HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE
Ted's fossil would have to wait to be exhumed. In fact, Norris told him,
he could sell it as it stood, and let the purchaser do the work. Then it
occurred to him to wonder if Ted would not have first to take up a
claim,--for it was Government land. Anyway, he would see to it that the
boy was rewarded for his find.
The fire now being extinguished, Radcliffe had flown to other battle
lines, first taking Rosa--as she insisted--back to her fire outlook. The
plan was for the two boys to keep on hunting for the Mexicans, (as the
harried Ranger now counted on their doing), joining the rest of the
camping party every night, at points they would agree upon. But first,
Ace had made a flight to Fresno for supplies and to start his pilot home
by train. He then carried them one at a time to where the burros had been
left,--and where the lazy rascals still browsed on the rich mountain
meadows.
For a day or two, all the boys could talk, think or dream about was the
adventures they had just been through. But at last they had relieved
their minds to some extent, and one evening around the fire, Norris gave
them his long promised explanation of some of the natural wonders they
had seen.
"I have already told you," began Norris, "how the earth probably
originated. That much the astronomer has given us. And before the
geologist can begin to interpret the evolution of our earth, he has to
know what scientists have established in the fields of chemistry,
mechanics and geodesy,--the study of the curvature and elevation of the
earth's surface. He then proceeds to theorize, hand in hand with the
paleontologist, or student of ancient life. The newest theory is in line
with what I learned in 1917 at Yale."
"It's all theory, then?" asked Ted.
"Just as all sciences are, to some extent. Did I tell you that when our
planetary system was disrupted from the sun, it was less than a hundredth
part of the parent body? And our earth is a good deal less than a
millionth of the size of our sun, and our sun is among the smaller of the
stars of the firmament."
"Phew!" whistled Long Lester, round eyed, while Ted and Pedro sat
motionless.
"Picture the earth and moon, revolving about the sun, gathering by force
of their own gravity-pull the tiny planetesimals nearest them, these
bodies hurling themselves into the earth mass at the rate of perhaps ten
miles a second!----"
"It shore must have het things up some," said Long Lester.
"It did! Literally melted the rocks. On top of that, this original earth
mass, composed of molten rock and gases and water vapor, was condensing.
Probably by the time it had engulfed all the stray planetesimals it
could, it was anywhere from 200 to 400 times as large as it is now. It
has been shrinking ever since."
"Is it still shrinking?" gasped the old prospector.
"Sure thing! But not so fast that you will ever know the difference in
_your_ lifetime. It only shrinks at times; then the earth's surface
wrinkles into mountain ranges."
"How many times has that been, sixteen?" suggested Ace.
"We'll come to that. As I was going to say, while the earth was so hot,
it kept boiling, as it were, inside, and the molten matter kept breaking
through the cold outer shell in volcanoes, as the heat rose to the
surface."
"Thet sure must have been hell," laughed the old man.
"As the cold crust was churned into the hot interior, of course it melted
and expanded, and that caused more volcanoes, and so on in a vicious
circle, till finally, by the end of the Formative Era, so called, the
rock that contained more heavy minerals sank to the lower levels, while
the lighter ones rose as granite."
"Gee!" said Ted, "I'd have called granite heavy."
"Not so heavy as the specimens of basic rock we'll find. Well, in this
Formative Era our atmosphere, and the hydrosphere or oceanic areas were
being formed, along with the granite continents. But while we are on the
subject, I hope you boys will some day see The Valley of Ten Thousand
Smokes, in Alaska, where the earth is still boiling so close to the
surface that you have to watch your step or you'll break through into----"
"The Hot Place?" laughed Pedro.
"Literally, yes."
"Oh, tell us about that!"
"Some time!--The interior of the earth is still hot, but the rock crust
allows very little of it to rise to the surface. After the Formative Era
came the Archeozoic Era, when life began in the form of amoebas or some
simple form of protoplasm. For with the formation of the gases of the
earth mass into an envelope of air, to moderate the sun's warmth by day
and retain some of it by night,--life became possible."
"But where did those first creatures come from?" Ted could not restrain
himself from asking.
"According to one theory, the first germs of life flew here from some
other planet, and not necessarily one of those revolving around our own
sun, for space is full of suns and planetary systems. But that theory can
neither be proved nor disproved. When I was a student, Osborn's theory
was the latest. That was in 1916. Without going into it too deeply, it
had to do with the electric energy of the chemical elements that compose
protoplasm, and these always had been latent in the earth mass."
