FUTURE LIFE OF THE GLOBE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2736, 22 August 1906, Page 82

FUTURE LIFE OF THE GLOBE.

Professor Thomas C. Chamberlain, of the University of Chicago, expresses tho opinion that the earth will remain in a. habitable condition for a hundred million years. The belief is baeed on his conception of tho conditions existing for a corresponding period in the past, and that, in turn, is derived from a theory regarding the origin of the globe quite different from Laplace's. The nebular hypothesis presupposes the do\elopment of intense heat, as an effect of condensation, and then a. steady cooling from radiation. If the earth wae once a molten and glowing mass, the second operation was obviously a prerequisite to the t'xi«te!icc of animal and vegetable life. Simon New comb, one of tho foremo.»t American astronomers, thinks that this interval could not have exceeded 20,000,000 yraie. Lord Kohin once mad« an e.stimalo that was even more modest, but ho allowed a rather wide range botwrou his minimum and maximum calculations. The Chicago ffeologisfc considers the planet* to be accretions of material which have undergone only a relatively small oban?e< of temperature in the past, and which aro destined to lo»" liu'e lioat in the future. If his premise-, be sound, of eour&e his conclusions mu*t Ik- accepted. Piofessor Chamberlain's convictio-ns ha\A not (=ays th<» »w York Tribune) bfvn before, the «oil<l long enough to permit his scientific brethren io pass dehbcMte judgment on them -iiuleod, they have thui far been presents! only 111 part. It is by no r»;eaiw o.'ilam that they will siand eritilal e.\amniiihon. But the nnbular hvpotheS'.s a'^o i~ \ ulnrrabl<*. More and mo'« <li-*al i«f<u 1 'on uiih it i> ■evinced as time goes by. Meanwhik- there is at least one thing to 1-l1 -l »anl 111 behalf of Ihe alternative docirm > It harmonises better than Kelvin's an,l Xi'uiomb's estimates "with fcho inf'arprei<tt ions nut by geologists and biologies on tho r< cords of the rocks. For the form*iioji of all the fossil-bearing strata, from the lov.-oat to the highol, somewhere botw«n 100,000,000 and ' 200,000,000 years, stems to- bo d«maiicl<x}.

Thf* warmth on which tlip maintenance of hfo depends ha* two s-ourws — one within the earth and the other without. In one sc-jiso the Jatfrr is the mor© important, but tJie ?uti alone might not prove adequate if the infernal heat of tho globe were disaiV>ated. flf the climate became too severe for plant life man would soon be deprived! of food, for aheap and rattle would <li*> appear v.hen vegetables for tha (able did. After all, then, the conservation of th« existing theimal stor<M of the <>a.rth is of primary consequence. The chief reason fort welcoming a-siiraice=i liko tho^a of Pro* fo-oi- Chambcildin lies in the progress which the human lace w-ill make in th« future.

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