FIRST FACT

Coexistence of animals and plants in the earliest strata.

According to the system of periods, God having created plants in the third epoch, the vegetable kingdom would have subsisted alone for a certain number of centuries, after which a cataclysm would have come to overturn this state of things, which would have been followed by a new creation. The proponents of the system are therefore forced to admit, in order to be consistent, that the most ancient strata, those which we call primary or transition strata, and which rest immediately upon the primitive strata, must contain only the remains of plants, without any animal fossil, since animals did not exist and were created only on the fifth day, or in the fifth

epoch. And yet the lowest layers of the Silurian and Cambrian formations, such as the grauwakes, contain pell-mell, with fossil plants, remains of marine animals, mollusks, and polyparies. Mr. Agassiz also established the identity of a species of fish, the onchus marchisoni, in the Silurian strata of the rocks of Ludlow.¹ Plants do not even appear first everywhere; sometimes they appear only a little after mollusks, polyparies, and fishes. As for mammals, on the contrary, which ought to appear only in the sixth period, since they were created only on the sixth day, some are discovered in the secondary strata, in the Jurassic, and in the lower part of the Tertiary strata. These various facts are incontestable.

The system of periods is therefore here in flagrant contradiction with geological facts. Buckland himself, after having maintained that the system of periods is theologically and philologically unassailable—these are his expressions—finds himself somewhat embarrassed by this objection. “It appears,” he says, “that the most ancient marine animals, as well as the first plants, are found distributed in the same manner in the lowest transition strata, so that it is evident, as much as it can be, that the origin of plants and

that of animals date from the same epoch.²”

The system of the six days changed into as many indefinite periods therefore does not accord with the geological fact of the union of plants and animals in the lowest layers of the globe. But what then becomes of this system? “This objection is not insoluble,” says Mr. Marcel de Serres: “One cannot in fact deny that remains of animals exist as deeply buried in the old layers of the globe as plants; but the proportion in which the one and the other are found there is totally different. It is only after the most minute searches that one has succeeded in encountering some remains of animals, while terrestrial plants are so abundant in these strata that the period to which they belonged is the most essentially vegetable of geological times.³”

But what does the number of these animal remains matter? Here, one alone is worth a thousand; and according to your system of periods, ought not a single one to be found there, since at that time they had not been created? If through the most minute searches one has succeeded in discovering animal fossils where it was claimed that there could be only plants, it follows clearly that one has no right to lay down absolute principles and to deduce general laws,

even from a succession of long observations, without being obliged to resolve the difficulties to which particular cases give rise. Now, the existence of animal remains in the most ancient layers is a capital fact which does not permit our adversaries to pass over it.

Father Pianciani sought to resolve this embarrassing question in a manner which resolves nothing. “Buckland himself,” he says, “after having cited the words of Mr. de Serres, places no terrestrial animals among the fossils of the transition strata, but only plants that are almost all terrestrial and marine animals; and then, if the great quantity of carbonic acid diffused through the atmosphere was favorable to vegetation and contrary to the life of animals which breathe air in its natural state, does it not appear more probable that these animals received existence only when the quantity of this acid had been diminished to the point of no longer being harmful to them? Be that as it may, I shall answer that, if there is found in the transition strata a great abundance of vegetable remains and a small number of animal remains, this fact does not indicate that plants and animals are contemporaneous, but rather that, at the epoch when the one and the other were buried, plants had had much more time than animals in which to propagate.⁴”

We ask the Reverend Father to pardon us,

but this fact of the coexistence of plant and animal fossils proves logically and necessarily either the contemporaneity of the creation of the two kingdoms or the anteriority of the creation of animals. However inferior the number of the latter may be to that of plant fossils, one cannot but admit that the presence of a single animal fossil in a layer of the ground entails the existence of several others.

Nor is it exact to say that the transition strata contain no fossils of terrestrial animals because, it is said, of the too great quantity of carbonic acid which was inimical to them—a quantity which was sought one knows not where, for the needs of the cause. Vestiges of butterfly wings and impressions of beetles have been cited upon the primary aluminous slates of the mines of Andarum, in the province of Scania. The coal deposit of Northumberland has presented arachnids and insects of several species; and the clay shales in Bohemia, two species of arachnids. But even if one were to admit the absence of every terrestrial remain, the presence of marine animals alone suffices to establish the existence of animals in the first epoch.