"Then they must have been latent in the sun, too," marveled Ted. "And in
other suns and their planets too."
"Very likely," assented the Geological Survey man. "Now of course the
ocean waters collected in the depressed areas over the heavier rock
bottoms, the basalt. You remember just after we lost the burro we were on
a basalt formation----"
"Then that was formerly a part of the ocean floor?" asked Ted.
"Either that or volcanic lava."
"But how did it----"
"Just a minute. Of course land masses have gone down as well as up, but
the general trend has been decidedly upward, while the trend of the ocean
floor has been downward. At that, the shell of the earth--so to speak--is
only about 150 miles thick or a fiftieth of the earth's present diameter."
"Then I should think the oceans would be growing deeper," ventured Pedro.
"Right again. When this earth reaches its old age,--speaking in terms of
centuries,--it will likely be all ocean. And there used to be far more
land, in proportion, than there is now. There was less ocean water then
because of all that is continually pouring through hot springs.
"Of course the land is slowly being washed back into the ocean. And the
higher the mountains, the steeper the stream beds, and hence the faster
the streams, and the faster they erode the high elevations, till finally
all is reduced to sea level again."
"Then how do the mountains get rebuilt?" Pedro testified his interest.
"The earth has, as I think I said before, shrunk between 200 and 400
miles in diameter,--since the beginning,--'when the earth was unformed
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' It is still
shrinking. And this internal movement is felt on the surface in
differences that generally amount to only a few hundred feet. I can show
you places over there on the East wall of the Sierras where the mountains
have been upthrust that way.
"Then, every now and again, the interior activities fairly break the
rocky earth shell or lithosphere, and whole mountain ranges are raised.
There have been at least eight such minor breaks in the earth crust in
North America alone, and each time ranges perhaps a thousand miles long,
or more, have been raised near one end of the continent or the other. In
addition, there have been major readjustments that thrust whole
continents higher and ocean beds lower. Geologists find evidence of at
least six of these major breaks in the earth crust,--marking the
beginnings of the Archeozoic Era, when _life_ originated, the Proterozoic
Era, or age of _invertebrates_, the Paleozoic Era or age of _fish_
dominance, the Mesozoic Era or age of _reptile_ dominance, the Cenozoic
Era or age of _mammal_ dominance, and the present Psychozoic Era or age
of _man_."
"Phew!" whistled Long Lester again. "Don't tell me this earth used to be
all fish."
"It did, though. We'll go into that some other time. I'll just finish
about continent building now, and then we'll turn in. At these times
when the lands are at their highest and the oceans are smallest in
breadth, (because greatest in depth), the continents are united by
land-bridges such as those we have now uniting North and South America."
"And Alaska and Asia?" suggested Ted.
"Practically, yes. And probably, at one time, South America and
Australia. These land-bridges changed the direction of the ocean
streams. You know in the age of reptiles there was nothing to divide the
Atlantic from the Pacific. Added to that, the high mountain ranges took
the moisture out of the winds from the oceans, as the Rockies now do the
Pacific trade winds, so that by the time they reach Nevada there is no
moisture left in them to form clouds and fall in rain, and we have desert.
"Of course the animals that lived on the earth in its flatter, more
temperate stage now have to adapt themselves to life on high, cold
elevations, or in dry, hot desert areas, or to migrate via the
land-bridges to more favorable climates. Those unable to do this perished.
"For instance, take the age of reptile dominance, (the Mesozoic Era),
which was in turn divided into four periods, those of dinosaurs, (the
Triassic period, a rock from which I showed you, if you remember), the
Jurassic period, which gave rise to flying reptiles, from which our first
birds were derived; the Comanchean period, which gave rise to flowering
plants and the higher insects, and the Cretaceous period, when our most
primitive mammal forms evolved.
"At first the earth was peopled with dinosaurs and flying dragons, and
the seas by squid-like mollusks. In those days all the earth was level,
swampy, tropic and overgrown with giant tree ferns and a primitive
conifer.
"As the high mountain ranges arose and deserts were made, these forms
gradually gave way to flowers and hardwood forests, peopled with insects
and mammals. Only the most intelligent forms survived, and the struggle
itself developed a higher degree of intelligence."
"What in tarnation were _dinosaurs_?" asked Long Lester.
"Oh, haven't you ever seen pictures of them?" laughed Ace. "Picture a
giant lizard, perhaps 40 feet long----"
"Here, here," protested the old man. "I don't bite."
"It is perfectly true," said Norris soberly.
