A critique of northern-centric geology: The deep antiquity of southern hemisphere life

“ From dynamical geology it learns by what agencies the materials of the earth’s crust have been formed, altered, broken, upheaved and melted. From geotectonic geology it understands the various processes whereby these materials were put together so as to build up the complicated crust of the earth. From palaeontological geology it receives in well-determined fossil remains a clue by which to discriminate the different stratified formations, and to trace the grand onward march of organized existence upon this planet. ”

“ These fossil remains of sea-animals are discovered in all quarters of the world, not only on the seashore but also far inland, not only deep down underground but also high up on the tops of lofty mountains—a plain proof that over the summits of those mountains the ocean must once have rolled, and this not for a brief space only, but through long periods of time. And not on the mountain-summit only are these fossils known to abound, but sometimes in layer below layer of the mountain, from top to bottom, through thousands of feet of rock. ”

“ That every part of the dry land was once covered by the ocean, is a fact on which all geologists agree; and the discovery, noticed above, of the fossil remains of many genera of quadrupeds, once existing, but which have now disappeared from the earth, leads to another fact, not less interesting, and which is at the same time coincident with the oldest records or traditions of the human race, namely, that at the period when these great changes took place, man was not an inhabitant of the planet. ”

“ That the geological record is imperfect all will admit; but that it is imperfect to the degree required by our theory, few will be inclined to admit. If we look to long enough intervals of time, geology plainly declares that species have all changed; and they have changed in the manner required by the theory, for they have changed slowly and in a graduated manner. We clearly see this in the fossil remains from consecutive formations invariably being much more closely related to each other than are the fossils from widely separated formations. ”

“ But a recent comparison of the fossils of North American rocks with those of corresponding ages in the European series, has proved that the terrestrial vegetation of the Carboniferous epoch is an exception to the general rule, and that the fauna and flora of the earth at successive periods, 160 from the oldest Silurian to the newest Tertiary was as diversified as now. ”

“ Evidences of Ice-action during the Tertiary Period.—The Tertiary fossils both of Europe and North America indicate throughout warm or temperate climates, except those of the more recent Pliocene deposits which merge into the earlier glacial beds. The Miocene deposits of Central and Southern Europe, for example, contain marine shells of some genera now only found farther south, while the fossil plants often resemble those of Madeira and the southern states of North America. Large reptiles, too, abounded, and man-like apes lived in the south of France and in Germany. ”

“ During thirty years of work Ameghino described over 500 new genera, with probably some thousands of species of fossil mammals.
These papers made known to science a whole new world of animal life. The Tertiary mammals of South America were as different from those of the rest of the world as is the modern Australian fauna, and for most of our knowledge of them we are indebted to Ameghino. Besides the Santa Cruz with its wonderful riches of fossil mammals, he described a series of older faunas no less interesting. That so much should be accomplished by one man is remarkable enough. ”

“ From the similarities existing in the animals and plants of regions in the southern hemisphere now widely separated by the ocean, it has been inferred that Post-pliocene land of great extent existed there; and that on this land men may have lived before the continents of the northern hemisphere were ready for them. It has even been supposed that, inasmuch as the flora and fauna of Australia have an aspect like that of the Eocene Tertiary, and very low forms of man exist in that part of the world, these low races are the oldest of all, and may date from Tertiary times. ”

“ From an area corresponding to what is now South America there entered a fauna and flora, which, after undergoing modification, passed by way of Tasmania to Australia. These immigrants then developed, with some exceptions, into the present Australian flora and fauna. This theory has advanced from the position of a disparaged heresy to acceptance by leading thinkers. The discovery as fossil, in South America, of primitive or ancestral forms of marsupials has given it much support. ”

“ The evolutionist, therefore, is bound to grapple with the following problem whenever it is clearly put before him:—Here are the Faunae of the same area during successive epochs. Show good cause for believing either that these Faunae have been derived from one another by gradual modification, or that the Faunae have reached the area in question by migration from some area in which they have undergone their development. ”

“ Thus, the unquestionable facts of the geographical distribution of recent land animals, alone, form an insuperable obstacle to the acceptance of the assertion that the kinds of animals composing the present terrestrial fauna have been, at any time, universally destroyed in the way described in the Pentateuch. ”

“ Just as the geologist knows that one fossil is older or younger than another from its position in the earth’s crust or the stratum in which it was laid down, so the student of the beginnings of human civilization knows that the deposit at the bottom of a cave must be more ancient than the refuse at the top. He calls in the geologist to tell him the age of a glacial deposit or of a river terrace, and thus he may learn that, of two types of implements found at different places or levels, one is so many thousands of years or geological periods older than the other. ”

“ For there is a certain sort of order followed in the arrangement of rock-layers all over the earth, and it is well known that some rocks are never found below some other rocks, that certain particular kinds are never placed above certain other kinds. Thus it follows that the fossils found in one description of rock, must be the fossils of animals which lived and died before the animals whose fossil remains are found in another neighboring rock, just because this last rock-layer was built upon the ocean-floor above and therefore later than the other. ”

“ I insist upon the defects of the geological record the more because those who have not attended to these matters are apt to say, "It is all very well, but, when you get into a difficulty with your theory of evolution, you appeal to the incompleteness and the imperfection of the geological record;" ”

“ The theory of the origin of new species by variation will also explain why a species which has once died out never reappears and why the fossil fauna and flora recede farther and farther from the living type in proportion as we trace them back to remoter ages. ”

“ The biological relations of fossils—Extinction of life-forms—Geological range of different species—Persistent types of life—Modern origin of existing animals and plants—Reference of fossil forms to the existing primary divisions of the animal kingdom—Departure of the older types of life from those now in existence—Resemblance of the fossils of a given formation to those of the formation next above and next below—Introduction of new life-forms. ”

