Velikovsky - Earth in Upheaval
CHAPTER V (pages 34-37)
TIDAL WAVE - Fissures in the Rocks
JOSEPH PRESTWICH, professor of geology at Oxford (1874-88) and acknowledged authority on the Quaternary (Glacial and Recent) Age in England, was struck by numerous phenomena, all of which led him to the belief that "the south of England had been submerged to the depth of not less than about 1000 feet between the Glacial — or Post-Glacial — and the recent or Neolithic [Late Stone Age periods." (1) In a spasmodic movement of the terrain, the coast and the land masses of southern England were submerged to such a depth that points 1000 feet high were below sea level. (2)
A most striking phenomenon among those observed by Prestwich was in the fissures in the rocks. In the neighbourhood of Plymouth on the Channel, clefts of various widths in limestone formations are filled with rock fragments, angular and sharp, and with bones of animals — mammoth, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, horse, polar bear, bison. The bones are "broken into innumerable fragments. No skeleton is found entire. The separate bones, in fact, have been dispersed in the most irregular manner, and without any bearing to their relative position in the skeleton. Neither do they show wear, nor have they been gnawed by beasts of prey, though they occur with the bones of hyaena, wolf, bear and lion." (3) In other places in Devonshire and also in Pembrokeshire in Wales, ossiferous breccia or conglomerates of broken bones and stones in fissures in limestone consist of angular rock fragments and "broken and splintered" bones with sharp fractured edges in a "fresh state," and in "splendid condition, showing no traces of gnawing. (4)
If the crevices were pitfalls into which the animals fell alive, then some of the skeletons would have been preserved entire. But this is "never the case." "Again, if left for a time exposed in the fissures, the bones would be variously weathered, which they are not. Nor would the mere fall have been sufficient to have caused the extensive breakage the bones have undergone: these, I consider, are fatal objections to this explanation, and none other has since been offered," wrote Prestwich. (5)
Fissures in the rocks, not only in England and Wales, but all over western Europe, are choked with bones of animals, some of extinct races, others though. of the same age of races still surviving. Osseous breccia in the valleys around Paris have been described, as well as fissures in the rocks on the tops of isolated hills in central France. They contain remnants of mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and other animals. These hills are often of considerable height. "One very striking example" (6) is found near Semur in Burgundy: a hill — Mont Genay — 1430 feet high is capped by a breccia containing remains of mammoth, reindeer, horse, and other animals.
In the rock on the summit of Mont de Sautenay — a flat-topped hill near Chalon-sur-Sadne between Dijon and Lyons — there is a fissure filled, with animal bones. "Why should so many wolves, bears, horses, and oxen have ascended a hill isolated on all sides?" asked Albert Gaudry, professor at the Jardin des Plantes. According to him, the bones in this cleft are mostly broken and splintered into innumerable sharp fragments and are "evidently not those of animals devoured by beasts of prey; nor have they been broken by man. Nevertheless, the remains of wolf were particularly abundant, together with those of cave lion, bear, rhinoceros, horse, ox, and deer. It is not possible to suppose that animals of such different natures, and of such different habitats, would in life ever have been together." (7) Yet the state of preservation of the bones indicates that the animals — all of them — perished in the same period of time. Prestwich thought that the animal bones, "now associated in the fissure on the summit of the hill," were found in common heaps because, "we may suppose, all these animals had fled [there] to escape the rising waters." (8)
On the Mediterranean coast of France there are numerous clefts in the rocks crammed to overflowing with animal bones. Marcel de Serres wrote in his survey of the Montagne de Pedemar in the Department of Gard: "It is within this limited area that the strange phenomenon has happened of the accumulation of a large quantity of bones of diverse animals in hollows or fissures." De Serres found the bones all broken into fragments, but neither gnawed nor rolled. No coprolites (hardened animal faeces) were found, indicating that the dead beasts had not lived in these hollows or fissures.
The Rock of Gibraltar is intersected by numerous crevices filled with bones. The bones are broken and splintered. The remains of panther, lynx, caffir-cat, hyaena, wolf, bear, rhinoceros, horse, wild boar, red deer, fallow deer, ibex, ox, hare, rabbit, have been found in these ossiferous fissures. The bones are most likely broken into thousands of fragments — none are worn or rolled, nor any of them gnawed, though so many carnivores then lived on the rock," says
Prestwich (10) adding: "A great and common danger, such as a great flood, alone could have driven together the animals of the plains and of the crags and caves." (1)
The Rock is extensively faulted and fissured. Beaches high on Gibraltar show that the expression that makes of this rock the symbol of immovability is unfounded. These beaches indicate that at some time the waters of the sea lapped the Rock at the 600-foot mark', the Rock now rises over 1370 feet above the sea. It was therefore, in Quaternary times [or the age of man], an island not more than about 800 feet, or less high, which rose by successive stages to its present height. It is more than probable, however, that at some time before it settled at that level, the whole of the area was upheaved to such an extent that a land passage was formed to the African coast. . . ." (12)
A human molar and some flints worked by Paleolithic (old stone) man, as well as broken pieces of pottery of Neolithic (recent or polished stone) man, were discovered among the animal bones in some of the crevices of the Rock. (13)
On Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, as on the continent of Europe and the British Isles, the broken bones of animals choke the fissures in the rocks. The hills around Palermo in Sicily disclosed an "extraordinary quantity of bones of hippopotami—in complete hecatombs." "Twenty tons of these bones were shipped from around the one cave of San Ciro, near Palermo, within the first six months of exploiting them, and they were so fresh that they were sent to Marseilles to furnish animal charcoal for use in the sugar factories. How could this bone breccia have been accumulated? No predacious animals could have brought together and left such a collection of bones." (14) No teeth marks of hyena or of any other animal are found in this osseous mass. Did the animals come there to die as old age approached? "The bones are those of animals of all ages down to the foetus, nor do they show traces of weathering or exposure.
