THE FALL OF THE CLAY AND GRAVEL.
I TRUST that the reader, who has followed me thus far in this
argument, is satisfied that the legends of mankind point unmistakably
to the fact that the earth, in some remote age--before the
Polynesians, Red-men, Europeans, and Asiatics had separated, or been
developed as varieties out of one family--met with a tremendous
catastrophe; that a conflagration raged over parts of its surface;
that mankind took refuge in the caves of the earth, whence they
afterward emerged to wander for a long time, in great poverty and
hardships, during a period of darkness; and that finally this
darkness dispersed, and the sun shone again in the heavens.
I do not see how the reader can avoid these conclusions.
There are but two alternatives before him: he must either suppose
that all this concatenation of legends is the outgrowth of a
prodigious primeval lie, or he must concede that it describes some
event which really happened.
To adopt the theory of a great race-lie, originating at the beginning
of human history, is difficult, inasmuch as these legends do not tell
the same story in anything like the same way, as would have been the
case had they all originated in the first instance from the same
mind. While we have the conflagration in some of the legends, it has
{p. 252}
been dropped out of others; in one it is caused by the sun; in
another by the demon; in another by the moon; in one Phaëton produced
it by driving the sun out of its course; while there are a whole body
of legends in which it is the result of catching the sun in a noose.
So with the stories of the cave-life. In some, men seek the caves to
escape the conflagration; in others, their race began in the caves.
In like manner the age of darkness is in some cases produced by the
clouds; in others by the death of the sun. Again, in tropical regions
the myth turns upon a period of terrible heat when there were neither
clouds nor rain; when some demon had stolen the clouds or dragged
them into his cave: while in more northern regions the horrible age
of ice and cold and snow seems to have made the most distinct
impression on the memory of mankind. In some of the myths the comet
is a god; in others a demon; in others a serpent; in others a
feathered serpent; in others a dragon; in others a giant; in others a
bird in others a wolf; in others a dog; in still others a boar.
The legends coincide only in these facts:--the monster in the air;
the heat; the fire; the cave-life; the darkness; the return of the
light.
In everything else they differ.
Surely, a falsehood, springing out of one mind, would have been more
consistent in its parts than this.
The legends seem to represent the diverging memories which separating
races carried down to posterity of the same awful and impressive
events: they remembered them in fragments and sections, and described
them as the four blind men in the Hindoo story described the
elephant;--to one it was a tail, to another a trunk, to another a
leg, to another a body;--it needs to put all their stories together
to make a consistent whole. We can not understand
{p. 253}
the conflagration without the comet; or the cave-life without both;
or the age of darkness without something that filled the heavens with
clouds; or the victory of the sun without the clouds, and the
previous obscuration of the sun.
If the reader takes the other alternative, that these legends are not
fragments of a colossal falsehood, then he must concede that the
earth, since man inhabited it, encountered a comet. No other cause or
event could produce such a series of gigantic consequences as is here
narrated.
But one other question remains: Did the Drift material come from the
comet?
It could have resulted from the comet in two ways: either it was a
part of the comet's substance falling upon our planet at the moment
of contact; or it may have been torn from the earth itself by the
force of the comet, precisely as it has been supposed that it was
produced by the ice.
The final solution of this question can only be reached when close
and extensive examination of the Drift deposits have been made to
ascertain how far they are of earth-origin.
And here it must be remembered that the matter which composes our
earth and the other planets and the comets was probably all cast out
from the same source, the sun, and hence a uniformity runs through it
all. Humboldt says:
"We are 'astonished at being able to touch, weigh, and chemically
decompose metallic and earthy masses which belong to the outer world,
to celestial space'; to find in them the minerals of our native
earth, making it probable, as the great Newton conjectured, that the
materials which belong to one group of cosmical bodies are for the
most part the same."[1]
[1. "Cosmos," vol. iv, p. 206.]
{p. 254}
Some aërolites are composed of finely granular tissue of olivine,
augite, and labradorite blended together (as the meteoric stone found
at Duvets, in the department de l'Ardèche, France):
"These bodies contain, for instance, crystalline substances,
perfectly similar to those of our earth's crust; and in the Siberian
mass of meteoric iron, investigated by Pallas, the olivine only
differs from common olivine by the absence of nickel, which is
replaced by oxide of tin."
