Bottom of P. 30 (P. 31).
Thus also, since that time it was only disputed in some
local (individual) cases, nevertheless, whether occasionally coal formation
could not, as an exception, have taken place completely by seaweeds; but the
actual composition of the coal question was settled.
Today one has become aware of (through research, particularly by Engler and Potonie) the fact that certain primitive forms of algae which were still under the stage of seaweed in salt and freshwater, have in the primeval times already played a big role and left behind extremely important remains for our culture. Every friend of our Märkischen lakes (of Brandenburg) knows about the so-called “water flower,” a sudden appearance of incomprehensibly enormous amount of green aurochs algae (algas) which color the whole water surface environment and banks edges with a thick (cloudy) slime. Such alga mud demonstrably leads to particular strange decaying fatty (grease) deposits, and the well-founded supposition is that the alga fat came from rotting animal bodies, in connection with water, and formed in primeval days a substance that is very important to us, namely petroleum. But the formation of (real) coal, however, seems generally not to come from this exact decaying and greasing process. This information (knowledge) also does not support the theory that coal arises from algae.
However, the microscopic discovery not only led to the
negative defense of a wrong theory, but it granted in a huge (positive) boost.
If one could, nevertheless, finally, use good judgment
(principles) with these, up to now, problematic accompanying finds, these
obvious plant remains in the enclosing rock strata, (when conducting actual
sample tests) which, even if to the naked eye is distorted and indiscernible,
nevertheless also, formed the bulk of the coal. Thanks also to the large effort from the coal industry
itself, concerning everything that had to do with coal, this material also was
exceedingly multiplied since the days of Buffon, and (it) now filled whole
museum halls and was examined by experts for a long time, and with great
devotion has been described and illustrated.
Forests of an extremely strange composition had appeared before the
eyes of the botanists, as completely worthy of study and reconstruction with
just as much eagerness (enthusiasm) as the skeletons of old mammoths,
Megatherien, and giant dinosaurs that have since Cuvier’s time filled all
geological textbooks and picture books.
Top of P. 32.
One had for a long time attributed these coal-periods to forests, and
now it was certain that these were the remains of the actual forests
themselves. For
millions of years they must have grown in unheard of luxuriance, in order to
have given an entire era its imprint.
For the first time in the Earth’s history there stood
a forest of undoubted Land flora of tree-shaped cryptogamic plants.
The older geology at that time (then) was already
“flood free”, yet still always thought of the first epoch of universal
water covering the newly cooled off globe; only after some time were the first
islands really supposed to have risen from this earth flowing Primeval Ocean.
When the oldest, still unchanged, sedimentary rocks, without exception,
only showed remnants of shells, sea lilies, crabs and other distinctly aquatic
animals, this original idea was simply reconfirmed.
Meanwhile, however, thoughtful geologists (had) pointed
out, with full correctness, that even these ocean deposits had hardened into
rock long ago, when (at some time) mud was deposited, and afterwards became
the hardened rocks of the Cambrian, Silurian and Devonian periods of our
table, which, likewise came from previously
existing eroded rocks and rocky rubble; from which one could only assume that
they, like rocks of today, were eroded from weather-beaten coasts,
river courses and weathered mountains. And
indeed, there is no real reason to doubt the existence of such a land from the
oldest conceivable times.
Bottom of P. 32 (P. 33). The
powers that create today’s land, mountain formations, volcanos, sea level
changes, coral formations and closely related kinds are completely within the
framework of the oldest geological eras, -- indeed, the biggest question is
whether or not such events were more active than they are today.
We already know of enormous coral reefs from the Silurian period, the
clearest indication of Continental strata dating back to the Cambrian; the
Devonian period was filled with volcanic eruptions, the Coal Period itself was
one of the greatest periods of mountain forming in Europe in the whole history
of the earth. Although (almost)
the only remains that were preserved in these older epochs are those of sea
animals, this then simply points to the incompleteness of the
(fossil) record; in general, remains of (aquatic) life had better chances to be
preserved than traces of land life.
For the Coal Period, one could now clearly look, for
the first time, far out over the blue sea upon a mysterious land;
however, the land where these coal plants thrived exceedingly.
However, where was this land at that time located?
Land and sea-borders of today give no indication, for
this world is too remote. If one
recalls that in the Primeval World, and much later still, that Africa and
South America probably once formed a united continent and likewise (still)
later so did Europe and North America, if one remembers that in the Jurassic
period Ichthyosaurs swam in the sea in the land of Swabia, and that the
lowland area of Northern Germany was under the ocean during the Cretaceous
period, then one will not want to consult (or draw any conclusions from) from
any (of our) modern maps.
The coal seams themselves are enormous in today's Europe, North America
and Asia. Annually more than 750
million tons of coal is mined for the industry. The presently existing coal seams are calculated at
almost seven hundred billion tons for the United States alone.