"The extremely fresh condition of the bones, proved by the retention of so large a proportion of animal matter," shows that "the event was, geologically, comparatively recent"; and the "fact that animals of all ages were involved in the catastrophe" shows it "to have been sudden." Prestwich was of the opinion that, together with central Europe and England, the Mediterranean islands, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, had been submerged. "The animals in the plain of Palermo naturally retreated, as the waters advanced, deeper into the amphitheatre of hills until they found themselves embayed . . . the animals must have thronged together in vast multitudes, crushing into the more accessible caves, and swarming over the ground at their entrance, until overtaken by the waters and destroyed. . . . Rocky debris and large blocks from the sides of the hills were hurled down by the current of water, crushing and smashing the bones." (16)
Prestwich, who subscribed to the Ice Age theory and is regarded as the foremost authority on the geology of the Ice Age in England, was compelled to construct a theory of submergence of Western Europe and of' the Mediterranean coasts at the close of the Glacial or so-called Post-Glacial Period, and immediately preceding the Neolithic or Recent Period," which quotation was the title of a paper read by him before the Royal Society of London. It was published in the Society's Philosophical Transactions. It became clear to Prestwich that it was "impossible to account for the specific geological phenomena • . . by any agency of which our time has offered us experience." (17) "The agency, whatever it was, must have acted with sufficient violence to smash the bones." (18) "Nor could this have been the work of a long time, for the entombed bones, though much broken, are singularly fresh." (19) "Certain communities of early man must have suffered in the general catastrophe." (20)
The Rock of Gibraltar rose to close the strait, then sank down part way; the coast of England and even hills 1000 feet high were submerged; the island of Sicily was inundated, as were elevations in the interior of France. Everywhere the evidence betokens a catastrophe that occurred in not too remote times and engulfed an area of at least continental dimensions. Great avalanches of water loaded with stones were hurled on the land, shattering massifs, and searching out the fissures among the rocks, rushed through them, breaking and smashing every animal in their way.
In Prestwich's opinion the cause of the catastrophe was the sinking of the continent and its subsequent elevation, which was sudden, and during which water from the heights broke upon lower levels, bringing chaos and destruction. Prestwich suspected that the area involved must have been much larger than that discussed in his works. He gave no reason for such submergence and emergence. The catastrophe occurred when England was entering the age of
polished stone, or, possibly, when the centres of ancient civilization were in the Bronze Age.
In a later section of this book are presented archaeological evidences of vast catastrophes that more than once shattered every city and settlement of the ancient world! Crete, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Iran, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt were simultaneously and repeatedly laid waste. These catastrophes occurred when Egypt was in the Bronze Age and when Europe was entering the Neolithic Age.
1 Joseph Prestwich, "The Raised Beaches and 'Head' or Rubble-drift of the South of England," Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, XLV111 (1892), 319-37; Prestwich, "On the Evidences of a Submergence of Western Europe and of the Mediterranean Coasts at the Close of the Glacial or So-called Post-Glacial Period, and Immediately Preceding the Neolithic or Recent Period," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1893, Series A (1894), pp. 904ff.
2 Ibid., p. 906.
3 Prestwich, On Certain Phenomena Belonging to the Close of the Last Geological Period and
on Their Bearing upon the Tradition of the Flood (London: Macmillan and Co., 1895), pp. 25—26.
4 Prestwich, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, XLVIII, 336.
5 Prestwich, On Certain Phenomena, p. 30.
6 Ibid., p. 36.
7 Ibid., pp. 37-38.
8 Ibid., p. 38. '
9 Marcel de Serres, "Note sur de nouvelles breches osseuses d6cou-du-Forte (Gard),"
Bulletin du Socliti Ge"ologique de France, 2e S6rie, vertes sur la montagne de P6d6mar dans
les environs de Saint-Hippolyte-XV (1858), 233.
10 Prestwich, On Certain Phenomena, p. 47; Idem, Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society, 1893, p. 935.
11 Prestwich, On Certain Phenomena, p. 48.
12 Ibid., p. 46.
13 Ibid., p. 48.
14 Ibid., p. 50.
15 Ibid., p. 51.
16 Ibid., pp. 51-52.
17 Ibid., p. vi.
18 Ibid., p. 67.
19 Ibid., p. 7.
20 Ibid., p. 74.
