Salt Lake Telegram | 1922-08-06 | Page 4 | Epoch-Making Books

Epoch-Making BOOKS By Thomas Bragg Cepvrlcht. 121 few York Kvtlit Werld). ejr Preea FaelleliiB Co. thr fnixnpi.rj or ofoumit.-How ofoumit.-How lone hea thla old ajrlt-bal. of an earth been rolling through apace, aarway? When thoa of ua who ar now ?- tln old war little children they used I to tell ua that th arth wu only about i to yeara old. 1 We do not know nor did teacher know that a great Bcotrhmaa. har)ea Lyell, had already publiehed a book which was destined to revolut lonUe th world thrrnght upon th eubjeot of the earth and man and their re-apertlve re-apertlve age. In th t prtnclplea of tology." pub. llahed In I Hi, ..yell proved that th geologic paat fmda Ha explanation In tha present at ate ami tendency of thlnga, and that In what we aee going on around ua w may behold the pro-cae pro-cae which brought the earth to the condition In which we now find It. A century or two ago the proeent earth feature auppuaed to hav originated orig-inated suddenly; the mountain range with all their diversified form of beetling beet-ling tllffe. deep gorgea. thundering cataract cat-aract a, from the slope and emlltng val-Kys. val-Kys. th lake and r I vera, together with all the o titer earth phenomena, were the reult of cataclysmic action rather than long, alow, natural proreee Prom Lyell'a book the cataclysmic theory received It death blow. The book showed that th great geological changes had com about aa th slow operation of natural law a. by aub-a aub-a dene and upheaval, by rivera. torrents, tor-rents, aprtnga and ttdea. by froet and heat and the various other physical aaencie operating through count leaa ages. Having established so much. Lyell made U Impossible not to bflter that Ihe age of the earth was to b reckoned reck-oned not In thousands but In hundred a of thousands, if not millions -of year, el nee practically limitless period of time were required fur th production of th observed facta. In the piblea of the year IBS, on the margin off against th opening verve of Oneets. was th legend: "49M. October IS." which meant that on that date. 'God created th heaven and th garth out of nothing." That old legend amounted ta nothing noth-ing after th publication of UyeUs book, and th age ( th earth wa thought of aa being Inconceivably re- irole. The "Principles af oeology' also com-, pletely changed our thnuaht regarding: the- age of man on the earth. The "finds In csves and river drifts and tlluvlum forced the conclusion thst the humsn species had been on thla planet for many hundreds of thoussnds of yesra, to aay the least. Not the lesst emaslng of the reeulte ef the Bcotchmsn's book wu the radical rad-ical change that It led to la our thought of death. V hen I.yell waa born practlcal.lv every ev-ery bod v believed that death oratnnted with "Adam s fall" la the Oardea of Eden, some lOSO years ago. j As another hea put It. "Kvery pang that convulses Ihe frsme of every ere-1 sted thing, every passioa or lastinct or necessity that contributes to suffering, snd tinallv to death. Is bJt Ihe fruit of the disobedience In Paradise." Put In l.yella hook men becsme ac-cualnted ac-cualnted with the fact that rountl.-ss ages before man nude his appearance upon earth, deelh raged and revelled emong Ite occupant,: and that It was so solidly a, part af the orta-lnal ran-etltutlon ran-etltutlon ef hinge that It was In full force whea th. mastodon and dlnolh-etjguai dlnolh-etjguai wera masters ef the planet.