Worlds in Collision
by Immanuel Velikovsky
PREFACE
Worlds in Collision is a book of wars in the celestial sphere that took place in historical times. In these wars the planet earth participated too. This book describes two acts of a great drama: one that occurred thirty-four to thirty-five centuries ago, in the middle of the second millennium before the present era; the other in the eighth and the beginning of the seventh century before the present era twenty-six centuries ago. Accordingly this volume consists of two parts, preceded by a prologue.
Harmony or stability in the celestial and terrestrial spheres is the point of departure of the present-day concept of the world as expressed in the celestial mechanics of Newton and the theory of evolution of Darwin. If these two men of science are sacrosanct, this book is a heresy. However, modem physics, of atoms and of the quantum theory, describes dramatic changes in the microcosm, the atom-the prototype of the solar system; a theory, then that envisages not dissimilar events in the macrocosm the solar system-brings the modem concepts of physics to the celestial sphere.
This book is written for the instructed and uninstructed alike. No formula and no hieroglyphic will stand in the way of those who set out to read it. If, occasionally, historical evidence does not square with formulated laws, it should be remembered that a law is but a deduction from experience and experiment, and therefore laws must conform with historical facts, not facts with laws.
The reader is not asked to accept a theory without question. Rather, he is invited to consider for himself whether he is reading a book of fiction or nonfiction, whether what he is reading is invention or historical fact. On one point alone, not necessarily decisive for the theory of cosmic catastrophism, I borrow credence: I use a synchronical scale of Egyptian and Hebrew histories which is not orthodox.
It was in the spring of 1940 that I came upon the idea that in the days of the Exodus, as evident from many passages of the Scriptures, there occurred a great physical catastrophe, and that such an event could serve in determining the time of the Exodus in Egyptian history or in establishing a synchronous scale for the histories of the peoples concerned. Thus I started Ages in Chaos, a reconstruction of the history of the ancient world from the middle of the second millennium before the present era to the advent of Alexander the Great. Already in the fall of that same year, 1940, I felt that I had acquired an understanding of the real nature and extent of that catastrophe, and for nine years I worked on both projects, the political and the natural histories. Although Ages in Chaos was finished first, in the order of publication it will follow this work.
Worlds in Collision comprises only the last two acts of the cosmic drama. A few earlier acts, one of them known as the Deluge-will be the subject of another volume of natural history.
The historical-cosmological story of this book is based on the evidence of historical texts of many peoples around the globe, on classical literature, on epics of northern races, on sacred books of the peoples of the Orient and Occident, on traditions and folklore of primitive peoples, on old astronomical inscriptions and charts, on archaeological finds, and also on geological and paleontological material.
If cosmic upheavals occurred in the historical past, why does not the human race remember them, and why was it necessary to carry on research to find out about them? I discuss this problem in the Section "The Collective Amnesia." The task I had to accomplish was not unlike that faced by a psychoanalyst who, out of dissociated memories and dreams, reconstructs a forgotten traumatic experience in the early life of an individual. In an analytical experiment on mankind, historical inscriptions and legendary motifs often play the same role as recollections (infantile memories) and dreams in the analysis of a personality.
Can we, out of this polymorphous material, establish actual facts? We shall check one people against another, one inscription against another, epics against charts, geology against legends, until we are able to extract the historical facts.
In a few cases it is impossible to say with certainty whether a record or a tradition refers to one or another catastrophe that took place through the ages; it is also probable that in some traditions various elements from different ages are fused together. In the final analysis, however, it is not so essential to segregate definitively the records of single world catastrophes. More important, it seems, is to establish:
(1) that there were physical upheavals of a global character in historical times;
(2) that these catastrophes were caused by extraterrestrial agents; and
(3) that these agents can be identified.
There are many implications that follow from these conclusions. I refer to them in the Epilogue, so that I can omit reference to them here.
A few readers went over this book in manuscript and made valuable suggestions and remarks. In chronological order of their reading they are:
Dr. Horace M. Kallen, formerly Dean of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, New York; John J. O'Neill, Science Editor of the New York Herald Tribune,· James Putnam, Associate Editor of the Macmillan Company; Clifton Fadiman, literary critic and commentator; Gordon A. Atwater, Chairman and Curator of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, New York. The last two read the work at their own request after Mr. O'Neill had discussed it in an article in the Herald Tribune of August 11, 1946. I am indebted to all of them but I alone am responsible for content and form.
Miss Marion Kuhn cleared the manuscript of grammatical weeds and helped in reading the proofs, Many an author has dedicated his book to bis wife or mentioned her in the preface. I have always felt this was somewhat ostentatious, but now that this work is being published, I feel I shall be most ungrateful if I fail to mention that my wife Elisheva spent almost as much time on it at our desk as I did. I dedicate this book to her. The years when Ages in Chaos and Worlds in Collision were written were years of a world catastrophe created by man of war that was fought on land, on sea, and in the air. During that time man learned how to take apart a few of the bricks of which the universe is built, the atoms of uranium. If one day he should solve the problem of the fission and fusion of the atoms of which the crust of the earth or its water and air are composed, he may perchance, by initiating a chain reaction, take this planet out of the struggle for survival among the members of the celestial sphere.
New York, September 1949
Immanuel Velikovsky
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
In an Immense Universe
Quota pars operis tanti nobis committitur?
SENECA
In an immense universe a little globe revolves around a star; it is the third in the row, Mercury, Venus, Earth, of the planetary family. It is of a solid core covered over most of its surface with liquid, and it has a gaseous envelope. Living creatures fill the liquid; other living creatures fly in the gas; and still others creep and walk upon the ground on the bottom of the gaseous ocean. Man, a being of erect stature, thinks himself the prince of creation. He felt like this long before he, by his own efforts, came to know how to fly on wings of metal around the globe. He felt godlike long before he could talk to his fellow-man on the other side of the globe. Today he can see the microcosm in a drop and the elements in the stars. He knows the laws governing the living cell with its chromosomes, and the laws governing the macrocosm of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. He assumes that gravitation keeps the planetary system together, man and beast on their planet, the sea within its borders. For millions and millions of years, he maintains, the planets have rolled along on the same paths, and their moons around them, and man in these eons has arisen from a one-cell infusorium all the long way up the ladder to his status of Homo sapiens.
Is man's knowledge now nearly complete? Are only a few more steps necessary to conquer the universe: to extract the energy of the atom-since these pages were written this has already been done-to cure cancer, to control genetics, to communicate with other planets and learn if they have living creatures, too?
Here begins Homo ignoramus. He does not know what life is or how it came to be and whether it originated from inorganic matter. He does not know whether other planets of this sun or of other suns have life on them, and if they have, whether the forms of life there are like those around us, ourselves included. He does not know how this solar system came into being, although he has built up a few hypotheses about it. He knows only that the solar system was constructed billions of years ago. He does not know what this mysterious force of gravitation is that holds him and his fellow man on the other side of the planet with their feet on the ground, although he regards the phenomenon itself as "the law of laws." He does not know what the earth looks like five miles under his feet. He does not know how mountains came into existence or what caused the emergence of the continents, although he builds hypotheses about these, nor does he know from where oil came-again hypotheses. He does not know why, only a short time aso, a thick glacial sheet pressed upon most of Europe and North America, as he believes it did; nor how palms could grow above the polar circle, nor how it came about that the same fauna fill the inner lakes of the Old and the New World. He does not know where the salt in the sea came from.
Although man knows that he has lived on this planet for millions of years, he finds a recorded history of only a few thousand years. And even these few thousand years are not sufficiently well known.
Why did the Bronze Age precede the Iron Age even though iron is more widely distributed over the world and its manufacture is simpler than that of the alloy of copper and tin? By what mechanical means were structures of immense blocks built on the high mountains of the Andes?
What caused the legend of the Flood to originate in all the countries of the world? Is there any adequate meaning to the term "antediluvian"? From what experiences grew the eschatological pictures of the end of the world?
In this work, of which the present book is the first part, some of these questions will be answered, but only at the cost of giving up certain notions now regarded as sacred laws in science--the millions of years of the present constitution of the solar system and the harmonious revolution of the earth-with all their implications as regards the theory of evolution.
[ The Celestial Harmony ]
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The day consists of twenty-four hours. The year consists of 365 days, 5 hours, and 49 minutes. The moon circles around the earth, changing Its phases, crescent, full, decrescent. The terrestrial axis points in the direction of the polar star. After winter comes. spring, then summer and fall. These are common facts. Are they invariable laws? Must it be so forever? Was it so always?
