CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE DAWN KAPITEL I. VOR DER DÄMMERUNG CAPÍTULO I. ANTES DEL AMANECER CAPÍTULO I. ANTES DO AMANHECER ГЛАВА I. ПЕРЕД РАССВЕТОМ 第一章 黎明之前

We always speak of Canada as a new country. Мы всегда говорим о Канаде как о новой стране.

In one sense, of course, this is true. In gewisser Weise stimmt das natürlich. В каком-то смысле, конечно, это правда. The settlement of Europeans on Canadian soil dates back only three hundred years. Civilization in Canada is but a thing of yesterday, and its written history, when placed beside the long millenniums of the recorded annals of European and Eastern peoples, seems but a little span. Die Zivilisation in Kanada ist nur noch eine Sache von gestern, und ihre geschriebene Geschichte, wenn man sie neben die langen Jahrtausende der aufgezeichneten Annalen der europäischen und östlichen Völker stellt, scheint nur eine kleine Zeitspanne zu sein. A civilização no Canadá é uma coisa de ontem e a sua história escrita, quando colocada ao lado dos longos milénios dos anais registados dos povos europeus e orientais, parece apenas um pequeno espaço de tempo. Цивилизация в Канаде — это всего лишь вчерашний день, и ее письменная история, по сравнению с долгими тысячелетиями письменных анналов европейских и восточных народов, кажется лишь небольшим отрезком времени. But there is another sense in which the Dominion of Canada, or at least part of it, is perhaps the oldest country in the world. Aber es gibt noch einen anderen Sinn, in dem das Dominion of Canada, oder zumindest ein Teil davon, vielleicht das älteste Land der Welt ist. Но есть и другой смысл, в котором Доминион Канада или, по крайней мере, его часть, возможно, является древнейшей страной в мире.