Besides this, the colossal coalfields of China, estimated to be the
biggest on earth, are not yet even in use.
Bottom of P.33 (P. 34) Such
masses of material, whose veins pass through the rock of their period only in
a limited thickness, must naturally take up spatially vast areas.
A single one of the North American coal fields of Appalachia, comprises
a completely workable field of 2400 geographical square miles, the uniformly
compact (enclosed) Pittsburger seam is estimated at 900 such square miles.
However, according to the Alluvial (allochthonous)
Theory these deposits would simply have been backed up (obstructed) areas in
the sea where the transported (and broken up) trees (or "land wood") would have been deposited.
Furthermore, one must first look for the proportionately enormous river
estuaries, the run of which was more than the Mississippi or the Amazon,
through whose gates this freight was carried into the sea, and from there
inland the actual forest area itself.
Before this postulate, however, something now
weakens this view: the earth area threatens to become too small.
The coalfields are themselves so enormous that one merely comes to such
conclusion (calculation) if one could only envision the wooded areas they
would have comprised at that time, while the perspective becomes (sinks into
the) incomprehensible if all of that (everything) should be present
(available) only twice over (again).
However, still another consideration immediately came
into play.
Near the coal seams were not only imprints of fern
leaves, but also the remains of animals such as: grasshopper-like insects,
scorpions, spiders, centipedes, and air-breathing snails, -- remains of
creatures which could not possibly have lived in the sea.
They therefore must have been washed in from the shore even as the fern
fronds. But the remains of real
animals were missing. Why had
they not been found there as well, if not much earlier?
No doubt (indeed) it turned out that the entire
Coal-period strata was full of sea animals, but they just never had anything
to do with the actual coal seams and their closely accompanying strata.
Wherever they came in close proximity to the coal, it was always as
if the rocks with sea inhabitants reached out like a stranger over the coal
(and) only occasionally positioned (far) away from it or lying under it,
exactly as if an area was formerly an inhabited seabed and then no longer, or
as if it was flooded again from the sea at times, such as in a riparian
zone. It seemed as if there had
been two types of seas at that time: one entirely without animal life which
simply transported the coal (seams) and deposited the accompanying strata, --
and a second, in which sea life bountifully blossomed, and these (two)
admittedly alternated (changed positions) in various places from time to time,
however, at the same time never mixing.
P. 35 (near top) A
strange situation that allowed for no interpretation whatsoever from otherwise
known circumstances.
Querschnitt durch Gesteinschichten der Steinkohlenzeit mit aufrecht versteinerten Baumstämmen.
Which means: Cross-section through rock strata of the coal period with upright fossilized tree stumps.
However another even more strange fact demanded
explanation. People had already
reported to the old Buffon not merely of single plant leaves which would be
found in the clay strata next to the coal seams but of whole petrified tree
trunks.
Indeed, various such trunks had already been found
since then, and they directly led to the actual picture of the large primeval
forests of that time (era). The
fact that they should be trunks of fernlike plants was no obstacle. If the fern here in the North is to us really only an
“herb,” one needs only to visit the tropics (or the greenhouse of a
botanical garden) to meet the “fern tree” or “treefern” of today in
its most splendid development. Top of P. 36.
For the Drift Theory, such a trunk (from that time) presented no (further)
obstacle. Where on the actual
border, (a) completely pulverized washed in coal layer in the more sandy
mud-bank a tender (delicate) fern leaf or the wing of a grasshopper, that once
lay on it, had been preserved: why were there not also whole logs tossed
(thrown) in (with these)? But
nevertheless, these trunks themselves allowed something else very annoying,
that which was not at all in favor of this theory.
Namely they were not variously positioned in the strata
like a piece of driftwood that the waves buried in mud horizontally, or
irregularly nestled in the rock in every position and direction, but were
themselves always in a quite certain position which obviously pointed to a
mysterious recurring principle (law), but surely not the law of loosely buried
driftwood.
Miners in English coal mines repeatedly experienced the
following fatal situation. They
had driven a horizontal tunnel that lay in the plain of the progressively diminishing
coal vein (itself). Suddenly, a
large stone cylinder fell, with no warning, from the roof (top) of the shaft,
therefore also even the original hanging rock layer above the vein itself.
An investigation proved that this cylinder had been loosely hanging in
(attached to) the stone mass above, separated from the surroundings by a cover
of brittle coal. At the moment
where the base was removed with (by) the shaft itself, it simply fell, by its
own weight, into the shaft.
One could not doubt that it had to do with the
petrified filling of a hollow log, whose bark represented the (separating)
coal shell.
However, this tree then must have stood perpendicular (upright) in relation to the coal seam below, to which level the shaft itself corresponded.
Copyright, 2006, Randy S. Berg,
all rights reserved.