The World Before the Deluge

Having thus described the Pri?7iary Epochs it may be useful, before entering on what is termed by geologists the Secoiidary Epoch, to glance backwards at the facts which we have had under consideration.

In this Primary period plants and animals appear for the first

I8l GENERAL SURVEY OF PRIMARY EPOCH.

time upon the surface of the cooling globe. We have said thdt the seas .of the epoch were then dominated by the fishes known as Ganoids (from yo^oy, glitter), from the brilliant polish of the enamelled scales which covered their bodies, sometimes in a very complicated and fantastic manner; the Trilobites are curious Crustaceans, which appear and altogether disappear in the Primary epoch; an immense quantity of Mollusca, Cephalopoda, and Brachiopoda; the EncriniteSy animals of curious organisation, which form some of the most graceful ornaments of our Palseontological collections.

But, among all these beings, those which prevailed — those which were truly the kings of the organic world — were the Fishes, and, above all, the Ganoids, which have left no animated being behind them of similar organization. Furnished with a sort of defensive armour, they seem to have received from Nature this means of Fig. 77. — Lithostrotion. (Fossil Coral.) protection to ensure their existence, and permit them to triumph over all the influences which threatened them with destruction in the seas of the ancient world.

In the Primary epoch the living creation was in its infancy. No

Fig. 78.— Rhyncholites, upper, side, and internal views, i. Side view (Rluschelkalk of Luneville); 2, Upper view (same locality); 3, Upper view (Lias of Lyme Regis); 4, Calcareous point of an under mandible, internal view, from Luneville, (Buckland.)

Mammals then roamed the forests; no bird had yet displayed its wings. Without Mammals, therefore, there was no maternal instinct; none of the soft affections which are, with animals, as it were, the precursors of intelligence. Without birds, also, there could be noI songs in the air. Fishes, Mollusca, and Crustacea silently ploughed their way in the depths of the sea, and the immovable Crinoid lived there. On the land we only find a few marsh-firequenting Reptiles, of I

small size/— forerunners of those monstrous Saurians which make their appearan'ce in the Secondary epoch.

The vegetation of the Primary epoch is chiefly of inferior organisation. /With a few plants of a higher order, that is to say, Dicotyledons,'Calamites, Sigillarias, it was the Cryptogamia (also several species of Ferns, the Lepidodendra, Lycopodiaceae, and the Equise-tsceae, and some doubtfully allied forms, termed Noggerathia), then at their maximum of development, which formed the great mass of the vegetation. I^et us also consider, in this short analysis, that during the epoch under consideration, what we call climate may not have existed. The same animals and the same plants then lived in the polar regions as at the equator. Since we find, in the Primary formations of the icy regions of Spitzbergen and Melville Islands, nearly the same fossils which we meet with in these same rocks in the torrid zone, we must conclude that the temperature at this epoch was uniform all over the globe, and that the heat of the earth itself was sufficiently high to render inappreciable the calorific influence of the sun.

During this same period the progressive cooling of the earth occasioned frequent ruptures and dislocations of the ground; the terrestrial crust, in opening, afibrded a passage for the rocks called igneouSf such as granite, afterwards to the porphyries and syenites, which poured slowly through these immense fissures, and formed mountains of granite and porph^Ty, or simple clefts, which subsequently became filled with oxides and metallic sulphides, forming what are now designated metallic veins. The great mountain-range of Ben Nevis oflers a striking example of the first of these phenomena through; the granite base a distinct natural section can be traced of porphyry ejected through the granite, and of syenite through the porphyry. These geological commotions (which occasioned, not over the whole extent of the earth, but only in certain places, great movements of the surface) would appear to have been more frequent at the close of the Primary epoch; during the interval which forms the passage between the Primary and Secondary epochs; that is to say, between the Permian and the Triassic periods. The phenomena ot eruptions, and the character of the rocks called eruptive, are treated of in a former chapter. The convulsions and disturbances by which the surface of the earth was agitated did not extend, let it be noted, over the whole of its circumference; the effects were partial and local. It would, then, be wrong to afiirm, as is asserted by many modern geologists, that the dislocations of the crust and the agitations of the surface of the globe

extended to both hemispheres, resulting in the destruction of all living creatures. The Fauna and Flora of the Permian period did not

Fig. 79.