SECOND FACT

Appearance of birds in the lower layers of the globe.

The creation of birds is likewise placed by Moses

on the fifth day, or in the fifth period; and nevertheless, for some time, new discoveries have been coming to contradict the assertions of our opponents by showing them fossil birds in the lower layers of the secondary stratum.

“Until these latter times,” says Nérée Boubée, “no irrefutable fact was known which could establish the existence of birds properly so called during the second geological period. But very recently, in the first months of 1836, numerous species of birds have just been recognized and characterized in the red sandstone of the United States.⁵”

“Birds,” says Mr. de Blainville further, “appear as fossils even in the lower secondary strata; they are represented in the variegated sandstone by simple impressions of their feet.⁶”

THIRD FACT

The continuous development of the strata.

From the first deposits of the great Silurian, Cambrian, and Devonian formation to the last layers of the Tertiary stratum, all succeed one another in an order so continuous that there has never been discovered between two formations the slightest trace

of any soil whatsoever. Mr. Constant Prévost was the first to point out this fact; nowhere did he see a clear and sharply defined line of separation between the various strata. “The succession of these deposits,” Mr. Boué likewise said, “is so continuous, the various layers are so interlocked with one another, that it is rarer to find the boundaries of two rocks sharply defined than to see them merge together, whether by transition or by alternation.⁷”

Now, without this intermediate soil, how can one conceive that plants and animals could have lived for thousands of years, only afterward to be buried in place, without a single centimeter of vegetable mold ever being found?

Let us cite further upon this subject, whose consequences deal so harsh a blow to the systems in question—let us cite Marcel de Serres: “In the valley of Aix (Bouches-du-Rhône),” says this estimable geologist, “the purely marine limestone and the freshwater limestone are united with one another by a connection as intimate as it is immediate. It must therefore be admitted that both were deposited in the same liquid. If their deposition had taken place under different circumstances, there ought to be found upon the freshwater limestone some deposit or other, composed of products of the intermediate epoch during which this soil would have been inhabited by terrestrial

animals; and yet no trace of a continental surface exists between these deposits; and the marine limestone being found mingled, alternating with the freshwater limestone, it must indeed be admitted that the one and the other were precipitated in the same liquid. This is all the more true because these marine deposits often contain organized bodies, fluviatile and terrestrial, just as freshwater deposits contain marine fossils.⁸”

Thus, then, the following are false: 1. the distinction between marine deposits and lacustrine deposits; 2. the supposition of a more or less long interval during which beings would have lived upon a layer of some sediments or other.

FOURTH FACT

The synchronism of formations.

It is known that by the synchronism of formations is understood the contemporaneity of two different causes acting successively: whence came the denomination of aqueous formations and igneous formations. The former was observed and introduced into science by Mr. Constant Prévost; the latter by Messrs. Boué and Dufrénoy. This latter, the igneous cause, has never ceased to modify the surface of the ground,

at one point or another, whether by volcanoes, by earthquakes, or by metamorphism. “Synchronism,” says Mr. Prévost, “and the distribution, upon two parallel lines, of igneous formations and aqueous formations, are henceforth founded upon the observations, as numerous as they are certain, of a great number of geologists. The study of present phenomena and its application to the explanation of ancient phenomena have completed the demonstration, as an incontestable truth, of the synchronous action of the two principal Plutonian and Neptunian causes.⁹”

The two principal observations which served as the basis of synchronism are:

1. The generally concordant stratification of the layers of all the strata. Thus, it has been recognized that the layers of the primary strata are in concordant stratification with one another; that those of the secondary strata are in concordant stratification with one another and with the primary strata; and that the layers of the Tertiary strata are so with one another and with the layers of the secondary strata.

Now, it follows naturally from this observation that all the layers of the primary or transition, secondary, and Tertiary strata, disposed in this manner, prove the action of a continuous cause which has not ceased to act in the same direction, in each locality, from

the beginning of the deposits until the end; for a change of cause would necessarily have brought about a change of direction and inclination, that is to say, a discordant stratification; there was variation only in the elements and materials upon which this cause exercised its action.

