The Anathemata
Rite and Fore-time (continued)
there shall be yet more
storm-darka sea?1
David Jones notes
1 Of the most extensive of all past glaciations –that of the Permo-Carboniferous age– it is said that the sheet-ice reached nearly as far as the Equatorb. I have no idea if at some remote geological time from now, there is any possibility of a similar glaciation. In the whole passage in square brackets I am merely employing such a possibility as a convenient allegory. There are freezings-up and convulsions of many kinds, there are ‘ends’ of all sorts of worlds’, as we in our age have reason to understand. There are also new beginnings and freeings of the waters.
additional notes
a Another reference to Homer’s ‘wine-dark sea’.
b This is no longer believed. Today, glacial deposits formed during the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation (about 300 million years ago) are found in Antarctica, Africa, South America, India and Australia. If the continents haven’t moved, then this would suggest an ice sheet extended from the south pole to the equator at this time — which is unlikely as the UK at this time was also close to the equator and has extensive coal and limestone deposits. If the continents of the southern hemisphere are re-assembled near the south pole in accordance with the current theories of continental drift, then the Permo-Carboniferous ice sheet assumes a much more reasonable size. More evidence comes from glacial striations – scratches on the bedrock made by blocks of rock embedded in the ice as the glacier moves. These show the direction of the glacier, and suggest the ice flowed from a single central point which is located in what we now call Antarctica.
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