Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20): Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky
Science
Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20): Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky
Science -- Juvenile literature
The evidence furnished by the hewing, facing, and superposition of the
stones of the Pyramids, that these structures were built by men, has
no greater weight than the evidence that the chalk was built by
Globigerinæ; and the belief that those ancient pyramid-builders were
terrestrial and air-breathing creatures like ourselves, is not better
based than the conviction that the chalk-makers lived in the sea.
But as our belief in the building of the Pyramids by men is not only
grounded on the internal evidence afforded by these structures, but
gathers strength from multitudinous collateral proofs, and is clinched
by the total absence of any reason for a contrary belief; so the
evidence drawn from the Globigerinæ that the chalk is an ancient
sea-bottom, is fortified by innumerable independent lines of evidence;
and our belief in the truth of the conclusion to which all positive
testimony tends, receives the like negative justification from the
fact that no other hypothesis has a shadow of foundation.
It may be worth while briefly to consider a few of these collateral
proofs that the chalk was deposited at the bottom of the sea.
The great mass of the chalk is composed, as we have seen, of the
skeletons of Globigerinæ, and other simple organisms, imbedded in
granular matter. Here and there, however, this hardened mud of the
ancient sea reveals the remains of higher animals which have lived and
died, and left their hard parts in the mud, just as the oysters die
and leave their shells behind them, in the mud of the present seas.
[Illustration: UPPER SILURIAN CORALS AND CRUSTACEANS.]
There are, at the present day, certain groups of animals which are
never found in fresh waters, being unable to live anywhere but in the
sea. Such are the corals; those corallines which are called Polyzoa;
those creatures which fabricate the lamp-shells, and are called
Brachiopoda; the pearly Nautilus, and all animals allied to it; and
all the forms of sea-urchins and star-fishes.
Not only are all these creatures confined to salt water at the present
day, but, so far as our records of the past go, the conditions of
their existence have been the same: hence, their occurrence in any
deposit is as strong evidence as can be obtained, that that deposit
was formed in the sea. Now the remains of animals of all the kinds
which have been enumerated occur in the chalk, in greater or less
abundance; while not one of those forms of shell-fish which are
characteristic of fresh water has yet been observed in it.
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