The geologist has never yet found the base of the aqueous rocks, nor can he know how deep their foundations extend. When the Laurentian stratified beds were formed there was an ocean on the earth. A portion of the tellurio-cosmic waters had fallen.
In the boulder and conglomerate rocks found in every age of geology there is proof that glaciers invaded the earth after the declension of each Annular stratum. The Annular matter extended in comparatively narrow belts over the equator. As the lower stratum was attracted toward the earth it gradually spread out toward the polar regions, causing a warm climate all over the earth, and melting the snows and glaciers at the poles. This lasted untold ages until a tropic and semi-tropical vegetation spread over the earth. After its fall arctic cold invaded the north and south poles, pushing a vast ice cap toward the equator, which remained until another stratum of annular vapors spread over the globe. These ages of warmth and ages of cold continued to alternate until the fall of the last ring of vapors, which took place at the time of the Noachian deluge, causing that catastrophe.
The sudden destruction of life, at the end of each age in geology, must have been caused by sudden cold. The waters reaching the earth at the poles must cause refrigeration; must cause excessive floods; must cause extermination of specific forms of life; must cause new distribution and condition of oceanic waters, and caused great folding and crumpling of strata.
In the dissolving of glaciers a vast pressure was lifted from the continents and transferred to the ocean beds, causing them to go down and the land to be elevated.
SEED BED OF ORGANISMS.
From the days of Homer until the present time we read of dust-storms of living organisms falling upon the earth, and colored snow, the coloring matter being microscopic forms of life. The dust is doubtless of cosmic origin. There must be micro-cosmic clouds moving in interplanetary space, which meeting the earth in its path, are precipitated upon its surface.
We can scarcely conceive of matter anywhere without associating it with living forms. The outermost vapors of the annular system, which fell in the time of Noah, remained on high for unknown millions of years, receiving constant additions of meteoric and cosmic dust from without. As the gaseous envelope that now surrounds our earth contains living organisms, we must believe the annular matter did also, and to a much greater degree.
If Jupiter’s belted system had long ago descended to the body of that planet, so that we could gaze upon the continents and seas as we do those of Mars, we would conclude that they swarmed with life. An incomplete world must contain incomplete or primordial life-forms; forms that in time must develop. In yellow snow, dust showers, “blood rains,” etc. we have evidence that organic forms are natural accompaniments of the nebulous and elementary forms of matter.
Spider showers are well authenticated. Sometimes the air is filled with their gossamer threads upon which they mount to unknown depths of space, where they live. If spiders can live in the air, descend to the earth and live there for a time, and toads can live for untold ages immured in solid rock, they could live in belts of aqueous and mineral matter. The manner in which organisms have succeeded each other on the earth as revealed by the geologic records demands that the annular system was the cradle of infant life, the propagating beds in which the life-germs were placed by the great Gardener of Nature.
It is as reasonable to suppose that germs took form in water under the creative hand before they fell to the earth as afterward, and when we see that each downfall brought new life-forms which exhibit no specific or generic relation to previous forms, we are forced to admit that either the seed beds of the Annular system provided the undeveloped organisms, or there was a special creation at each period.