"Honest Injun!" vowed Ace. "One of these fellows was a sort of cross
between a crocodile and a kangaroo, what with his long hind legs that he
could walk half erect on. There were some as small as eight or ten
inches, too, and some so large that you wouldn't have come to his knee.
His big toe was as long as your arm."
"And how do you know all that?" protested the old prospector feebly.
"By their bones,--fossils. Why, there have been fossil bones of a
dinosaur found right in the Connecticut Valley! There was one found a
hundred years ago in Oxford, England. We have heaps of fossils of them
out West here. In fact, this part of the world used to be their stamping
ground, though fossils of them have been found as far away as New
Zealand."
"Did they eat people?" gasped Lester.
"There weren't any people in those days to eat, but some of them preyed
on other animals, and some browsed on the herbage of the swamps. They
didn't have much of any brains, the Triceratops, dinosaurs twice as heavy
as elephants, that looked like horned toads, didn't have two pounds of
brains apiece, or so we infer from the size of their skulls. They knew
just about enough to eat when they were hungry, and not enough to migrate
when things got unlivable for them, and so they perished off the face of
the earth."
"I'm shore glad of that," the old man heaved a sigh of relief. "I'd shore
hate to 've met up with one of them fellows."
"And next time I want to cast aspersions on any one's intelligence,"
shouted Pedro, "I'm going to call him a--what was it?"
"_Triceratops_," said Norris. "Some dinosaurs,--in fact, most of
them,--lived in the swamps, and had long, snakelike necks and flat,
apparently earless heads, and long tails. But Triceratops had a
three-horned face, one horn over each eye to protect it in battle and one
over the nose. Of course he was the largest animal of his time, but he
probably fought rival swains for his lady love. We have a pair of
Triceratops horns in the National Museum. One is broken, and it must have
been broken during life, for the stump is healed over. There were many
other kinds of dinosaurs. If we come to any fossil remains, I'll tell you
more about them. But," (stifling a yawn), "I guess you fellows have had
about all you can stand for to-night."
The boys protested to the contrary, but Norris promised the rest of the
story their next evening together around a bon-fire.
In the middle of the night the boys were awakened by a terrific racket.
Long Lester was yelling for all he was worth. Every one started wide
awake, and Norris threw a handful of browse on the fire to light the
scene. Then the old man managed to articulate: "Gosh A'mighty!--I sure
thought the Dinosaurs were arter me!"
"You've been dreaming," Norris laughed, while the boys fairly rolled over
one another in their enjoyment.
Ace and Ted now made two flights daily in search of the Mexicans, or the
smoke of their cook-fire.
Next day they came to a canyon that filled the Geological Survey man with
profound enthusiasm, for, he said, it illustrated both the last glacial
period and the last period of volcanic mountain building. First they
noted that the little mountain stream had worn its torrential way through
the basalt or volcanic rock in a narrow canyon perhaps 200 feet deep. A
flow of molten basalt, accompanied by cinders, had been erupted from the
8,000-foot peak at the upper end of the canyon, and had flowed down in a
layer 200 feet thick when it hardened. It had flowed,--as the underlying
rock still showed in places,--over a lateral moraine or rock debris left
by a glacier as it flowed down that way. And from the weathered condition
of this rock debris, Norris said, it must have been a glacier, not of
the last ice age, but of the one preceding,--for of the four glacier
periods generally recognized by geologists to-day, evidences of the last
two can be seen in the Sierras.
What made this little canyon even more of a find, (from the point of
view of what he wanted to show the boys), was that on top of the volcanic
rock lay the deposit from another glacier, one that flowed in the last
ice age, as the condition of the rock debris plainly showed the expert.
The boys tucked a few rock specimens into their packs and launched an
avalanche of questions. But he made them wait till they had established
all snug for the night beside a stretch of rapids, where they could look
forward to catching trout for breakfast. Then, lighting his pipe, and
stretching his feet to the bon-fire,--for the night wind swept cool upon
them,--Norris began with Ted's question as to glaciers and volcanoes.
"During the times I spoke of last night, when the earth crust is
breaking, the molten rock and gases and water vapor in the interior of
the planet rise in the hearts of the mountain ranges, and often break
through as active volcanoes, pouring their lava and ash over the
underlying granite, and building it still higher.
