THE EARTH IS DELING UP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2258, 10 June 1897, Page 49

THE EARTH IS DELING UP.

But You Needn't Worry About It. The statement, though a startling one, and one most serious for future generations, need sot cause us any alarm or uneasiness. That the earth will eventually dry up and that every moment the huge volumes of water on its surface are diminishing are undeniable fact* — at least, if there is aDy truth in science. At the present time we have a , water supply sufficient to last out an incalculable number of years. The pessimistic Briton ignoring the fact that we occasionally have water famines in this humid country, often declares that we have a good deal too mucb. But the ticce will come when the ocean beds will lie parched and bare, and a tiny stream of turbid water will be valued at more than TEN MILLION TITiIES ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD. The planet Mars, according to our naoßt skilled astronomers, though considerably smaller than the earth, bears a very close resemblance to it. It probably contains a race of being 3 very similar to ourselves, and is, to a certain extent, olothed with verdure. Not only is Mars smaller than the earth, bub it is also vory much older, and therefore much more advanced towards final decay. The telescope shows us that Mars is ; covered not with seas, but with a network of canals, and the inference drawn from this is ; that Mars is now almost a desert, intersected I here and there by streams of water, which in i time to come will entiraly disappear, leaving | the planet parched and dead like the moon — A SKELETON OP A "WOELD. Water is just as essential to the life of a star or a planet as blood is to the life of a human being or an animal. The moon, being smaller than either the earth or Mars, was less able to retain its oceans, and has been shrivelled and dry for ages. Its sea beds and lake basins are hollow and empty, and there is not tone atom of verdure on its wiinkled surface. ' It ia cloudless, rainless, and almost airless ; i it has no water, and without water there can be no life. It ia a silent and perished world.

and presents an exaot picture, on a smaller scale, of what our own earth will eventually become. Ages ago the globe waa a veritable waßfce of waters, in which huge.unoanny creatures — with equally uncanny nameE — moved and had their being. The air was full of hot, reeking mists, terrible storms raged, and SCALDING BAIN FELL ALMOST INCESSANTLY. Where the giant peaks emerged tha hot rain, charged with acid brine, bit and crumbled them away, until in the end a soil was formed. Then the waters cooled and subsided, possibly faster, possibly slower, than they are subsiding to-day, for though the process is imperceptible it is still going on. In the remote past the earth wan incapable of sustaining human life owing to the redundancy of water, and in the remote future dearth of the fluid will bring about the same result. A gradual exodus will be made from the higher ground, and the vast ocean beds, as the water recedes, will alone admit of cultivation. At the lowest levels deep lakes will be left, so salty that thick crusts of tha mineral will form over them, and the land in the vicinity will be impregnated with salt to such an extent that no vegetation can grow for miles around. The air will become more rarefied, the sky will be without a cloud, and not a drop of rain will fall. No storms will rage over the desolate wilderness, for all will be AS SILENT AS THE TOMB. The atmosphere — if atmosphere it can be called — will be deathly still, without so much as a breath of air to move one grain of the deep-lying, bone-dry dust. But before Mother Earth becomes shrunken and decayed— with | her cities lying ruined and desolate, and her j river courses, half choked, furrowing her ! sides — many ages must pass, and the final ! struggle of humanity against extermination ! will cc a terrible one, as the strongest only will be able to survive for an hour. Civilisation will be forgotten, and the remnants of mankind will huddle together wherever water is to be found, to fight and struggle for the precious fluid. On tbe other hand, it is possible thq.t, with a high degree of civilisation, an elaborate system of works might be raised to eke out the failing supply of water to the best advantage. Even this would but hasten the end. But if human beings still inhabit the sarth at this stage of her career, it is certain that a remarkable change will have taken place in their organisations. The air will contain very Httle oxygen. Many great scientists are of opinion that the atmosphere once contained much more oxygen than it does to-day, and in the ages to come animals will have to be capable of existing on an extremely small supply of the gas if they are to live at all. When the last -drop of water has disappeared the remnants of the human race will vanish with it, everything that has life will die, and the earth will remain scarred, parched, and blistered — as dead and silent as the moon.