Without doubt, in the succession of the strata, one often encounters upheavals, dislocations, subsidences, and uplifts which alter the order of the stratifications; but it is no less certain that these deposits must originally have been formed before being uplifted, dislocated, and overturned; the cause which formed these deposits therefore acted first to form the regular, undislocated deposits, just like those which were dislocated after their formation. The observation therefore remains true.

2. The second observation is the disorder in which the strata appear at the surface of the globe. The proponents of indefinite cycles had admitted that all the layers of the various strata formed a continuous series without a gap. It is upon this series, thus arranged artificially, that they founded the hypotheses of contemporaneous formations for all the layers which occupy the same level in this supposed series, and the hypotheses of the time and duration that were required to realize this long series of superimposed layers. But this continuous and gapless superposition is contradicted by the facts. There is not a single layer, throughout the extent of the

strata, which does not appear somewhere at the surface of the ground without being covered by another. Thus, one finds at the surface sometimes the primary stratum, sometimes the secondary stratum, sometimes the Carboniferous, the Triassic, the Liassic, the Jurassic, or the Cretaceous stratum, each resting upon the primitive ground. It would therefore be permissible to conclude from this incontestable fact that all the layers which rest upon granite are of contemporaneous formation. These discoveries concerning the synchronism of strata and formations, and the facts which established it, therefore oppose the acceptance of the hypothetical idea of successive revolutions which would have produced this succession of strata, since they can be only the effect of a double cause acting simultaneously, although variously modified in its effects according to localities.

FIFTH FACT

The same effects attest, in all the strata, the continuous action of the same causes.

If the supposed world anterior to the world of six days had existed, as Buckland and Chalmers claim, one of two things follows: either the causes which acted in the first world differed from those which act in the second, or they were the same.

If they differed, they must have acted

differently; subject to different laws and separated by a sort of chaos, the two orders of things ought to be distinguished by the difference of their products below and above the point which would have separated their respective actions. And yet there is nothing of the sort, and from one end to the other of the series of strata, the same effects attest the action of the same causes and of the same laws which still act before our eyes.

It is therefore certain that this pre-Genesis world did not differ from ours. But then where is the proof of its existence to be found? It was thought to be found above all in the disappearance of animals whose fossils attest their creation. But we shall first observe that this assertion has been contradicted by new discoveries. We read in the Pneumatology of the Marquis de Mirville, a work eminently remarkable from every point of view: “One still recalls the naïve astonishment of the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires when Mr. de Paravey showed them, in Chinese books and upon some bricks from Babylon, the dragons of which we were speaking just now, the platypuses, the saurians, etc., which they believed unknown to the earth until them.¹⁰”

We shall add that the most remarkable of these species which are believed destroyed, such as the mastodon, the dinotherium, the megatherium, and the palaeotherium, instead of occupying the deepest layers

of the globe, those layers which are claimed to belong to the ancient world, are in general found only in fairly superficial Tertiary strata, where they are associated with living species and even with human fossils. It is therefore evident that all these species belong to the same world.

This hypothetical world is therefore in every respect irreconcilable with the established facts of positive geology.

For the person who admits the Bible, subject to interpreting it more or less according to his convenience, there is still another difficulty which it is important to point out. “The Lord God,” we read in chapter II of Genesis, “after having formed from the earth all the animals of the earth and all the birds of heaven, caused them to come before Adam, so that Adam might see what he would name them; and the name which Adam gave to each animal is its proper name; and Adam gave their names to the domestic animals, the birds of heaven, and the wild beasts.¹¹” The ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, iguanodons, etc., must therefore have passed before the eyes of the king of creation before disappearing from the scene; and consequently, at a certain epoch, more or less long, they were contemporaries of man.

SIXTH FACT

The terrestrial paradise.

“The Lord,” says Moses, “had planted from the beginning a garden of delights, in which he placed man.¹²” By the beginning one must necessarily understand, with the sacred interpreters, the third day of creation, when the continents appeared above the waters and were covered with verdure, trees, and every species of plant.¹³

Now, is it truly in conformity with the spirit of the account of Moses to suppose that between the third and the sixth day—that is to say, between the creation of the terrestrial paradise and that of man, who was its end—periods of several thousand centuries elapsed, filled with numerous revolutions and successive cataclysms which, according to these geologists, would have ravaged the earth, destroyed living beings, and consequently also the paradise of delights planted from the beginning for man? Is it philosophical to admit that God followed such a course of conduct?

