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

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

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258<br />

EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST<br />

mammoths nor mastodons, nor any <strong>of</strong> the other extinct Pleis-<br />

tocene animals, had lived in North America after the ice age.<br />

But no one has gone back to dig up the evidence <strong>of</strong> the mas-<br />

todons and ask how, if they did not live in New York State<br />

after the ice age, they came to be buried in the bogs where<br />

they are found. It is now our task to reopen this closed chapter,<br />

to drag these ancient beasts once more from their tomb.<br />

We shall first look at some <strong>of</strong> their case histories, and then<br />

summarize our findings.<br />

One might imagine two alternative solutions <strong>of</strong> the problem.<br />

Either the mastodons lived in New York State after the<br />

ice age, and got themselves mired in the bogs where their<br />

bodies are found, or they got mired in the bogs before the ice<br />

age, and somehow escaped destruction <strong>by</strong> the passage over<br />

them <strong>of</strong> the mile-thick ice sheet. In the latter case, the ani-<br />

mals would have been found in beds <strong>of</strong> swampy vegetable<br />

stuff below the sand, gravel, and striated stones deposited <strong>by</strong><br />

the glacier. How, then, are we to explain the fact that the<br />

animal remains are not found in this layer but are mixed<br />

up with the glacial materials themselves? Since this is usually<br />

true, we are driven to the conclusion that the animals were<br />

mired in New York State bogs neither before nor after the<br />

coming <strong>of</strong> the ice sheet. Before pressing<br />

on to further con-<br />

clusions, let us consider the details <strong>of</strong> a few cases.<br />

In August, 1871, a mastodon was discovered one mile<br />

north <strong>of</strong> Jamestown, New York, and the remains were examined<br />

in situ <strong>by</strong> Pr<strong>of</strong>essor S. G. Love and others. Love de-<br />

scribed the find as follows:<br />

On the east side <strong>of</strong> the Fredonia road, about one mile north <strong>of</strong><br />

Jamestown, is the farm <strong>of</strong> Joel L. Hoyt. About 500 yards from the<br />

more in ex-<br />

road is a sink or slough covering about an acre, possibly<br />

tent, and varying from two to eight feet in depth, and fed <strong>by</strong> several<br />

living springs. Cattle have been mired and lost there since the farm<br />

was first occupied. Mr. Hoyt drained the sink and left the muck to<br />

dry, and later commenced an excavation there. <strong>The</strong> work <strong>of</strong> excavation<br />

had continued a little more than a week, when the workmen<br />

began to find (as they supposed) a peculiar kind <strong>of</strong> wood and roots,

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