NATURE STUDY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17068, 28 September 1929, Page 15

NATURE STUDY

FORMATION OF LIFE INTERESTING LECTURE An interesting and instructive lecture on the earth's beginning and the formation of living things was given by Mr. G. Barton at the meeting of the Study and Biscussion Society on Thursday evening. The speaker first explained Professor Bicker ton's impact theory, which pointed to the fact that compression of particles of dust would cause heat. Millions on millions of tons of compressed dust would cause prodigious heat. “Radium may play a part in the formation of heat,” said Mr. Barton, “and perhaps other substances not yet discovered. Our eight planets arc the survival of the fittest, the weaker being sucked in and disappearing. The earth is still a fiery metal globe surrounded by a gigantic mantle of steam. That ’ is how the planets Jupiter and Saturn were found. They are still red hot at the surface, and all that is seen of them is the great mantle of Steam which surrounds them. The planet Mars, being very milch smaller than the earth, cooled before it. “While the total distance from the outside of the earth to its centre is 4000 miles, the outside crust is onjy an infinitesimal part of this,” continued the speaker. “Authorities vary from 25 to 75 miles in thickness, or l-160th part of the earth’s radius. The temperature of the earth 'increases one degree for every 60ft. further in.to the earth s surface. Therefore, water will boil at a depth of 10,000 ft. below the surface, while metals will melt before reaching lOO.COOft.” From the time the earth s surface cooled 1 down until the present, according to our best authorities, ho added, would cover" over 200,000,000 years, but a much vaster period must bo allowed for the contraction anil cooling down' of the vaprous matter of which the earth was composed. With the cooling of the earth’s surface the temperature of the vast ocean encircling the earth was appi'oachihg a condition to maintain life.' FIRST LIFE. The first life on the earth must havo been far lower than the lowest bacteria, said Mr. Barton. It would bo probably more correct to say there was no first living thing. Inorganic matter slowly developed into organic matter, and this was slowly shaped into living units. The first life forms lived on the. chemicals contained in the soil, and this was what was meant by .a- plant or vegetable organism. The life forms were single cell beings. Eyes arid other senses began as little pits on the skin. This development probably took millions of years, and during all this time they were “soft bodied” and left no “fossil” remains. It was by studying these living forms in nature to-day that it was' possible to trace the lines of their evolution. It was only after they had developed hard coats of lime (shells) that we found any preserved as fossils in the rocks.

The seas began to teem with life, and there was a struggle for food and safety, added the lecturer. The less fit went to the wall and perished. Only the fit survived. Organism's crept higher and higher in the scale. In the course of more ages the sea life slowly developed; some of the sea weeds became more like fishes than plants; uncouth forms athirst appeared arid these in turn gave place to higher forms'. Bones were not developed. The lower forms of fish to-day, the shark and stingray, had no bones. Vegetation led the way. The steamy swamps, rich in carbon, were food for such types of vegetation as iliejf-e were at that time, and as they became adapted to swamp life they throve and evolved. Under such favorable conditions plant life reached enormous proportions. Club mosses grew to a height of 100 ft., arid tree ferns had a spread of oyer 50ft Further points in the lecture dealt, with the coming of water hugs, which followed the vegetation into the swamps, and in this form the insects were evolved. They Ibid’their eggs in' the open, and the earth supplied' the necessary warmth ’ to hatch 'them.