Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/148

148 least 1280 feet of surrounding terrain were eroded. This does not seem likely. If it was the core of a volcano, we have a problem—why would the volcano structure itself, which is lava, be eroded away without trace, leaving the core, which is just lava, subjected to the same rate of erosion because it is the same material?

Your editor has a piece of petrified wood which is "eroded," and when placed on end, it shows the same columnar, fluted structure mentioned as being peculiar to Devils Tower. The similarity is so striking that one wonders if study of petrified plant structures ought to be carried still further. It would seem that the peculiarities of plant structure would be rather hard to identify if the evidence were to be based on plant matter on a gigantic scale. The cellular structure would be unrecognizable because of the huge scale on which it occurs. A mistake might easily be made in calling it something not plant-like at all.

The convex hill nearby has (they say) a core like Devils Tower. Only from superficial examination of the hilltop, it would seem. Or maybe the whole hill is lava. It would seem this is the case. But that doesn't prove anything—since it would take at least one or two million years to erode the hill (the length of time the geologists estimate it took to erode Devils Tower), before we would have the visual evidence before us. Maybe the smaller hill is just the mound left of a burned-over stump?

Let's picture a day in the Earth's past, say only 50,000 years ago We have two giant trees growing side by side. They tower 5000 feet into the air. The earth enters an area in space where there is a "nebula" of dust and meteoric material which falls in a tremendous fiery rain. This incandescent material burns the trees, and buries the stumps beneath debris, covering them completely. The glowing stumps carbonize, are subjected to intense pressure, compressed to a rock-like structure very much like lava, in columnar form (have you ever made charcoal? ever looked at a piece of charcoal and noticed the structure?) and then cooled relatively rapidly—due to the cessation of the storm of incandescent material from the skies. This material being more of an ash than anything else, could easily erode in 50,000 years leaving the burned and hardened tree stump standing free. The smaller tree could have burned down to just a rounded mound as it exists today. If the larger tree was eroded free in any length of time you want to give for the process, isn't it likely the smaller tree would have eroded in at least the same time? Unless the smaller tree is already uncovered, and it is only the "superficial" appearance to a tree stump that it lacks to be exactly the same as the Devils Tower?

The geologists say Devils Tower is "like the now-forming columnar rock in many respects (but not all)" to a volcano lava formation. They say they do not agree as to just how Devils Tower was formed. They say it is "similar" from actual observation.

We say it is a tree, and from "similarities" with actual observation of such things as charcoal, petrified wood, etc. Why should either "deduction" be accorded preference?

Shaver and Amazing Stories say it is a tree out there at Devils Tower.

Geologists say it is "similar to lava" in a volcano or molten rock injected between layers of rock. They aren't sure.

Orthodox scientific explanations are based upon the preponderance of (all) evidence known to man at this time. It is known that the Age of Mammals (when Devils Tower is supposed to have been formed) was 50 million years ago; and it is known that man is less than 50,000 years old; and it is known that the erosion had to take 2 million years in order to conform with other things that are known. None of them are really known, but all hypothecated.

Maybe it's a tree, who knows. One can only hypothecate, if that's all we have to go on!

Recently the head of the chair of geology at Edinburgh University reported to the Royal Society that he had computed the age of the earth 1619 times and gotten 1619 different answers!

Really now!

It's a tree!

'Tain't!

'Tis!

HROUGHOUT the world there are mysterious shafts, caves and tunnels built or inhabited by unknown beings who have vanished into the mists of pre-history. These visible links with a puzzling antiquity present problems to the modern world that are bewildering and baffling.

In Tibet there is a secret city, hidden in the world's highest mountains, and built at the top of a pit that drops deep into the earth; in Nova Scotia there is a strange underground chamber protected by ancient engineering so ingenious that it has baffled the best salvage experts; in Mexico the prehistoric Acapulco tunnel and the padre-protected and sealed opening at Xilitla remain unexplored.