INTRODUCTION. 5 



celestial bodies which we call the globe, a layer des- 

 tined to persist for countless ages as a horizontal crust. 

 But below this crust, forces whose action never cea- 

 ses continued their work of change. Under the influ- 

 ence of the cold of celestial Space, our globe was forced 

 to part with much of its heat and consequently had to 

 contract. This caused the appearance of folds on her 

 surface, of one of which the Thuringian hills are a 

 rest. By such folding the fragments of rocks, as well 

 as the coral reefs enclosed in the, up till then hori- 

 zontal, ocean bottom underwent a considerable uphea- 

 val. 



And of the fold, so formed, Thuringia is but a small 

 rest; it has been lowered by the action of wind and 

 water and the latter especially cut into it those deep 

 vaUeys of Drachenschlucht and Mariathal which now 

 deUght our eyes, and isolated the Wartburgtop, enclo- 

 sing in its conglomerate a coral-reef, destined to form 

 in a distant future the foundation of the Castle which 

 should serve Luther as a temporary abode. 



So it happened, that the translation of the Bible took 

 place on the rests of small living beings, who coimtless 

 ages ago, peopled an ocean, expanded hundreds of feet 

 below the point where those corals are now found. 

 What seemed so permanent, was thus but a short phase 

 in the chain of changes which the earth and all it 

 contains or supports, has to undergo. These changes of 

 which there is no escape, neither for rocks nor for seas, 

 nor for living beings, we call evolution. 



No wonder that man, once convinced of the exis- 

 tence of so universal a change, wanted to know 



