separated the two formations, is, so far as observed, unrepresented either by deposition or erosion."[23]

Of course, some geological writers labor to explain this thundering rebuke of their theory, just as the Ptolemaic astronomers had their "deterrents" and "epicycles" for every new difficulty. But surely the detailed records of such observations as these are fearful examples of the power of tradition to blind the minds of investigators to the meaning of the very plainest facts.

On a previous page (Id. p. 51,) the author last quoted gives us some idea of the "remarkable persistence" of this instructive case of conformability, which extends from the Athabasca "in a broad band around the southern end of Birch Mountains, and across Lake Claire to Peace River, and up the latter stream to a point two miles above Vermillion Falls."

The distance, as I judge from the map, can not be less than 150 miles in a straight direction, thus making a district of probably several thousand square miles in extent where, according to the theory of a life succession, nature must have put an injunction on the action of the elements, and they had to continue in the status quo for millions of ages, or from the Devonian to the Cretaceous "age," the water neither wearing away nor building up over any part of this consecrated ground during all this time.

Nor is this all, for from Part E, Report (p. 209) of this same volume, we are told of strata near Lake Manitoba, over 500 miles away, in almost the same wonderful relationship,—"Devonian rocks very similar in character" to those in Athabasca still overlaid directly by the Cretaceous, though in this case as it happens "unconformably." It would almost seem to be a bona fide case of Werner's onion coats cropping out.

And all this incredible picture of nature's inconsistent behaviour in past ages is necessitated solely by the loving allegiance with which the infallibility of the life succession theory is regarded by modern geologists.

CHAPTER V
TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

How many of us have ever seen a mountain fall? Not very many. And yet events even more wonderful than this have frequently occurred in the past, as we are confidently assured by the leaders in geological science. Thus, in speaking of a certain region in the Alps, Dana[24] says that "one of the overthrust folds has put the beds upside down over an area of 450 square miles."

It is well worth our while to try to understand this statement. Our first and most natural inquiry is, What is it that leads scientists to think so? The details of this particular case are not very accessible, and so we are driven to reasoning from analogy from the known methods and constructions employed in this science. We must agree that none of the authorities who report this circumstance can testify as eye-witnesses of this marvellous event: they were not there on the spot when old Mother Earth turned this huge calcareous and silicious pancake. And yet there must be some kind of evidence by which these eminent men have arrived at this conclusion. What kind of evidence can it be?

We cannot imagine any physical evidence which could even remotely suggest such an idea. In fact from the universal custom of making the contained fossils the supreme test of the age of a rock deposit, we are perfectly safe in concluding that it is solely because the fossils occur here in the reverse of the accepted order, that we have this astounding picture of an immense mountain mass having been put "upside down over an area of 450 square miles." The "older" fossils are evidently here on top, while the "younger" ones are underneath, and of course some explanation must be given of this flat contradiction of the life succession theory.

But let us retrace our steps somewhat, and pick up the thread of our argument. We have already found quite serious reason to question the accuracy of this life succession theory: but there is still another way of testing its rationality. If certain fossils are not necessarily older than certain others, it might reasonably be expected that we would now and then find them reversed as to position, i.e., with the "younger" below and the "older" above. Accordingly we have the following very necessary caution from Prof. Nicholson:[25]

"It may even be said that in any case where there should appear to be a clear and decisive discordance between the physical and the palaeontological (fossil) evidence as to the age of a given series of beds, it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter."

To meet all ordinary cases of this character, where the differences involve only a few formations representing a few "ages" or a few million years, the theory of pioneer "colonies" was invented by Barrande in 1852.

But for extreme cases, say where Silurian or Cambrian fossils occur above Jurassic, Cretaceous or Tertiary, there is in such a predicament always an anxious search made for faults and displacements; or gigantic "thrust-faults" or "overthrust folds," like the example already quoted from Dana, are described in picturesque language, many miles in extent—inventions which, as I have already suggested of a similar expedient to explain away evidence, deserve to rank with the famous "epicycles" of Ptolemy, and will do so some day.

Here is Geikie's highly instructive statement regarding the same conditions:—

"We may even demonstrate that in some mountainous ground, the strata have been turned completely upside down, if we can show that the fossils in what are now the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them."[26]

Some day, I fancy, a statement like this will be regarded as a literary curiosity.

There are plenty of examples under this head, though two or three ought to be as good as a dozen. In the part of Alberta east of the Rockies already referred to, is a section of country of about fourteen square miles at least—and we know not how much more—where Cambrian fossils are found above Cretaceous, and the inevitable "thrust fault" is thus described by one of the officers of the Canadian Geological Survey. He has just been speaking of "a series" of these "gigantic thrust faults":—

"One of the largest and most important of these occurs along the eastern base of the chain, and brings the Cambrian limestones of the Castle Mountain group over the Cretaceous of the foot hills. This fault has a vertical displacement of more than 15,000 feet (? three miles), and an estimated horizontal displacement of the Cambrian beds of about seven miles in an easterly section. The actually observed overlap amounts to nearly two miles. The angle of inclination of its plane to the horizon is very low, and in consequence of this its outcrop follows a very sinuous line along the base of the mountains, and acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations.