Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and GravelDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Comets; Drift
Not at all. This is a big globe we live on: the tropics are warmer
than the poles. Suppose a tremendous heat to be added to our natural
temperature; it would necessarily make it hotter on the equator than
at the poles, although it would be warm everywhere. There can be no
clouds without condensation, no condensation without some degree of
cooling. Where would the air cool first? Naturally at the points most
remote from the equator, the poles. Hence, while the sun was still
blazing in the uncovered heavens of the greater part of the earth,
small caps of cloud would form at the north and south poles, and shed
their moisture in gentle rain. As the heat brought to the earth by
the comet was accidental and
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adventitious, there would be a natural tendency to return to the
pre-comet condition. The extraordinary evaporation would of itself
have produced refrigeration. Hence the cloud-caps would grow and
advance steadily toward the equator, casting down continually
increasing volumes of rain. Snow would begin to form near the poles,
and it too would advance. We would finally have, down to say the
thirty-fifth degree of north and south latitude, vast belts of rain
and snow, while the equator would still be blazing with the tropical
heat which would hold the condensation back. Here, then, we would
have precisely the condition of things described in the "Younger
Edda" of the Northmen:
"Then said Jafnhar: 'All that part of Ginungagap' (the Atlantic)
'that turns toward the north _was filled with thick, heavy ice and
rime_,' (snow,) 'and everywhere within were _drizzling gusts and
rain_. But the south part of Ginungagap was lighted up by the
_glowing sparks_ that flew out of Muspelheim' (Africa?). Added
Thride: 'As cold and all things grim proceeded from Niflheim, so that
which bordered on Muspelheim was hot and bright, and Ginungagap' (the
Atlantic near Africa?) 'was as warm and mild as windless air.'"
Another may say:
"But how does all this agree with your theory that the progenitors of
the stock from which the white, the yellow, and the brown races were
differentiated, were saved in one or two caverns in one place? How
did they get to Africa, Asia, and America?"
In the first place, it is no essential part of my case that man
survived in one place or a dozen places; it can not, in either event,
affect the question of the origin of the Drift. It is simply an
opinion of my own, open to modification upon fuller information. If,
for instance, men dwelt in Asia at that time, and no Drift deposits
{p. 394}
fell upon Asia, races may have survived there; the negro may have
dwelt in India at that time; some of the strange Hill-tribes of China
and India may have had no connection with Lif and Lifthraser.
But if we will suppose that the scene of man's survival was in that
Atlantic island, Atlantis, then this would follow:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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