"These heightened mountain ranges bring about the glacial climates. For
the snows on their cold peaks do not melt when summer comes, and
consequently they accumulate, and accumulate, till their own weight
presses them down as hard as ice,--that is, makes glaciers of them. I am
going to be on the look-out for a glacier, for you will have a good
chance to see them in this region. At the same time, during these glacial
periods, the astronomer could explain how it is that the temperature is
from ten to twenty degrees colder in both winter and summer than it is
now, so that helps the ice to accumulate. Then the glacier, flowing
slowly, slowly, (a river of ice), down the mountainsides, carries with it
quantities of the underlying rocks, till it reaches a lower level where
the ice melts and it becomes a river and carries those rocks and soil to
the sea. That way, the mountains are gradually worn down to sea level and
the whole cycle is ready to start over again."
"I see," said the ranch boy. "How long ago did you say the last glacier
period came?"
"Probably not since the time of the first men,--perhaps 30,000 years ago."
"And those glacial deposits you showed us to-day are 30,000 years old?"
the boy breathed.
"Yes, and the deposits from the glacial period before that are older
still,--a souvenir from the age of reptile dominance."
"Then when did the other ice ages come? Did you say there were five?"
"I did, but only four great ones. There were two away back in the age of
invertebrates."
"Then has the climate been the same since the last ice age?"
"Not at all. The change is gradual, and geologists naturally conclude
that some time we will have another ice age. We'll hope man has found a
better way to keep warm by that time. Our climate, with all its ups and
downs, is little by little, through the centuries, growing colder!"
"And how do you know about all these ups and downs of climate?"
challenged Long Lester.
"Why, for one thing,--we don't have to read it all from the rocks,--there
is a plain story in the rings of growth in the Big Trees. Don't you
remember those cut stumps, and the thousands of rings we counted, one for
a year? And some were wider than others, because in those years there had
been more rainfall."
"Well, I never!" was all the old prospector could articulate, as all
hands once more called it a day.
Next day Ace searched in concentric circles, but without finding a trace
of Mexicans, or, indeed, of any one.
The next night found the little party encamped an eight hours' hike up
the side of another glacial-polished slope. The trail,--that is to say
the way they picked to go,--led first to the upper end of the canyon and
over the rocks that bordered a green-white waterfall. The wind blowing
the spray in first one direction and then another, they got well wetted,
though the clear California sunshine soon dried them again. But the most
curious part of their climb past the falls was the rainbow that persisted
in following them till they seemed to be at the hub of a huge semi-circle
of opalescent tints.
Above, (perhaps eight hundred feet higher than their camp at the hot
spring), they came to where the river slid green and transparent over
granite slopes just bordered by a fringe of pine. The water ran deep and
swift, though, and as Ted stooped to drink, he found that, rhythmically,
a larger swell, (call it a wave), would slap him in the face, till once,
blinded by the unexpected onslaught, he all but lost his balance. It
would have been inevitable, had he done so, that he should almost
instantly go hurtling over that eight hundred foot drop, whose waters
roared till the boys had to shout at each other to be heard even a few
paces away. But the water was deliciously icy, from its fountain-head in
the glacier above.
Wide slopes just steep enough to make climbing demand considerable
sure-footedness widened this hanging valley on either side, with no
greenery save the picturesque bits that grew along the weathered cracks.
Beyond this, the canyon walls continued to rise abruptly.
Trailing along beside the river till it had widened out and quieted its
song, they found one of the typically open, parklike, forests of silver
firs, jeweled with occasional emerald meadows fragrant with purple lupin
and gay with crimson columbine and golden buttercups. Under foot were
white violets and wee, monkey-faced mimulus, with occasionally a rare
scarlet monkey-flower.
They passed one of the tributaries of the river, crossed it on a log, and
paused to drink deep of its sweet fluid. They found a huge fallen log
with a mushroom growth that Pedro pronounced edible and which they found
not unlike cooked crab meat. They crossed other brooklets, paused at noon
to eat a dry lunch, and to their amazement spied a doe and her half-grown
fawn in the edge of the clearing watching them wistfully as they threw
their scraps away. Pedro, approaching softly, and casting peace offerings
before him, was able to approach to within several paces of the mother,
though her young hopeful was less trustful. Having probably never seen a
biped before, both animals were consumed with curiosity and comparatively
unafraid. The old prospector suggested with a wink that a little "wild
mutton" would not go amiss, the game laws being adaptable to the needs of
those in extremity, but Norris reminded him that they were no longer in
extremity, and the boys voted unanimously not to betray the trust of this
wild mother.
Now came a stiff climb around a rocky shoulder of the mountain, and along
the cracks of the smooth rock slopes, as once more they traversed the
path of an ancient glacier. The opening here between the two folds of
mountains again disclosed their river, now smaller, but if anything even
noisier, by reason of its race over a series of cascades. They had left
the silver fir belt and were in the region of dwarfed mountain
pines. They estimated that they must be about 8,000 feet high.
