REVIEW EXTRAORDINARY OF / ■ , Man and the Glacial Period” BY A MEMBER OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, WITH ANNOTATIONS AND REMARKS THEREON BY Judge C. C. BALDWIN, LL. D. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/reviewextraordin00mcge_0 PROFESSOR GEORGE FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., was born in Whitehall, N. Y., January 22, 1838. He graduated in the classical course of Oberlin College in 1859 and from the Theological Seminary in 1862. From 1862 to 1871 he was pastor of a Congregational Church in Bakersfield, Vermont. He there commenced to give attention to the study of local geology, getting suggestions from Professor C. H. Hitchcock and writing on the glacial phenomena for the papers. In 187 L he became pastor at Andover, Mass., where he pursued a more systematic study of glacial phenomena, making the happy acquaintance of Professor Asa Gray, of Harvard, and Professor Alpheus Hyatt, of the Boston Society of Natural History, pursuing a very active intellectual career, and as early as 1876 his extended observations were reported at length in the proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. WLile thus engaged, Mr. Clarence King gave him information of the terminal moraine south of New England. From that time on, the subject was never out of his mind, and his summer months, with much other spare time, were devo- ted to it. He spent four seasons in New England, and, in company with Professor H. Carvill Lewis, followed the line already surveyed by Professors Cook and Smock through New Jersey. These two were then invited by Professor Lesley to survey the boundary line in Pennsylvania. Their report isVolume Z of the 2d Penn. Geological Survey. In 1881 he became professor in the Oberlin Theological Seminary. Shortly after, the Bibliotheca Sacra was moved from Andover to Oberlin, to be placed under his editorship, and he has been one of its editors ever since. His duties as professor have, since that time, given him several months each year; all devoted to glacial studies. In 1882-83 he followed the limits of the great ice sheet through Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The results partly appeared in the American Journal of Science for July, 1883, and a full report with maps in Tract 60 of the Western Reserve Historical Society. The line was continuously traced and in the above report maps are given for the States and for every county in Ohio. The report was reprinted verbatim by the State of Pennsylvania. In 1884 he was employed by the United States Geological Survey to trace the line to the Mississippi River and to review the field in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The condensed report of his work was issued in 1890, and contained the result of observations made to that year.. (Bull. 58, U. S. Qeql. Survey.) 4 In 1886 he visited Alaska and camped for a month by the Muir Glacier. In the season of 1887-88 he further explored Ohio, Dakota and other parts of the Northwest. In the fall of 1887 he delivered a course of lectures on his hobby before the Lowell Institute in Boston and in 1888 before the Peabody Institute of Baltimore and in Brooklyn. In 1889 he published his great work “ The Ice Age in North America ”* (648 pp. 8 vo.), which has met a large sale in this country and abroad and has made him famous. The summer of 1890 was spent in study of the lava beds of the Pacific coast. In the summer of 1891 he visited Europe to there study the Ice Age and Early Man, for the first of which his unprecedented study of the ice limits in the United States gave him great advantage, and he was warmly received by scientists abroad. In the winter of 1891-92 he gave a second course of Lowell lectures and in 1892 there was issued his latest book, in the International Scientific Series, entitled “Man and the Glacial Period” (384 pp. 12 mo. 108 illus- trations and 3 maps). Professor Wright has also been a generous contributor, mainly upon his favorite topic, to the publications of the Boston Society of Natural History, the American Naturalist , the New Englander , American Journal of Science , the American Geologist , the Nation , the Independent , the Advance , the Congregationalist, the Atlantic Monthly , Scribner's Maga- zine and other papers, and has delivered many lectures. He has also pub- lished in 1881 the “ Logic of Christian Evidences ; ” in 1882, “ Studies in Science and Religion,” and in 1884, “The Divine Authority of the Bible.” He has a thoughtful, active, discriminating mind, careful in investigation and not fast to conclusion. He is modest and candid and has done an amount of active intellectual work that few could do unless their studies had been as largely in the field. At present he fills the chair atOberlin, of Professor of “ Relations of Science and Religion,” with leave of absence for several months each year to pursue his investigations. This professorship was created for him. This notice is in the main condensed from the Popular Science Monthly for December, 1892. *The Ice Age in North America and its Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man, by G. Frederick Wright, D. D., LL.D., F. G. S. A., Professor in the Oberlin Theologi- cal Seminary; Assistant upon the United States Geological Survey; Author of “Logic of Christian Evidences,” etc., with an appendix on “ The Probable Cause of Glacia- tion,” by Warren Upham, F. G. S. A., Assistant upon the Geological Survey of New Hampshire, Minnesota apd the United States. D. Appleton & C©., New York, 1889. 