According to the Nebular Theory the whole of our planet was once a fiery molten mass gradually cooling and hardening itself into the globe we know. Согласно небулярной теории, вся наша планета когда-то была огненной расплавленной массой, которая постепенно остывает и затвердевает, превращаясь в известный нам шар. On its surface moved and swayed a liquid sea glowing with such a terrific heat that we can form no real idea of its intensity. Na sua superfície movia-se e balançava um mar líquido que brilhava com um calor tão terrível que não podemos fazer uma ideia real da sua intensidade. As the mass cooled, vast layers of vapour, great beds of cloud, miles and miles in thickness, were formed and hung over the face of the globe, obscuring from its darkened surface the piercing beams of the sun. Als die Masse abkühlte, bildeten sich riesige Dampfschichten, große Wolkenschichten, Meilen und Meilen dick, und hingen über der Oberfläche des Globus, wobei sie die durchdringenden Strahlen der Sonne von seiner dunklen Oberfläche verdeckten. À medida que a massa arrefecia, formavam-se vastas camadas de vapor, grandes leitos de nuvens, com quilómetros e quilómetros de espessura, que pairavam sobre a face do globo, obscurecendo da sua superfície escurecida os raios penetrantes do sol. Slowly the earth cooled, until great masses of solid matter, rock as we call it, still penetrated with intense heat, rose to the surface of the boiling sea. Langsam kühlte die Erde ab, bis große Massen fester Materie, Gestein, wie wir es nennen, immer noch von intensiver Hitze durchdrungen, an die Oberfläche des kochenden Meeres aufstiegen. Lentamente, a Terra arrefeceu, até que grandes massas de matéria sólida, rocha, como lhe chamamos, ainda penetradas de calor intenso, subiram à superfície do mar em ebulição. Forces of inconceivable magnitude moved through the mass. The outer surface of the globe as it cooled ripped and shrivelled like a withering orange. Die äußere Oberfläche der Kugel riss beim Abkühlen auf und schrumpelte wie eine welkende Orange. A superfície exterior do globo, à medida que arrefecia, rasgava-se e murchava como uma laranja murcha. Great ridges, the mountain chains of to-day, were furrowed on its skin. Große Grate, die heutigen Bergketten, waren auf seiner Haut zerfurcht. Grandes cristas, as cadeias montanhosas de hoje, estavam sulcadas na sua pele. Here in the darkness of the prehistoric night there arose as the oldest part of the surface of the earth the great rock bed that lies in a huge crescent round the shores of Hudson Bay, from Labrador to the unknown wilderness of the barren lands of the Coppermine basin touching the Arctic sea. Hier in der Dunkelheit der prähistorischen Nacht entstand als ältester Teil der Erdoberfläche das große Felsbett, das in einer riesigen Sichel um die Ufer der Hudson Bay liegt, von Labrador bis in die unbekannte Wildnis der öden Länder der Coppermine Becken, das das arktische Meer berührt. Aqui, na escuridão da noite pré-histórica, surgiu como a parte mais antiga da superfície da terra o grande leito rochoso que se estende num enorme crescente em torno das margens da Baía de Hudson, desde Labrador até ao deserto desconhecido das terras áridas da bacia de Coppermine, tocando o mar Árctico. The wanderer who stands to-day in the desolate country of James Bay or Ungava is among the oldest monuments of the world. Der Wanderer, der heute im trostlosen Land von James Bay oder Ungava steht, gehört zu den ältesten Denkmälern der Welt. O andarilho que hoje se encontra na terra desolada de James Bay ou Ungava está entre os monumentos mais antigos do mundo. The rugged rock which here and there breaks through the thin soil of the infertile north has lain on the spot from the very dawn of time. Der schroffe Felsen, der hier und da den dünnen Boden des unfruchtbaren Nordens durchbricht, liegt seit Anbeginn der Zeit an Ort und Stelle. A rocha escarpada que, aqui e ali, rompe o solo rarefeito do norte infértil, encontra-se no local desde o início dos tempos. Millions of years have probably elapsed since the cooling of the outer crust of the globe produced the solid basis of our continents. Provavelmente, decorreram milhões de anos desde que o arrefecimento da crosta exterior do globo produziu a base sólida dos nossos continentes. The ancient formation which thus marks the beginnings of the solid surface of the globe is commonly called by geologists the Archaean rock, and the myriads of uncounted years during which it slowly took shape are called the Archaean age. Die uralte Formation, die somit die Anfänge der festen Oberfläche des Globus markiert, wird von Geologen gemeinhin als archaisches Gestein bezeichnet, und die unzähligen Jahre, in denen es langsam Gestalt annahm, werden das archaische Zeitalter genannt. A formação antiga que marca assim os primórdios da superfície sólida do globo é comummente designada pelos geólogos por rocha arqueana, e as miríades de anos incontáveis durante os quais lentamente tomou forma são designadas por idade arqueana.

But the word 'Archaean' itself tells us nothing, being merely a Greek term meaning 'very old.' This Archaean or original rock must necessarily have extended all over the surface of our sphere as it cooled from its molten form and contracted into the earth on which we live. Dieses archaische oder ursprüngliche Gestein muss sich zwangsläufig über die gesamte Oberfläche unserer Sphäre ausgebreitet haben, als es aus seiner geschmolzenen Form abgekühlt und in die Erde, auf der wir leben, zusammengezogen wurde. Esta rocha arqueana ou original deve necessariamente ter-se estendido por toda a superfície da nossa esfera quando arrefeceu da sua forma fundida e se contraiu na terra em que vivemos. But in most places this rock lies deep under the waters of the oceans, or buried below the heaped up strata of the formations which the hand of time piled thickly upon it. Aber an den meisten Orten liegt dieser Felsen tief unter dem Wasser der Ozeane oder unter den aufgehäuften Schichten der Formationen begraben, die die Hand der Zeit dick darauf geschichtet hat. Але в більшості місць ця скеля лежить глибоко під водами океанів або похована під нагромадженими шарами утворень, які рука часу щільно навалила на неї. Only here and there can it still be seen as surface rock or as rock that lies but a little distance below the soil. Nur hier und da ist es noch als Oberflächengestein oder als Gestein, das nur wenig unter der Erde liegt, zu sehen. Só aqui e ali é que ainda pode ser vista como rocha à superfície ou como rocha que se encontra apenas a uma pequena distância abaixo do solo. In Canada, more than anywhere else in the world, is this Archaean formation seen. On a geological map it is marked as extending all round the basin of Hudson Bay, from Labrador to the shores of the Arctic. Auf einer geologischen Karte ist es so markiert, dass es sich rund um das Becken der Hudson Bay erstreckt, von Labrador bis zu den Küsten der Arktis. It covers the whole of the country which we call New Ontario, and also the upper part of the province of Quebec. Outside of this territory there was at the dawn of time no other 'land' where North America now is, except a long island of rock that marks the backbone of what are now the Selkirk Mountains and a long ridge that is now the mountain chain of the Alleghanies beside the Atlantic slope. Fora deste território, não havia, no início dos tempos, qualquer outra "terra" onde hoje se situa a América do Norte, excepto uma longa ilha de rocha que marca a espinha dorsal do que são hoje as Montanhas Selkirk e uma longa cordilheira que é hoje a cadeia montanhosa dos Alleghanies, junto à vertente atlântica. Books on geology trace out for us the long successive periods during which the earth’s surface was formed. Bücher über Geologie zeichnen für uns die langen aufeinanderfolgenden Perioden nach, in denen die Erdoberfläche geformt wurde.

