The World Before the Deluge

by Louis Figuier

PRIMARY EPOCH.

After the terrible tempests of the primitive period—after these great disturbances of the mineral kingdom—Nature would seem to have gathered herself together, in sublime silence, in order to proceed to the grand mystery of the creation of living beings.

During the primitive epoch the temperature of the earth was too high to admit the appearance of life on its surface. The darkness of thickest night shrouded this cradle of the world; the atmosphere probably was so charged with vapours of various kinds, that the sun’s rays were powerless to pierce its opacity. Upon this heated surface, and in this perpetual night, organic life could not manifest itself. No plant, no animal, then, could exist upon the silent earth. In the seas of this epoch, therefore, only unfossiliferous strata were deposited.

Nevertheless, our planet continued to be subjected to a gradual refrigeration on the one hand, and, on the other, continuous rains were purifying its atmosphere. From this time, then, the sun’s rays, being less obscured, could reach its surface, and, under their beneficent influence, life was not slow in disclosing itself. “Without light,” said the illustrious Lavoisier, “Nature was without life; it was dead and inanimate. A benevolent God, in bestowing light, has spread on the surface of the earth organisation, sentiment, and thought.” We begin, accordingly, to see upon the earth—the temperature of which was nearly that of our equatorial zone—a few plants and a few animals make their appearance. These first generations of life will be replaced by others of a higher organisation, until at the last stage of the creation, man, endowed with the supreme attribute which we call intelligence, will appear upon the earth. “The word progress, which we think peculiar to humanity, and even to modern times,” said Albert Gaudry, in a lecture on the animals of the ancient world, delivered in 1863, “was pronounced by the Deity on the day when he created the first living organism.”

Did plants precede animals? We know not; but such would appear to have been the order of creation. It is certain that in the sediment of the oldest seas, and in the vestiges which remain to us of the earliest ages of organic life on the globe, that is to say, in the argillaceous schists, we find both plants and animals of advanced organisation. But, on the other hand, during the greater part of the primary epoch—especially during the Carboniferous age—the plants are particularly numerous, and terrestrial animals scarcely show themselves; this would lead us to the conclusion that plants preceded animals. It may be remarked, besides, that from their cellular nature, and their looser tissues composed of elements readily affected by the air, the first plants could be easily destroyed without leaving any material vestiges; from which it may be concluded, that, in those primitive times, an immense number of plants existed, no traces of which now remain to us.

We have stated that, during the earlier ages of our globe, the waters covered a great part of its surface; and it is in them that we find the first appearance of life. When the waters had become sufficiently cool to allow of the existence of organised beings, creation was developed, and advanced with great energy; for it manifested itself by the appearance of numerous and very different species of animals and plants.

Fig. 17.—Paradoxides Bohemicus—Bohemia.

One of the most ancient groups of organic remains are the Brachiopoda, a group of Mollusca, particularly typified by the genus Lingula, a species of which still exist in the present seas; the Trilobites ([Fig. 17]), a family of Crustaceans, especially characteristic of this period; then come Productas, Terebratulæ, and Orthoceratites—other genera of Mollusca. The Corals, which appeared at an early period, seem to have lived in all ages, and survive to the present day.

Contemporaneously with these animals, plants of inferior organisation have left their impressions upon the schists; these are Algæ (aquatic plants, [Fig. 28]). As the continents enlarged, plants of a higher type made their appearance—the Equisetaceæ, herbaceous Ferns, and other plants. These we shall have occasion to specify when noticing the periods which constitute the Primary Epoch, and which consists of the following periods: the Carboniferous, the Old Red Sandstone, and Devonian, the Silurian, and the Cambrian.