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Short Stuff: The Lost (?) Continent of Lemuria · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm open to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Dave's not here, Jared's here, and I'll tell you who
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: else it's here. It's Philip Schlatter, his ghost. He's a
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century British zoologist, and he's come across the plane
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of existence to be here with us today.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I think you added an h in there, my friend Sclater.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he always wished his name was Schlatter.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about Philip Sklater. I guess that's even
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: that's a weird name. I like schlaughter better too, sure,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: because he took part in something that was going on
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: in the mid nineteenth century where people were trying to
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: figure out where stuff came from that didn't seem like
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: it belonged there, like in their country, Like why is
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: this animal here when they were from another continent for
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: this plant? That doesn't make a lot of sense. We've
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: talked about this stuff before in terms of like land
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: bridges and things like that. But he wrote a book
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty four called The Mammals of Madagascar No Colon,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: just clean and simple.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Good for you, Schleeter, where he.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Wondered, like madagascars off the east coast of Africa, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: they have dozens of species of lemurs, but all of
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Africa and India have only a few species of lemur.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: In fact, it was worse than that, they don't have
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: any species of leamer. He was just mistaken and thought
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: some other big eyed primates were lemurs. But he was
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: on the right track as far as saying, like what
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: happened here? And he said, I know what it was.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: There used to be a great continent that connected these
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: things and that's how they got there, and that thing
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: is now underwater, and I'm even going to name it Lemeria.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, after his lemur friends. Yeah, yeah, And this was
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the reason that he was coming up with the idea
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: like this, and he wasn't the only one. Apparently, lamb
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: bridges were very much in vogue at the time because
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: we didn't understand, like you were saying, how like a
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: plant could be on one continent and also on another,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And we hadn't figured out continental drift yet. That didn't
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: really get traction until the nineteen twenties. So this was
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: an attempt to explain that before the theory of continental
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: drift came along or drifted along, and this continent of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Lemiria supposedly was on the bottom of the Indian Ocean
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: now but basically spanned from India all the way to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Africa and Slater Slater. Yeah, he basically said, this is
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: where lemurs originated and then they spread out from their
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: case closed and we should say, like, it seems off
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to us now, but this was a legitimate man of
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: science proposing a legitimate hypothesis that may or may not
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: have been able to be tested. I'm not sure, but like,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: it wasn't meant to be crackpot. It was the crackpots
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: who took it and turned it into a crackpot theory.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It kind of gained traction in other circles,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about a few of those.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: There was one guy, a German biologist named Ernst Heckel,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: and he wrote a book called History of Creation. No colon,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: they didn't have colon's back then.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: No, they invented the colon with the continental drift theory.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: He had a theory about evolution that kind of flew
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in the face of Darwin where he said, you know what,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: this Lemuria place, that's my comrade. Sklater came up with
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I think not only was that a place, but that
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: was where it all started. That's the cradle of mankind.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: In humanity, there were twelve varieties of men, and the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: first humans evolved from ancient primates and spread from there,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: and they did so from Limyria, right.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is problematic through and through. But it's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: also worth saying that Hackel himself was a respected man
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: of science too. He was a very accomplished one of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: those guys who's like, I'm a biologist, now I'm a geologist,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: now I'm a geographer. What else do you want me
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: to be? He was one of those dudes who really
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: contributed to science. But again, at the time, this was like,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it just seems to be like crackpot theories to us now,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: but they were still just trying to explain what they
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: were seeing and it just turned out to be kind
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: of wrong. One of the big problems with it was
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that he based it on the Maria, which there was
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: no evidence aside from you know, O, well it kind
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of explains why this plant's here, this lemurs on this continent,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and these lemurs are on this continent. There was no
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: evidence for it whatsoever. So it's probably faulty to really
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: start basing other hypotheses on this hypothetical sunken continent.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Right, especially when there weren't even really lemurs at all
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: in either Indio or Africa.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, should we take a break, Yep, all right, we'll
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: be right back. Uh. You mentioned Darwin. I can't remember
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: what you said about Hackel, but I just imagined Hackel
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: like b boy, dancing up to Darwin and like running
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: his hand, like waving his hand in between their faces,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you know how they did, and then dancing off. I
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: can't remember what you said, but it triggered that image