SEVENTH FACT

The absence of rain during the first periods.

The proponents of these permit us to give them whatever extent we wish. Let us be more reasonable than Mr. Bouchepoirn, who assigns to each of them two million years, and let us limit them to three thousand, since it is necessary to stop at some number. Plants were created on the third day, or in the third epoch; the animals of the sea and the birds in the fifth; but it began to rain upon the earth only after the creation of man, we read in the second chapter of Genesis: Non enim pluerat Dominus Deus super terram [For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth]; and according to the commentators, until then there had been only simple dews; whence it follows that plants would have had to exist without water for nine thousand years, and birds for six thousand years.

This is not all: if it is claimed that all the great phenomena of the primitive world are to be explained by the action of secondary causes, how can one understand that the seas and rivers could have existed before rain? As much could be said of all the others, and notably of the appearance of plants before the creation of the sun. If plants need the nourishment furnished to them by humus and the atmosphere,

do they not equally need the heat of the sun? The fact is that all the phenomena of nature depend upon an interconnection of reciprocal causes and effects so intermingled that, despite all their learning and goodwill, our adversaries will not succeed in deducing them from one another in a satisfactory manner. When, on the contrary, one resigns oneself to accepting the account of Moses purely and simply, one immediately discovers the simultaneous action of a first and universal cause, and all the effects receive at least the explanation permitted by the weakness of human intelligence.

EIGHTH FACT

The rarity of animals during the coal period.

This terrestrial period is characterized in a very remarkable manner by the abundance and strangeness of the vegetation which then covered the continental parts of the globe. But, strangely enough, the fauna of this epoch stood in an inverse relation to the flora: “If, during the coal period,” says Mr. Figuier, “the vegetable kingdom was at its apogee, the animal kingdom, on the contrary, was very poor. Among the rare animals of this period, one may cite a few fish analogous to those of the Devonian stratum. A few winged insects came to join this meager

retinue of living beings.¹⁴” This excessive poverty of the animal kingdom in the presence of the luxuriant wealth of the vegetable kingdom shocks every conception.

NINTH FACT

The purpose of the creation of the heavenly bodies.

In placing the heavenly bodies in the heavens, the Creator set himself the purpose of making them serve to shine upon the earth: Posuit ea in firmamento cæli ut lucerent super terram [He placed them in the firmament of heaven so that they might shine upon the earth]; and the text adds, speaking of these same heavenly bodies: that they should serve as signs to indicate the epochs, the days, and the years; et sint in signa et tempora, et dies et annos [and let them be for signs and times, and days and years]. Now, since, in the hypothesis of our adversaries, thousands of centuries elapsed between the creation of the heavenly bodies and that of the animals, and a still greater number of centuries between the creation of the heavenly bodies and that of man, it follows that the sun, which was created above all to indicate to man the times, the days, and the years, would have indicated absolutely nothing for thousands of years, since man had not been created.

TENTH FACT

Incompatibility of the periods with divine wisdom.

The defenders of the periods claim that the

morning, mane, of Genesis signifies the beginning of a period or of a creation; and the evening, vespere, a revolution, a catastrophe, a destruction of that same creation. But first, on the first day God made light; on the second day he made the firmament. If the word vespere signifies a catastrophe, as they say, a ruin, what destruction is in question at the end of these alleged periods?¹⁵ Is it by chance the destruction of light and of the firmament? Who would dare maintain it? In the second place, are these ruins, these upheavals, this destruction compatible with divine wisdom, which made everything with number, weight, and measure: omnia in mensura, numero et pondere disposuisti [you have disposed all things in measure, number, and weight]? For what purpose would he have overthrown the work which he had created in the beginning and which he had found good, as Moses observes, who ends each creation with this phrase of praise: Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum, et factum est ita [And God saw that it was good, and it was so done]? He indeed recounts to us the special work of each day, but nowhere does he speak to us of these restorations of a work previously destroyed. And let it not be said that Moses kept silent about all these age-long events anterior to the creation of man because they did not concern man. With this system of arbitrary hypotheses without foundation and without reason for being, there would not be a single

text of Scripture, not a single page of the sacred books, that could not be falsified, truncated, or distorted. We shall establish elsewhere that all the works of God relate to man as to the king of creation.

PART TWO

PHILOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW