02.04.2013 Views

The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

238<br />

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST<br />

To those who, in the past, have argued for a very sudden<br />

catastrophe, the specialists in the field have <strong>of</strong>fered opposing<br />

theories to explain the preservation <strong>of</strong> the bodies. One <strong>of</strong><br />

these was that as the mammoths walked over the frozen<br />

ground, over the snow fields, they may have fallen into pits<br />

or crevasses and been swallowed up and permanently frozen.<br />

Or, again, they might either have broken through river ice<br />

and been drowned, or they might have got bogged while<br />

feeding along the banks.<br />

<strong>The</strong>re is no doubt that a certain number <strong>of</strong> animals could<br />

have been put into the frozen ground in just the manner sug-<br />

gested above. That this is the explanation for the preservation<br />

<strong>of</strong> the mammoths' bodies generally, however, is unlikely<br />

for a number <strong>of</strong> reasons.<br />

It is not generally realized, in the first place, that it is not<br />

merely a matter <strong>of</strong> the accidental preservation <strong>of</strong> eighty-odd<br />

mammoths and half a dozen rhinoceroses that have been<br />

found in the permafrost. <strong>The</strong>se few could perhaps be accounted<br />

for <strong>by</strong> individual accidents, provided, <strong>of</strong> course, that<br />

we agreed that the animals concerned were Arctic animals.<br />

<strong>The</strong> sudden freezing and consequent preservation <strong>of</strong> the<br />

flesh <strong>of</strong> these animals might be thus explained. But there is<br />

another factor <strong>of</strong> great importance, which has been con-<br />

sistently neglected. It has been overlooked that meat is not<br />

the only thing that has to be frozen quickly in order to be<br />

preserved. <strong>The</strong> same is true <strong>of</strong> ivory. Ivory, it appears, spoils<br />

when it dries out.<br />

very quickly<br />

Tens <strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong> skeletons and individual bones <strong>of</strong><br />

many kinds <strong>of</strong> animals have been discovered in the permafrost.<br />

Among them have been found the enormous numbers<br />

<strong>of</strong> mammoths' tusks already mentioned. To be <strong>of</strong> any use<br />

for carving, tusks must come either from freshly killed ani-<br />

mals or have been frozen very quickly after the deaths <strong>of</strong> the<br />

animals, and kept frozen. Ivory experts testify that if tusks<br />

are exposed to the weather they dry out, lose their animal<br />

matter, and become useless for carving (280:361-66).<br />

According to Lydekker, about 20,000 pairs <strong>of</strong> tusks, in

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!