We must now pass rapidly over the Second Dark Age, observing merely
those influences which were to affect the future of humanity.
Century by century the pent energy of the vast explosion dispersed
itself; but not till many hundred thousand years had passed did the
swarms of upstart volcanoes begin to die, and not till after millions of
years did the bulk of the planet become once more a possible home for
life.
During this period many changes took place. The atmosphere became
clearer, purer, and less turbulent. With the fall of temperature, frost
and snow appeared occasionally in the Arctic regions, and in due course
the Polar caps were formed again. Meanwhile, ordinary geological
processes, augmented by the strains to which the planet was subjected by
increased internal pressure, began to change the continents. South
America mostly collapsed into the hollows blasted beneath it, but a new
land rose to join Brazil with West Africa. The East Indies and Australia
became a continuous continent. The huge mass of Tibet sank deeply into
its disturbed foundations, lunged West, and buckled Afghanistan into a
range of peaks nearly forty thousand feet above the sea. Europe sank
under the Atlantic. Rivers writhed shiftingly hither and thither upon
the continents, like tortured worms. New alluvial areas were formed. New
strata were laid upon one another under new oceans. New animals and
plants developed from the few surviving Arctic species, and spread south
through Asia and America. In the new forests and grasslands appeared
various specialized descendants of the reindeer, and swarms of rodents.
Upon these preyed the large and small descendants of the Arctic fox, of
which one species, a gigantic wolf-like creature, rapidly became the
‘King of Beasts’ in the new order, and remained so, until it was ousted
by the more slowly-modified offspring of the polar bears. A certain
genus of seals, reverting to the ancient terrestrial habit, had
developed a slender snake-like body and an almost swift, and very
serpentine, mode of locomotion among the coastal sand-dunes. There it
was wont to stalk its rodent prey, and even follow them into their
burrows. Everywhere there were birds. Many of the places left vacant by
the destruction of the ancient fauna were now filled by birds which had
discarded flight and developed pedestrian habits. Insects, almost
exterminated by the great conflagration, had afterwards increased so
rapidly, and had refashioned their types with such versatility, that
they soon reached almost to their ancient profusion. Even more rapid was
the establishment of the new micro-organisms. In general, among all the
beasts and plants of the earth there was a great change of habit, and a
consequent overlaying of old body-forms with new forms adapted to a new
way of life.
The two human settlements had fared very differently. That of Labrador,
oppressed by a more sweltering climate, and unsupported by the Siberian
will to preserve human culture, sank into animality; but ultimately it
peopled the whole West with swarming tribes. The human beings in Asia
remained a mere handful throughout the ten million years of the Second
Dark Age. An incursion of the sea cut them off from the south. The old
Taimyr Peninsula, where their settlements clustered, became the northern
promontory of an island whose coasts were the ancient valley-edges of
the Yenessi, the Lower Tunguska, and the Lena. As the climate became
less oppressive, the families spread towards the southern coast of the
island, but there the sea checked them. Temperate conditions enabled
them to regain a certain degree of culture. But they had no longer the
capacity to profit much from the new clemency of nature, for the
previous ages of tropical conditions had undermined them. Moreover,
towards the end of the ten million years of the Second Dark Age, the
Arctic climate spread south into their island. The crops failed, the
rodents that formed their chief cattle dwindled, their few herds of deer
faded out through lack of food. Little by little this scanty human race
degenerated into a mere remnant of Arctic savages. And so they remained
for a million years. Psychologically they were so crippled that they had
almost completely lost the power of innovation. When their sacred
quarries in the hills were covered with ice, they had not the wit to use
stone from the valleys, but were reduced to making implements of bone.
Their language degenerated into a few grunts to signify important acts,
and a more complex system of emotional expressions. For emotionally
these creatures still preserved a certain refinement. Moreover, though
they had almost wholly lost the power of intelligent innovation, their
instinctive responses were often such as a more enlightened intelligence
would justify. They were strongly social, deeply respectful of the
individual human life, deeply parental, and often terribly earnest in
their religion.
Not till long after the rest of the planet was once more covered with
life, not till nearly ten million years after the Patagonian disaster,
did a group of these savages, adrift on an iceberg, get blown southward
across the sea to the mainland of Asia. Luckily, for Arctic conditions
were increasing, and in time the islanders were extinguished.
The survivors settled in the new land and spread, century by century,
into the heart of Asia. Their increase was very slow for they were an
infertile and inflexible race. But conditions were now extremely
favourable. The climate was temperate; for Russia and Europe were now a
shallow sea warmed by currents from the Atlantic. There were no
dangerous animals save the small grey bears, an offshoot from the polar
species, and the large wolf-like foxes. Various kinds of rodents and
deer provided meat in plenty. There were birds of all sizes and habits.
Timber, fruit, wild grains, and other nourishing plants throve on the
well-watered volcanic soil. The prolonged eruptions, moreover, had once
more enriched the upper layers of the rocky crust with metals.
A few hundred thousand years in this new world sufficed for the human
species to increase from a handful of individuals to a swarm of races.
It was in the conflict and interfusion of these races, and also through
the absorption of certain chemicals from the new volcanic soil, that
humanity at last recovered its vitality.