The sun has nine planets. Mercury has no satellites; Venus has no satellites; the earth has a moon; Mars has two small trabants, mere pieces of rock, and one of them completes its month before Mars ends its day. Jupiter has eleven moons and eleven different· kinds of months to count; Saturn has nine moons, Uranus has five moons, 1 Neptune one, Pluto none.(2) Was it always so? Will it be so forever?
The sun rotates in an easterly direction. All planets revolve in their orbits in the same direction ( counterclockwise if seen from the north) around the sun. Most of their moons revolve counterclockwise (in direct motion), but there are a few that revolve in the opposite direction (in retrograde motion).
No orbit is an exact circle; there is no regularity in the eccentrical shapes of the planetary orbits; each elliptical curve verges in a different direction.
It is not known for certain, but it is assumed that Mercury permanently shows the same face to the sun, as our moon does with respect to the earth. Information obtained by different methods of observation of Venus is contradictory; it is not known whether Venus rotates so slowly that its day equals its year, or so rapidly that the night side is never sufficiently cooled. Mars rotates in 24 hours, 37 minutes, 22.6 seconds (mean period), a period comparable to the terrestrial day. Jupiter, which in volume is thirteen hundred times larger than the earth, completes a rotation in the short space of 9 hours and 50 minutes. What causes this variability? It is not a law that a planet must rotate or have days and nights; still less that its day and night must return every twenty-four hours.
If Pluto rotates from east to west,3 it has the sun rising in the west. Uranus has the sun rising and setting neither in the east nor in the west. So it is not a law that a planet of · the solar system must rotate from west to east and that the sun must rise in the east.
The equator of the earth is inclined to the plane of its ecliptic at an angle of .23 1/2, this causes the change of seasons during the annual revolution around the sun. The axes of other planets point in the directions of seemingly -- deliberate choice. It is not a general law for all planets that , winter must follow fall and summer the spring. The axis of Uranus is placed almost in the plane· of its orbit; for about twenty years one of its polar regions is the hottest place on the planet. Then night gradually descends and · twenty years later the other pole enters the tropics for an equal length of time.4
The moon has no atmosphere. It is not known whether Mercury has any atmosphere. Venus is covered with dense clouds, but not of water vapor. Mars has a transparent atmosphere, but almost without oxygen or water vapor, and its composition is unknown. Jupiter and Saturn have gaseous envelopes; it is not known whether they have solid cores. It is not a general law that a planet must have atmosphere or water.
Mars is 0.15 of the volume of the earth; the next planet, Jupiter, is about 8,750 times as large as Mars. There is no regularity of, or relation between, the size of the planets and their position in the system.
On Mars are seen "canals" and polar caps; on the moon, craters; the earth has reflecting oceans; Venus has brilliant clouds; Jupiter has belts and a red spot; Saturn has rings.
The celestial harmony is composed of bodies different in size, different in form, different in the velocity of rotation, with differently directed axes of rotation, with different directions of rotation, with differently composed atmospheres or without atmospheres, with a varying number of moons or without moons, and with satellites revolving in either direction.
It appears then to be by chance that the earth has a moon, that we have day and night and that their combined length is equal to twenty-four hours, that we have a sequence of seasons, that we have oceans and water, atmosphere and oxygen, and probably also that our planet is placed between Venus at•our left and Mars at our right
[The Origin of the Planetary System ]
All theories of the origin of the planetary system and the motive forces that sustain the motion of its members go back to the gravitational theory and the celestial mechanics of Newton. The sun attracts the planets, and if it were not for a second urge, they would fall into the sun; but each planet is impelled by its momentum to proceed in a direction away from the sun, and as a result, an orbit is formed. Similarly, a satellite or a moon is subject to an urge that drives it away from its primary, but the attraction of the primary bends the path on which the satellite would have proceeded if there had been no attraction between the bodies, and out of these urges a satellite orbit is traced. The inertia or persistence of motion implanted in planets and satellites was postulated by Newton, but he did not explain how or when the initial.pull or push occurred.5
The theory of the origin of the planetary system which dominated the entire nineteenth century was proposed by Swedenborg, the theologian, and Kant, the philosopher. It was put into scientific terms by Laplace,6 although not explored by him quantitatively, and in brief is as follows:
Hundreds of millions of years ago the sun was nebulous and very large and had a form approaching that of a disc. This disc was as wide as the whole orbit of the farthest of the planets. It rotated around its center. Owing to the process of compression caused by gravitation, a globular sun shaped itself in the center of the disc. Because of the rotating motion of the whole nebula, a centrifugal force was in action; parts of matter more on the periphery resisted the retracting action directed toward the center and broke up into rings which balled into globes-these were the planets in the process of shaping. In other words, as a result of the shrinkage of the rotating sun, matter broke away and portions of this solar material developed into planets. The plane in which the planets revolve is the equatorial plane of the sun.[In the beginning the Sun was by itself,4,500,000,000 years ago the enormous Angona system began its approach to the neighborhood of this solitary sun. The center of this great system was a dark giant of space, solid, highly charged, and possessing tremendous gravity pull. As Angona more closely approached the sun, at moments of maximum expansion during solar pulsations, streams of gaseous material were shot out into space as gigantic solar tongues. At first these flaming gas tongues would invariably fall back into the sun, but as Angona drew nearer and nearer, the gravity pull of the gigantic visitor became so great that these tongues of gas would break off at certain points, the roots falling back into the sun while the outer sections would become detached to form independent bodies of matter, solar meteorites, which immediately started to revolve about the sun in elliptical orbits of their own. As the Angona system drew nearer, the solar extrusions grew larger and larger; more and more matter was drawn from the sun to become independent circulating bodies in surrounding space. This situation developed for about five hundred thousand years until Angona made its closest approach to the sun; whereupon the sun, in conjunction with one of its periodic internal convulsions, experienced a partial disruption; from opposite sides and simultaneously, enormous volumes of matter were disgorged. From the Angona side there was drawn out a vast column of solar gases, rather pointed at both ends and markedly bulging at the center, which became permanently detached from the immediate gravity control of the sun. This great column of solar gases which was thus separated from the sun subsequently evolved into the twelve planets of the solar system. The repercussional ejection of gas from the opposite side of the sun in tidal sympathy with the extrusion of this gigantic solar system ancestor, has since condensed into the meteors and space dust of the solar system, although much, very much, of this matter was subsequently recaptured by solar gravity as the Angona system receded into remote space. Although Angona succeeded in drawing away the ancestral material of the solar system planets and the enormous volume of matter now circulating about the sun as asteroids and meteors, it did not secure for itself any of this solar matter. The visiting system did not come quite close enough to actually steal any of the sun’s substance, but it did swing sufficiently close to draw off into the intervening space all of the material comprising the present-day solar system. DC]
This theory is now regarded as unsatisfactory. Three objections stand out above others. First, the velocity of the axial rotation of the sun at the time the planetary system was built could not have been sufficient to enable bands of matter to break away; but even if they had broken away, they would not have balled into globes. Second, the Laplace theory does not explain why the planets have larger angular velocity of daily rotation and yearly revolution than the sun could have imparted to them. Third, what made some of the satellites revolve retrogradely, or in a direction opposite to that of most of the members of the solar system?
"It appears to be clearly established that, whatever structure we assign to a primitive sun, a planetary system cannot come into being merely as the result of the sun's rotation. If a sun, rotating alone in · space, is not able of itself to produce its family of planets and satellites, it becomes necessary to invoke the presence and assistance of some second body. This brings us at once to the tidal theory."7 The tidal theory, which, in its earlier stage, was called the planetesimal theory.8 assumes that a star passed close to the sun. An immense tide of matter arose from the sun in the direction of the passing star and was torn from the body of the sun but remained in its domain, being the material out of which the planets were built. In the planetesimal theory the mass that was tom out broke into small parts which solidified in space; some were driven out of the solar system, and some fell back into the sun, but the rest moved around it because of its gravitational pull. Sweeping in elongated orbits around the sun, they conglomerated, rounded out their orbits as a result of mutual collisions, and grew to form planets and satellites around the planets.
