if that carbon fell in polar lands (and it 
 did fall there), it must have been floated into that ocean. Well, 
 the great currents from the west and southwest, it seemed to 
 me, must have carried that carbon right toward the coast of 
 Southern California. But where was the coast then? The waters 
 of the Pacific at that time dashed against the feet of the Sierras 
 in a great semi-circular curve, extending from the Santa Bar- 
 bara coast to San Bernardino, thence southward by the San Ja- 
 cinto Mountains. You can see that much of the lowland, even 
 the low hills of Ventura, Los Angeles, and nearly all 
 of Orange County, and great part of San Diego County 
 were at the bottom of the sea, into which the ocean 
 currents rushed with their charges of oily carbons. I spent a
 
 Appendix. 403 
 
 great deal of thought on this feature of the case, and became 
 convinced before I came to California that it was oil territory. 
 I reasoned that all the geological conditions were favorable for 
 the formation of oil beds in the waters of this great semi-cir- 
 cular gulf, and therefore it could hardly be possible that they 
 were not formed, for we must remember that our theory makes 
 oil a world- deposit, and must have been formed wherever cur- 
 rents favored it. 
 
 I searched in fullest confidence that I was in an oil field of 
 vast extent. In both Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties I 
 found oil, not only as it trickled from the rock, but far out on 
 the surface of the ocean. This was all sufficient to vindicate 
 the theory; for a single instance of oil thus found was compe- 
 tent to prove that our hypothetic currents had been at work, 
 and if they had been thus at work on the coast of that region, 
 it was almost certain that they had operated over the remainder 
 of the gulf, and more effectively. From Santa Paula a search 
 was made eastward, and a visit to the oil-steeped soil on Tem- 
 ple Street, Los Angeles, proved still further that an oil field of 
 vast extent existed here. I then went to the Puente Hills, and 
 on to the hills north of Fullerton, and found all the evidence 
 I wanted to vindicate the claim that all the region from the 
 mountains to the sea, and certainly extending far out into the 
 ocean, was a great deposit of petroleum. 
 
 Having made these discoveries, I went before the Chamber 
 of Commerce in Los Angeles and tried to move that body to 
 institute an effort to awaken an interest in them. But the 
 great boom was collapsing, and the calm after the tempest made 
 my visit a failure. I told that body that petroleum was an 
 ancient sea deposit, and the very fact that oil oozed from 
 the hills was proof that oil-bearing rock underlaid all the region 
 from the hills to the sea, and that the day would come when 
 Southern California would prove to be one of the greatest oil 
 regions on the continent. The upheaval of the hills on tie south 
 of the San Gabriel Valley has simply revealed the universal bed 
 of hydro-carbons that the ancient currents carried to this region. 
 That sea in which the oily carbons floated was a vast one, and 
 hence the oily deposit is a vast one, too. We can easily bound 
 it on the north, but on the east, south and southwest I cannot 
 define its limits. I have repeated in a hundred lectures that 
 the field must be very rich toward the south, but more and 
 more barren toward the primary mountains. That wells could 
 be sunk far out in the ocean with almost a certainty of find-
 
 404 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 ing oil why not? The ocean that received the oil carbons from 
 the north world must have been almost a boundless one. The 
 same ocean rolled its carbon-laden waters around the San Ja- 
 cinto Mountains, over the Salton basin and great Colorado Val- 
 ley, and must have deposited a great fund of petroleum there. 
 The same ocean and same current swept over the plains of West- 
 ern and Southern Arizona, and must have planted some of it 
 there. The same ocean penetrated the inland valleys of a great 
 part of all the Pacific States, and in all these, wherever currents 
 from the west could enter, oil certainly can be found, and even 
 up to the Arctic Circle. 
 
 In conclusion, let me add: In prospecting for oil, keep away 
 from the primary beds shun the mountains. They were the 
 ancient shore line, and petroleum could hardly settle in such 
 shallow waters. The hills in which our oil is found are geologic- 
 ally modern upheavals. If you find petroleum or asphalt in one of 
 those hills, it is almost certain that all the hills in that neighbor- 
 hood are oil-bearing. In a vast ocean carrying primitive car- 
 bons, the deposit could hardly be local. A trace of asphalt or 
 bitumen simply shows the track of old ocean bearing primitive 
 hydro-carbons, and unless it was of local waters, it could hardly 
 be a local oil deposit. Of course, there are many local deposits, 
 and even in a sea laden with carbons there are necessarily barren 
 spots, for, as I have said before, these deposits depend altogether 
 upon the caprice of currents. A vast ocean with a vast world- 
 current seems to have governed the formation of our petroleum 
 beds. Fortunate California! 
 
 Can you contemplate these things and put any reliance what- 
 ever on the claim that petroleum had an animal origin? Fishes 
 were not subject to the course of currents as primitive distil- 
 lates were, and could not make a barren spot in the very midst 
 of an oil field. In fact, the old theory of the animal origin of 
 oil as it is found in the earth's crust has no support whatever 
 in fact. The idea is puerile and cannot stand the light of in- 
 telligent progress. 
 