Even in the Archaean age something in the form of life may have appeared. Perhaps vast masses of dank seaweed germinated as the earliest of plants in the steaming oceans. Vielleicht keimten riesige Massen von feuchtem Seetang als die frühesten Pflanzen in den dampfenden Ozeanen. Talvez vastas massas de algas húmidas tenham germinado como as primeiras plantas nos oceanos fumegantes. The water warred against the land, tearing and breaking at its rock formation and distributing it in new strata, each buried beneath the next and holding fast within it the fossilized remains that form the record of its history. Das Wasser bekämpfte das Land, riss und brach an seiner Felsformation und verteilte sie in neue Schichten, jede unter der nächsten begraben und in sich die versteinerten Überreste festhaltend, die die Aufzeichnungen seiner Geschichte bilden. A água guerreou contra a terra, rasgando e partindo a sua formação rochosa e distribuindo-a em novos estratos, cada um enterrado sob o seguinte e mantendo dentro de si os restos fossilizados que formam o registo da sua história. Вода воювала проти землі, роздираючи та ламаючи її скельні утворення та розподіляючи їх у нові шари, кожен похований під наступним і міцно утримуючи в собі скам’янілі останки, які складають літопис його історії. Huge fern plants spread their giant fronds in the dank sunless atmospheres, to be buried later in vast beds of decaying vegetation that form the coal-fields of to-day. Riesige Farnpflanzen breiten ihre riesigen Wedel in der feuchten, sonnenlosen Atmosphäre aus, um später in riesigen Beeten verwesender Vegetation begraben zu werden, die die heutigen Kohlenfelder bilden. Величезні рослини папороті розпускають свої велетенські листя у вогкій безсонячній атмосфері, щоб пізніше бути похованими у величезних грядках гнилої рослинності, які утворюють сучасні вугільні родовища. Animal life began first, like the plants, in the bosom of the ocean. Життя тварин спочатку, як і рослини, зародилося в надрах океану.

From the slimy depths of the water life crawled hideous to the land. Aus den schleimigen Tiefen des Wassers kroch das Leben scheußlich ans Land. Зі слизової глибини води жахливе життя виповзло на сушу. Great reptiles dragged their sluggish length through the tangled vegetation of the jungle of giant ferns. Große Reptilien schleppten ihre träge Länge durch die verworrene Vegetation des Dschungels aus Riesenfarnen. Великі рептилії тягнули свою мляву довжину крізь заплутану рослинність джунглів гігантських папоротей. Through countless thousands of years, perhaps, this gradual process went on. Можливо, цей поступовий процес тривав незліченні тисячі років.

