land bridges

60:1.6As this era opens, the east­ern and cen­tral parts of North Amer­ica, the north­ern half of South Amer­ica, most of Eu­rope, and all of Asia are well above wa­ter. North Amer­ica for the first time is ge­o­graph­i­cally iso­lated, but not for long as the Bering Strait land bridge soon again emerges, con­nect­ing the con­ti­nent with Asia.

60:1.13130,000,000 years ago the seas had changed very lit­tle. Siberia and North Amer­ica were con­nected by the Bering Strait land bridge. A rich and unique ma­rine life ap­peared on the Cal­i­for­nian Pa­cific coast, where over one thou­sand species of am­monites de­vel­oped from the higher types of ceph­a­lop­ods. The life changes of this pe­riod were in­deed rev­o­lu­tion­ary not­with­stand­ing that they were tran­si­tional and grad­ual.

60:3.885,000,000 years ago the Bering Strait closed, shut­ting off the cool­ing wa­ters of the north­ern seas. Thereto­fore the ma­rine life of the At­lantic-Gulf wa­ters and that of the Pa­cific Ocean had dif­fered greatly, ow­ing to the tem­per­a­ture vari­a­tions of these two bod­ies of wa­ter, which now be­came uni­form.

61:0.2Dur­ing this Ceno­zoic age the world’s land­scape pre­sented an at­trac­tive ap­pear­ance—rolling hills, broad val­leys, wide rivers, and great forests. Twice dur­ing this sec­tor of time the Panama isth­mus went up and down; three times the Bering Strait land bridge did the same. The an­i­mal types were both many and var­ied. The trees swarmed with birds, and the whole world was an an­i­mal par­a­dise, not­with­stand­ing the in­ces­sant strug­gle of the evolv­ing an­i­mal species for su­prem­acy.

61:1.12Dur­ing the lat­ter part of this epoch most of Eu­rope was sub­merged. Fol­low­ing a slight land rise the con­ti­nent was cov­ered by lakes and bays. The Arc­tic Ocean, through the Ural de­pres­sion, ran south to con­nect with the Med­i­ter­ra­nean Sea as it was then ex­panded north­ward, the high­lands of the Alps, Carpathi­ans, Apen­nines, and Pyre­nees be­ing up above the wa­ter as is­lands of the sea. The Isth­mus of Panama was up; the At­lantic and Pa­cific Oceans were sep­a­rated. North Amer­ica was con­nected with Asia by the Bering Strait land bridge and with Eu­rope by way of Green­land and Ice­land. The earth cir­cuit of land in north­ern lat­i­tudes was bro­ken only by the Ural Straits, which con­nected the arc­tic seas with the en­larged Med­i­ter­ra­nean.

61:3.420,000,000 years ago was in­deed the golden age of mam­mals. The Bering Strait land bridge was up, and many groups of an­i­mals mi­grated to North Amer­ica from Asia, in­clud­ing the four-tusked mastodons, short-legged rhinoceroses, and many va­ri­eties of the cat fam­ily.

61:4.6The cli­mate was grad­u­ally get­ting cooler; the land plants were slowly mov­ing south­ward. At first it was the in­creas­ing cold in the north that stopped an­i­mal mi­gra­tions over the north­ern isth­muses; sub­se­quently these North Amer­i­can land bridges went down. Soon af­ter­wards the land con­nec­tion be­tween Africa and South Amer­ica fi­nally sub­merged, and the West­ern Hemi­sphere was iso­lated much as it is to­day. From this time for­ward dis­tinct types of life be­gan to de­velop in the East­ern and West­ern Hemi­spheres.

62:1.2While these early lemurs evolved in the West­ern Hemi­sphere, the es­tab­lish­ment of the di­rect mam­malian an­ces­try of man­kind took place in south­west­ern Asia, in the orig­i­nal area of the cen­tral life im­plan­ta­tion but on the bor­ders of the east­ern re­gions. Sev­eral mil­lion years ago the North Amer­i­can type lemurs had mi­grated west­ward over the Bering land bridge and had slowly made their way south­west­ward along the Asi­atic coast. These mi­grat­ing tribes fi­nally reached the salu­bri­ous re­gion ly­ing be­tween the then ex­panded Med­i­ter­ra­nean Sea and the el­e­vat­ing moun­tain­ous re­gions of the In­dian penin­sula. In these lands to the west of In­dia they united with other and fa­vor­able strains, thus es­tab­lish­ing the an­ces­try of the hu­man race.

64:6.5About eighty-five thou­sand years ago the com­par­a­tively pure rem­nants of the red race went en masse across to North Amer­ica, and shortly there­after the Bering land isth­mus sank, thus iso­lat­ing them. No red man ever re­turned to Asia. But through­out Siberia, China, cen­tral Asia, In­dia, and Eu­rope they left be­hind much of their stock blended with the other col­ored races.

79:5.6One hun­dred thou­sand years ago the dec­i­mated tribes of the red race were fight­ing with their backs to the re­treat­ing ice of the last glacier, and when the land pas­sage to the West, over the Bering isth­mus, be­came pass­able, these tribes were not slow in for­sak­ing the in­hos­pitable shores of the Asi­atic con­ti­nent. It is eighty-five thou­sand years since the last of the pure red men de­parted from Asia, but the long strug­gle left its ge­netic im­print upon the vic­to­ri­ous yel­low race. The north­ern Chi­nese peo­ples, to­gether with the An­don­ite Siberi­ans, as­sim­i­lated much of the red stock and were in con­sid­er­able mea­sure ben­e­fited thereby.

