The Press Saturday, September 24, 1927. The Age of the Earth.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19114, 24 September 1927, Page 14

The Press Saturday, September 24, 1927. The Age of the Earth.

During the Middle Ages everybody knew exactly how old the Earth was. The Mosaic account was taken literally and it would have been accounted blasphemv to doubt that the world was inade'in six days of twenty-four hours each, six thousand odd years ago. With the dawn of modem science in the Seventeenth Century some, men evidently began to regard the Mosaic " days " as somewhat too short for the operations required. Thus Thomas Burnet, a Churchman who lost his position as Master of the Charterhouse because he regarded the Mosaic account of the Fall of Man as an allegory, wrote to Sir Isaac Newton for his opinion about the Mosaic " days " for his great work The Sacred Theory of the Earth. Newton replied in a long letter giving a most picturesque and stirring account of the whole process as he understood it. As a great concession to Science he would permit Burnet to regard each of the six " days" as one year, but his own sterling orthodoxy would not allow him to go further than that. This was the | considered opinion of the best scientific authority two hundred years ago: the Earth as we see it was made within about six calendar years. During the Eighteenth Century the science of geology made rapid progress, especially in Germany, ancl the prestige of the Mosaic narrative as an authority proportionately tended to diminish, whilst few were found bold enough to. deny or ignore it altogether. Gradually, during the Nineteenth Century, the geologists gained their victory, but not till after much bitter 'controversy, now happily forgotten. The fossils in the rocks were for some years'in the limelight. For instance, one of the sticklers for the literal interpretation of the six.days of Creation, an Anglican bishop, is known to have argued that "as God made the rocks He made the " fossils in the rocks."

Popular works like those of Hugh Miller familiarised the public with the idea that the Earth is really of vast and almost unthinkable antiquity. The men of Science, once freed from the shackles of the Mosaic story, continued to make greater and still greater demands for elbow-room in the geologic past. New methods of calculating the possible age of the Earth were discovered, beyond the first and obvious method of estimating the thickness of the various strata and the possible time required for their deposition. Most of these date from the last third of the Nineteenth Century and are based upon land area, relief, and, latest of all, the disintegration of uranium, or "radioI " active " methods.

The results of these methods were usefully tabulated, in 1917 by Barrell. Here the estimates of five authorities are given, between ,1893 and 1917. The lowest of these, that of Schuchert in 1910, gives the possible age of the Earth as thirty million years; the highest was that of Goodchild, 1896, which gave seven hundred millions. Barren's own estimate gives a minimum of 'five hundred and fifty and a maximum of seven hundred million years.

Stupendous as these figures are, the geologists were-'not yet satisfied. C. E. P. Brooks in an appendix to his new book, Climate- Through the Ages, reviews the evidence once more and concludes that the most reliable method of estimating the age of any particular 'portion of the Earth's crust is based on the phenomena of radio-activity—the "uranium-lead ratio." And by this method'the most recent calculations give as the possible age of .the Earth a sublime total of over twelve hundred million years. To this the modest six years of Sir Isaac Newton have swelled, in two centuries.

No layman will venture to question these new methods or to throw doubt upon the conclusions to which they I lead. We must now simply accept the fact that the Earth's past history, reckoned in years, reaches figures which by reason of their immensity convey but a vague and dim idea to the finite mind. Assuming that the men of Science do not before long change their minds and discover that the new method of calculation is unsound, it will take a long time for the general intelligence of mankind to adjust arid orientate itself to this new conception. But when that has been done it is permissible, surely, to hope that men, looking back upon so majestic a stretch of time in the past, will be able to envisage a future equally in-

spiring and augnst. The average Government now usually looks no further forward than the next General Election. Yet there are not wanting signs that some day, though not perhaps in- the near future, the control of the affairs of the world may be in the hands of one body of men, from whom some such far-sighted views as are here hinted at may be expected. Those who have faith and hope in the League of Nations regard it as a timid first towards such a consummation.