The book of nature coupled with the Bible would be a necessity; not only for a complete worship, but for a full cosmology. We should expect the two volumes, when rightly rendered, to correspond. A noted atheistical lecturer upon cosmical changes stated in a series of lectures in Chico, Cal., that the “Bible theory of creation is decidedly watery. By the statements of this book, we should conclude that the center itself is one vast body of water, holding upon its bosom a crust of earth.” As a believer in the Plutonic theory, and having no reverence for the Bible, he added, “What fool does not know better?” What he gave as a “Bible Theory,” we will assume as a scientific hypothesis; and rest the proof of the same upon the facts in nature which scientists, in advocating the Plutonic theory, have given us.
It will be the object of this chapter to show that the more recently developed facts in geology point unmistakably to the Neptunian theory of Creation. This will be done by comparing the three theories, and each with lines of facts which have been well established. It will be necessary
Section 1
To State the Plutonic Theory of the Schools.
1. That all matter existed, or was created in a primeval state of heat. One hypothesis is, that all matter of our system was concentrated in one heated ball as a central sun.
2. That planets are portions of this matter, thrown off by a rapid rotary motion of the sun. Properly named, this theory was the centro-centrifugal theory, now quite out of date. That this theory might be true, the sun must have turned upon its axis with a velocity sufficient not only to destroy gravitation at its surface, now twenty-seven times that of the Earth, but with a force capable of throwing Jupiter, fourteen hundred times the size of the Earth, out into space four hundred and seventy-five million of miles, and Neptune over two billion of miles. When we consider that our sun now turns on its axis only once in twenty-seven days, we conclude that a vivid imagination must have supplied the machinery necessary for such astounding results in the very face of forbidding facts. This theory made no provision for the encircling waters, sufficient to wrap the entire surface of the globe three miles deep, nor for the enveloping atmosphere. Gradually this ancient theory has been modulated into the Nebulous Theory.
3. The more popular teaching of today is, that matter existed in a highly heated state in the form of a diffused cloud. Steel, in his “Fourteen Weeks in Geology,” suggests that “From unknown causes, this cloud-matter began to revolve about a center or sun. This nucleus drew matter direct to itself from all parts of our system. Other portions revolving were thrown off, and formed new centers for planetary gathering, as they respectively took up their orbicular march about the sun. This fiery mist is supposed to have come together in a heated state. The planets, at least, have since been cooling, though as yet having but a thin crust.” To this theory of primeval heat, in some form, all our text books conform. A theory so long and so universally accepted might be supposed to have some solid facts upon which to rest. But really it has less to sustain it than had the Ptolemaic theory of Astronomy: that, at least, had observation in its favor, but this fails even here. It is a curious circumstance in this guess work of results, that whether heat is made to increase on an average one degree in fifty feet, as given by many geologists, or one degree in one hundred feet, as given by others, precisely the same results are reached, viz., fifty miles crust, and intensely heated matter beyond. This assumption is based upon the supposed fact that the internal heat traverses the rock by conduction. If this were true, then the degree of heat gained in any one hundred feet of rock, as you descend into the Earth’s crust, would be the approximate measurement of any other hundred feet in the same shaft; but the reverse of this is true. No two measurements seem to be alike. The miner, as a practical geologist, in this regard knows that this heat is generally caused by chemical action of the rock upon which you have let in air or water, or both. This heat is found to vary according to nature of the rock which you expose. If the rock is rich in pyrites of iron or lime, in any of its numerous forms, then disintegration is abundant and much heat is generated; but, on the other hand, where all disintegrating elements are wanting, there is no perceptible increase of heat.
4. The theory of the continued increase of heat, according to the ratio noticed as you sink a shaft a few hundred feet into the Earth’s crust, if it proves anything proves too much, and is therefore false. Experiments extensively made in the Virginia mines of Nevada, and particularly in the Foreman Shaft, show the increase to be very uneven; differing from one degree in twelve feet to one in two hundred feet. It even grows colder as you descend some kind of rock, a degree in one hundred feet. The degree of heat is always regulated and gauged by the rock you pass. If the rock will disintegrate readily, it gives out more heat; but if the rock may lie exposed in the sun and rain without disintegration, it throws out no heat in the shaft. Yet from experiments made in the Foreman Shaft, notwithstanding these varieties of rock, yet at the 2,100 foot level it is found that the average increase is one degree in twelve feet. At this rate, at twenty-five miles towards the center you would encounter heat above 4,300 deg. Fahr. Chemists will admit that, after due allowance for pressure at such a depth, yet the granite with all known substances would fuse at this heat. The Plutonic hypothesis makes the crust in Nevada less than twenty-five miles, perhaps the weakest on the continent.
Experiments in Mexico, upon this line of reasoning, would make the crust twice as thick. Now from a well established law in philosophy, a pressure upon liquid on the inside of a cylinder imparts its pressure to every part of the cylinder at the same time. A pressure capable of breaking the crust in any place should, at least, cause all the openings to emit lava at the same time. But this is not the historic action of volcanoes; one emits while another sleeps.
It is a historic fact observed within the present century, that a volcanic mountain rose up from a comparatively level plane in Mexico, in one night, to the height of 1,695 feet. On the assumption that lava comes from the center of the earth, why should not the above pressure have found the weaker crust, and Nevada have been the place of eruption instead of Mexico? and why should not the three hundred open vents of Earth have emitted lava at the same time? The theory will not bear philosophic tests.
The Russian report of the increase of heat is only one-fourth that given in Nevada. Who believes, therefore, that the crust there is four times as thick as in Nevada? The whole subject shows that the increase of heat in the shaft proves nothing as to the interior of Earth, and nothing as to the thickness of its crust.