The tidal theory 9 does not allow the matter torn from the sun to disperse first and reunite 1ater; the tide broke into a few portions that rather quickly changed from gaseous to fluid, and then to the solid state. In support of this theory it was indicated that such a tide, when broken into a number of "drops," would probably build the largest "drops" out of its middle portion, and small "drops" from its beginning (near the sun) and. its end (most remote from the sun). Actually, Mercury, nearest to the sun, is a small planet. Venus is larger; earth is a little larger than Venus; Jupiter is three hundred and twenty times as large as the earth (in mass); Saturn is somewhat smaller than Jupiter; Uranus and Neptune, though large planets, are not as large as Jupiter and Saturn. Pluto is quite as small as Mercury.
The first difficulty of the tidal hypothesis lies in the very point adduced in its support, the mass of the planets. Between the earth and Jupiter· there revolves a small planet, Mars, a tenth part of the earth in mass, where, according to .the scheme, a planet ten to fifty times as large as the earth should be expected. Again, Neptune is larger and not smaller than Uranus.
Another difficulty is the allegedly rare chance of an encounter between two stars. One of the authors of the tidal theory gave this estimate of its probability: 10 [The origin of the sun is the Andronover nebula.6,000,000,000 years ago marks the end of the terminal breakup and the birth of your sun, the fifty-sixth from the last of the Andronover second solar family. This final eruption of the nebular nucleus gave birth to 136,702 suns, most of them solitary orbs. The total number of suns and sun systems having origin in the Andronover nebula was 1,013,628. The number of the solar system sun is 1,013,572. DC]
"At a rough estimate we may suppose that a given star's chance of forming a planetary system is one in 5,000,000, 000,000,000,000 years." But since the lifespan of a star is much shorter than this figure, "only about one star in 100,000 can have formed a planetary system in the whole of its life." In the galactic system of one hundred million stars, planetary systems "form at the rate of about one per five billion years .... Our own system, with an age of the order of two billion years, is probably the youngest system in the whole galactic system of stars." [not sure where he came up with the odds for Suns forming planetary systems, but in our present reality, the only understanding needed is to know that the nearby star is 1 for 1, and batting 1000 in the game of Suns that form planetary system.THAT is an excellent batting average DC]
The nebular and tidal theories alike regard the planets as derivatives of the sun, and the satellites as derivatives of the planets.
The problem of the origin of the moon can be regarded as disturbing to the tidal theory. Being smaller than the earth, the moon completed earlier the process of cooling and shrinking, and the lunar volcanoes had already ceased to be active. It is calculated that the moon possesses a lighter specific weight than the earth. It is assumed that the moon was produced from the superficial layers of the earth's body, which are rich in light silicon, whereas the core of the earth, the main portion of its body, is made of heavy metals, particularly iron. But this assumption postulates the origin of the moon· as not simultaneous with the origin of the earth; the earth, being formed out of a mass ejected from the sun, had to undergo a process of leveling, which placed the heavy metals in the core and silicon at the periphery, before the moon parted from the earth by a new tidal distortion. This would mean two consecutive tidal distortions in a system where the chance of even one is held extremely rare. If the passing of one star near another happens among one hundred million stars once in five billion years, two occurrences like this for one and the same star seem quite incredible. Therefore, as no better explanation is available, the satellites are supposed to have been torn from the planets by the sun's attraction on their first perihelion passage, when, sweeping along on stretched orbits, the planets came close to the sun.
The circling of the satellites around. the planets also confronts existing cosmological theories with difficulties. Laplace built his theory of the origin of the solar system on the assumption that all planets and satellites revolve in the same direction. He wrote that the axial rotation of the sun and the orbital revolutions and axial rotations of the six planets, the moon, the satellites, and the rings of Saturn present forty-three movements, all in the same direction. "One finds by the analysis of the probabilities that there are more than four thousand billion chances to one that this arrangement is not the result of chance; this probability is considered higher than that of the reality of historical events with regard to which no one would venture a doubt. "11 He deduced that a common and primal cause directed the movements of the planets and satellites.
Since the time of Laplace, new members of the solar system have been discovered. Now we know that though the majority of the satellites revolve in the same direction as the planets revolve and the sun rotates, the moons of Uranus revolve in a plane almost perpendicular to the orbital plane of their planet, and three of the eleven moons of Jupiter, one of the nine moons of Saturn, and the one moon of Neptune revolve retrogradely. These facts contradict the main argument of the Laplace theory: a rotating nebula could not produce satellites revolving in two directions. [exactly, and the retrograde matter and motion were taken from the dark Giant of Space when it approached the young star.Any retrograde motion in a system ,means its origin is not the same as the rest of the system DC]
In the tidal theory the direction of the planets' movements depended on the star that passed: it passed in the plane in which the planets now revolve and in direction which determined their circling from west to east. But why should the satellites of Uranus revolve perpendicularly to that plane and some moons of Jupiter and Saturn in reverse directions? This the tidal theory fails to explain.
According to all existing theories, the angular velocity of the revolution of a satellite must be slower tlian the velocity of rotation of its parent. But the inner satellite. of Mars revolves more rapidly than Mars rotates, Some of the difficulties that confront the nebular and tidal theories also confront another theory that has been proposed in recent years. 12 According to it, the sun is supposed to have been a member of a double star system. A passing star crushed the companion of the sun, and out of its debris planets were formed. In further development of this hypothesis, it is maintained that the larger planets were built out of the debris, and the smaller ones, the so-called "terrestrial" planets, were formed from the larger ones by a process of cleavage.[Nope,not a double star system,just a solitary Sun. DC]
The birth of smaller, solid planets out of the larger, gaseous ones is conjectured in order to explain the difference in the relation of weight to volume in the larger and smaller planets; but this theory is unable to explain the difference in the specific weights of the smaller planets and their satellites. By a process of cleavage, the moon was born of the earth; but since the specific weight of the moon is greater than that of the larger planets and smaller than that of the earth, it would seem to be more in accord with the theory that the earth was born.of the moon, despite its smallness. This confuses the argument.
The origin of the planets and their satellites remains unsolved. The theories not only contradict one another, but each of them bears within itself its own contradictions. "If the sun had been unattended by planets, its origin and evolution would have presented no difficulty."13 [And there was no difficulty about it, because there were no planets!Paper 57 of The Urantia Papers explains this from an off planet source.And I will tell you all right now, why I know the Beings in the Papers are are on the up and up. If you peruse the Papers long enough, you will find many instances where these beings straight out tell you, that they do not know everything, plus they openly state when they are speculating over certain possible outcomes of certain matters.Here is the Paper on the the Creation of this neck of the woods. DC]
https://urantiabook.org/057-The-Origin-of-Urantia/#ubf-paperTitle
[The Origin of the Comets ]
The nebular and tidal theories endeavor to explain the origin of the solar system but do not include the comets in their schemes. Comets are more numerous than planets. More than sixty comets are known to belong definitely to the solar system. These are the comets of short periods (less than eighty years); they revolve in stretched ellipses and all but one do not go beyond the line marked by the orbit of Neptune. It is estimated that, besides the comets of short periods, several hundred thousand comets visit the solar system; however, it is not known for certain that they return periodically. They are seen presently at an approximate rate of five hundred in a century, and are said to have an average period of tens of thousands of years.
A few theories of the origin of comets have been proposed, but aside from one attempt to see in them planetesimals that did not receive a side puU sufficiently strong to bring them into circular orbits, 14 no scheme has been developed that explains the origin of the solar system in its entirety, with its planets and comets; yet no cosmic theory can persist which limits itself to the problem of either planets or comets exclusively.
One theory sees in the comets errant cosmic bodies arriving from interstellar space. After approaching the sun, they tum away on an open (parabolic) curve. But if they happen to pass close to one of the larger planets, they may be compelled to change their open curves to ellipses and become comets of short period.15 This is the theory of capture: comets of long periods or of no period are dislodged from their paths to become short-period comets. What the origin of the long-period comets is remains an unanswered question.
The short-period comets apparently have some relation to the larger planets. About fifty comets move between the sun and the orbit of Jupiter; their periods are under nine years. Four comets reach the orbit of Saturn; two comets revolve inside the circle described by Uranus; and nine comets, with an average period of seventy-one years, move within the orbit of Neptune. These comprise_the system of the short-period comets as it is known at present. To the last group belongs the Halley comet, which, among the comets of short periods, has the longest period of revolution-about seventy-six years. Then there is a great gap, after which there are comets that require thousands of years before they retµm to the sun, if they return at all.