“ Further, it brings before us this remarkable fact, that while in the older periods all the animals whose remains we find are extinct as species, so soon as we enter on the Neozoic we find some which still continue to our time—at first only a very few, but in later and later beds in gradually increasing percentage, till the fossil and extinct wholly disappear in the recent and living. ”

“ The late Professor Bronn, of Heidelberg, after passing in review more than 24,000 fossil animals and plants, which he had classified and referred each to their geological position in his "Index Palaeontologicus," came to the conclusion that, in the course of time, there had been introduced into the earth more and more highly organised types of animal and vegetable life; the modern species being, on the whole, more specialised, i.e. ”

“ And in proportion as physical geography—which is the geology of our own epoch—has grown into a science, and the present order of nature has been ransacked to find what, hibernice, we may call precedents for the phenomena of the past, so the apparent necessity of supposing the past to be widely different from the present has diminished. ”

“ The progress of scientific geology has elevated the fundament principle of uniformitarianism, that the explanation of the past is to be sought in the study of the present, into the position of an axiom ”

“ And geology, which traces back the course of history beyond the limits of archæology, could tell us nothing except for the assumption that, millions of years ago, water, heat, gravitation, friction, animal and vegetable life, caused effects of the same kind as they do now. Nay, even physical astronomy, in so far as it takes us back to the uttermost point of time which palætiological science can reach, is founded upon the same assumption. If the law of gravitation ever failed to be true, even to the smallest extent, for that period, the calculations of the astronomer have no application. ”

“ The publication of 'The Principles of Geology,' in 1830, constituted an epoch in geological science. But it also constituted an epoch in the modern history of the doctrines of evolution, by raising in the mind of every intelligent reader this question: If natural causation is competent to account for the not-living part of our globe, why should it not account for the living part? ”

“ South America teems with the fossil bones of these animals, which indeed penetrated into the northern half of the hemisphere as high up as Georgia and Kentucky, where their remains have been found. The living representatives of the family are also numerous in South America, and we should make it one of our chief objects to get specimens of all ages and examine them from their earliest phases upward. We must, above all, try not to be led away from the more important aims of our study by the diversity of objects. ”

“ Fossil remains of Monkeys have been found in the New World in the Brazils, which belong to the existing genera Cebus, Callithrix, and Hapale. The fossil Cebus is at least four feet in height, and the Callithrix was of a very large kind. The fossil Ouistitis are large and small. The geological age of the Brazilian fossils is probably about that of the last European deposits. ”

“ It is particularly interesting, as it suggests that, notwithstanding the flattened condition of the occiput, the posterior cerebral lobes must have projected considerably beyond the cerebellum, and as it constitutes one among several points of similarity between the Neanderthal cranium and certain Australian skulls.
Such are the two best known forms of human cranium, which have been found in what may be fairly termed a fossil state. Can either be shown to fill up or diminish, to any appreciable extent, the structural interval which exists between Man and the man-like apes? ”

“ The Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness and for the thickness of its walls, especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, which is frequently, though not by any means invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses remaining undeveloped. The nasal depression, again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows overhang and give the countenance a particularly lowering, threatening expression. The occipital region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes less prominent ”

“ In consequence of this circumstance, the parts of the occipital bone which lie above and below the tuberosity make a much more acute angle with one another than is usual, whereby the hinder part of the base of the skull appears obliquely truncated. Many Australian skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to that of the average of any other race, but there are others in which the cranial roof becomes remarkably depressed, the skull, at the same time, elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is not diminished. ”

“ From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to America on the other, brachycephaly and orthognathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on the American Continent (throughout the whole length of which a rounded type of skull prevails largely, but not exclusively) 13 than in the Pacific region, where, at length, on the Australian Continent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong skull, the projecting jaws, and the dark skin reappear ”

“ So long as physiologists continued to believe that man had not existed on the earth above six thousand years, they might, with good reason, withhold their assent from the doctrine of a unity of origin of so many distinct races; but the difficulty becomes less and less, exactly in proportion as we enlarge our ideas of the lapse of time during which different communities may have spread slowly, and become isolated, each exposed for ages to a peculiar set of conditions, whether of temperature, or food, or danger, or ways of living. ”

“ It is a curious circumstance, in fact, that the animals and plants of the Northern Hemisphere are not only as well adapted to live in the Southern Hemisphere as its own autochthones, but are, in many cases, absolutely better adapted, and so overrun and extirpate the aborigines. ”

“ Given this universal tendency of the superior to overrun the habitats of the inferior, [1] let us consider what, on the hypothesis of evolution, will be the effects on the geographical relationships of species.
§ 138. A race of organisms cannot expand its sphere of existence without subjecting itself to new external conditions. Those of its members which spread over adjacent areas, inevitably come in contact with circumstances partially different from their previous circumstances ”

“ The Indo-Pacific region is by far the most extensive of all. It reaches from the Red Sea and the eastern coast of Africa, to the Indian Archipelago, and adjoining parts of the Pacific Ocean. To the geologist it furnishes a fact of no small interest, by teaching us that one group of living species of mollusca may prevail throughout an area exceeding in magnitude the utmost limits we can as yet assign to any assemblage of contemporaneous fossil species. ”

“ Assuming as the antecedent of migration a great geologic change, such as upheaval of the East Indian Archipelago step by step into a continent, it was argued, in an essay I then wrote, that, subjected primarily to new influences in its original habitat, each kind of plant and animal would secondarily be subjected to the altered conditions consequent on spreading over the upheaved regions. ”