Charles Hallock
1911
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NOTE |
Charles Hallock (1834-1917) was a sportsman and publisher who devoted most of his career to writing and publishing about hunting and fishing. However, in the last two decades of his long life, he became interested in all manner of fringe ideas about cosmology and ancient history. In 1908, he wrote a book about vito-magentism, the effects of color on emotions, and humanity's connection to God. In 1911, Hallock published an article in The American Antiquary on the world between the glacial periods, and in it he wrote of lost civilizations and the end of the Ice Age as the inspiration for Noah's Flood. This brief paper is notable for delivering in miniature most of the argument later used by Graham Hancock in Magicians of the Gods.
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THE INTERGLACIAL PERIOD
By CHAS. HALLOCK, Ph. D.
The science of Cosmogony teaches us that in the early part of the formative period of the azoic age, the Earth’s surface was more generally level than now; that while it was rough, corrugated, honey-combed, cavernous and misshapen, it was not punctuated by massive ridges of rock and aggregations of high peaks; for contraction of its crust had not as yet caused the titanic uplifts (extrusions) which occurred later on. We are also taught that in order to hasten the cooling of the terrestrial envelope glaciation took place on portions of both hemispheres at once,—the coincidence being necessary to preserve the terrene equipoise, for if one-half of the globe had cooled and condensed quicker than the other half, the planet would have become oblong and wobbled on its axis, and thus remained inconstant to its orbit. As an eminent Swiss scientist has specified: “The Earth cools progressively. This cooling gives rise to folds, and causes great fissures through which water is introduced, and minerals containing water, or hydration may penetrate to a great depth. There very energetic chemical reactions take place, producing gases that will burn in air, and also metallic oxides? These reactions cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”
Obviously these operations are sequential. And since in terrestrial construction one step follows another in natural order, a secondary function of glaciation would be to degrade the elevations, disintegrate the rock masses, pulverize the detritus, and convert it into soil, and distribute it over the surface of the globe for general use. The interval between the first and second glacial periods was approximately 10,000 years: during which the climate was equable throughout the entire surface of the globe, from the equator to the polar antipodes. The atmosphere was mild and tepid, and there were few meteorological disturbances. Autogenous groups of animals and plants developed on every continent. The human race multiplied rapidly and population spread all over the most desirable parts of the globe. Civilization made equal progress in all geographical divisions. Commercial intercourse was maintained by land and sea and air between them all. Arts and sciences flourished and cities of vast extent were built, not only on the equator hemisphere, but on the western, whose precincts rivalled the greatest of modern times, and whose ruins are in impressive evidence today. Architecture which was coeval was similar in structure and design. Nature worship, which was the primitive religion, was prevalent in all geographical divisions, and the same temples of the Sun and priests of Baal, and the same symbols which were common in one were recognized in all and nut only in the continental areas of today, but in the submerged domains of Tula and Atlantis, whose mountain tops are seen protruding at the present age above the surface of the seas. Ideographs of this primitive worship are cut and carved in stone ail over the globe and are easily deciphered.
During this interglacial period the outlines of the existing continents were in large part different from their tracing now. as will be seen by reference to the annexed rough sketch map furnished by Dr. E. C. Curry for his great work on Pre-historic America and kindly loaned to the writer of this paper. Not only the contour but the surface of North America was very different. A big salt estuary occupied the area known as the Great Plains until recent times. A high plateau, five hundred feet higher than the present rich plains of the southwest, extended from the Atlantic Ocean front to the rear “Coteau des Prairies” in North Dakota, and whose summit level is indicated today by the altitude of the buttes and mesas which have been left standing after the main body of the table land as it once existed had been washed away by the overflow of the second glacial flood, caused by a crevasse in the ice dam which inclosed the great lakes.
Remains of this comparatively recent glacial sheet, which, like the first, occupied portions of both hemispheres, are conspicuous at the present time, though more spent on the east side than on this. The Noachian cataclysm in the Old World was an inevitable incident of the cosmic change then going on. and might have been anticipated by intelligent observers. It certainly was predicted (scientifically no doubt), according to the Bible story. Its counterpart took place in the southwestern part of this continent.
Obviously these operations are sequential. And since in terrestrial construction one step follows another in natural order, a secondary function of glaciation would be to degrade the elevations, disintegrate the rock masses, pulverize the detritus, and convert it into soil, and distribute it over the surface of the globe for general use. The interval between the first and second glacial periods was approximately 10,000 years: during which the climate was equable throughout the entire surface of the globe, from the equator to the polar antipodes. The atmosphere was mild and tepid, and there were few meteorological disturbances. Autogenous groups of animals and plants developed on every continent. The human race multiplied rapidly and population spread all over the most desirable parts of the globe. Civilization made equal progress in all geographical divisions. Commercial intercourse was maintained by land and sea and air between them all. Arts and sciences flourished and cities of vast extent were built, not only on the equator hemisphere, but on the western, whose precincts rivalled the greatest of modern times, and whose ruins are in impressive evidence today. Architecture which was coeval was similar in structure and design. Nature worship, which was the primitive religion, was prevalent in all geographical divisions, and the same temples of the Sun and priests of Baal, and the same symbols which were common in one were recognized in all and nut only in the continental areas of today, but in the submerged domains of Tula and Atlantis, whose mountain tops are seen protruding at the present age above the surface of the seas. Ideographs of this primitive worship are cut and carved in stone ail over the globe and are easily deciphered.
During this interglacial period the outlines of the existing continents were in large part different from their tracing now. as will be seen by reference to the annexed rough sketch map furnished by Dr. E. C. Curry for his great work on Pre-historic America and kindly loaned to the writer of this paper. Not only the contour but the surface of North America was very different. A big salt estuary occupied the area known as the Great Plains until recent times. A high plateau, five hundred feet higher than the present rich plains of the southwest, extended from the Atlantic Ocean front to the rear “Coteau des Prairies” in North Dakota, and whose summit level is indicated today by the altitude of the buttes and mesas which have been left standing after the main body of the table land as it once existed had been washed away by the overflow of the second glacial flood, caused by a crevasse in the ice dam which inclosed the great lakes.
Remains of this comparatively recent glacial sheet, which, like the first, occupied portions of both hemispheres, are conspicuous at the present time, though more spent on the east side than on this. The Noachian cataclysm in the Old World was an inevitable incident of the cosmic change then going on. and might have been anticipated by intelligent observers. It certainly was predicted (scientifically no doubt), according to the Bible story. Its counterpart took place in the southwestern part of this continent.
Source: Charles Hallock, “The Interglacial Period,” The American Antiquarian 33 (1911), 197-198.