The distribution of the short-period comets suggested the idea that they were "captured" by the large planets. This theory has for its support the direct observation that comets are disturbed on their path by the planets.
Another theory of the comets supposes their origin to have been in the sun, but in a manner unlike that conceived of in the tidal theory of the origin of planets. Mighty whirls on the surface of the sun sweep ignited gases into great protuberances; these are observed daily. Matter is driven off from the sun and returns to the sun. It is calculated that if the velocity of the ejection were to exceed 384 miles per second, the speed of motion in a parabola, the matter would not return to the sun but would become a long-range comet. Then the path of the ejected mass might become perturbed as a result of its passage near one of the larger planets, and the comet would become one of a short period.
Birth of a comet in this manner has never been observed, and the probability that matter in explosion may reach a speed of 384 miles per second is highly questionable. It was therefore supposed alternatively that millions of years ago, when the activity of their gaseous masses was more dynamic, the large planets expelled comets from their bodies. The speed required for the ejected mass to overcome the gravitational pull of the ejecting body is less in the case of the planets than in the case of the sun, owing to their smaller gravitational pull. It is calculated that a mass hurled from Jupiter at a speed of about 38 miles per .... second, or at only a little more than a third of this velocity in the case of Neptune, would become expelled.
This variant of the theory neglects the question of the origin of the long-period comets. However, an explanation was offered, according to which the large planets throw the comets that pass close to them from their short orbits into elongated ones, or even expel them entirely from the solar system.
When passing close to the sun, comets emit tails. It is assumed that the material of the tail does not return to the comet's head but is dispersed in space; consequently, the comets as luminous bodies must have a limited life. If Halley's comet has pursued its present orbit since late preCambrian times, it must "have grown and lost eight million tails, which seems improbable."16 If comets are wasted, their number in the solar system must permanently diminish, and no comet of short period could have preserved its tail since geological times.
CHAPTER TWO
But as there are many luminous comets of short period, they must have been produced or acquired at some time when other members of the system, the planets and the satellites, were already in their places. A theory has been offered that once the solar system moved through a nebula and obtained its comets there.
Did the sun emit planets by shrinkage or by tide, and comets by explosion? Did the comets come from interstellar space and were they captured into the solar system by larger planets? Did the larger planets produce the smaller planets by cleavage, or did they expel the short-period comets from their bodies?
It is admitted that we cannot know the truth about the origin of the planetary and cometary systems billions of years ago. "The problem of the origin and development of the solar system suffers from the Jabel 'speculative.' It is frequently said that as we were not there when the system was formed, we cannot legitimately arrive at any idea of how it was formed."17 The most we can do, it is believed, is to investigate one planet, the one under our feet, in order to learn its past; and then, by the deductive method, to apply the results to other members of the solar system.
Chapter 2
The Planet Earth
The planet earth has a stony shell-the lithosphere; it consists of igneous rock, like granite and basalt, with sedimentary rock on top. The igneous rock is the original crust of the earth; sedimentary rock is deposited by water.
The inner composition of the earth is not known. The propagation of seismic waves gives support to the assumption that the shell of the earth is over 2,000 miles thick; on the basis of the gravitational effect of mountain masses (the theory of isostasy), the shell is estimated to be only sixty miles thick.
The presence of iron in the shell or the migration of heavy metals from the core to the shell has not been sufficiently explained. For these metals to have left the core, they must have been ejected by explosions, and in order to remain spread through the crust, the explosions must have been followed immediately by cooling.
If, in the beginning, the planet was a hot conglomerate of elements, as the nebular as well as the tidal theories assume, then the iron of the globe should have become oxidized and combined with all available oxygen. But for some unknown reason this did not take place; thus the presence of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere is unexplained.
The water of the oceans contains a large amount of soluble sodium chloride, common salt. Sodium might have come from rocks eroded by rain; but rocks are poor in chlorine and the proportion of sodium and chlorine in seawater calls for fifty times more chlorine in the igneous rock than it actually contains.
The deep strata of igneous rock contains no signs of fossil life. In cased in sedimentary rock are skeletons· of marine and land animals, often in many layers one upon the other. Not infrequently igneous rock is found protruding into sedimentary rock or even covering it over large areas, pointing to successive eruptions of igneous rock that· became heated and molten after there was life on the earth.
Upon strata which show no signs of fossil life are. strata containing shells, and sometimes the shells are so numerous as to constitute the entire mass of the rock. They are often found in the hardest rock. Higher strata contain skeletons of land animals, often of extinct species, and not infrequently, above the strata with the remains of land animals are other strata with marine fauna. The species of the animals, and even their genera, change with the strata. The strata often assume an oblique position, sometimes being almost vertical; frequently they are _faulted and overturned in many ways.
Cuvier (1769-1832), the founder of vertebrate paleontology, or the science of petrified. skeletons of animals possessing vertebrae, from fish to man, was much impressed by the picture presented by the sequence of the layers of earth.
"When the traveller passes over these fertile plains where gently flowing streams nourish in their .course an abundant vegetation, and where the soil, inhabited by a numerous population, adorned with flourishing villages, opulent cities, and superb monuments, is never disturbed, except by the ravages of war, or by the oppression of the powerful, he is not led to suspect that Nature also has had her intestine wars, and that the surface of the globe bas been broken up by revolutions and catastrophes. But his ideas change as soon as he digs into that soil which now presents so peaceful an aspect."1
Cuvier thought that great catastrophes bad taken place on this earth, repeatedly changing sea beds into continents and continents into sea beds. He held that genera and species were unchangeable since Creation; but, observing different animal remains in various levels of earth, he concluded that catastrophes must have annihilated life in vast areas, leaving the ground for other forms of life. Where did these other genera come from? Either they were newly created or, more likely they migrated from other parts of the world, which were not at that time also visited by cataclysms.
He could not find the cause of these cataclysms. He saw in their traces "the problem in geology it is of most importance to solve," but he realized that "in order to resolve it satisfactorily, it would be necessary to discover the cause of these events, an undertaking which presents a difficulty of quite a different kind." He knew only of "many fruitless attempts" already made and he did not find himself able to offer a solution. "These ideas have haunted, I may almost say have tormented me during my researches among fossil bones."2
Cuvier's theory of stabilized forms of life and of annihilating catastrophes was supplanted by a theory of evolution in geology (Lyell) and biology (Darwin). The mountains are what is left of plateaus eroded by wind and water in a very slow process. Sedimentary rock is detritus of igneous rock eroded by rain, then carried to sea, and there slowly deposited. Skeletons of birds and of land animals in these rocks are presumed to have belonged to animals that waded close to the shore of the sea in shallow water, died while wading, and were covered by sediment before fish destroyed the cadavers,or the water separated the bones of their skeletons. No widespread catastrophes disrupted the slow and steady process. The theory of evolution, which can be traced to Aristotle, and which was the teaching of Lamarck in the days of Cuvier and of Darwin after him, has been generally accepted as truth by natural sciences for almost a hundred years.
Sedimentary rock covers high mountains and the highest of all, the Himalayas. Shells and skeletons of sea animals are found there. This means that at some early time fish swam over these mountains. What caused the mountains to rise?
A force pushing from within or pulling from without or twisting on the sides must have elevated the mountains and lifted continents from the bottom of the sea and submerged other land masses. If we do not know what these forces are, we cannot answer the problem of the origin of the mountains and of continents, wherever on the globe we are faced with it.
Here is how the question is put concerning the· eastern coast of North America.
"Not long ago in a geological sense, the flat plain from New Jersey to Florida was under the sea. At that time the ocean surf broke directly on the Old Appalachian Mountains. Previously the southeastern part of the mountain. structure had sunk below the sea and become covered with a layer of sand and mud, thickening seaward. The wedgelike mass of marine sediments was then uplifted and cut into by rivers, giving the Atlantic coastal plain of the United States. Why was it uplifted? To the westward are the Appalachians. The geologist tells us of the stressful times when a belt of rocks extending from Alabama to Newfoundland was jammed, thrust together, to make this mountain system. Why? How was it done? In former times the sea flooded the region of the great plains from Mexico to Alaska, and then withdrew. Why this change?"3
The birth of the Cordilleras-"again the mystery of mountain-making clamors for solution."
And so on all over the world. The Himalayas were under the sea. Now Eurasia is three miles or more above the bottom of the Pacific. Why?
