Journey to the Sun, page 3
We penetrated into one of the rare oases of verdure scattered here and there.
“Here,” I said, “are algae and wracks, whose long stems sway in the waves. Here are mushrooms displaying infinitely varied forms and colors. Here are mosses, lycopods, ferns and horsetails. A liliacea7 is opening its pretty corollas to the gentle influence of the zephyrs, and if I’m not mistakes, I can see a clump of palm trees over there!”
“You’re not mistaken.”
“But have you transported me to the tropics?”
“We’re still directly underneath your apartment, but we’re thirty or forty meters closer—which is to say, the entire thickness of the layer of terrain that the sea has left on the primordial soil since the first period.”
“Palm trees in Paris!” I exclaimed, admiringly. “Oh Heavens, how I regret not having brought my thermometer, bought from the skillful Monsieur Delamarre;8 I’d know what degree of heat there was when palm trees grew in Paris.”
“I can tell you that. Your Réaumur thermometer would indicate twenty-six degrees above zero in summer and twelve degrees of frost in winter, in an average year.”
“But Monsieur Demon, that’s not possible, for palm trees only grow in the hottest regions; and besides, our scientists say that the atmosphere was as warm in those days as Turkish baths, and the waters as hot as a consommé at Véry’s.”9
“Your scientists! Your scientists!” the demon replied, going red with anger. “What the devil are your scientists to me? Learn, Monsieur, that I’m not a scientist, that I detest hypotheses, that I’m a devil who only believes what I can see, that I’m showing you palpable facts, and that I don’t like preposterous arguments, devil though I am!10
“Forgive me if I’ve annoyed you, but...”
“Don’t you know that beings are modified in accordance with the climates and environments they inhabit? Who has told you that the palm trees of that period, and the animals of that period, inhabiting the place where we are, weren’t organized in such a way as to support without inconvenience a cold of twelve or twenty degrees Réaumur? Who obliges you to believe that the earth has jumped on its axis because it received a swipe from a comet’s tail in passing, to make the globe a cooled ball, the atmosphere a steam-bath, the sea a hot consommé, and other nonsense of the same sort?11
“So, to get back to the facts, for I need facts myself, how can you explain the history of the mammoth found in 1799,12 with flesh and hide, in a block of ice thirty or forty feet thick, on the edge of the Glacial Sea? And the rhinoceros with the head of a pig, similarly found in its flesh and hide in the ice of the river Wiluji?13 Do you think that when it was surprised by the cold that the atmosphere was as hot as a steam-bath? And yet that icy land was populated, as it is today, with mammoths and rhinoceroses; there were, Monsieur, many other animals and vegetables that can only exist today in the tropics because their constitution has changed as they have moved nearer to the equator.”
Genii are ordinarily very irritable, as everyone knows; so, although my devil’s arguments had not entirely convinced me, I let it seem so for the sake of prudence. Then he calmed down and observed that I was mistakenly confusing true scientists with makers of theories, the romancers of science. Then he took me by the hand, amicably, and transported me to the third period.
Third Period
We were in the middle of a vast forest, whose extraordinary aspect did not resemble anything that I had ever seen or imagined. There were no majestic oaks, nor birches with dangling branches, nor picturesque elms, such as shade the woods of Boulogne and Meudon today. We were walking through gigantic ferns whose trunks five feet high, were only surpassed by that of horsetails that rose up as bare as Italian poplars. Cycads, zamias, palm trees and a few other trees whose very genres are unknown today swayed their strange foliage in the air. Through the mosses and lycopods whose long stems carpeted the ground or launched forth in green garlands around the trees, a host of liliaceae spread their brightly-colored corollas. Everything presented itself to my sight with a gigantic aspect and an absolutely strange bearing, to the point that, far from believing that I was on the soil of Paris, I imagined that the genius has transported me to one of the great planets of the solar system.
He read my thought. “No,” he told me, “you’re really in Paris, except that we’ve changed location slightly, for we’re now strolling in the garden of the Tuileries, and since the previous period we’ve risen up by a hundred meters. The primordial soil, a few rocks of which can still be perceived here and there, is entirely covered by successive layers of red sandstone, Penean sandstone, variegated sandstone, Conchylian limestone, iridescent marl and lees deposited by the waters. Those layers are stratified—which is to say, regularly laid down in beds one atop another, in the order of their deposition. But look over here, and you’ll begin to recognize an individual whose numerous generations will survive the frightful catastrophes of the globe and populate the forests of your homeland.”
I looked, and saw a pine, Pinus defrancii, laden with cylindrical cones and concave at the base. I wanted to get closer to that tree, whose roots were bathed by water; I was already advancing my hand to pluck a leaf that I destined for the natural history museum, when a shrill and menacing hiss became audible in its foliage. I recoiled in fear on perceiving the scaly head of a horrible reptile gazing at me with flamboyant eyes. Its open mouth, garnished with sharp teeth, menaced me with a double dart; its neck was prodigiously long, similar to a cable, or rather, a great serpent. Its massive body, covered with large yellow-tinted scales, bore some resemblance to that of an enormous fish, but it had four short legs, the extremities of which were enveloped by a thick membrane, which gave them a resemblance to those of a sea-turtle. A short, stout tail like that of a crocodile served as a rudder.