59:6.5The earth’s crust folded ex­ten­sively dur­ing these land el­e­va­tions. This was a time of con­ti­nen­tal emer­gence ex­cept for the dis­ap­pear­ance of cer­tain land bridges, in­clud­ing the con­ti­nents which had so long con­nected South Amer­ica with Africa and North Amer­ica with Eu­rope.

64:1.5Dur­ing most of the ice age Eng­land was con­nected by land with France, while later on Africa was joined to Eu­rope by the Si­cil­ian land bridge. At the time of the An­donic mi­gra­tions there was a con­tin­u­ous land path from Eng­land in the west on through Eu­rope and Asia to Java in the east; but Aus­tralia was again iso­lated, which fur­ther ac­cen­tu­ated the de­vel­op­ment of its own pe­cu­liar fauna.

64:1.6950,000 years ago the de­scen­dants of An­don and Fonta had mi­grated far to the east and to the west. To the west they passed over Eu­rope to France and Eng­land. In later times they pen­e­trated east­ward as far as Java, where their bones were so re­cently found—the so-called Java man—and then jour­neyed on to Tas­ma­nia.

64:2.6Though the re­mains of the Fox­hall peo­ples were the last to be dis­cov­ered in Eng­land, these An­don­ites were re­ally the first hu­man be­ings to live in those re­gions. At that time the land bridge still con­nected France with Eng­land; and since most of the early set­tle­ments of the An­don de­scen­dants were lo­cated along the rivers and seashores of that early day, they are now un­der the wa­ters of the En­glish Chan­nel and the North Sea, but some three or four are still above wa­ter on the En­glish coast.

61:3.8The Strait of Gibral­tar closed, and Spain was con­nected with Africa by the old land bridge, but the Med­i­ter­ra­nean flowed into the At­lantic through a nar­row chan­nel which ex­tended across France, the moun­tain peaks and high­lands ap­pear­ing as is­lands above this an­cient sea. Later on, these Eu­ro­pean seas be­gan to with­draw. Still later, the Med­i­ter­ra­nean was con­nected with the In­dian Ocean, while at the close of this pe­riod the Suez re­gion was el­e­vated so that the Med­i­ter­ra­nean be­came, for a time, an in­land salt sea.

80:1.1Be­fore the last And­ites were driven out of the Eu­phrates val­ley, many of their breth­ren had en­tered Eu­rope as ad­ven­tur­ers, teach­ers, traders, and war­riors. Dur­ing the ear­lier days of the vi­o­let race the Med­i­ter­ra­nean trough was pro­tected by the Gibral­tar isth­mus and the Si­cil­ian land bridge. Some of man’s very early mar­itime com­merce was es­tab­lished on these in­land lakes, where blue men from the north and the Sa­ha­rans from the south met Nod­ites and Adamites from the east.

80:2.4About the time of these cli­matic changes in Africa, Eng­land sep­a­rated from the con­ti­nent, and Den­mark arose from the sea, while the isth­mus of Gibral­tar, pro­tect­ing the west­ern basin of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean, gave way as the re­sult of an earth­quake, quickly rais­ing this in­land lake to the level of the At­lantic Ocean. Pres­ently the Si­cil­ian land bridge sub­merged, cre­at­ing one sea of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean and con­nect­ing it with the At­lantic Ocean. This cat­a­clysm of na­ture flooded scores of hu­man set­tle­ments and oc­ca­sioned the great­est loss of life by flood in all the world’s his­tory.

61:3.9The Ice­land land bridge sub­merged, and the arc­tic wa­ters com­min­gled with those of the At­lantic Ocean. The At­lantic coast of North Amer­ica rapidly cooled, but the Pa­cific coast re­mained warmer than at pres­ent. The great ocean cur­rents were in func­tion and af­fected cli­mate much as they do to­day.

64:7.13The su­pe­rior races sought the north­ern or tem­per­ate climes, while the or­ange, green, and in­digo races suc­ces­sively grav­i­tated to Africa over the newly el­e­vated land bridge which sep­a­rated the west­ward re­treat­ing Med­i­ter­ra­nean from the In­dian Ocean.

64:4.7Mam­malian life had been lit­tle changed by the great glacier. These an­i­mals per­sisted in that nar­row belt of land ly­ing be­tween the ice and the Alps and, upon the re­treat of the glacier, again rapidly spread out over all Eu­rope. There ar­rived from Africa, over the Si­cil­ian land bridge, straight-tusked ele­phants, broad-nosed rhinoceroses, hye­nas, and African li­ons, and these new an­i­mals vir­tu­ally ex­ter­mi­nated the saber-toothed tigers and the hip­popota­muses.

73:7.1Af­ter the first gar­den was va­cated by Adam, it was oc­cu­pied var­i­ously by the Nod­ites, Cu­tites, and the Sun­tites. It later be­came the dwell­ing place of the north­ern Nod­ites who op­posed co-op­er­a­tion with the Adamites. The penin­sula had been over­run by these lower-grade Nod­ites for al­most four thou­sand years af­ter Adam left the Gar­den when, in con­nec­tion with the vi­o­lent ac­tiv­ity of the sur­round­ing vol­ca­noes and the sub­mer­gence of the Si­cil­ian land bridge to Africa, the east­ern floor of the Med­i­ter­ra­nean Sea sank, car­ry­ing down be­neath the wa­ters the whole of the Edenic penin­sula. Con­comi­tant with this vast sub­mer­gence the coast line of the east­ern Med­i­ter­ra­nean was greatly el­e­vated. And this was the end of the most beau­ti­ful nat­u­ral cre­ation that Uran­tia has ever har­bored. The sink­ing was not sud­den, sev­eral hun­dred years be­ing re­quired com­pletely to sub­merge the en­tire penin­sula.