"The problem of mountain-making is a vexing one: many of them [mountains} are composed of tangentially compressed and over-thrust rocks that indicate scores of miles of circumferential shortening in the Earth's crust. Radial shrinkage is woefully inadequate to cause the observed amount of horizontal compression. Therein lies the real perplexity of the problem of mountain-making. Geologists have not yet found a satisfactory escape from this dilemma."4
Even authors of textbooks confess their ignorance. "Why have sea floors of remote periods become the lofty highlands of today? What generates the enormous forces that bend, break, and mash the rocks in mountain zones? These questions still await satisfactory answers."5
The process of raising the mountains is supposed to have been very slow and gradual. On the other hand, it is clear that igneous rock, already hard, had to become fluid in order to penetrate sedimentary rock or cover it. It is not known what initiated this process, but it is asserted that it must have happened long before man appeared on the earth. So when skulls of early man are found in late deposits, or skulls of modern man are found together with bones of extinct animals in early deposits, difficult problems are presented. Occasionally, also, during mining operations, a human skull is found in the middle of a mountain, under a thick cover of basalt or granite, like the Calaveras skull of California.
Human remains and human artifacts of bone, polished stone, or pottery are found under great deposits of till and gravel, sometimes under as much as a hundred feet.
The origin of clay, sand, and gravel on igneous and sedimentary rock, offers a problem. The theory of Jee Ages was put forth (1840) to explain this and other enigmatic phenomena. As far north as Spitsbergen, in the polar circle, at some time in the past, coral reefs were formed, .which do not occur except in tropical regions; palms also grew on Spitsbergen. The continent of Antarctica, which today has not a single tree on it, must have been covered at one time by forests, since it has coal deposits.
As we see, the planet earth is full of secrets. We have not come closer to solving the problem of the origin of the solar system by investigating· the planet under our feet; on the contrary, we have found many other unsolved problems concerning the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the earth. Shall we be more fortunate if we try to understand the process that caused the changes on the globe in the most recent geological epoch, the time of the last glacial period, a period close to the time which is regarded as historical?
[Ice Ages]
Not many thousands of years ago, we are taught, great areas of Europe and of North America were covered with glaciers. Perpetual ice Jay not only on the slopes of high mountains, but loaded itself in heavy masses upon continents even in moderate latitudes. Where today the Hudson, the Elbe, and the upper Dnieper flow, there were then frozen deserts. They were like the immense glacier of Greenland that covers that island. There are signs that a retreat of the glaciers was interrupted by a new massing of ice, and that their borders differed at various times. Geologists are able to find 'the boundaries of the glaciers. Ice moves very slowly, pushing stones before it, and accumulations of stones or moraines remain when the glacier retreats melting away.
Traces have been found of five or six consecutive displacements of the ice sheet during the Ice Age, or of five or six glacial periods. Some force repeatedly pushed the ice sheet toward moderate latitudes. Neither the cause of the ice ages nor the cause of the retreat of the icy desert is known; the time of these retreats is also a matter of speculation.
Many ideas were offered and guesses made to explain how the glacial epochs originated and. why they terminated. Some supposed that the sun at different times emits more or less heat, which causes periods of heat and cold on the earth; but no evidence that the sun is such a "variable star" was adduced to support this hypothesis.[ Today, the sun has achieved relative stability, but its eleven and one-half year sunspot cycles betray that it was a variable star in its youth. In the early days of this sun the continued contraction and consequent gradual increase of temperature initiated tremendous convulsions on its surface. These titanic heaves required three and one-half days to complete a cycle of varying brightness. This variable state, this periodic pulsation, rendered the sun highly responsive to certain outside influences which were to be shortly encountered. DC]
Others conjectured that cosmic space has warmer and cooler areas, and that when our solar system travels through the cooler areas, ice descends upon latitudes closer to the tropics. But no physical agents were found responsible for such hypothetical cold and warm areas in space.
A few wondered whether the precession of the equinoxes or the slow change in the direction of the terrestrial axis might cause periodic variations in the climate. But it was shown that the difference in insulation could not have been great enough to have been responsible for the glacial ages.
Still others· thought to find the answer in the periodic variations in the eccentricity of the ecliptic (terrestrial orbit), with glaciation at the maximal eccentricity. Some of them supposed that winter in aphelion, the remotest part of the ecliptic, would cause glaciation; and some thought that summer in aphelion would produce that effect.
Some scholars thought about the changes in the position of the terrestrial axis. If the planet earth is rigid, as it is regarded to be (L. Kelvin), the axis could not have shifted in geological times· by more than three degrees (George Darwin); if it were elastic, it could have shifted up to ten or fifteen degrees in a very slow process.
The cause of the ice ages was seen by a few scholars in the decrease of the original heat of the planet; the warm periods between the ice ages were attributed to the heat set free by a hypothetical decomposition of organisms in the strata close to the surface of the ground. The increase and decrease in the action of warm springs were also considered.
Others supposed that dust of volcanic origin filled the terrestrial atmosphere and hindered insolation, or, contrariwise, that an increased content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere obstructed the reflection of heat rays from the surface of the planet. A decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause a fall of temperature (Arrhenius), but calculations were made to show that this could not be the real cause of the glacial ages (Angstrom).
Changes in -the direction of warm currents in the Atlantic Ocean were brought into the discussion, and the Isthmus of Panama was · theoretically removed to allow the Gulf Stream to pass into the Pacific at the time of the glacial periods. But it was proved that the two oceans were already divided in the Ice Age; besides, a part of the Gulf Stream would have remained in the Atlantic anyway. The periodic retreats of ice between the glacial periods would have required periodic removal and replacement of the Isthmus of Panama.
Other theories of equally hypothetical nature were proposed; but the phenomena held responsible for the changes have not been proved to have existed, or to have been able to produce the effect. All the above-mentioned theories and hypotheses fail if they cannot meet a mos~ important condition: In order for ice masses to have been formed, increased precipitation must have taken place. This requires an increased amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which is the result of increased evaporation from the surface of oceans; but this could be caused by heat only. A number of scientists pointed out this fact, and even calculated that in order to produce a sheet of ice as large as that of the Ice Age, the surface of all the oceans must have evaporated to a depth of many feet. Such an evaporation of oceans followed by a quick process of freezing, even in moderate latitudes, would have produced the ice ages. The problem is: What could have caused the evaporation and immediately subsequent freezing? As the cause of such quick alternation of heating and freezing of large parts of the globe is not apparent, it is conceded that "at present the cause of excessive ice-making on the lands remains a baffling mystery, a major question for the future reader of earth's riddles."6
Not only are the causes of the appearance and later disappearance of the glacial sheet unknown, but the geographical shape of the area covered by ice is also a problem. Why did the glacial sheet, in the southern hemisphere, move from the tropical regions of Africa toward the south polar region and not in the opposite direction, and, similarly, why, in the northern hemisphere, did the ice move in India from the equator toward the Himalaya mountains and the higher latitudes? Why did the glaciers of the Ice Age cover the greater part of North America and Europe, while the north of Asia remained free? In America the plateau of ice stretched up to laTitude 40° and even passed across this Jine; in Europe it reached latitude 50°; while northeastern Siberia, above the polar circle, even above latitude 75°, was not covered with this perennial ice. All hypotheses regarding increased and diminished insolation due to solar alterations or the changing temperature of the cosmic space, and other similar hypotheses, cannot avoid being confronted with this problem.
Glaciers are formed in the regions of eternal snow; for this reason they remain on the slopes of the high mountains. The north of Siberia is the coldest place in the world. Why did not the Ice Age touch this region, whereas it visited the basin of the Mississippi and all Africa south of the equator? No satisfactory· solution to this question has been proposed.
[The Mammoths]
Northeast Siberia, which was not covered by ice in the Ice Age, conceals another enigma. The climate there has apparently changed drastically since the end of the Ice Age, and the yearly temperature has dropped many degrees below its previous level. Animals once lived in this region that do not live there now, and plants grew there that are unable to grow there now. The change must have occurred quite suddenly. The cause of this Klimasturz has not been explained. In this catastrophic change of climate nnd under mysterious circumstances, all the mammoths of Siberia perished.