5 REVIEW EXTRAORDINARY. The following article is reprinted verbatim from the American Anthro- pologist for January, 1893. The language is so extraordinary for the discussion or review of matters of science that occasional words are put in capitals which in the origi- nal are in ordinary type. The letters in heavy black type refer to notes occasionally added to cor- rect mistakes, where tangible and definite charges are made. - MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. By VV J McGee. i. Wheresoever workers assemble, there IDLERS (A) gather to feast on the fruits of honest toil ; a part are PITIABLE PAUPERS, some traf- fic in UNWHOLESOME WARES, others SWINDLE THE UN- AY ARY under the cloak of honest dealing and CHEAT JUSTICE by specious pleas, and still others STEAL AND ROB. Thus the laborer is always the prey of the idler, and progressive mankind is handicapped by the burden of the helpless and the perverse. In like manner the workshops and market-places of science are haunted by HARPIES ; a part are the feeble of mind who always absorb but never produce, some STARVE AND POISON hungry minds with the husks of FICTION and the lotus of myth, others FOIST FALSEHOOD on the unwary under the guise of science and HIDE FROM JUSTICE behind shields of skillfully-woven words, and still others scoff at reason and rob knowledge of its glory. Thus creative genius is the prey of intellectual PARASITES, and the progress of knowledge is hindered by the help- less and the perverse. Anthropology is the youngest of the sciences, and even yet is barely crystallized out of the original magma of unsystemic (B) thought; more- (Note A) Observe the natural flow of language and easy grace of the reviewer in this style of writing. (Note B) One of Mr. McGee’s words, not yet in the Century Dictionary. f) over, anthropology is the most complex and obscure among the subjects of knowledge, so that its field gives but treacherous ground even for the cautious student. Yet the science of man is peculiarly attractive to human kind, and for this reason the untrained are constantly venturing* upon its purlieus ; and since each heedless adventurer leads a rabble of 4 followers, it behooves those who have at heart the good of the science not only to guard carefully their own footsteps, but to bell the blind lead- ers of the blind. The blind leaders are sometimes comparatively inno- cent traffickers in the imaginary, like unto the SELLERS OF POISON DRINKS, and sometimes the less pardonable DECEIVERS OF THE UNWARY and DEFEATERS OF JUSTICE, like unto COMMERCIAL SWINDLERS; while the blind led are the dupes of the one and the victims of the other. No question in anthropology is more enticing than that of human antiquity, and there is much writing on the subject — some good, more bad. In the latter class fall two recent publications, which have much in common. The first of these is Doughty’s “Evidences of Man in the Drift j ” 1 the second is Wright’s “Man and the Glacial Period.” 2 Both w.orks profess to treat of the geologic antiquity of man, though neither author can be classed as geologist or anthropologist. The former is a numismatist, a member of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, and makes no pretense of geologic skill or repute ; the latter is a professor of theology in a theologic seminary, yet lays claim withal to geologic skill, (C) which serves to render his writing the more specious. (Note C) The reviewer and Professor Wright are at entire antipodes as to the best way to acquire “geologic skill.” Professor Wright has spent much time in the field studying nature, while Mr. McGee seems to think a man on a stool will know most about the field. Witness his “geomorphy” hereafter. Early in Mr. McGee’s remarkable career as a geologist, in an address before the Iowa Horticultural Society, after discussing the. glacial field in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, he said : “It hence appears that in certain cases the geologist is able, after a few weeks’ actual observation and some philosophic research, to so definitely formulate the character of 1 Evidences of Man in the Drift — a description of certain archaeological objects re- cently discovered in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey: read before the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society, March 28, 1892 ; by Francis Worcester Doughty. New York : privately printed, 1892. 