Ace joined them with still no news of the fugitive fire setters. It was
mysterious.
It being Ted's and Pedro's turn to make camp that night, they dropped
the packs under a gnarled old juniper whose trunk had been split by
lightning into seven splinters that curved out over a little hollow,
making an ideal shelter, with its fubsy foliage, its storm-twisted limbs
making natural seats, and a flat-topped rock a table. They had to carry
pine boughs some distance for their beds, as they did wood and water.
Then they sallied forth for a string of fish.
All this gave Ace, Norris and Long Lester time to climb the short
remaining distance to the top of the ridge, where they could gaze across
at snow-capped peaks on which the alpine glow of approaching sunset had
spread a luscious rose.
While they were reclining in quiet enjoyment around the supper fire,--the
last flutter of the breeze fanning their faces,--a tawny, catlike form
suddenly came tip-toeing out from behind an edge of rock. It was an
animal possibly a hundred pounds in weight,--the California mountain lion
is not a heavy animal,--and for all its wide, heavy looking feet it trod
with lithe grace. (Those paws, so well adapted to travel over deep snow,
would enable it to seek its prey when white winter shut down over all its
hunting grounds.)
[Illustration: It was a rare treat to see a lion so close.]
Now it was to all of them a rare treat to see a lion so close to. Of all
the denizens of the wild, none are so shy of human kind, in regions where
they are hunted,--none so thoroughly nocturnal. The three men fairly held
their breaths to watch.
First the animal leapt to a branch of a wind-beaten tree and crouched
along its limb, lying so still that, had they not seen it move, they
might have glanced squarely in that direction and never noticed. And
there it lay, sharpening its claws, cat fashion.
Suddenly it began narrowing its yellow eyes at what must have been a
movement behind the rock whence it had emerged. Gathering its feet for a
spring, it laid its ears back, and the great muscles rippling beneath its
skin, leapt at a second lion whose head could now be seen peering around
the rock. But did they fight? Not a bit of it! With hiss and arching
back, and all claws out like the picture of a witch cat, the young cougar
challenged his playfellow, then retreated as the other would have given
him a swipe of his paw. Back to his tree he raced, the other after him.
But no sooner had he reached the vantage point of his horizontal branch
than he turned and chased the other back. This play was repeated several
times, while the three men watched to the windward, silent and
motionless, and hence unseen by the near-sighted animals.
A small rock had been loosened by their scramble, and as it went rolling
over the granite slope, the first cat pounced after it playfully, finally
catching the rolling stone and leaping about it as a cat does a mouse.
Then he retired to his tree.
Norris, reflecting that the near presence of two such animals would
stampede the burros, picked up a stone and threw it at the lion,
intending, not to hit it, but to chase it away. To the surprise of the
onlookers, the huge cat pounced on the stone as playfully as before. Ace
now hurled a small rock so that it just escaped the tawny flank, but
again she pounced, as playful as a kitten, at each missile, and it was
not till the three men rose and shouted that the lion took alarm and
raced away.
"I declare!" exclaimed Pedro, when he heard about it, "I'd never have
believed it!"
"I was out in Devil's Gulch one day," remarked Long Lester, "with a
coupla dogs. It's all granite,--hard for the dogs to get a scent, but
there's lots of lions there, in among the rocks. Finally, though, they
got one into a little Digger Pine. I took a shot at her, and out she
tumbled."
"Dead?" asked Norris.
"Yes. The dogs found her den, and dragged out three cubs."
"How large?"
"About the size of house cats, that's all."
"Then what?"
"Oh, I put 'em into my shirt and tuk 'em home. I sold 'em afterwards to a
circus man."
"Well, do lions always act the way this one did to-night?"
"I heard tell of a boy that was out with an old three dollar Winchester
22, and a dog that had lost a leg in a bear trap. Pretty soon he barked
'treed.' He had a lion up in a scrub oak. It came down fighting, so the
boy had to circle around trying to find a chance to shoot. Then it jumped
up into a pine tree and lay with its head over the limb looking down at
him. He shot at it, but I guess it didn't hit, for it ran again, and by
jings, it finally got clean away!"
"Don't they ever fight?" marveled Pedro.
"They'll fight a dog if they come down wounded, but the big cats are
mostly cowards."
"But bears are not?"
"Bears? No, nothing cowardly about them. They're more lazy'n anything
else."