■a, Pentacrinites Briareus, reduced; b, the same from the Lias of Lyme Regis; natural size.

differ essentially from the Fauna and Flora of the Coal-measures, which shows that no general revolution occurred to disturb the entire «;lobe between these two epochs. Here, then, as in all analogous

cases, it is unnecessary to recur to any general cataclysm to explairt the passage from one epoch to another. Have we not, almost in our our own day, seen certain species of animals die out and disappear, without the least geological revolution? Without speaking of the Beaver, which abounded two centuries ago on- the banks of the Rhone, and in the Cevennes, which still lived at Paris in the little river Bievre in the middle ages, its existence being now unknown in these latitudes, although it is still found in America and other countries, we could cite many examples of animals which have become extinct in times by no means remote from our own. Such are the Dinornis and the Epyornis^ colossal birds of New Zealand and Madagascar, and the Dodo^ which lived in the Isle of France in 1626. UrsiLS spelaus, Cervus Megaceros, Bos primigeniiis, are species of Bear, Deer, and Ox which were contemporary with man, but have now become Extinct. In France we no longer know the gigantic wood-stag, figured by the Romans on their monuments, and which they had brought from England for the fine quality of its flesh. The Erymanthean boar, so widely Fig. 80. — Terebellaria ramosissima. (Recent Coral.) dispersed during the ancient historical period, no longer exists among our living races, any more than the Crocodiles laamosus and laciniattis found by Geoffroy St.-Hilaire in the catacombs of ancient Egypt. Many races of animals figured in the mosaics of Palestrina, engraved and painted along with species-now actually existing, are no longer found living in our days any more than are the Lions with curly manes, which formerly existed in Syria, and perhaps even in Thessaly and the northern parts of Greece. From what happens in our own time, we may infer what has taken place in times antecedent to the appearance of man; and the idea of successive cataclysms of the globe, must be restrained within bounds. Must we imagine a series of geological revolutions. to account for the disappearance of animals which have evidently become extinct in a natural way? What has come to pass in our days, it is reasonable to conclude, may have taken place in the times anterior to the appearance of man.

i85

SECONDARY EPOCH.

During the Primary Epoch our globe would appear to have been chiefly appropriated to beings which lived in the waters — above ally to the Crustaceans and Fishes; during the Secondary Epoch Reptiles seem to have been its prevailing inhabitants. Animals of this class assumed astonishing dimensions, and would seem to have multiplied in a most singular manner; they were, apparently, the kings of the earth. At the same time, however, that the animal kingdom thus developed itself, the vegetation lost much of its importance.

Geologists have agreed among themselves to divide the Secondary epoch into three periods: i, the Cretaceous; 2, the Jurassic; 3, the Triassic — a division which it is convenient to adopt.

The Triassic, or New Red Period.

This period has received the name of Triassic because the rocks of which it is composed, which are more fully developed in Germany than either in England or France, were called the Trias (or Triple Group), by German writers, from its division into three groups, as follows, in descending order:—

England. France. Germany. Saliferous and gypseous ) -.^.., Tr c,. shales and sandstone. \ ^^"^^^ ^"^^^^.... Keuper. 1,000 feet. Wanting^ [I ^^"^^^^J,^^^^coquulier «^- ^^Icaire }U^ j^ Ij^^^^ ^^^^^^^

M^L'l '"""!"! IGresbigarre.... Bun.er-Sandstein...500ft.

The following has been shown by Mr. Ed. Hull to be the general succession of the Triassic formation in the midland and northwestern counties of England, where it attains its greatest vertical development, thinning away in the direction of the mouth of the Thames;—

186

THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.

TRIASSIC SERIES.

PERMIAN SERIES.

NEW RED SANDSTONE, 1 8/

New Red Sandstone.

In this new phase of the revolutions of the globe, the animated beings on its surface differ much from those which belonged to the Primary epoch. The curious Crustaceans which we have described under the name of Trilobites have disappeared; the molluscous Cephalopods and Brachiopods are here few in number, as are the Ganoid and Placoid Fishes, whose existence also seems to have terminated during this period, and vegetation has undergone analogous changes. The cryptogamic plants, which reached their maximum in the Primary epoch, become now less numerous, while the Conifers experienced a certain extension. Some kinds of terrestrial animals have disappeared, but they are replaced by genera as numerous as new. For the first time the Turtle appears in the bosom of the sea, and on the borders of lakes. The Saurian reptiles acquire a great development; they prepare the way for those enormous Saurians, which appear in the following period, whose skeletons present such vast proportions, and such a strange aspect, as to strike with astonishment all who contemplate their gigantic, and, so to speak, awe-inspiring remains. The Variegated Sa?idsto?ie, or Bunter, contains many vegetable, but few animal, remains, although we constantly find imprints of the footsteps of the Labyrinthodon.