2 The International Scientific Series. Man and the Glacial Period; by G. Freder- ick Wright, D. D., LL. D., F. G. S. A., professor in Oberlin Theological Seminary, assistant on the United States Geological Survey, author of The Ice Age in North America, Logic of Christian Evidences, etc.; with an Appendix on Tertiary Man, by Prof. Henry W. Haynes (fully illustrated). New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1892. 7 ii Mr. Doughty (D) appears to have made a large collection of ice- wrought and water-worn pebbles and ferruginous nodules from the glacial drift, and to have found in their varied and curious forms suggestions of elaborate art. The ferruginous nodules are his most precious relics, abounding as they do in the fantastic forms of clay cemented by iron oxides. “To geologists these tablets are known as a variety of clay stones” (page 13) ; but to Mr. Doughty they are engraved tablets rich in records of the past. “ They bear upon their flattened surfaces figures of human and animal forms, sometimes singly represented, but more frequently in groups,” of which one “represents a man with Cacausian features sitting in the presence of several highly-colored in- dividuals, who approach him with bowed heads. In each instance, either the seated figure holds a staff bearing the head of a serpent, or the stalf is held before or behind him by another. The seated figure almost always wears an elaborate feathered crown resembling that worn by the Palenque figures” (page 10). “Having no desire to theorize,” Mr. Doughty merely suggests that the scene represents “ the ruler of the deposits extending over an area which could only be examined in detail by years of labor, that months of investigation may not reveal a single inaccuracy or disclose a single unlooked for phenomenon.” Mr. McGee has done with this notion as a former candidate for State Treasurer said he did with his early poverty — he has held his own remarkably well. There are those, who, in the study of nature, believe in observation rather than imagination. Indeed, is it better to teach nature or to be taught by it? What would Agassiz, the founder of glacial geology, have thought of the stool system ? His experience, by his neighbor and friend, Longfellow, reads : “ And Nature, the dear old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying, ‘ Here is a story book Thy Father has written for thee.’ “ ‘ Come, wander with me/ she said, ‘ Into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God.’ “And he waudered away and away, With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe. “And whenever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, Or tell a more marvellous tale.” (Note D) No notes are made as to the pamphlet of Mr. Doughty, though there is no apparent reason why he should be so dishonored by personal abuse. His pamphlet has nothing in common with the book of Pro- fessor Wright and is evidently reviewed with the other to transfer ridicule and abuse from one to the other, if that may be accomplished. 8 serpent clan, or totem, receiving homage from * * * subordinate tribes.” ‘‘Many of these clay tablets are painted, but the arrangement of color, which resembles the Chinese style, is such as to render it very dif- ficult to determine the nature of the scenes depicted.” They are also 4 patinated. A perplexing feature, however, is “the want of proper division between the figures, ” which is ascribed to a fundamental idea of “space economy,” and which “to our eye creates hopeless confusion. The large figures are made up of many smaller ones, and the designs are hard to decipher. * * * A foot in one group is liable to serve as a head in another, the arm of one becomes the leg of another,” etc. More- over, “a specimen held one way shows one design, reversed another, turned again, still another, and so on up to four.” Most readers will heartily concur in the author’s qualified opinion that “it is hard to under- stand such artistic methods” (page 11). The sculpturing is not external alone: “Many of the tablets contain a layer of clay through the center. * * * This interior layer of clay presents a second face as perfect as the first, and in every case is found worked up with figures or painted;” and “the most perfect depictions of the human form * * * were found upon the inside clay surfaces of some of these stones.” Mr. Doughty’s . active imagination is able to find not only “traces of animal matter” in the tablets, but “parchment or skin dressed in clay and upon this scroll “appears an excellent male head, a full figure of a very fat gentleman, and other devices” (page 12). In short, “these tablets appear to be simply the clay books of the men of the