“It’s a plesiosaur,” said my genius. “Its body is organized for swimming, not for walking, and yet its respiration is aerial; it breathes with lungs, which forces it to stay close to the shore. Its prodigious neck, surmounted by a small head, permits it to reach out to seize its prey, which consists of mollusks and small reptiles, not only from the bed of the waters but also from the foliage of the trees bordering the bank. It commonly grows to thirty or forty feet in length, but what will astonish you more is that, like chameleons and a few anolis lizards, it has the singular faculty of changing color instantaneously by reason of the passions that agitate it.
Suddenly, the sea started seething a few paces away, and we soon perceived another monster of gigantic stature approaching that of a whale came to run aground near the shore. It uttered frightful hissing sounds, while it strove to get back to deep water. Its body closely resembled the other, especially in its cetacean feet; it was similarly covered with scales like those of an alligator, but its lizard-like head was not borne by a long neck; its tapering muzzle was prolonged in front like that of a dolphin, and its long jaws were armed with tightly-packed and trenchant teeth. My genius told me that it was an ichthyosaur.
“These two animals,” he said, “belong to the class of saurians, or lizards.14 The latter preferentially inhabits beaches where marine turtles, on which it feeds, come to graze algae and fucus; it also hunts the fish with which the sea is beginning to be populated. Do you want me to take you to visit the islands comprising that archipelago? You’ll see a similar nature everywhere and living beings showing themselves more or less in the order of the complication of the organs. Among the vegetables you’ll only find very few dicotyledons, and the plants that are dominant belong to the family of cycads. Among the animals, the species of the previous period are still very numerous; there are more gryphaea, ammonites and belemnites, the latest arrivals. There are crustaceans, saurians with monstrous forms, turtles and fish; but the boscage doesn’t yet resound with the melodious song of birds; none of those animals has yet cleaved the air with light wings; no mammal has trod the mosses of these forests.
I was in haste to see nature developing before my eyes; on the other hand, I confess that I wanted nothing better than to quit a place where I saw plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs swimming, of scarcely attractive appearance.
My genius divined that, and passed his finger over my eyes.
Fourth Period
A magnificent valley opened before us, and a vast horizon was discovered, limited to the south by a girdle of blue-tinted and very high mountains. Toward the north a fresh water lake extended, the shores of which were intercut by pools and marshes. The vegetation was almost the same as in the preceding period, except that the horsetails were not as tall. The cycads were less numerous and scarcely furnished a third of the vegetation; ferns and conifers furnished the other two-thirds. In the shade of the woods there was still a host of mushrooms, lichens, mosses, lycopods and other vascular cryptogams. The large yellow or white corollas of nenuphars could be seen swaying gently over the waters of the marshes, while their large varnished leaves, extended over the surface of the waves, served to shelter the first fresh-water fish, and a host of snails moving over the algae and developing their retractile horns.
“Look,” said the genius. “The inflexions of that immense lake snaking northwards already indicate the general form that the basin of Paris will take when the sea has laid down its foundations of white chalk; but it’s necessary for many centuries to go by yet.”
“This,” I exclaimed, “is a charming landscape, and cool boscage in which one would love to stroll while meditating!”
“Be careful of judging before knowing! At any rate, the lias, the last superior layer that we saw during the previous period is covered today with oolithic formations and stratifications that are more often inclined than horizontal, separated by beds of clay or marl. It’s to that formation that the mountains of the Jura are due, and those that form the blue-tinted girdle that you perceive on the far limit of the horizon; it’s also to that formation that your daubers of Paris owe the best calcareous schist, on which they lithograph their witty concepts and, more often, their calumnious caricatures.”
At that moment a soft and reedy voice became audible at the edge of the nearby marsh; I drew nearer.
“Stop,” said the demon, “or perhaps you’ll find something you weren’t looking for.”
Then, setting his crutch down beside him, he sat down tranquilly on a stone at the summit of the hill. I paid no heed to him and continued taking long strides toward the marsh. How terrified I was when I found myself ten paces away from a horrible caiman, which, on perceiving me, opened a maw capable of swallowing an ox. My disturbance did not prevent me from observing that its jaws were very short, which gave its open mouth the form of a circular gulf. Without making more ample notes, I turned on my heel and started fleeing at top speed. The animal pursued me, but as I knew that its course could only be rapid in a straight line because of the long distance between its two pairs of legs. I made a thousand turns and detours, and it soon lost track of me.
I thought that I was saved when, as I traversed a clump of reeds, I saw a gavial even larger and more formidable than the caiman; this one had narrow jaws, but six feet long and armed with teeth larger than a lion’s. If the first had seemed to threaten me with being swallowed whole, this one seemed to be able to slice me clean in two with the first snap of its teeth. I therefore started running harder, while tacking, and darting supplicant glances at my demon, who, with an admirable tranquility, was watching me run without bothering to quit the comfortable attitude he had adopted.