Nature, shifting its huge scenery, depressed the ocean beds and piled up the dry land of the continents. Природа, змінивши свої величезні пейзажі, вдавила дна океанів і нагромадила сушу континентів. In place of the vast 'Continental Sea,' which once filled the interior of North America, there arose the great plateau or elevated plain that now runs from the Mackenzie basin to the Gulf of Mexico. На місці величезного «континентального моря», яке колись заповнювало внутрішню частину Північної Америки, виникло велике плато або піднесена рівнина, яка зараз тягнеться від басейну Маккензі до Мексиканської затоки. Instead of the rushing waters of the inland sea, these waters have narrowed into great rivers—the Mackenzie, the Saskatchewan, the Mississippi—that swept the face of the plateau and wore down the surface of the rock and mountain slopes to spread their powdered fragments on the broad level soil of the prairies of the west. With each stage in the evolution of the land the forms of life appear to have reached a higher development. Mit jeder Entwicklungsstufe des Landes scheinen die Lebensformen eine höhere Entwicklung erreicht zu haben. In place of the seaweed and the giant ferns of the dawn of time there arose the maples, the beeches, and other waving trees that we now see in the Canadian woods. Anstelle des Seetangs und der riesigen Farne des Anbeginns der Zeit entstanden die Ahorne, die Buchen und andere wogende Bäume, die wir jetzt in den kanadischen Wäldern sehen. The huge reptiles in the jungle of the Carboniferous era passed out of existence. In place of them came the birds, the mammals,—the varied types of animal life which we now know. Last in the scale of time and highest in point of evolution, there appeared man. Als letztes in der Zeitskala und am höchsten in der Evolution erschien der Mensch. We must not speak of the continents as having been made once and for all in their present form. Wir dürfen nicht davon sprechen, dass die Kontinente in ihrer jetzigen Form ein für alle Mal gemacht sind.

No doubt in the countless centuries of geological evolution various parts of the earth were alternately raised and depressed. Zweifellos wurden in den unzähligen Jahrhunderten der geologischen Entwicklung verschiedene Teile der Erde abwechselnd angehoben und abgesenkt. Great forests grew, and by some convulsion were buried beneath the ocean, covered deep as they lay there with a sediment of earth and rock, and at length raised again as the waters retreated. The coal-beds of Cape Breton are the remains of a forest buried beneath the sea. Below the soil of Alberta is a vast jungle of vegetation, a dense mass of giant fern trees. Unter dem Boden von Alberta befindet sich ein riesiger Vegetationsdschungel, eine dichte Masse riesiger Farnbäume. The Great Lakes were once part of a much vaster body of water, far greater in extent than they now are. Die Großen Seen waren einst Teil eines viel größeren Gewässers, das weitaus größer war als heute. The ancient shore-line of Lake Superior may be traced five hundred feet above its present level. Die alte Uferlinie des Lake Superior kann fünfhundert Fuß über ihrem gegenwärtigen Niveau verfolgt werden. In that early period the continents and islands which we now see wholly separated were joined together at various points. In that early period the continents and islands which we now see wholly separated were joined together at various points.

The British islands formed a connected part of Europe. The Thames and the Rhine were one and the same river, flowing towards the Arctic ocean over a plain that is now the shallow sunken bed of the North Sea. Die Themse und der Rhein waren ein und derselbe Fluss, der über eine Ebene, die heute das flache, versunkene Bett der Nordsee ist, in Richtung des Arktischen Ozeans floss. It is probable that during the last great age, the Quaternary, as geologists call it, the upheaval of what is now the region of Siberia and Alaska, made a continuous chain of land from Asia to America. As the land was depressed again it left behind it the islands in the Bering Sea, like stepping-stones from shore to shore. In the same way, there was perhaps a solid causeway of land from Canada to Europe reaching out across the Northern Atlantic. Auf die gleiche Weise gab es vielleicht einen festen Landweg von Kanada nach Europa, der sich über den Nordatlantik erstreckte. Baffin Island and other islands of the Canadian North Sea, the great sub-continent of Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the British Isles, all formed part of this continuous chain. As the last of the great changes, there came the Ice Age, which profoundly affected the climate and soil of Canada, and, when the ice retreated, left its surface much as we see it now.