drift ; ” and this interpretation is sustained by a quotation from Job, xix, 23 (page 13). The pebbles are hardly less significant to Mr. Doughty ; many are heads in profile and full face ; some bear ‘ ‘Indian figures and feathered head-dresses strongly marked. Others represent faces of a distinctly Cau- casian type, and are often heavily bearded. Sometimes the beard is represented as a mere goatee, at others as being blown by the wind, at others still cut square after the Assyrian style.” “Other heads have been found of strongly- marked negroid features and cranial shape and it is truly remarkable that the Caucasian pebbles are white, the negroid pebbles black and the Indian pebbles brown, and even more remarkable that the Caucasian heads “wear hats of various recognized pat- terns” (page 9). Most striking of all is the solitary instance “of a white face with strongly -marked Celtic features, and a heavy red beard and moustache.” The author suggestively adds, “I have found no representative of the cow, but of the man-headed bull I have several examples” (page 10). Other “existing animals” are “the dog, horse, sheep, rabbit, black bear, wolf, anthropoid ape, elephant, green adder, parrot and smaller birds, and the dolphin or whale.” There are also many prehistoric animal forms, including “an animal of hippopotimus [sic] type, a large web-footed bird somewhat resembling the dodo, and, lastly, a reptile with a long snout and flattened paddle-like tail” (page 10). Not content with proving the existence of man in the drift by these remarkable carvings, Mr. Doughty ventures to predict that the “Old Man of the Mountain, that gigantic human profile cut on the New Harnp- 9 shire hills” (an imaginative sketch of which embellishes the work), was carved out “ untold ages ago by the men of the drift ” (page 15). It should be added that Mr. Doughty rejects the “ well-known glacial theory ” and accepts the view of Ignatius Donnelly, that “the drift was suddenly thrown upon the earth either by the contact of our planet with a comet or by some other agency not understood” (page 7). In brief the book is a bundle of absurdities worthy of notice only because it is representative of the vain imaginings so prevalent among unscientific collectors and because its maleficent influence has been multi- plied by favorable press notices. in The Reverend Professor Wright begins with an introductory chapter, in which he discusses the characters of existing glaciers. He says: “A glacier is a mass of ice so situated and of such a size as to have motion in itself. * * * Upon ascending a glac er far enough, one reaches a part corresponding to the lake out of which a river often flows. Technic- ally this motionless part is called the neve. * * * The neve is the reservoir from which the glacier gets both its supply of ice and the impulse which gives it its first movement ” (pages 2, 3). Unfortunately the author does not indicate how a moving body can have a motionless part, (E) nor how it receives both matter and motion from this motionless part. He fails, in short, to indicate what portion, if any, of his statement is true. 1 The second chapter treats of existing glaciers and the third of glacial motion, and in so far as they are made up of quotations from trust- worthy observers are worthy of high confidence. It is to be regretted, (Note E) This plain inaccuracy must have given Mr. McGee great joy, and fortunately it would mislead no one else. It was evidently not one of judgment. It may not have been the author’s. If before the word “motion- less ” is inserted “ nearly” or “apparently ” or (if the author had in mind some former writers) “so-called,” the grammar would be perfect. The meaning is clear. The neve is not absolutely motionless, but is described as a “lake out of which a river flows,” which has some motion or it would never get to the outlet. See remarks of Mr, S. F. Emmons and Mr. W. H. Dali of the United States Geologic Survey, vol. vii, Bulletin of the Philo- sophical Society of Washington, p. 37 (meeting of May 10, 1884). 1 Our foremost glacialist, Professor T. C. Chamberlin, says of this remarkable ex- position: “As a matter of fact, the neve moves like other parts of a glacier, and the signs of such motion are indicated in the cut on the very page before the reader as he follows this astonishing statement. The motion bf the neve has been a matter of common knowledge for half a century, anti is absolutely beyond question. The com- parison with a lake is wholly misleading, and evidently springs from a fundamental misconception of a glacier.” — The Dial, vol xiii, 1892, p. 302. 