While I fled, running out of breath, I was racing along the edge of the lake momentarily when I saw a megalosaurus swimming toward me, a lizard whose body, stouter than that of an elephant, appeared to me to be at least eighty feet long. I launched myself toward the hill, and found myself face to face with a geosaur, another lizard of colossal size, which raised its horrible head above the reeds.
I uttered a cry of distress and begged the genius to come to my rescue. Alas, he only replied to my distress with a long burst of laughter, and, without disturbing himself, he started placidly whistling a galop by Monsieur Musard.15
I was breathless with fatigue and terror, when a dense clump of pines and firs appeared before me; their straight and mossy trunks were so tightly packed that only a human, at the most, could slip between them. I immediately threw myself into the trees, thinking that the monstrous reptile could not pursue me there—and, indeed, I could no longer see it. I was beginning to reassure myself when a strange sound made me shiver again. I heard the sound of two powerful wings cleaving the air above my head rapidly. I looked up and saw a formidable flying dragon soaring above the trees that protected me.
Its membranous wings, similar to those of a bat, had a span of five or six feet; its livid yellow body was covered with a scaly armor and terminated in a long tail; it’s head resembled a crocodile’s, but its jaws, strong and well armed with teeth, were extraordinarily prolonged in the form of a beak. As the membrane of its wings was sustained by one of its fingers, prodigiously elongated, when it settled on the ground it could not easily make use of its forelimbs to walk, which obliged it to adopt the attitude of a kangaroo—which is to say, to raise the anterior part of its body vertically and lean on its tail in order to maintain that position. That vigorous tail also served to launch it into the air, as if by the effect of a spring, when it deployed its wings in order to take flight. It was a pterodactyl.
I crouched down in the moss and allowed the monster to pass; it soon elevated its flight like an eagle and disappeared into the clouds. Several other pterodactyls of different species were fluttering around me, but they did not frighten me because they were no bigger than a crow. I even saw some that were no larger than canaries and had short muzzles.
Finally, I climbed the hill, disputing my passage with tortoises, lizards, frogs and monstrous toads, and came to fall, drained by fatigue and emotion, at the feet of my guide, who was still whistling his Musard galop with an imperturbable calm.
“I warned you,” he said, finally, “but you didn’t want to listen to the voice of your genius. You set off like a fool and frightened yourself like an idiot.”
“Like an idiot, you say? I’d like to know how the most intrepid man would have come through it!”
“It’s not a question of the other stupidity that you call intrepidity, which, more often than not, consists of gambling for something trivial—a stupid prejudice—the only real wealth that a man possesses: his life. Only an idiot can play a game in which he has everything to lose and nothing to gain. It’s a question of very simple reasoning. How could I have found you in your study in 1836 if you’d previously been devoured by a crocodile? All those animals didn’t even perceive you, because you only belong to this antediluvian period in the invisible and impalpable form—if it is a form—of a spirit, and, just between us and without wanting to annoy you, a rather poor spirit.
After that brief rebuke the genius recovered all his good humor and went on: “This period only offers, by way of animals, zoophytes, madrepores, sea-urchins and crinoids; among the shelled mollusks, ammonites, belemnites, oysters, terebratula, trochus, etc.; a few crustaceans; and finally, among the vertebrates, fish, and a prodigious quantity of reptiles of various forms, mostly gigantic. But birds and terrestrial mammals have not yet been seen to appear.”
“One moment, Monseigneur Genius. It seems to me that I’ve read somewhere one thing that doesn’t accord with what you’re saying. Mammal bones, and even birds, have been found in the Stonesfield schist, and yet that schist belongs to the formation of the fourth period.”
“That’s true—but you’ll notice that Stonesfield is the only locality where that anomaly is observed, and it only proves that the portions of terrain in which those bones were found had not been modified by the waters since the epoch of their original formation. If you don’t mind, we’re going to leave this period when the reptiles, principally the lizard, dominate the animal kingdom.”
“Gladly—but before then, give me the pleasure of telling me where we are, for I’ll be very pleased to see once again in Paris the place where I was so terribly frightened.”
“Very well; I was sitting in the main pathway of the Luxembourg, while you were running from the railings of the Observatoire to the palace of the peers of France.”
Fifth Period
The sea had once again taken possession of valleys of palms and pines; everything was swallowed by the waters. Only one spur of chalky rock rose above the surface of that immense ocean, and we were sitting on top of it.
“It’s three or four thousand years at the most since we quit the fourth period,” said the genius, and yet, in that short interval of time, which is scarcely equivalent to half the life of a baobab, Adansonia baobab,16 the globe has experienced several upheavals, if we can judge by the great diversity of composition offered by the formation of new layers of terrain. These layers present themselves in the form of raised plateaux or hills with steep slopes, and are less inclined than those of preceding terrains. They’re composed, in the order of their superposition, of ferruginous sands and green sands, inferior or green chalk, median or gray chalk, and superior or white chalk. It’s probably in this period that it’s necessary to place the formation of our principal mountain chains.”
