Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel [Facsimile] [Paperback]

Ignatius Donnelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997

Partial Contents: Characteristics of the drift; Was it caused by an iceberg or continental ice sheet? Did a comet strike the earth? Legends; Nature of myths; Did man exist before the drift? Cave life; Age of darkness; Triumph of the sun; Fall of the clay and gravel; Was preglacial man civilized? Scene of man's survival; The Bridge.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC; Facsimile of 1887 ed edition (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0766100170
• ISBN-13: 978-0766100176
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,944,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How much do we realy know?, May 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (Paperback)

Ignatius Donnelly was a 19th century populist and freethinker whose books on Atlantis were groundbreakers--in fact the first serious look at the possibility of an antideluvian continent of high culture that existed in the mid-Atlantic.

Despite some flaws not fully proven Donnelly does manage to bring up a number of questions of the revisionist variety that later researchers have used in research in the ensuing 100 years.

Ragnarok also avoids a lot of the "channelling" and new age gobbledegook so familiar with fans of the genre. Highly recommended as an introduction.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Origin of Cataclysmic Legends, January 28, 2004

By 

Acute Observer (N. Jersey Shore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (Paperback)

Ignatius Donnelly was born in 1831 Philadelphia and became a lawyer in 1852. Married in 1855, they moved to Minnesota. When Minnesota became a state in 1857 Donnelly was elected lieutenant governor. In 1862 he was elected to Congress for three terms. He campaigned for Greenback policies and served in the state senate. Donnelly wrote "Atlantis" and "Ragnarok" which became sensational best sellers and made him wealthy. "The Great Cryptogram" analyzed Shakespeare's plays to prove they were written by Francis Bacon. Two novels dealt with a fascist takeover of America "Caesar's Column", and racial intolerance "Dr. Huguet". In 1887 he became a founder of the Populist Party, and was nominated for Vice-President in 1898. He died in Minneapolis on 1/1/1901. His politics, oratory, and literature marked his originality and talents; his writings are now out of fashion.

Donnelly studied the legends and mythologies of Hindus, Persians, Britons, Chinese, Greeks, Scandinavians, the North, Central, and South American Indians, Arabians, Babylonians, and Egyptians that told of disaster by fire, hail, frost, darkness, changes in climates, and tales of dragons and other monsters. Donnelly claimed these reflected a visit from a giant comet, and the proof lay in The Drift of unstratified deposits which came from a cometic collision rather than glacial movement. Donnelly suggested a comet could have caused Old Testament events such as the destruction of the wicked cities, the sun standing still, and stones falling from the heavens. Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods (or Rain of Rocks), commanded the interest of general readers, and the admiration (if not credence) of the scientific world. Donnelly, a good lawyer, argued his case well with all the evidence available to him at the time. Decades later Immanuel Velikovsky would publish his version of this theory.

The surface of our planet consists of layers of sand, clay, and gravel (over stratified rock). It contains no trace of fossils. The pre-glacial world saw tropical plants growing near the Arctic Circle in Miocene times. Herds of elephants and other animals lived in Europe. Donnelly says a sudden cataclysm brought severe cold, and left deposits of sand, clay, and gravel; fissures were created in earth's crust. He explains why this was caused by a comet striking earth, the heat vaporizing the seas to create clouds, rain, and snow. Rocks on the surface would be smashed and crushed. This collision was preserved in the legends of mankind. The Great Lakes suggest points of impact. Vast clouds, and debris in the sky, would create a "nuclear winter".

Donnelly says myths and legends are ultimately based on some fact. Finding the same legends among different nations suggests a common experience in prehistoric times. These myths of a cataclysm imply the existence of mankind; they are in accord with the facts known to science and from deep excavations. The legends coincide in this: a monster in the air; the heat; the fire; the cave-life; the darkness; the return of light. Donnelly respectfully suggests the Book of Job is the oldest in the Bible, and gives a new viewpoint to the beginning of Genesis.

Donnelly answers objections in Part IV Chapter IV. The position of certain constellations in Job estimates this time as 30,000 years ago. Donnelly suggests the fire that seemed to drop out of the heavens and set a number of fires in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois on October 8, 1871 was the result of Bielas' comet. There is a universal feeling that regards comets with fear; Revelation (chapter xii, v.3) is a symbol of a comet brushing the earth. Why would God permit such a calamity? Perhaps what was destroyed was not worth preserving? It could be God's plan to punish the wicked of this world, says Donnelly.