The following is my translation of an article called: Die Runentafel der Vorwelt von Dr A Lanik. It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1914, Heft 3, Seiten 115-118.
The pictures accompanying the original article are astonishingly wonderful, so I'm not including them, as always. I do have a confession to make in advance. I haven't thought of a suitable translation of Runentafeln, and have settled for 'rune scripts' and 'runic scripts'. It could literally be translated as 'rune tables'; collections of information written in runic symbols. As the allegory centres on the content, rather than the table itself, my solutions seem fair enough to me.
The author strikes me of as having an inordinate fondness for the destructive powers of plagues, and that's despite his invocation of "the same methods and tools" as apply today. I've never heard of even a single species going extinct simply due to some illness or other, let alone entire groups. I suppose disease could have drastic effects on already devastated relict populations; for example, most the last Caucasian buffalo contracted a severe dose of nasties from domestic cattle. However, there weren't many individuals left to get infected. The drastic work had been performed earlier by habitat loss and then poaching.
In case anybody notices, the article includes the rather odd word, Palaeoniscus. The author is obviously referring to some kind of fish or other, and it's not a typo upon my part. Checking in an old fashioned thing called a book, it seems that this name was first used by Louis Aggasiz as an alternative for the previously established Palaeoniscum. Some corrections to the diagnosis were required and, for decades, Aggasiz's unnecessary emendation of the generic name was in circulation.
I'm not aware of any previous translation.
Trevor Dykes.

The rune scripts of prehistory by Dr A Lanik
Is there anything more interesting than reading the rune scripts of prehistory? For those who know how to read them correctly, their interest is far more grippingly written than Robinson Crusoe and Fennimore-Cooper for the youth, or Maupassant or Sherlock Holmes for adults. And what for comparative botchers those authors are! A whole volume with hundreds of pages tells of events that played out in the weeks, months or, in some cases, at least over a few years. (Additional note: I can't follow the logic of that, should there be any.) How different is the runic record of prehistory. Millions of years draw past before out eyes, mighty fates are cast in short, close or violent runic pictures. We see oceans coming and going, groups of giants developing during endless spans of time only for these, the mightiest of all beings that nature ever brought forth from its creates moods, then to meet their demise.

That is indeed what is so wonderful about these witnesses from the ancient world, that they always have endlessly more to tell us. They relate of wide-scale developments, but the reports also go into detail. But that is not all! They also provide information about the appearance of the prehistoric world, as well as about the fate of individual organisms which once lived in that remarkable world. They show us the contrasts to our time but also the points of similarity that have remained, despite the simply endless ages separating them from our present day. The area these runes bring us closer to is inexhaustible.

That must be a great author, and ingenious poet, who knows how to write so grippingly, so multifacetly, so powerfully and so shockingly. And it must be a special pleasure to eavesdrop on them while they work. Indeed, the rune scripts even give us information about their working methods. These scripts are not written with pen and paper, and nor with a stylus or chisel, but by the life itself. And they are still writing the history of the Earth today, and with the same methods and tools as were used millions of years ago. Let us take a look at their utensils; we can actually see them on each day and during every hour. Powerful volcanic eruptions, sudden and universally surprising earthquakes, racing whirlwinds, damaging floods and tidal waves are the assistants of this work. They are accompanied by famine and plagues. Massive catastrophes as well as tiny ones, secret and invisible. Birds can be destroyed in thousands as they migrate by storms (we still observe this today); the giants of the ocean can be rushed to death in hundreds during their travels, and wash up onto a beach as corpses. We find the victims, and often cannot give an entirely satisfactory explanation for such occurrences. We always come to think about plagues, catastrophes and famines. And so, as this applies today, then it would also have been the case since prehistoric times. And material such as this is written into the runic scripts of the ancient world.

Let us have a look at some of them! Just at random, then every book on geology and paleontology provides us with thousands of examples. A stone plate from the upper Red Sandstone of Fifeshire (England -Additional note: that'll annoy the residents as it's in Scotland!) contains remains of a prehistoric coelacanth (Fransenfloosser) (Holoptychius flemengi) and other fish that all fell victim to a sudden event, probably the poisoned gasses of an undersea volcano. This would explain why their bodies collected up at this spot in such quantities. Still more drastic is a find from the Lower Cretaceous near Rochester in Kent. That stone contains a massive quantity of a long extinct perch (Holopteryx superbus). The wonderfully preserved bodies lie bent and turned in a confusion, with wide opened mouths gasping for air. At the most, we can only make assumptions as to the cause of this case of mass death, perhaps an unexpected retreat of the water robbed them of their living element. A different plate of stone, this one from the Lebanon, shows thousands and thousands of tiny, herring-like fish that all found a terrible death. Probably a plague or an attack from minute bacteria brought an end to their lives. A layer of mud settled above them, and this saved them from decomposition or being eating by oceanic predators. The encroachment of mineral solutions into rivers and sea bays has also resulted in mass deaths. We find the victims of such poisonings in wonderful condition in the Kupferschiefer of Mansfeld where, for example, each scale of the Palaeoniscus and every smallest detail of its fish body lies, as if cast from bronze, in the metal-shining Kupferkies, and they light up the eye of the finder. And, as with today, when occasional storm floods and strong waves will bring deep water sponges onto the beach, then countless little fish, each the size of a sprat (Lepsolepis), once lay stranded on a beach in the Jurassic sea, and are found in the Plattenkalk of Solnhofen. After animals may have once been thrown onto land with the sandy mud carried by storm floods, they arrived shaken about and dead, such as the stagonolepid (Aetosaurus) from the Keuper Stubensandstein near Stuttgart, of which the Naturalienkabinett possesses a very well preserved rock plate. (Additional note: This particular Kabinett refers to an institution rather than a display case.)