During this period the whole of Canada from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains lay buried under a vast sheet of ice. Heaped up in immense masses over the frozen surface of the Hudson Bay country, the ice, from its own dead weight, slid sidewise to the south. Нагромадивши величезні маси над замерзлою поверхнею країни Гудзонової затоки, лід під власною мертвою вагою ковзнув убік на південь. As it went it ground down the surface of the land into deep furrows and channels; it cut into the solid rock like a moving plough, and carried with it enormous masses of loose stone and boulders which it threw broadcast over the face of the country. À medida que avançava, ia esmagando a superfície da terra em sulcos e canais profundos; cortava a rocha sólida como um arado em movimento, e levava consigo enormes massas de pedra solta e pedregulhos que atirava para a face do país. Під час руху він розтирав поверхню землі в глибокі борозни та канали; він врізався в тверду скелю, як рухомий плуг, і ніс із собою величезні маси розсипаного каменю та валунів, які він кидав на всю землю. These stones and boulders were thus carried forty and fifty, and in some cases many hundred miles before they were finally loosed and dropped from the sheet of moving ice. Diese Steine und Felsbrocken wurden so vierundfünfzig und in einigen Fällen viele hundert Meilen transportiert, bevor sie schließlich gelöst und von der sich bewegenden Eisdecke fallen gelassen wurden. In Ontario and Quebec and New England great stones of the glacial drift are found which weigh from one thousand to seven thousand tons. Em Ontário, no Quebeque e na Nova Inglaterra, encontram-se grandes pedras da deriva glaciar que pesam entre mil e sete mil toneladas. They are deposited in some cases on what is now the summit of hills and mountains, showing how deep the sheet of ice must have been that could thus cover the entire surface of the country, burying alike the valleys and the hills. Sie sind in einigen Fällen auf den heutigen Gipfeln von Hügeln und Bergen abgelagert und zeigen, wie tief die Eisdecke gewesen sein muss, die so die gesamte Oberfläche des Landes bedecken und sowohl die Täler als auch die Hügel begraben konnte. The mass of ice that moved slowly, century by century, across the face of Southern Canada to New England is estimated to have been in places a mile thick. The limit to which it was carried went far south of the boundaries of Canada. The path of the glacial drift is traced by geologists as far down the Atlantic coast as the present site of New York, and in the central plain of the continent it extended to what is now the state of Missouri. Facts seem to support the theory that before the Great Ice Age the climate of the northern part of Canada was very different from what it is now.

It is very probable that a warm if not a torrid climate extended for hundreds of miles northward of the now habitable limits of the Dominion. The frozen islands of the Arctic seas were once the seat of luxurious vegetation and teemed with life. On Bathurst Island, which lies in the latitude of 76 degrees, and is thus six hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, there have been found the bones of huge lizards that could only have lived in the jungles of an almost tropical climate. We cannot tell with any certainty just how and why these great changes came about.

But geologists have connected them with the alternating rise and fall of the surface of the northern continent and its altitude at various times above the level of the sea. Thus it seems probable that the glacial period with the ice sheet of which we have spoken was brought about by a great elevation of the land, accompanied by a change to intense cold. This led to the formation of enormous masses of ice heaped up so high that they presently collapsed and moved of their own weight from the elevated land of the north where they had been formed. Later on, the northern continent subsided again and the ice sheet disappeared, but left behind it an entirely different level and a different climate from those of the earlier ages. The evidence of the later movements of the land surface, and its rise and fall after the close of the glacial epoch, may still easily be traced. At a certain time after the Ice Age, the surface sank so low that land which has since been lifted up again to a considerable height was once the beach of the ancient ocean. A certa altura, após a Idade do Gelo, a superfície afundou-se de tal forma que a terra que, entretanto, se elevou de novo a uma altura considerável foi outrora a praia do antigo oceano. These beaches are readily distinguished by the great quantities of sea shells that lie about, often far distant from the present sea. Thus at Nachvak in Labrador there is a beach fifteen hundred feet above the ocean. Так, у Начваку на Лабрадорі є пляж на півтори тисячі футів над океаном. Probably in this period after the Ice Age the shores of Eastern Canada had sunk so low that the St Lawrence was not a river at all, but a great gulf or arm of the sea. Ймовірно, у цей період після льодовикового періоду береги Східної Канади опустилися настільки низько, що Св. Лаврентія стала зовсім не річкою, а великою затокою або морським рукавом. The ancient shore can still be traced beside the mountain at Montreal and on the hillsides round Lake Ontario. Later on again the land rose, the ocean retreated, and the rushing waters from the shrunken lakes made their own path to the sea. In their foaming course to the lower level they tore out the great gorge of Niagara, and tossed and buffeted themselves over the unyielding ledges of Lachine. Mighty forces such as these made and fashioned the continent on which we live.