Neither is it true that all meteoric stones are of iron. Humboldt
refers to the aërolites of Siena, "in which the iron scarcely amounts
to two per cent, or the earthy aërolite of Alais, (in the department
du Gard, France,) _which broke up in the water_," (clay?); "or,
lastly, those from Jonzac and Juvenas, which contained _no metallic
iron_."[2]
Who shall say what chemical changes may take place in remnants of the
comet floating for thousands of years through space, and now falling
to our earth? And who shall say that the material of all comets
assumes the same form?
I can not but continue to think, however, until thorough scientific
investigation disproves the theory, that the cosmical granite-dust
which, mixed with water, became clay, and which covers so large a
part of the world, we might say one half the earth-surface of the
planet, and possibly also the gravel and striated stones, fell to the
earth from the comet.
It is a startling and tremendous conception, but we are dealing with
startling and tremendous facts. Even though we dismiss the theory as
impossible, we still find ourselves face to face with the question,
Where, then, did these continental masses of matter come from?
[1. "Cosmos," vol. i, p. 131.
2. Ibid., vol. i, p. 129.]
{p. 255}
I think the reader will agree with me that the theory of the
glacialists, that a world-infolding ice-sheet produced them, is
impossible; to reiterate, they are found, (on the equator,) where the
ice-sheet could not have been without ending all terrestrial life;
and they are not found where the ice must have been, in Siberia and
Northwestern America, if ice was anywhere.
If neither ice nor water ground up the earth-surface into the Drift,
then we must conclude that the comet so ground it up, or brought the
materials with it already ground up.
The probability is, that both of these suppositions are in part true;
the comet brought down upon the earth the clay-dust and part of the
gravel and bowlders; while the awful force it exerted, meeting the
earth while moving at the rate of a million miles an hour, smashed
the surface-rocks, tore them to pieces, ground them up and mixed the
material with its own, and deposited all together on the heated
surface of the earth, where the lower part was baked by the heat into
"till" or "hardpan," while the rushing cyclones deposited the other
material in partly stratified masses or drifts above it; and part of
this in time was rearranged by the great floods which followed the
condensation of the cloud-masses into rain and snow, in the period of
the River or Champlain Drift.
Nothing can be clearer than that the inhabitants of the earth
believed that the stones fell from heaven--to wit, from the comet.
But it would be unsafe to base a theory upon such a belief, inasmuch
as stones, and even fish and toads, taken up by hurricanes, have
often fallen again in showers; and they would appear to an uncritical
population to have fallen from heaven. But it is, at least, clear
that the fall of the stones and the clay are associated in
{p. 256}
the legends with the time of the great catastrophe; they are part of
the same terrible event.
I shall briefly recapitulate some of the evidence.
The Mattoles, an Indian tribe of Northern California, have this
legend:
"As to the creation, they teach that a certain Big Man began by
making the _naked earth, silent and bleak_, with nothing of plant or
animal thereon, save one Indian, who roamed about _in a wofully
hungry and desolate state_. Suddenly there arose a terrible
whirlwind, _the air grew dark and thick with dust and drifting sand_,
and the Indian fell upon his face in sore dread. Then there came a
great calm, and the man rose and looked, and lo, all the earth was
perfect and peopled; the grass and the trees were green on every
plain and hill; the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the
creeping things, the things that swim, moved everywhere in his
sight."[1]
Here, as often happens, the impressive facts are remembered, but in a
disarranged chronological order. There came a whirlwind, thick with
dust, the clay-dust, and drifting sand and gravel. It left the world
naked and lifeless, "silent and bleak"; only one Indian remained, and
he was dreadfully hungry. But after a time all this catastrophe
passed away, and the earth was once more populous and beautiful.
In the Peruvian legends, Apocatequil was the great god who saved them
from the powers of the darkness. He restored the light. He produced
the lightning by hurling stones with his sling. The thunder-bolts are
_small, round, smooth stones_.[2]
The stone-worship, which played so large a part in antiquity, was
doubtless due to the belief that many of the stones of the earth had
fallen from heaven. Dr. Schwarz,
[1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 86.
2. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 165.]
{p. 257}
of Berlin, has shown that the lightning was associated in popular
legends _with the serpent_.
"When the lightning kindles the woods it is associated with the
_descent of fire from heaven_, and, as in popular imagination, where
it falls it scatters the thunderbolts in all directions, _the
flint-stones_, which flash when struck, were supposed to be these
fragments, and gave rise to the stone-worship so frequent in the old
world."[1]
In Europe, in old times, the bowlders were called devil-stones; they
were supposed. to have originated from "the malevolent agency of
man's spiritual foes." This was a reminiscence of their real source.
The reader will see (page 173, _ante_) that the Iroquois legends
represent the great battle between the _White One_, the sun, and the
_Dark One_, the comet. The _Dark One_ was wounded to death, and, as
it fled for life, "the blood gushed from him at every step, and as it
fell _turned into flint-stones_."
Here we have the red clay and the gravel both represented.
Among the Central Americans the flints were associated with Hurakan,
Haokah, and Tlaloe {_Tlaloc?--jbh_}, the gods of storm and thunder:
"The thunder-bolts, as elsewhere, were believed to be flints, and
thus, as the emblem of the fire and the storm, this stone figures
conspicuously in their myths. Tohil, the god who gave the Quiches
fire by shaking his sandals, was _represented by a flint-stone_. Such
a stone, _in the beginning of things, fell from heaven to earth, and
broke into sixteen hundred pieces_, each of which sprang up a god. .
. . This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of the
fecundating rains. This is why, for example) the Navajos use, as
their charm for rain, certain
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 117.]
{p. 258}
long, _round_ stones, which they think fall from the cloud when it
thunders."[1]
In the Algonquin legends of Manibozho, or Manobosbu, or Nanabojou,
the great ancestor of all the Algic tribes, the hero man-god, we
learn, had a terrific battle with "his brother Chakekenapok, _the
flint-stone, whom he broke in pieces, and scattered over the land_,
and changed his entrails into fruitful vines. The conflict was _long
and terrible_. The face of nature was _desolated as by a tornado, and
the gigantic bowlders and loose rocks found on the prairies are the
missiles hurled by the mighty combatants_."[2]
We read in the Ute legends, given on page ---, _ante_, that when the
magical arrow of Ta-wats "struck the sun-god full in the face, the
sun was shivered into a _thousand fragments, which fell to the
earth_, causing a general conflagration."[3]
Here we have the same reference to matter falling on the earth from
the heavens, associated with devouring fire. And we have the same
sequence of events, for we learn that when all of Ta-wats was
consumed but the head, "his tears gushed forth in a flood, which
spread over the earth and extinguished the fires."
The Aleuts of the Aleutian Archipelago have a tradition that a
certain Old Man, called Traghdadakh, created men "_by casting stones
on the earth; he flung also other stones into the air, the water, and
over the land_, thus making beasts, birds, and fishes."[4]
It is a general belief in many races that the stone axes and celts
fell from the heavens. In Japan, the stone
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 170.
2. Ibid., p. 181.
3. Major J. W. Powell, "Popular Science Monthly," 1879, p. 799.
4 Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 104.]
{p. 259}
arrow-heads are rained from heaven by the flying spirits, who shoot
them. Similar beliefs are found in Brittany, in Madagascar, Ireland,
Brazil, China, the Shetlands, Scotland, Portugal, etc.[1]
In the legends of Quetzalcoatl, the central figure of the Toltec
mythology, we have a white man--a bearded man--from an eastern land,
mixed up with something more than man. He was the Bird-serpent, that
is, the winged or flying serpent, the great snake of the air, the son
of Iztac Mixcoatl, "the white-cloud serpent, the spirit of the
tornado."[2] He created the world. He was overcome by Tezcatlipoca,
the spirit of the night.