The mammoth belonged to the family of elephants. Its tusks were sometimes as much as ten feet long. Its teeth were highly developed and their "density" was greater than in any other stage in the evolution of the elephants; apparently they did not succumb in the struggle for survival as an unfit product of evolution. The extinction of the mammoth is thought to have coincided with the end of the last glacial period.
Tusks of mammoths have been found in large numbers in northeast Siberia: this well-preserved ivory has been an ohiect of export to China and Europe ever since the Russian conquest of Siberia and was exploited in even earlier times. In modern times the ivory market of the world still found its main source of supply in the tundras of northeast Siberia.
In 1799. the frozen bodies of mammoths were found in these tundras. The corpses were well preserved, and the sledge dogs ate the flesh unharmed. "The flesh is fibrous and marbled with fat" and "looks as fresh as well frozen beef."7
What was the cause of their death and the extinction of their race?
Cuvier wrote of the extinction of the mammoths: "Repeated irruptions and retreats of the sea have neither all been slow nor gradual; on the contrary, most of the catastrophes which have occasioned them have been sudden; and this is especially easy to be proved with regard to the last of these catastrophes, that which, by a twofold motion, has inundated, and afterwards laid dry, our present continents, or at least a part of the land which forms them at the present day. In the northern regions it has left the carcasse, of large quadrupeds which became enveloped in the ice, and have thus been preserved even to our own times, with their skin, their hair, and their flesh. If they had not been frozen as soon as killed, they would have been decomposed by putrefaction. And, on the other hand, this eternal frost could not previously have occupied the places . in which they have been seized by it, for they could not have lived in such a temperature. It was, therefore, at one and the same moment that these animals were destroyed and the country which they inhabited became covered with ice. This event has been sudden, instantaneous, without any gradation, and what is so clearly demonstrated with respect to this last catastrophe, is not less so with reference to those which have preceded it."8
The theory of repeated catastrophes annihilating life on this planet and repeated creations or restorations of life, offered by Deluc 9 and expanded by Cuvier, did not convince the scientific world. Like Lamarck before Cuvier, Darwin after him thought that an exceedingly slow evolutionary process governs genetics, and that there were no catastrophes interrupting this process of infinitesimal changes. According to the theory of evolution, these minute changes came as a result of adaptation to living conditions in the struggle of the species for survival.
Like the theories of Lamarck and Darwin, which postulate slow changes in animals, with tens of thousands of years required for a minute step in evolution, the geological theories of the nineteenth century, and of the ' twentieth as well, regard the geological processes as exceedingly slow and dependent on erosion by rain, wind, and tides.
Darwin admitted that be was unable to find an explanation for the extermination of the mammoth, an animal better developed than the elephant which survived.10 But in conformity with the theory of evolution, his followers supposed that a gradual sinking of the land forced the mammoths to the hills, where they found themselves isolated by marshes. However, if geological processes are slow, the mammoths would not have been trapped on the isolated bills. Besides, this theory cannot be true because the animals did not die of starvation. In their stomachs and between their teeth undigested grass and leaves were found. This, too, proves that they died from a sudden cause. Further investigations showed that the leaves and twigs found in their stomachs do not now grow in the regions where the animals died, but far to the south, a thousand or more miles away. It is apparent that the climate has changed radically since the death of the mammoths; and as the bodies of the animals were found not decomposed but well preserved in blocks of ice, the change in temperature must have followed their death very closely or even caused it.
There remains to be added that after storms in the Arctic, tusks of mammoths are washed up on the shores of arctic islands; this proves that a part of the land where the mammoths lived and were drowned is covered by the Arctic Ocean.
[The Ice Age and the Antiquity of Man]
The mammoth lived in the age of man. Man pictured it on the walls of caves; remains of men have repeatedly been found in Central Europe together with remains of mammoths; occasionally the settlements of the neolithic man of Europe are found strewn with the bones of mammoths.11 Man moved southward when Europe was covered with ice and returned when the ice retreated. Historical man witnessed great variation in climate. The mammoth of Siberia, the meat of which is still fresh, is supposed to have been destroyed. at the end of the last glacial period, simultaneously with the mammot}}s of Europe and Alaska. If this is so, the Siberian mammoth was also the contemporary of a rather modern man. At a time when in Europe, close to the ice sheet, man was still in the later stages of neolithic culture, in the Near and Middle East-the region of the great cultures of antiquity, he may already have progressed well into the metal age. There exists no chronological table of neolithic culture because the art of writing was invented approximately at the advent of copper,the early-period of the Bronze Age. It is presumed that the neolithic man of Europe left pictures but no inscriptions, and consequently there are no means of determining the end of the lee Age in terms of chronology.
Geologists have tried to find the time of the end of the last glacial period by measuring the detritus carried by rivers from the glaciers and the deposits of detritus in Jakes. The quantity carried by the Rhone from the glaciers of the Alps and the amount on the bottom of the Lake of Geneva, through which the Rhone flows, were calculated, and from the figures obtained the time and velocity of the retreat of the glacial sheet of the last glacial period were estimated. According to the Swiss' scholar Francois Foret, twelve thousand years have passed since the time the ice sheet of the last glacial period began to melt, an unexpectedly low figure, as it was thought that the ice age ended thirty to fifty thousand years ago.
Such calculations suffer from being only indirect evaluations; and since the velocity at which the glacial mud had been deposited in the lakes was not constant and the amount varied, the mud must have assembled on the bottom of a lake at a faster rate in the beginning when the glaciers were larger; and if the Ice Age terminated suddenly, the deposition of detritus would have been much heavier at first, and there would be little analogy to the accumulation of detritus from the seasonal melting of snow in the Alps. Therefore, the time that has elapsed since the end of the last glacial period must have been even shorter than reckoned.
Geologists regard the Great Lakes of America as having been formed at the end of the Ice Age when the continental glacier retreated and the depressions freed from the g]acier became lakes. In the last two hundred years Niagara Falls has retreated from Lake Ontario toward Lake Erie at the rate of five feet annually, washing down the rocks of the bed of the falls.12 If this process has been going on at the same rate since the end of the last glacial period, about seven thousand years were needed to move Niagara Falls from the mouth of the gorge at Queenston to its present position. The assumption that the quantity of water moving through the gorge has been uniform. since the end of the Ice Age is the basis of this calculation, and therefore, it was concluded, seven thousand years may constitute "the maximum length of time since the birth of the falls."13 In the beginning, when immense masses of water were released by the retreat of the continental glacier, the rate of movement of Niagara Falls must have been much more rapid: the time estimate "may need significant reduction," and is sometimes lowered to five thousand years. 14 The erosion and sedimentation on the shores and the bottom of Lake Michigan also suggest a lapse of time counted in thousands, but not in tens of thousands, of years. Also the result of paleontological research in America carries evidence which constitutes "a guarantee that before the last period of glaciation, modern man, in the form of that highly developed race, the American Indian, was living on the eastern seaboard of North America" (A. Keith). 15 It is assumed that with the advent of the last glacial period the Indians retreated southward, returning to the north when the ice uncovered the ground and when the Great Lakes emerged, the basin of the St. Lawrence was formed, and Niagara Falls began its retreat toward Lake Erie.
If the end of the last glacial period occurred only a few thousand years ago, in historical times or at a time when the art of writing may have been already employed in the centers of ancient civilization, the records written in rocks by nature and the records written by man must give a coordinated picture. Let us, therefore, investigate the traditions and the literary records of ancient man, and compare them with the records of nature.
The World Ages
A conception of ages that were brought to their end by violent changes in nature is common all over the world. The number of ages differs from people to people and from tradition to tradition. The difference depends on the number of catastrophes that the particular people retained in its memory, or on the way it reckoned the end of an age.