10 however, that the quotations are not more extensive (F) and in some cases better selected — for example, the observations of Sir Wyville Thomp- son in the antarctic region are ignored. It is to be regretted even more deeply that the author speciously defends his own blundering attempt to measure the rate of ice motion in Muir glacier instead or accepting the excellent series of measurements by Professor H. F. Reid. (G) In 1886 he sought to measure the movement of this magnificent glacier by “observations * * * with a sextant upon pinnacles of ice recognizable from a base-line established upon the shore ” (page 47), and obtained a value of 70 feet per day. In 1890 Professor Reid measured the ice flow at the same season by theodolite readings on a line of flags at (Note F) Mr. McGee differs from the Edinburgh Review for April, 1892, which, in an able article on Dr. Wright’s larger work on the Ice Age, says, “From practical work he was led on to the eminently useful task of summarizing, for the benefit of the general reading public, the mass of information accumulated by himself and his coadjutors ; and h brought to its execution the valuable qualifications of wide persona^ experience, quiet enthusiasm for his subject and a disinterested love of truth. He might, indeed, have trusted more than he has done to his own literary capabilities, for in his laudable desire to let his fellow laborers speak for themselves, he has unnecessarily, here and there, given to his admirably illustrated volume somewhat the air of a compilation.” (Note G) It is the opinion of high authorities that both measurements were substantially correct. Mr. McGee is either very unfair or ignorant of the literature of the subject in all of which causes of difference appear. (See Man and the Glacial Period, p. 47; Am. Geologist, December, 1892, page 397; Mr. Warren Upham in “ Pleistocene and Present Ice Sheets ” at the Ottawa meeting of the Geological Society of America; Professor H. P. Cushing, Am. Geologist, October, 1891, pp. 215, 216; Scientific American for April 9, 1892, p. 227 ; and Professor H. F. Reid, vol. iv. Nat. Geog. Mag. pp. 41, 42.) Whether ignorant or not, Mr. McGee is certainly unfair, for Professor W right on the very page referred to did accept Professor Reid’s measurements. He even speaks of them as “by methods promising greater accuracy than could be obtained by mine.” Mr. McGee calls on Professor Wright to accept Professor Reid’s measurements in place of his own when both Reid and Cushing say (did Mr. McGee read it ?) that the ice must have moved faster in Wright’s time. In 1890 it had retreated 3000 feet and was less than half as high. In 1886 it was apparently advancing, in 1890 retreat- ing. Professor Reid anticipated it would continue to retreat; but Muir Gla- cier is a coquette, and, in 1892, Professor Reid found it was again advancing. 11 approximately equidistant points across the glacier, the observations being made from two stations on opposite sides of the stream. Two independent series of readings were made, each covering a period of three or four days ; and partly for the reason that they were designed to correct a manifest error, the observations were made with exceptional care. The measurements show that the daily motion ranges from a few inches near the sides to about 7 feet toward the center, the mean being 4 or 5 feet. * 1 The reverend profes- sor seeks to impugn this excellent work by specious arguments (page 47), and even FALSIFIES Reid’s record by speaking of “ ten feet per day in the most rapidly- moving portion observed,” while Reid’s highest figure is 7.2 feet. (H) Chapter IV is devoted to “ Signs of past glaciation.” These signs, are enumerated as (1) scratches upon the rocks; (2) extensive unstratified deposits; (3) transported bowlders; and (4) extensive gravel terraces. The chapter is elementary if not puerile, and is characterized by EGREGIOUS AND MISLEADING EGOTISM. It purports to summarize the work of a large number of geologists in different countries, chiefly in the United States, yet but two American geologists are mentioned, while the first personal pronoun appears in a score of places, sometimes in deceptive connection. Thus he says ([) (page 62): “I have traced this limit of southern bowlders for thousands of miles across the continent, according to the delineation which may be seen in the map in a later chapter ;” and again he extols “ our map” and depreciates Profes- sor Chamberlin’s earlier mapping by comparison; (J) while in fact his map (Note H) Professor Reid himself says, in Johns Hopkins University Circular, No. 84, “The observations on the flags showed a motion of eight to ten feet a day.” In a paper in the Literary Northwest , for Feb. 1893, Mr. McGee wanders still farther from the facts, and, omitting even the 7.2 feet of his article, represents Professor Wright as representing that “Professor H. F. Reid’s subsequent measurement of from four to five - feet per day is worthless.” This statement is in every respect the opposite of the truth. (Note I) This statement is strictly true. A thousand miles in East and West represents very many more miles of terminal