"When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald proclaimed them
from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a mighty voice that
it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The _arrows which he
shot_ transfixed great trees; _the stones he threw leveled forests;_
and when he laid his hands on the rocks the _mark was indelible_."[3]
"His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and _the
flint_."[4]
In the Aztec calendar the sign for the age of fire is the _flint_.
In the Chinese Encyclopædia of the Emperor Kang-hi, 1662, we are told:
"In traveling from the shores of the Eastern Sea toward Che-lu,
neither brooks nor ponds are met with in the country, although it is
intersected by mountains and valleys. Nevertheless, there are found
in the sand, very far away from the sea, oyster-shells and the
shields of crabs. The tradition of the Mongols who inhabit the
country is, that it has been said from time immemorial that in a
[1. Tyler's "Early Mankind," p. 224.
2. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 197.
3. Ibid., p. 197.
4. Ibid., p. 198.]
{p. 260}
remote antiquity the waters of the deluge flooded the district, and
when they retired the places where they had been made their
appearance covered with sand. . . . This is why these deserts are
called the 'Sandy Sea,' which indicates that they were not always
covered with sand and gravel."[1]
In the Russian legends, a "golden ship sails across the heavenly sea;
it breaks into fragments, which neither princes nor people can put
together again,"--reminding one of Humpty-Dumpty, in the
nursery-song, who, when he fell from his elevated position on the
wall--
"Not all the king's horses,
Nor all the king's men,
Can ever make whole again."
In another Russian legend, Perun, the thunder-god, destroys the
devils with _stone_ hammers. On Ilya's day, the peasants offer him a
roasted animal, which is cut up and _scattered over the fields_,[2]
just as we have seen the great dragon or serpent cut to pieces and
scattered over the world.
Mr. Christy found at Bou-Merzoug, on the plateau of the Atlas, in
Northern Africa, in a bare, deserted, stony place among the
mountains, a collection of fifteen hundred tombs, made of rude
limestone slabs, set up with one slab to form a roof, so as to make
perfect dolmens--closed chambers--where the bodies were packed in.
"Tradition says that a wicked people lived there, and for their sins
_stones were rained upon them from heaven;_ so they built these
chambers to creep into."[3]
In addition to the legend of "Phaëton," already given, Ovid derived
from the legends of his race another story,
[1. Tylor's "Early Mankind," p. 328.
2. Poor, "Sanskrit Literature," p. 400.
3. Tylor's "Early Mankind," p. 222.]
{p. 261}
which seems to have had reference to the same event. He says (Fable
XI):
"After the men who came from the Tyrian nation had touched this grove
with ill-fated steps, and the urn let down into the water made a
splash, the _azure dragon_ stretched forth his head from the deep
cave, and uttered dreadful hissings."
We are reminded of the flying monster of Hesiod, which roared and
hissed so terribly.
Ovid continues:
"The urns dropped from their hands, and the blood left their bodies,
and a sudden trembling seized their astonished limbs. He wreathes his
scaly orbs in rolling spirals, and, with a spring, becomes twisted
into mighty folds; and, uprearing himself from below the middle into
the light air, he looks down upon all the grove, and is of" (as)
"large size, as, if you were to look on him entire, the _serpent_
which separates the two Bears" (the constellations).
He slays the Phœnicians; "some he kills with his sting, some
with his long folds, some breathed upon by the venom of his baleful
poison."
Cadmus casts a huge stone, as big as a millstone, against him, but it
falls harmless upon his scales, "that were like a coat-of-mail"; then
Cadmus pierced him with his spear. In his fall he crushes the
forests; the blood flows from his poisonous palate and changes the
color of the grass. He is slain.
Then, under the advice of Pallas, Cadmus _sows the earth with the
dragon's teeth,_ "_under the earth turned up_, as the seeds of a
future people." Afterward, the earth begins to move, and armed men
rise up; they slay Cadmus, and then fight with and slay each other.
This seems to be a recollection of the comet, and the stones falling
from heaven; and upon the land so afflicted
{p. 262}
subsequently a warlike and aggressive and quarrelsome race of men
springs up.