In the annals of ancient Etruria, according to Varro, were records of seven elapsed ages. Censorious, an author of the third Christian century and compiler of Varro, wrote that "men thought that different prodigies appeared by means of which the gods notified mortals at the end of each age. The Etruscans were versed in the science of the stars, and after having observed the prodigies with attention, they recorded these observations in their books."16
The Greeks had similar traditions. "There is a period," wrote Censorious, "called 'the supreme year' by Aristotle, at the end of which the sun, moon, and all the planets return to their original position. This 'supreme year' has a great winter, called by the Greeks kataklysmos, which means deluge, and a great summer, called by the Greeks ekpyrosis, or combustion of the world. The world, actually, seems 'to be inundated and burned alternately in each of these epochs." ·
Anaximenes and Anaximander in the sixth pre-Christian century, and Diogenes of Apollonia in the fifth century, assumed the destruction of the world with subsequent recreation. Heraclitus (-540 to -475) taught that the world is destroyed in conflagration after every period of 10,800 years. Aristarchus of Samos in the third century before the present era taught that in a period of 2,484 years the earth undergoes two destructions--of combustion and deluge. The Stoics generally believed in periodic conflagrations by which the world was consumed, to be shaped anew. "This is due to the forces of ever-active fire which exists 'in things and in the course of long cycles of time resolves everything into itself and out of it is constructed a reborn world"-so Philo presented the notion of the Stoics that our world is refashioned in periodic conflagrations.17 In one such catastrophe· the world will meet its ultimate destruction; colliding with another world, it will fall apart into atoms out of which, in a long process, a new earth will be created somewhere in the universe. "Democritus and Epicurus," explained. Philo, "postulate many worlds, the origin of which they ascribe to the mutual impacts and interlacing of atoms, and their destructi_on to the counterblows and collisions by the bodies so formed." As this earth goes to its ultimate destruction, it passes through recurring cosmic catastrophes and is reformed with all that lives on it.
Hesiod, one of the earliest Greek authors, wrote about -four ages and four generations of men that were destroyed by the wrath of the planetary gods. The third age was the age of bronze; when it was destroyed by Zeus, a new generation repeopled the earth, and using bronze for arms and tools, they began to use iron, too. The heroes of the Trojan War were of this fourth generation. Then a new destruction was decreed, and after that came "yet another generation, the fifth, of men who are upon the bounteous earth",the generation of iron.18 In another work of his, Hesiod described the end of one of the ages. "The life-giving earth crashed around in burning . . . all the land seethed, and the Ocean's streams . . . it seemed even as if Earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling her down." 19
Analogous traditions of four expired ages persist on the shores of the Bengal Sea and in the highland of Tibet,the present age is the fifth.20
The sacred Hindu book Bhagavata Purana tel1s of four ages and of pralayas or cataclysms in which, in various epochs, mankind was nearly destroyed; the fifth age is that of the present. The world ages are called Kalpas or Yugas. Each world age met its destruction in catastrophes of conflagration, flood, and hurricane. Etour Jedam and Bhaga Yedam, sacred Hindu books, keeping to the scheme of four expired ages, differ only in the number of years ascribed to each.21 In the chapter, 'World Cycles' in Visuddhimagga, it is said that "there are three destructions: the destruction by water, the destruction by fire, the destruction by wind," but that there are seven ages, each of which is separated from the previous one by a world catastrophe. 22
Reference to ages and catastrophes is found in Avesta (Zend-Avesta), the sacred scriptures of Mazdaism, the ancient religion of the Persians.23 "Bahman Yest," one of the books of Avesta, counts seven world ages or millennia.24 Zarathustra (Zoroaster), the prophet of Mazdaism, speaks of "the signs, wonders, and perplexity which are manifested in the world at the end of each millennium." 25
The Chinese call the perished ages kis and number ten kis from the beginning of the world until Confucius.26 In the ancient Chinese encyclopedia, Sing-li-ta-tsiuen-chou, the general convulsions of nature are discussed. Because of the periodicity of these convulsions, the span of time between two catastrophes is regarded as a "great year." As during a year, so during a world age, the cosmic mechanism winds itself up and "in a general convulsion of nature, the sea is carried out of its bed, mountains spring out of the ground, rivers change their course, human beings and everything are ruined, and the ancient traces effaced." 27 An old tradition, and a very persistent one, of world ages that went down in cosmic catastrophes was found in the Americas among the Incas,28 the Aztecs, and the Mayas.29 A major part of stone inscriptions found in Yucatan refer to world catastrophes. "The most ancient of these fragments [katuns or calendar stones of Yucatan] refer, in general, to great catastrophes which, at intervals and repeatedly, convulsed the American continent, and of which all nations of this continent have preserved a more oi less distinct memory."30 Codices of Mexico and Indian authors who composed the annals of their past give a prominent place to the tradition of world catastrophes that decimated humankind and changed the face of the earth.
In the chronicles of the Mexican kingdom it is said: "The ancients knew that before the present sky and earth were formed, man was . already created and life bad manifested itself four times." 31
A tradition of successive creations and catastrophes is found in the Pacific, on Hawaii 32 and on the island of Polynesia: there were nine ages and in each age a different sky was above the earth.33 Icelanders, too, believed that nine worlds went down in a succession of ages, a tradition that is contained in the Edda.34
The rabbinical conception of ages crystallized in the post-Exilic period. Already before the birth of our earth, worlds had been shaped and brought into existence, only to be destroyed in time."He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all." This earth, too, was not created at the beginning to satisfy the Divine Plan. It underwent reshaping, six consecutive remoldings. New conditions were created after each of the catastrophes. On the fourth earth lived the generation of the Tower of Babel; we belong to the seventh age. Each of the ages or "earths" has a name.
Seven heavens were created and seven earths were created: the most removed, the seventh, Bretz; the sixth, · Adamah; the fifth, Arka; the fourth, Harabah; .the third, Yabbashah; the second; Tevel; and "our own land called Heled, and like the others, it is separated from the foregoing by abyss, chaos, and water." 35 Great catastrophes changed the face of the earth. "Some perished by deluge, others were consumed by conflagration," wrote the Jewish philosopher Philo.36
According to the rabbinical authority Rashi, ancient tradition knows of periodic collapses of the firmament, one of which occurred in the days of the Deluge, and which repeated themselves at intervals of 1,656 years.37 The duration of the world ages varies in Armenian and Arabian traditions.38
[The Sun Ages]
An oft-repeated occurrence in the traditions of the world ages is the advent of a new sun in the sky at the beginning of every age. The word "sun" is substituted for the word "age" in the cosmogonical traditions of many peoples all over the world.
The Mayas counted their ages by the names of their consecutive suns. These were called Water Sun, Earthquake Sun, Hurricane Sun, Fire Sun. "These suns mark the epochs to which are attributed the various catastrophes the world has suffered."39
Ixtlilxochitl ( circa 15 68-1648), the native Indian scholar, in his annals of the kings of Tezcuco, described the world ages by the names of "suns."40 The Water Sun (or Sun of Waters) was the first age, terminated by a deluge in which almost all creatures perished; the Earthquake Sun or age perished in a terrific earthquake when the earth broke in many places and mountains fell. The world age of the Hurricane Sun came to its destruction in a cosmic hurricane. The Fire Sun was the world age that went down in a rain of fire.41
"The nations of Culhua or Mexico," Humboldt quoted Gomara, the Spanish writer of the sixteenth century, "believe according to their hieroglyphic paintings, that, previous to the sun which now enlightens them, four had already been successively extinguished. These four suns are as many ages, in which our species has been annihilated by inundations, by earthquakes, by a general conflagration, and by the effect of destroying tempests." 42 Every one of tlte four elements participated in each of the catastrophes; deluge, hurricane, earthquake, and fire gave their names to the catastrophes because of the predominance of one of them in the upheavals. Symbols of the successive suns are painted on the pre-Columbian literary documents of Mexico.43
"Cinco soles que son edades,'' or "five suns that are epochs," wrote Gomara in his description of the conquest of Mexico.44 An analogy to this sentence of Gomara may be found in Lucius Ampelius, a Roman author, who, in his book Liber memorialis, wrote:45 "Soles fuere quinque" (There were five suns): It is the same belief that Gomara found in the New World.
The Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan, written in Nahua Indian (circa 1570) and based on ancient sources, contains the tradition of seven sun epochs. Chicon-Tonatiuh or "the Seven Suns" is the designation for the world cycles or acts in the cosmic drama. 46
The Buddhist sacred book of Visuddhimagga contains a chapter on "World Cycles."47 "There are three destructions: the destruction by water, the destruction by fire, the destruction by wind." After the catastrophe of the deluge, "when now a long period has elapsed from the cessation of the rains, a second sun appeared." In the interim the world was enveloped in gloom. "When this second sun appears. there is no distinction of day and night," but "an incessant heat beats upon the world;" When the fifth sun appeared. the ocean gradually dried up; when the sixth sun appeared, "the whole world became filled with smoke." "After the lapse of another long period, a seventh sun appears, and the whole world breaks into flames." This Buddhist book refers also to a more · ancient "Discourse on the Seven Suns."48
The Brahmans called the epochs between two destructions "the great days".49 The Sibylline books recite the ages in which the world underwent destruction and regeneration. "The Sibyl told as follows: 'The nine suns are nine ages .... Now is the seventh sun.'" The Sibyl prophesied two ages yet to come,that of the eighth and of the ninth sun.50
The aborigines of British North Borneo, even today, declare that the sky was originally low, and that six suns perished, and at present the world is illuminated by the seventh sun.51
Seven solar ages are referred to in Mayan manuscripts, in Buddhist sacred books, in the books of the Sibyl. In all quoted sources the "suns" are explained (by the sources themselves) as signifying consecutive epochs, each of which went down in a great, general destruction.