moraine, as Mr. McGee ought to know, and could learn by looking at any map of it. The statement a few lines further on is not fair — Wright says, “ thousands of miles across,” not clear across. He has no doubt traveled that line for thousands of miles and no doubt a greater distance than any other man. (Note J) This statement is entirely imaginative. i Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. iv, 1892, page 44. I 12 is little more than a reduction of a map published by Chamberlin years be- fore, (K) and the Reverend Professor Wright never followed “across the continent” (I) any of the lines indicated upon it and never made any observations in the entire region which are accepted with confidence by leading American geologists. Moreover, the enumeration and descriptions of “signs of glaciation” is reprehensibly incomplete and archaic. Probably the most trustworthy and certainly the most widely-spread evidence of glacial action is found in topography. The American drift is known to be of glacial origin not only from its similarity to the moraines of living glaciers, but from a distinct surface configuration, entirely different from that produced by water or any other geologic agency except ice; and ex- tensive drift-free areas are characterized by a topography which could not have been produced by running water, or by any other agency except moving ice. It is the function of geology to interpret these topographic (Note K) This statement becomes very amusing upon an examination of the maps, for the very map which Professor Wright is said to have copied was itself copied from Wright. Not dishonorably so, for Professor Cham- berlin expressly accredited to Professor Wright on the very face of his maps, the line from the Mississippi to Pennsylvania, and to Lewis & Wright the Pennsly vania line. (See Third Annual Report of Geol. Survey (map, page 314, map page 322, and map page 346); also Sixth Annual Report, map page 205, and Seventh Annual Report map, page 155.) Professor Chamber- lin did not follow accurately the Wright line, but he partly corrects his line in the Seventh Annual Report, still giving Wright’s name to the Ohio boundary and Lewis & Wright to the Pennsylvania. Copies of parts of the Chamberlin maps are herewith. The names are not very conspicuous in the original, but may easily be seen there and in this reproduction, by a glass. The name of Wright occurs just east of Cincinnati and Lewis & Wright in Eastern Pennsylvania. Professor Chamberlin, on pages 339, 341, 346 and 347 of the Report also refers to the work of Wright and of Lewis & Wright in tracing the boundary. Professor Wright not only credits “Professor Chamberlin” for his work — with not one uncomplimentary word — pages 101, 102 and 103, but praises his “sagacity,” p. 102. The extent of the drift is partly shown on the Cham- berlin maps by a drab wash, which does not appear in a photographic repro- duction. In the Literary Northwest McGee mentions the above map on p. 314, 3d An. Rep., as the one claimed to be copied by Wright. He calls it “Chamberlin’s classic map of terminal moraines, published early in the last decade.” Well, it may be classic, when it contains the lines per- sonally surveyed by Professors Wright & Lewis. Every one of the five maps above mentioned contains credit to one or both. Why does not McGee use his glasses? It is not safe for him to browse around without them. 13 orms through that branch of the science known as “geomorphy, or some imes as the ''Sew Geology ; * *and much of our knowledge concerning the lacial history of the continent has been acquired thereby; ; ■ but there is tothing in the Reverend Professor Wright’s numerous writings to indicate he slightest comprehension of the principles of geomorphy. ; (L) In the fifth and sixth chapters “ancient glaciers” are described at Ireary length; for the description is a melange of crude observation, HSLEADING QUOTATION, and DECEPTIVE EGOTISM. Within i generation glacial geology has made great strides, and nowhere has t e progress of the science been more rapid than in the United . States. One >f the results of the brilliant researches by Chamberlin, Win chell, Salis- bury, Gilbert, Smock, Leverett, and other geologists is the recognition of a •omplex glacial history, including two, three, or more distinct ice invas- ions separated by intervals of mild climate; a history so complex and (Note L) Geomorphy. Possibly Professor Wright, having much more | experience in glacial phenomena than Mr. McGee, has not as much faith in VlcGee’s new science as he himself has. At any rate it is hardly wise to •eproach Professor Wright with not expounding it to the nation in so small L booh as “Man and the Glacial Period,” when McGee himself thinks it ! necessary to inform scientists of the existence of the science. See another tirade from “McGee in Science for December, 1892, p. 317. He says: •