In the contest of Hercules with the Lygians, on the road from
Caucasus _to the Hesperides_, "there is an attempt to explain
mythically the origin of the round quartz blocks in the Lygian field
of stones, at the mouth of the Rhône."[1]
In the "Prometheus Delivered" of Æsechylus, Jupiter draws together a
cloud, and causes "the district round about to be _covered with a
shower of round stones_."[2]
The legends of Europe refer to a race buried under sand and earth:
"The inhabitants of Central Europe and Teutonic races who came late
to England, place their mythical heroes _under ground in caves_, in
vaults beneath enchanted castles, or in _mounds_ which open and show
their buried inhabitants alive and busy about the avocations of
earthly men. . . . In Morayshire _the buried race are supposed to
have been buried under the sand-hills_, as they are in some parts of
Brittany."[3]
Turning again to America, we find, in the great prayer of the Aztecs
to Tezcalipoca, {_Tezcatlipoca--jbh_} given on page 186, _ante_, many
references to some material substances falling from heaven; we read:
"Thine anger and indignation has _descended upon us_ in these days, .
. . coming down even as _stones, spears, and darts upon the wretches
that inhabit_ the earth; this is the pestilence by which we are
afflicted and _almost destroyed_." The children die, "broken and
dashed to pieces _as against stones_ and a wall. . . . Thine anger
and thy indignation does it delight in _hurling the stone and arrow
and spear_. The _grinders of thy teeth_" (the dragon's teeth of
Ovid?) "are employed, and thy bitter whips upon the miserable of
[1. "Cosmos," vol. i, p. 115.
2. Ibid., p. 115.
3. "Frost and Fire," vol. ii, p. 190.]
{p. 263}
thy people.... Hast thou verily determined that it utterly perish; .
. . that the peopled place become a wooded hill and _a wilderness of
stones?_ . . . Is there to be no mercy nor pity for us until the
_arrows of thy fury are spent?_ . . . Thine arrows and _stones have
sorely hurt this poor people_."
In the legend of the Indians of Lake Tahoe (see page 168, _ante_), we
are told that the stars were melted by the great conflagration, and
they rained down molten metal upon the earth.
In the Hindoo legend (see page 171, _ante_) of the great battle
between Rama, the sun-god, and Ravana, the evil one, Rama persuaded
the monkeys to help him build a bridge to the Island of Lanka, "and
_the stones which crop out through Southern India are said to have
been dropped by the monkey builders_."
In the legend of the Tupi Indians (see page 175, _ante_), we are told
that God "swept about the fire in such way that in _some places he
raised mountains and in others dug valleys_."
In the Bible we have distinct references to the fall of matter from
heaven. In Deuteronomy (chap. xxviii), among the consequences which
are to follow disobedience of God's will, we have the following:
"22. The Lord shall smite thee . . . with an extreme burning, and
with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall
pursue thee until thou perish.
"23. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the
earth that is under thee shall be iron.
"24. _The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from.
heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed_. . . .
"29. And thou shalt _grope at noonday_, as the blind gropeth in
darkness."
And even that marvelous event, so much mocked at by modern thought,
the standing-still of the sun, at the
{p. 264}
command of Joshua, may be, after all, a reminiscence of the
catastrophe of the Drift. In the American legends, we read that the
sun stood still, and Ovid tells us that "a day was lost." Who shall
say what circumstances accompanied an event great enough to crack the
globe itself into immense fissures? It is, at least, a curious fact
that in Joshua (chap. x) the standing-still of the sun was
accompanied by a fall of stones from heaven by which multitudes were
slain.
Here is the record
"11. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were
in the going down to Beth-horon, that _the Lord cast down great
stones from heaven upon them_ unto Azekah, and they died: there were
more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel
slew with the sword."
"13. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people
had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the
book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and
hasted not to go down _about a whole day_.
"14. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the
Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for
Israel."
The "book of Jasher" was, we are told, a very ancient work, long
since lost. Is it not possible that a great, dim memory of a terrible
event was applied by tradition to the mighty captain of the Jews,
just as the doings of Zeus have been attributed, in the folk-lore of
Europe, to Charlemagne and Barbarossa?
