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Earth in UpheavalThe Ivory Islands, pages 4-6
In 1797 the body of a mammoth, with flesh, skin, and hair, was found in northeastern Siberia. The flesh had the appearance of freshly frozen beef; it was edible, and wolves and sled dogs fed on it without harm. The ground must have been frozen ever since the day of their entombment; had it not been frozen, the bodies of the mammoths would have putrefied in a single summer, but they remained unspoiled for some thousands of years. In some mammoths, when discovered, even the eyeballs were still preserved.
(All) this shows that the cold became suddenly extreme .. and knew no relenting afterward. In the stomachs and between the teeth of the mammoths were found plants and grasses that do not grow now in northern Siberia .. (but are) .. now found in southern Siberia. Microscopic examination of the skin showed red blood corpuscles, which was proof not only of a sudden death, but that the death was due to suffocation either by gases or water.
Whales in the Mountains, pages 46-49
Bones of whale have been found 440 feet above sea level, north of Lake Ontario; a skeleton of another whale was discovered in Vermont, more than 500 feet above sea level; and still another in the Montreal- Quebec area, about 600 feet above sea level. Although the Humphrey whale and beluga occasionally enter the mouth of the St. Lawrence, they do not climb hills.
Times and Dates, pages 202-203
Careful investigation by W.A. Johnston of the Niagara River bed disclosed that the present channel was cut by the falls less than 4,000 years ago. And equally careful investigation of the Bear River delta by Hanson showed that the age of this delta was 3,600 years. The study by Claude Jones of the lakes of the Great Basin showed that these lakes, remnants of larger glacial lakes, have existed only about 3,500 years. Gales obtained the same result on Owen Lake in California and also Van Winkle on Abert and Summer lakes in Oregon.
Radiocarbon analysis by Libby also indicates that plants associated with extinct animals (mastodons) in Mexico are probably only 3,500 years old. Similar conclusions concerning the late survival of the Pleistocene fauna were drawn by various field workers in many parts of the American continent. Suess and Rubin found with the help of radiocarbon analysis that in the mountains of the western United States ice advanced only 3000 years ago.
The Florida fossil beds at Vero and Melbourne proved - by the artifacts found there together with human bones and the remains of animals, many of which are extinct - that these fossil beds were deposited between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago. From observations on beaches in numerous places all over the world, Daly concluded that there was a change in the ocean level, which dropped sixteen to twenty feet 3,500 years ago. Kuenen and others confirmed Daly's findings with evidence derived from Europe.
Dropped Ocean Level, pages 181-183
R.A. Daly observed that in a great many places all around the world there is a uniform emergence of the shore line of 18 to 20 feet. In the southwest Pacific, on the islands belonging to the Samoan group but spread over two hundred miles, the same emergence is evident. Nearly halfway around the world, at St. Helena in the South Atlantic, the lava is punctuated by dry sea caves, the floors of which are covered with water-worn pebbles, now dusty because untouched by the surf. The emergence there is also 20 feet. At the Cape of Good Hope caves and beaches also prove recent and sensibly uniform emergence to the extent of about 20 feet.
Marine terraces, indicating similar emergence, are found along the Atlantic coast from New York to the Gulf of Mexico; for at least 1,000 miles along the coast of eastern Australia; along the coasts of Brazil, southwest Africa, and many islands in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The emergence is recent as well as of the same order of magnitude, (20 feet). Judging from the condition of beaches, terraces, and caves, the emergence seems to have been simultaneous on every shore.
In (Daly's) opinion the cause lies in the sinking of the level of all seas on the globe. Alternatively, Daly thinks it could have resulted from a deepening of the oceans or from an increase in their areas. Of special interest is the time of the change. Daly estimated the sudden drop of oceanic level to (have occurred) some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.
Shifting Poles, pages 111, 44, and 46
All other theories of the origin of the Ice Age having failed, there remained an avenue of approach which already early in the discussion was chosen by several geologists: a shift in the terrestrial poles. If for some reason the poles had moved, old polar ice would have moved out of the Arctic and Antarctic circles and into new regions. The glacial cover of the Ice Age could have been the polar icecap of an earlier epoch.
The continent of Antarctica is larger than Europe. It has not a single tree, not a single bush, not a single blade of grass. Very few fungi have been found. Storms of great velocity circle the Antarctic most of the year. E.H. Shackleton, during his expedition to Antarctica in 1907 found fossil wood in the sandstone. Then he discovered 7 seams of coal. The seams are each between 3 and 7 feet thick. Associated with the coal is sandstone containing coniferous wood.
Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean is as far north from Oslo in Norway as Oslo is from Naples. Heer identified 136 species of fossil plants from Spitsbergen. Among the plants were pines, firs, spruces, and cypresses, also elms, hazels, and water lilies. At the northernmost tip of Spitsbergen Archipelago, a bed of black and lustrous coal 25 to 30 feet thick was found. (Spitsbergen) is buried in darkness for half the year and is now almost continuously buried under snow and ice. At some time in the remote past corals grew and are still found on the entire fringe of polar North America - in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. In later times fig palms bloomed within the Arctic Circle.
Sea and Land Changed Places, pages 14, 74, and 180
(Cuvier) found in the gypsum deposits in the suburbs of Paris marine limestone containing over eight hundred species of shells, all of them marine. Under this limestone there is another - fresh water - deposit formed of clay. Much of France was once under sea; then is was land, populated by land reptiles; then it became sea again and was populated by marine animals; then it was land again, inhabited by mammals. And as it was on the site of Paris, so it was in other parts of France, and in other countries of Europe.
The Himalayas, highest mountains in the world, rise like a thousand mile long wall north of India. Many of its peaks tower over 20,000 feet, Mount Everest reaching 29,000 feet. Scientists of the nineteenth century were dismayed to find that, as high as they climbed, the rocks of the massifs yielded skeletons of marine animals, fish that swim in the ocean, and shells of mollusks. This was evidence that the Himalayas had risen from beneath the sea.
In many places of the world the seacoast shows either submerged or raised beaches. The previous surf line is seen on the rock of raised beaches; where the coast became submerged, the earlier water line is found chiseled by the surf in the rock below the present level of the sea. In the case of the Pacific coast of Chile Charles Darwin observed that the beach must have risen 1300 feet only recently - within the period during which upraised shells have remained undecayed on the surface.