 Granting that the world was molten, these fiery distillates 
 follow as a matter of course. Then the earth's ring system, made 
 out of aqueous, mineral and metallic vapors, follows as a neces- 
 sity. Then comes their progressive decline in the flight of ages, 
 and their deposit here, there and everywhere that oceans rolled 
 and currents presided. The first thing the oil prospector should 
 do is to cast the " fish story " into the scientific dump heap and 
 study the amazing scheme of annular world evolution.
 
 Appendix. 405 
 
 LORD KELVIN ON FREE OXYGEN. 
 
 In a recent lecture by Lord Kelvin, that learned man in 
 speaking of the vegetable origin of coal, said: "When the earth 
 began to cool it was surrounded by an atmosphere of nitrogen 
 and carbonic acid gases without any free oxygen." (Italics mine.) 
 
 It is fitting that I close this volume with a few comments 
 upon this startling announcement. If there was no free oxygen 
 when the earth began to cool it was certainly very scarce for a 
 vast length of time before it began to cool. This, added to the 
 millions of years during which it was cooling, gives us an im- 
 measurable period when the molten earth had no free oxygen; 
 for, according to this learned physicist and his compeers, there 
 is no source of free oxygen other than vegetation. 
 
 Standing upon this ground, it must be an uncertain task to 
 determine in what part of archsean time there was enough free 
 oxygen present to burn up the carbon in the molten earth. It 
 could not have been burnt up during the cooling period, nor in 
 the vast eon preceding it; for it takes free oxygen to burn car- 
 bon, and hence it must have been devoured in the pre-molten 
 era. But how and where did that era get its free oxygen? Will 
 Lord Kelvin supply it from pre-archsean vegetation? 
 
 Seriously now, we are compelled to admit that a vast 
 amount of the earth's primitive carbon was not consumed at all; 
 any more than if it had been placed in a sealed retort and sub- 
 jected to inveterate heat. Even if we have to concede that some 
 time during the earth's greatest igneous activity free oxygen was 
 present we cannot for a moment admit that it was so plentiful 
 and so vigilant that no carbon exhalations rising from the seeth- 
 ing planet could escape unconsumed into the skies. We cannot 
 accomplish this even by driving a current of pure free oxygen 
 through our blast furnaces; how much less effectively would free 
 oxygen act in the molten era, when trammeled by the presence 
 of an atmosphere of fiery elements having a more eager appetite 
 for oxygen, than carbon has? 
 
 Granting that the atmosphere of the molten earth was rich 
 in carbonic acid (free oxygen united with carbon), where was 
 the vegetation that supplied the oxygen, if that be its only 
 source? The simple fact is that it makes no difference what 
 the ancient or modern source of oxygen was, or is; it could not, 
 as law is supreme, consume the carbon of the molten earth. We 
 see great beds of nearly pure iron and other metals left uncon- 
 sumed, and these we know rapidly deflagrate when heated in free
 
 406 The Earth's Annular System. 
 
 oxygen. If these metals escaped, carbon could not fail to be 
 gathered from the earth's inmost bosom and be borne as an un- 
 consumed fuel to the loftiest heights of the primitive atmosphere. 
 Especially must this have been the case if " when the earth 
 began to cool it was surrounded by an atmosphere of nitrogen 
 and carbonic acid gases, without any free oxygen." It is amaz- 
 ing to what unnatural conclusions the vegetation theory leads 
 the scientist. The day is coming when some stronger head than 
 this will meet these ironclad exponents of a false philosophy, 
 and show to a laughing world what an illegitimate birth modern 
 geology is. God speed the day!
 
 LIST OF THE AUTHOR'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 1. " The Earth's Annular System," 4th edition; 407 
 
 pages, illustrated, cloth. Price, $2.50. 
 
 2. " The Misread Record," (The Deluge) 130 pages, 
 
 cloth. Price, $1.00. Paper, 65 cents. 
 
 3. "Alaska, Land of Nuggets, Why?" 68 pages, 
 
 cloth. Price $1.00, paper, 50 cents. 
 
 PAMPHLETS. 
 
 4. "Eden's Flaming Sword. What Was It?" 48 
 
 pages. Price, 25 cents. 
 
 5. "The Coal Problem." (Origin of Coal), 48 
 
 pages. Price, 25 cents. 
 
 6. "The Lost Lake" (Geological Problem), 40 
 pages. Price, 25 cents. 
 
 7. "Ophir's Golden Wedge," (A Polar Puzzle). 
 
 40 pages. Price, 25 cents. 
 
 8. " Waters Above the Firmament." (Souvenir re- 
 
 print of the author's first lecture on the An- 
 nular Theory and first published in 1874, mailed 
 free to all Annular-Canopy Students). 
 "The Great Red Dragon," 2d edition. Manu- 
 script, about 150 pages; to be published when 
 there is suificient demand. The Dragon of all 
 mythologies is here shown to have been the 
 arth-canopy personified. 
 
 These works can be had by addressing the 
 ANNULAR WORLD COMPANY, 
 
 411 Kensington Place, 
 
 Pasadena, Cal.
 
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