Assuming that this is, and has been one cause of the great upheavals, is it not suggestive that the original of the Earth’s surface in its formation millions of years past, was nearly or quite free from hills, and mountains, and the inside as well as exterior has been undergoing radical changes?
Great masses of earth on the outside accumulated by floods and washed from higher points have dammed up and smothered the flow from inside, while the sections of the Earth that have contributed to this mass have been thrown up into exterior mountains, and the depressions made inheavals to a corresponding extent.
From this reasoning it might appear why Africa and Australia, with their vast area of deserts, are less supplied with rivers and lakes proportionally to other continents; the same deficiency of mountains being noticeable. On the other hand, the rest of the continents and islands abound in mountains, lakes, springs and rivers. The great present groups of Islands of Oceanica, will, perhaps, in the distant future, all be joined to one mass, and while they may rise higher, others in present use may sink.
The legend of Atlantis may be repeated in some coming age, and perhaps a new Bible story will record the seagoing experience of another Noah; but if so, it is hoped he will have a bigger ship, and better provided with modern improvements and other sanitary arrangements than the old boat seemed to be for so long and important a voyage. From what has been written on surface influence of water is it not reasonable that polar variations must have occurred through the millions of years Mother Earth has been whirling through space? The writer does not assume to know all claimed in this discussion, being an agnostic in this as well as in spiritual knowledge; but if some full-grown scientific giant will rise up and give any more plausible reasons for why things are as they are, I shall be delighted to sit on some little stool and let him thrust the information into my bewildered cranium.
XIX.
CONCLUSION.
The author of this unscientific work has assumed the task to contradict theories that to him have seemed wrong, although long accepted from scientific authorities.
The world is given to taking statements for granted that emanate from some professional man’s brain, and published in some newspaper or book, whether of real or fictitious origin.
The stories of Wm. Tell, Robinson Crusoe, Washington and his little hatchet, Jack the Giant Killer, Samson and the foxes, Joseph sold into Egypt, St. Patrick’s extermination of toads and snakes, Newton’s discovering the “law of gravitation” by an apple dropping on his head, Noah’s flood, etc.—all of these and hundreds more have passed for current facts by being oft told. Plain stories and simple unadorned tales have small circulation without lies enough mixed in to make them interesting.
Every age has its learned prodigies and scientific minds that are ready to answer any question and solve all obscure matters. When men of early ages discovered on hills and mountains marine shells and other deposits which showed evidence of the bottom of a sea or ocean, and fossil deposits and footprints in rocks, they naturally inquired of the wise men how they came there. Hence quite likely the story of the flood.
When they asked how the people of Europe were white, Asia, yellow, and Africa, black, the solution was, that Noah had three sons who settled, one in each country and produced such progeny. The geography of the world in those early times represented the Earth as having four corners, and surface flat with “jumping off” places on all sides. It is evident the solvers of this “race problem” had no knowledge of America and Australasia. (Time has developed the fact that they either knew about it and lied, or lost sight of two sons that Noah should have had to represent the red and brown races.) It is expected of us to believe that Japheth was white, and peopled Europe; Shem yellow, and settled down to farming in Asia, and Ham black, and went into the monkey and elephant business in Africa. Whether the two other boys, the brown one, that raised Malays, and the red one, that bred and introduced the American Indian, were ever married, I never learned, but conclude it was unnecessary, as they seemed to have as good success in settling up their respective countries as the favorite boys that Noah took, with other live stock, on his yachting trip.