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and it cracked me up. So thanks for that choke.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of that. It just flew in the face
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: of what Darwin thought. And apparently Darwin was not a
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: fan of this, uh, any of these theories about continents
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: just sinking.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: No, he would shoot his TV when it was mentioned
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: on the news.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: He wrote a letter to a guy named Charles Lyle
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: who's a geologist who also thought that continent sank. He said,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: if there this is such a nerd burn, if there
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: be a lower region for the punishment of geologists, I believe,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: my great master.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: You will there And Charles lyell, we're saying respective man
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of science.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Too, that's right, you knew who was not?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I do tell everybody a woman.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Named Helena Blavatsky who was a nineteenth century Russian occultists,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: and she founded something called the Theosophical Society that believed
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that religion or science hadn't fully captured the full truth
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: of the origins of Earth, which I'm like, yeah, I'm
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: down with that. But she thought through psychic gifts that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: people like herself could access that loss wisdom, and that's
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: where she lost me.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And there's actually few people that fully embody everything I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: scorn like Helena Blovotsky does. Yeah, she wrote a book
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: called The Secret Doctrine, came out in eighteen eighty eight,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and by this time, Lamiria is not It's no longer
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: like it's out of the realm of science. It's now
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: into the new age movement, the Theosophists. It was the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: movement that Blovatsky, Madame Blovotsky, helped found, and I think
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: it was also the basis of spiritualism too. We did
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a whole episode on spiritualism. She played a big role
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: in that. But that whole trend of like going to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: seances and stuff. In the Victorian age, she helped kick
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that off. And in this book, The Secret Doctrine, she
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: was saying, Hey, I've read Ernest Henkel before, so I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: kind of understand his idea that Lemria was the cradle
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of civilization. He said that there's twelve varieties of men.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say instead that there's seven. I when
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I call them root races. And Lemuria in particular was
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: home to the third root race. And people said, well,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: what's the third root race? And she said, read on
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to your reader, and in the next passage she said
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: that they're gigantic humans. There were who were hermaphroditics and
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: laid eggs, but because we're evolved from them, they eventually
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: grew distinct sexual organs.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Moving on, Yeah, uh yeah, do we even need to
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: comment on that? Besides it's hysterical.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't even find it hysterical, like you just yeah,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you past that, evins Man.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now, I'm with you. But this is the nineteenth century,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: so you know.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but have you been on YouTube lately? This is
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: so like of the moment still too.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Lemuria, if you if you look it
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: up online, there's a lot of new ag sites that
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: are talking about Lemiria and uh, you know, you can
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: buy Lamerian crystals and things like that to you know,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: for the low price of twenty five dollars, that kind
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: of thing. I think what is interesting is this final
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: sort of twist to the story. Back in India when
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: it was a colony of the Brits. There were some
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: ethnologists from Britain who were at the time. They were
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: really fascinated like where did the the original Indians come from?
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Here they have they're so diverse racially and ethnically, like
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: what were the was the original ancestry, And they really
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: honed in on the Dravidian speaking people in southern India.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: One of the languages a Dravidians was a language family,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: and one of those people that spoke one of those
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: languages were the Tamil people t A m I l.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: And one theory was, oh, those people were the first
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: people and they were from Limyria.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, so the Tamil people really love that. They actually
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: had a legend already of some I think it's a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Hindu legend about Kumari kandom and it's a lost civilization
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: or under the sea under the Indian Ocean, so they're like,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: they're really kind of jibes. Hey, everybody, we're from Limyria.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: That makes us the oldest civilization, which makes us the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: most civilized civilization. Eat that.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and thus have the oldest language.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Eat that as well.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And apparently today, even if you are I want to
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: say Tamelion, but I guess just Tamil, there's still apparently
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: this sort of fascination with this sort of lost world
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: that they their original people came from and they like
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: populated planet Earth.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I find that more charming than new
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: ag stuff, even though yeah, I know, yeah, wow, how
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: much have we like evolved over time? Remember how we
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: used to just be totally into Fortian stuff and like
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: unexplained stuff, and like our minds were open, we were
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: curious and we wouldn't do stuff.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: And now we're just like, yeah, Madam Blavaria, Blavaria, Blevotski, Lameria,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I'm confused.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Now, Lamotsky, Schlamiel, schlamazl say short stuff out?
• 10:45
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