Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-19
TIE EARTH AND THE COMET.

aOIe pfOQucIiOu.
TIE EARTH AND THE COMET
Hr. DONuD{Ty'S CeIebINtc6 R6gH0sOE---i
Contest arit Scientists.
The Philadelphia Telegram, in review
of Mr.. Donnelly's new work Ragnarok,
says:
This is an interesting book, but we are
not half SO much interested IN it as we are
in the probable reception which will be
accorded to it by the scientific world. Mr.
Donneliy's previous publication, entitled
Atlantis: the Antediluvian World, had a
great popular success. The religious presS
in particular accorded it warm cOmmenda-
ton, possibly because of its ingenious ar
gument in proof of the verify of the
deluge and of the correctness
of the representations made
in Holy Writ concerning the
Garden of Eden. The scientists, however,
frowned upon Mr.. Donnelly's book. Some
of them declared that it was of no account
because it was not based upon original re-
search. some of them refused to have any,
thing to say about it one way or the other.
while at least one antiquarian society
formulated pronunciamento warning the
public against the performance, for the
reason that its archaeology was unsound-
but none of the scientists undertook to
handle Mr.. Donnelly's facts and conclusions
for the purpose of proving the facts to be
errors and the conclusions to be fallacious
And now Mr.. Donnelly has presented the
scientific world with another nut, the
cracking of which we confess to an ankle
ty to see the scientific world attempt. Mr.
Donnelly's Atlantean theory was ingenious
and in its way important. The theory ad-
vanced in the book before us is quite as
ingenious and is even more important. In,
brief terms, Mr.. DonnelIy has been
profoundly impressed by the fact
is it a fact, -the-way!-
that what the geologists call the drift only
appears on certain parts of the ea-th's
surface. In rough diagram Mr.. Dom
nelly represents the deposit known as the
drift as belonging to the hemisphere, in
Guiding the whole of Europe and Africa,
the whole of South America, and some
thing more than half of North America.
With the curious fact of the limited area
of the drift deposit to begin with, Mr.
Donnelly proceeds to discuss the
character of that deposit,
and lie demolishes with an
ease which must be surprising even to him
self the volcanic and glacial theories that
have been and are still held by certain sci
entists. Having decided that the drift
could not be due to either volcanic or gla-
cial action, our author then proceeds to
account for it on some other hypothesis.
To begin with. he finds in the drift all the
marks of a sudden impact of solid and
gaseous matter upon a prepared surface
covered with vegetation and inhabited by
men and animals. That is to say. the
drift must have been plastered, so to speak.
all at once on one side of the earth. Hav-
lug reached these conclusions, Mr.. Don
nelly then carries his speculations into the
heavens, and, after a more or less learned
dissertation on the nature of comets, he
proceeds to demonstration of the theory
that comet struck one side of the
earth many years ago, making the
deposit known as the trift, knocking
the earth endwise, SO to speak. so that the
axial balance of the globe was changed,
and producing other highly consequential
results. Having worked up this theory
upon solid basis of geological facts, Mr..
Donnelly proceeds to support it by argu-
ments drawn from the Ragnarok legends
OF the Morse mythology, and other legends
which seem to be "reminiscences of mighty
commissions of nature. Now it wont do
to object to this sort of thing because it
is not based upon original re-
search, nor to dismiss it as unsound science
without making definite demonstration
of its unsoundness. Mr.. Donnelly takes
his facts from writer's of recognized
authority, such as Geikie, Dana, Dawkins,
Agassiz and Brinton-to mention only a
few names out of many of equal repute
That is SO say. he meets tho scientists on
their own ground, with their own facts,
and offers a plausible. hypothesis, which
harmonizes the facts as they have
never been harmonized before.
We shall watch the issue of the contest
between Nh. Donnelly and the scientists
for an active collision between them can
not possibly be long delayed-with lively
interest; for your true scientist is never so
entirely interesting as when he is doing
his best, against odds of greater or less
potentially, to prove new conner in the
field of speculative science to be no better
than one of the fools who perish.
novel attraction in the shape of an IL
Illuminated balloon ascension is advertised
to take place from Frank Kelly's Bon Ton
sample room. tomorrow night.