If the contact of Lexell's comet with the earth would, as shown on
page 84, _ante_, have increased the length of the sidereal year three
hours, what effect might not a comet, many times larger than the mass
of the earth, have had upon the revolution of the earth? Were the
heat,
{p. 265}
the conflagrations, and the tearing up of the earth's surface caused
by such an arrestment or partial slowing-up of the earth's revolution
on its axis?
I do not propound these questions as any part of my theory, but
merely as suggestions. The American and Polynesian legends represent
that the catastrophe increased the length of the days. This may mean
nothing, or a great deal. At least, Joshua's legend may yet take its
place among the scientific possibilities.
But it is in the legend of the Toltecs of Central America, as
preserved in one of the sacred books of the race, the "Codex
Chimalpopoca," that we find the clearest and most indisputable
references to the fall of gravel (see page 166, _ante_):
"'The third sun' (or era) 'is called Quia-Tonatiuh, sun of rain,
because there fell a rain of fire; all which existed burned; _and
there fell a rain of gravel_.'
"'They also narrate that while _the sandstone which we now see
scattered about_, and the tetzontli' (_amygdaloide poreuse_, basalt,
trap-rocks) 'boiled with great tumult, there also arose the rocks of
vermilion color.'
"'Now this was in the year Ce Tecpatl, One _Flint_, it was the day
_Nahui-Quiahuitl_, Fourth Rain. Now, in this day in which men were
lost and destroyed _in a rain of fire_, they were transformed into
goslings.'"[1]
We find also many allusions in the legends to the clay.
When the Navajos climbed up from their cave they found the earth
covered with clay into which they sank mid-leg deep; and when the
water ran off it left the whole world full of mud.
In the Creek and Seminole legends the Great Spirit made the first
man, in the primeval cave, "from the clay around him."
[1. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 499.]
{p. 266}
Sanchoniathon, from the other side of the world, tells us, in the
Phœnician legends (see page 209, _ante_), that first came
chaos, and out of chaos was generated _môt_ or mud.
In the Miztec (American) legends (see page 214, _ante_), we are told
that in the Age of Darkness there was "nothing but _mud and slime_ on
all the face of the earth."
In the Quiche legends we are told that the first men were destroyed
by fire and _pitch_ from heaven.
In the Quiche legends we also have many allusions to the wet and
muddy condition of the earth before the returning sun dried it up.
In the legends of the North American Indians we read that the earth
was covered with great heaps of ashes; doubtless the fine, dry powder
of the clay looked like ashes before the water fell upon it.
There is another curious fact to be considered in connection with
these legends--that the calamity seems to have brought with it some
compensating wealth.
Thus we find Beowulf, when destroyed by the midnight monster,
rejoicing to think that his people would receive a treasure, a
fortune by the monster's death.
Hence we have a whole mass of legends wherein a dragon or great
serpent is associated with a precious horde of gold or jewels.
"The Scythians had a saga of the sacred gold which fell _burning_
from heaven. The ancients had also some strange fictions of silver
which fell from heaven, and with which it had been attempted, under
the Emperor Severus, to cover bronze coins."[1]
"In Peru the god of riches was worshiped under the image of a
rattlesnake, horned and hairy, _with a tail of gold_. It was said to
_have descended from the heavens in_
[1. "Cosmos," vol. i, p. 115.]
{p. 267}
_the sight of all the people_, and to have been seen by the whole
army of the Inca."[1]
The Peruvians--probably in reference to this event--chose as their
arms two serpents with their tails interlaced.
Among the Greeks and ancient Germans the fiery dragon was _the
dispenser of riches_, and "_watches a treasure in the earth_."[2]
These legends may be explained by the fact that in the Ural
Mountains, on the east of Europe, in South America, in South Africa,
and in other localities, the Drift gravels contain gold and precious
stones.
The diamond is found in drift-gravels alone. It is pure carbon
crystallized. Man has been unable to reproduce it, except in minute
particles; nor can he tell in what laboratory of nature it has been
fabricated. It is not found _in situ_ in any of the rocks of an
earth-origin. Has it been formed in space? Is it an outcome of that
pure carbon which the spectroscope has revealed to us as burning in
some of the comets?
[1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 125.
2. Ibid., p. 125.]
{p. 268}