We learn about life in the seas of infinitely distant times from such runic scripts, we learn of an overview of the development that the living world has experienced since the beginning of the Earth, and can estimate the difference in time between those ages and today. We get to see that, back then as well, undersea volcanoes had already brought the waters into disturbance and had an effect with their poisonous gasses, just as today we can still often perceive signs of powerful seaquakes. We also get to learn that fishes then must also have suffered from plagues which destroyed entire flourishing populations within a short time. We learn... What cannot be learnt from such runic scripts! And that not simply from the comparison with more of them, but also from comparisons between them all.

But it was not only fish, or indeed, sea creatures that fell as victims of such violent events or prevalent plagues. Near Bernissart in Belgium, for example, one came across a pile of some twenty vast dinosaurs when mining for coal, and their remains were thoroughly mixed up. These were the later very well known Iguanodon, reptiles of 7.5 metres in length and about 4.25 in height. These monsters lived in herds like, for example, elephants do today, and one such group was caught surprised by a sudden swell of water, perhaps a consequence of cloudbursts turning a stream into a raging river, and was washed down into a chasm. And down there remained their smashed limbs, to be buried under masses of clay mud that came along afterwards, and then preserved them until the present day. One runic script tells us all that.

In our German colony of East Africa, near to Tendaguru, more giant dinosaurs have been excavated over recent years, but also in the heart of Germany itself, at Halberstadt and, not to be forgotten, in the Swabian Jurassic, valuable finds of prehistoric reptiles have been made. These giants of the ancient world also fell in part as victims of climatic catastrophes, but also were partly brought down by food shortage, and certainly in part due to terrible plagues, and the assumption cannot be denied that these animals also had so called dying grounds, hidden corners or caves, to which old animals retreated if they felt ill and death lay in their limbs. Today as well, we know of a whole host of animals with this habit, and we must certainly thank this for many important finds from prehistory.

But we have not yet exhausted the possibilities by a long way. In the Pampa Formation of Argentina can be found numerous skeletons of a giant sloth, and sure clues show they were brought down by the consequences of drought. The animals were drawn into proximity to rivers and lakes during a prolonged heat wave, so that they might satisfy their burning thirst. However, before they could reach the precious moisture, they sank into thick layers of mud, which the retreating waters had left behind, and met their pitiful ends. But the most remarkable of prehistoric graves for animals are the tar pits of Rancho in Brea, California. Continuously, through tens of thousands of years, ever new victims were taken, and this produced the most extraordinary collection of prehistoric animals that one could think of. Camel, deer and other ruminants, which today are long extinct in the district, sought out the lake to drink, and its shore was surrounded by a wide area of tar. Before they had noticed the impending danger, the animals had already sunk into the soft tar and were irredeemably trapped to their deaths. Their decay attracted a host of predators, leopards and other large cats but also the sabre-toothed lion and countless wolves. All these found their graves in the tar as well before they were able to reach their intended prey. They were followed by eagles, vultures and other carnivorous birds which had detected welcome victims among the animals struggling against death or as carrion. However, as they attempted to grab the animals with their claws, their wings would frequently come into contact with the dangerous tar, become stuck, and these birds also found their doom in the mass grave. And so came one victim after the other until this runic script was complete, and it is far stranger than all others.

Multifaceted and remarkable are the causes that led to such mass graves, but we still find the same forces at work today. Such a mass death did not always mean the extinction of the relevant species. Earthquakes, floods, storms, volcanic eruptions and similar events were certainly not sufficient to complete such work. However, this is different when it comes to climate change such as prolonged droughts or, to cite the best known example, the Ice Ages. Many highly developed animals of the time fell victim to them. And plagues, too, have not only resulted in mass graves, but have also slaughtered entire species for all time. (Additional note: I know of no such cases.) This cannot be doubted. (Additional note: Oh yes it can!)

Naturally, there has again recently been a scientific perspective spoken of which denies any extinction, and maintains that supposedly extinct species still continue today, but only more highly developed and externally changed as a result of adaptation. A lively argument broke out in the republic of the learned but this new perspective, prominently represented by G Steinmann, has turned out to be untenable. It was at most people, so Steinmann maintains, that brought about the extinction of some animal species by hunting during the Diluvian time and, sadly, he has many examples available from out time to support this view. But he entrusts the people of the Diluvian age with far too much influence. Even should this or that animal really have been brought to extinction by humans, then not all the extinct animals since the Diluvian can be written into the death account of people. In Das Aussterben dliuviales Säugetiere und die Jagd des diluvialen Menschen ('The extinction of Diluvian mammals and the hunting of Diluvian humans'), W Sorgel has presented complete evidence showing a large number of Diluvian animals could not possibly have disappeared due to hunting by humans, but rather simply went extinct. In a wider context, the work of R Hoernes, Das Aussterben der Gattungen und Arten ('The extinction of genera and species') also demonstrates that it is, above all, the causes mentioned above that are the prime considerations for extinction.

The prehistoric runic scripts have already revealed so endlessly much of value, but we have not yet been acquainted with all their secrets by a long way. They hold much more that is worth knowing which still requires decoding. We most strengthen our eyes and improve our examination equipment, and perhaps we will find more precise indices about the causes of mass graves, and about the nature of the plagues that were already slaughtering entire groups of prehistoric animals, and more about the small world, the world of the invisibly small, the bacteria of prehistory.

Studying the worldwide rune scripts will always be of interest, gripping and valuable, then the number of their secrets is immeasurable and, even today, many remain beyond the view of our research, but they should not remain a puzzle for eternity.

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.