FUTURE OF MANKIND
MILLION MILLION YEANS Life on the earth has still to reach its zenith, said the director of the Carter Observatory, Mr M, Geddes, in a lecture at Wellington. About 500,000,000 years ago, long before the earth was habitable, life probably developed on Mars, flourished, ami waned. As the decline began on Mars, the upward surge began on earth, and has continued for 300,000,000 years. Something like a million million years hence, if no celestial accident occurs, it will reach its zenith. Conditions then will be vastly different from now. Denudation of ages will have reduced the mountains almost to plains. The sun will be much colder, and oceans and rivers will be solid ice. y Man will exist under the shadow of inevitable extinc-tion-trying to discover all sorts of expedients to prolong the habitability of the planet, but knowing with growing certainty that the end is near. By then Venus will have reached the habitable stage, and the first forms of life there will be struggling for existence, beginning the long road already traversed on earth and probably on Mars.
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Evening Star, Issue 23723, 2 November 1940, Page 12
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183FUTURE OF MANKIND Evening Star, Issue 23723, 2 November 1940, Page 12
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