Did the reason for the substitution of the word "sun" for "epoch" by the peoples of both hemispheres lie in the changed appearance of the luminary and in its changed path across the sky in each world age?
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part 2
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2021/03/part-2-worlds-in-collisionthe-most.html
part 1 Venus
The Most incredible Story
notes Chapter 1
1 The first satellite of Uranus was discovered in 1948.
2 Due to the great distance of Neptune and Pluto from the earth, smaller satellites around these planets may have remained undiscovered.
Note: While this book was on the press another satellite of Nep. tune was discovered by G. P. Kuiper.
3. Gamow. Biography of the-Earth (1941) 1 p. 24.
4. The equator of Uranus is inclined at an angle of 82• to the plane of its orbit.
5 Isaac Newton, Principia (Mathematical Principles) (1686), Bk. Ill.
6 P. S. Laplace, Exposition du système du monde (1796),
7.Sir James H. Jeans, Astronomy and Cosmogony (1929), p. 409.
8.The planetesimal hypothesis was developed by T. C. Chamberlin and F. R. Moulton. 1
9.The tidal theory was developed by J. H. Jeans and H. Jeffreys.
12. By Lyttleton and, independently, by Russell.
13.Jeans, Astronomy and Cosmogony, p. 39S
14. An attempt to explain the comets, in the frame of the planetesimal theory, as scattered debris of a great wreck, was made by T. C. Chamberlin, The Two Solar Families (1928).
15. That planets are able to change the path of a comet is not only known from observation but has even been calculated in advance. In 1758 Clairaut predicted the retardation of Halley's comet, on its first return foretold by Halley, for a period of 618 days, because it had to pass near Jupiter and Saturn. It was retarded for almost the computed length of time. Similarly, the orbits of other comets were occasionally distorted. Lexell's comet was disturbed by Jupiter in 1767 and in 1770 by the earth, D'Arest's comet was disturbed in 1860, Wolfs comet in 1875 and 1922. By an encounter with Jupiter in 1886, Brook's comet changed its period from 29 years to 7 years; the period of Jupiter was not altered by more than two or three minutes, and probably less.
16.H. N. Russell, The Solar System and Its Origin (1935), p. 40.
17. Harold Jeffreys, "The Origin of the Solar System" in Internal Constitution of the Earth, B. Gutenberg, ed. (1939).
Chapter 2
1. G. Cuvier, Essay on the Theory of the Earth (5th ed., 1827) (English transl. of Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe, et sur les changements qu'el/es ont produits dans le règne animal).
2. Ibid., pp. 240-24-2.
3. R. A. Daly, Our Mobile Earth (1926), p. 90.
4. F. K. Mather, Review of Biography of the Earth by G. Gamow, Science, Jan. 16, 1942.
5. C. R. Longwell, A. Knopf, and R. F. Flint, A Textbook of Geology (1939), p. 40S.
6 R. A. Daly, The Changing World of the Ice Age (1934), p, 16,
7. Observation of D. F. Hertz in B. Digby, The Mammoth (1926), p. 9.
8. Cuvier, Essay on the Theory o/ the Earth, pp. 14-15.
9.J. A. Deluc (1727-1817), Letters on the Physical History of the Earth (1831).
10.See G. F. Kunz, Ivory and the Elephant In Art, In Archaeology and in Science (1916), p. 236. l 42 C
11. In Predmost in Moravia a settlement has been excavated in which remnants of a human culture and remains of men were found together with skeletons..,Pf eight hundred to one thousand mammoths. Shoulder blades of mammoths were used in lhe construction of human graves.
12.The recession has been S feet per year since 1764; at present it is 2.3 feet on the sides of the horseshoe cataract, but substantially more in the center.
13.G. F. Wright, "The Date of the Glacial Period," The Ice Age in North America and Its Bearing upon the Antiquity·of Man (5th ed., 1911).
14.Ibid., p. 539. Cf. also W. Upham in American Geologist, XXVIII, 243, and XXXVI, 288. He dates the uprise of the St. Lawrence basin 6,000 to 7,000 years ago; the St. Lawrence must have been freed from ice before Niagara Falls could come into full action. Not dissimilar figures were obtained from the retreat of the Falls of St. Anthony on the Mississippi at Minneapolis.
15.Keith thinks that the development of the human skull went through a process of advance and retrogression during exceedingly long ages.
16 Censorinus Llber de die natali xviii.
17 Philo, On the Eternity of the World (transl. F. H. Colson, 1941), Sec. 8.
18.Hesiod, Works and Days (transl. H. G. Evelyn-White, 1914), L 169. .
19. Hesiod, Theogony (transl. Evelyn-White, 1914), ll. 693 ff.
20.E. Moor, The Hindu Pantheon (1810), p. 102; A. von Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres (1816), English transl.: Researches Concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America {1814), Vol. ll, pp. 15 ff.
21.See C. F. Volney, New Researches on Ancient History (1856), p. 157.
22.H. C. Warren, Buddhism in Translations (1896), pp, 320 ff.
23.F. Cumont, "La Fin du monde scion les mages occidentaux," Revue de l'histoire des religions (1931), p. 50; H. S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Iran (1938), pp, 28 ff.
24."Bahman Yast" (transl. E. W. West), in Pahlavi Texts (The Sacred Books of the East, ed. F. M. Miiller, V [1880]), 191. See W, Bousset, "Die Himmelsreise der Seele," Archiv /Ur politikwissenschaft, IV (1901).
25."Dinkard," Bk. VIII, Chap. XIV (transl. West), in Pahlavi Texts (The Sacred Books of the East, XXXVII [1892]), 33.
26. H. Murray, J. Crawford, and others, An Historical and Descrip. live Account of China (2nd ed., 1836), I, 40.
27.G. Schlegel, Uranographie chinoise (1875), p. 740, with references to Woufoung.
28. H. B, Alexander, Latin American Mythology (1920), p. 240.
29. Humboldt, Researches, II, 15.
30.C. E. Brasseur de Bourbourg, S'il existe des Sources de l'histoire primitive du Mexique dans les monuments égyptiens, etc. (1864), p, 19.
31. Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique (1857-1859), I, 53.
32. R. B. Dixon, Oceanic Mythology (1916), p, 15.
33. R. W. Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia ( 1933), I, 89,
34.The Poetic Edda: Voluspa (transl. from the Icelandic by H. A, Bellows, 1923), 2nd st1111Za.
35. Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1925), I, 4, 9-10, 72; V, 1, 10. ·
36. Philo, Moses, II, x, 53.
37 Commentary to Genesis 11 : 1.
38.See R. Eisler, Wellmantel und Himmelszelt (1910), II, 451.
39. Brasseur, Sources de /'histoire primitive du Mexique, p. 25.
40. Fernando de Alva Ixtl~hitl, Obras Historicas (1891-1892), Vol. II, Historia Chichimeca.
41. Alexander, Latin American Mythology, p. 91,
42.'Humboldt, Researches, II, 16.
43. Codex Vaticanus A, plates vii-:x.
44. F. L. de Gomara, Conquista de Mexico (1870 ed.), Il, 261.
45. Liber memorialis ix.
46. Brasseur, Histoire des nations clv lisles du Medque, I, 206.
47. Warren, Buddhism in Translations, p. 322.
48. Ibid.
49. In the Talmud the "God's day" is equal to a millennium. so also in II Peter J : 8.
50. J. Schleifer, "Die Erzielung der Sibylle. Ein Apokryph nach den karshunischen, arabischen und li.äthiopischen Handschriften zu London, Oxford, Paris und Rom," Denkschrift der Kaiser. Akademie der Wiss., Philos.-hist. Klasse (Vienna), Llll (1910).
51.Cf. Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, p. 178.
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