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Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel

Ignatius Donnelly

Author of "Atlantis the Antediluvian World"

CONTENTS

PART I: THE DRIFT

1. 1. The Characteristics of the Drift.
2. 2. The Origin of the Drift Not Known.
3. 3. The Action of Waves.
4. 4. Was It Caused by Icebergs?
5. 5. Was It Caused by Glaciers?
6. 6. Was It Caused by Continental Ice-sheet?
7. 7. The Drift A Gigantic Catastrophe.
8. 8. Great Heat A Prerequisite.

PART II. THE COMET

1. 1. A Comet Caused The Drift.
2. 2. What Is A Comet?
3. 3. Could A Comet Strike The Earth?
4. 4. The Consequences To The Earth.

PART III.: THE LEGENDS

1. 1. The Nature of Myths.
2. 2. Did Man Exist Before The Drift?
3. 3. Legends Of The Coming of The Comet.
4. 4. Ragnarok.
5. 5. The Conflagrations of Phaeton.
6. 6. Other Legends of The Conflagration.
7. 7. Legends of The Cave Life.
8. 8. Legends of The Age of Darkness.
9. 9. The Triumph of The Sun.
10. 10. The Fall of The Clay and Gravel.
11. 11. The Arabian Myths.
12. 12. The Book of Job.
13. 13. Genesis Read By The Light of The Comet.

PART IV: CONCLUSIONS

1. 1. Was Pre-Glacial Man Civilised?
2. 2. The Scene of Man's Survival.
3. 3. The Bridge.
4. 4. Objections Considered.
5. 5. Biela's Comet.
6. 6. The Universal Belief of Mankind.
7. 7. The Earth Struck By Comets Many Times.
8. 8. The After Word.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

• Geographical Distribution of the Drift. Frontispiece
• Till Overlaid with Boulder Clay.
• Scratched Stone from the Till.
• River Issuing from a Swiss Glacier.
• Terminal Moraine.
• Glacier Furrows and Scratches at Stony Point, Lake Erie.
• Drift Deposits in the Tropics.
• Stratified Beds in Till, Leithen Water, Peebleshire, Scotland.
• Section at Joinville.
• Orbits of the Periodic Comets.
• The Earth's Orbit.
• The Comet Sweeping Past the Earth.
• The Side of the Earth Struck by the Comet.
• The Side Not Struck by the Comet.
• The Great Comet of 1811.
• Crag and Tail.
• Solar Spectrum.
• Section at St. Acheul.
• The Engis Skull.
• The Neanderthal Skull.
• Plummet from San Joaquin Valley, California.
• Course of Donati's Comet.
• The Primeval Storm.
• The Afrite in the Pillar.
• Dahish Overtaken by Diniriat.
• Earthen Vase, Found in the Cave of Furfooz, Belgium.
• Pre-glacial man's Picture of the Mammoth.
• Pre-glacial man's Picture of the Reindeer.
• Pre-glacial man's Picture of the Horse.
• Specimen of Pre-glacial Carving.
• Stone Image Found in Ohio.
• Copper Coin, Found One Hundred and Fourteen Feet Underground, in Illinois.
• Biela's Comet, Split in Two.
• Section on the Schuylkill.

"I am not inclined to conclude that man had no existence at all before the great revolutions of the earth. He might have inhabited certain districts of no great extent, whence after these terrible events he re-peopled the world. Perhaps, also the spots where he inhabited where swallowed up and his bones lie buried under the beds of the present seas.

Cuvier

NEW YORK