Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 24, 1891, Unnumbered Page

Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute. First Meeting: 11th May, 1891. H. Hill, B.A., President, in the chair.

Abstract. The President regretted the departure of Messrs. Hamilton, Harding, and Macdonald, and said that to Mr. Hamilton was due the growth of the Museum, and especially of the magnificent collection of Maori curiosities, which he deemed second to none in the colony. He dilated on the necessity for encouraging in young people the habit of observation, and deplored the general want of enthusiasm in scientific matters. He considered that the New Zealand Institute did not use its great influence effectively in fostering and promoting science, and thought that scientific workers out of reach of specialists might be much assisted if they could transmit to head-quarters free of expense specimens for identification. Type collections, he also considered, should be distributed to provincial museums by the central department. The President then mentioned the meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science at Christchurch in January lastas the great event of the year, and called attention to the graceful and complimentary remarks made by Sir J. Hector in his presidential address regarding the Rev. W. Colenso, F.R.S., and his scientific labours— remarks that the members would appreciate none the less that they were spoken of the founder of their own branch of the Institute. Of events of worldwide interest, he mentioned the journeys of Nansen in Greenland and Stanley in Africa. Nansen's journey across Greenland, he said, points to the whole of that country south of 75° lat. being covered with a vast glacial sheet, estimated by Nansen at not less than 6,000ft. thick; while Stanley's discoveries are of extreme interest as making living truths of the supposed myths of old writers in long-past centuries. But surpassing these is the great discovery by Professor Koch, who towards the close of the year announced to a wondering world that he had found a specific for the cure of consumption. When Tyndall, some seven years ago, called attention in the Times to Koch's discovery it was received with something like scorn, as was Pasteur's great discovery for the cure of hydrophobia; and, though the expectations first held out have not been entirely fulfilled, still a vast impetus has been given to biological science. He then gave a succinct account of the theories of Liebig and Pasteur on the causes of fermentation and putrefaction. The President went on to say that the discovery of the lowest form of animal organisms in connection with the highest opens up several questions of biological interest bearing on the theories of life as enunciated by Lamarck, Darwin, and others. Having given a summation of their respective theories, he continued as follows: “In order to get a

clear conception as to the progress and development of life on the earth, it may be well if I refer briefly to the theories which have been set up as to the origin of this earth of ours. Kant, Laplace, and Herschel (W.) explained the harmony prevailing in what is known as the solar system by premising that at one period an original nebula existed, of which the remains at the present time are the sun and the several planetary bodies, with their satellites. This nebula was diffused in space at least as far as the farthest member of the system. As it began to condense towards a centre interspaces of matter were left behind, and these, in their turn, continued to condense by the dispersion of their heat, and thus the planets grew. Whilst it is difficult to explain by the nebular theory, as this system is called, the cause of the condensation of materials composing the nebula about special centres, it is possible to explain the sequence of materials which might be said to form the earth's crust or envelope. Thus the air surrounds the earth, then come the water and surface rocks, and these are severally much lighter specifically than the average density of the earth. As we know it the earth is round, spheroidal as to shape, and consists of land and water with an aërial envelope. It is usual to say that the land is only about one-fourth of the earth; but this is true only so far as the surface is concerned, the proportion of water- to land - surface being as 145 is to 52. But the actual quantity of water, after all, is very small when the land and water, bulk for bulk, are compared. The average depth of the entire ocean is said to be about 12,000ft., whilst the average height of the land is not more than 2,500ft. The quantity of water upon the earth at the present time is sufficient to cover the entire surface to a depth of nearly 8,000ft., or, say, a mile and a half. As a frozen mass it would cover the earth to a depth of nearly 9,000ft. A cubic foot of water percolating through the land would not, I estimate, be traceable to a depth of 100ft., the effect being the same as if a cubic inch of water were distributed over a square surface of 100in. with a depth of lin. Thus, if all the waters of the ocean were to be absorbed by the land, then, on the estimate of percolation given above, it would not affect the crust to a depth of more than 150 miles. That the earth's orust absorbs water is certain, and as far as our knowledge goes there is no reason why all the water which occupies so much of the earth's surface as ocean should not pass into the crust and be absorbed by it. Thus the earth might become, simply by the process of absorption, uninhabitable. As far as is known, the materials which form the earth were originally arranged according to their specific gravities; in fact, it appears to me that a large body like the earth is inconceivable on the supposition that the envelope, or outer covering, is specifically heavier than the materials which such envelope would enclose. The contraction of that part of the original nebula which goes to make up the earth took place through the diffusion of heat into space, and contraction of the earth will proceed until the whole heat now centred in the earth, together with that received from the sun, will be similarly diffused in space. And that this is the order of nature seems probable from the facts which geology and physiography teach as to the structure of the earth and the development of animal and vegetable life. With no degree of certainty can it be said when or in what manner life first appeared on the earth—whether in a hot temperature or a cold one; but we know that the lower forms of life must have existed before the higher, and even the vegetable before the animal. The physical conditions were such that no other plan was possible. Experiments show that the lowest forms of life, to which reference has already been made, including bacteria and amœbæ, cannot even exist in a temperature much below the boiling-point of water, and their potency for harm as fermentative agents is destroyed in temperatures below freezing-point.

Huxley says that bacteria are killed by a temperature of 60° C. (140° Fahr.), whilst they thrive best in a temperature of about 30° C. (86° Fahr.); and the fact that fresh meat can be carried from New Zealand to England in cool-chambers is a proof of the non-growth of bacteria in temperatures below freezing-point. Now, if we pursue this nebular theory so far as it relates to the earth, it is evident that the air must have cooled first. It is the outer envelope of the earth, and no heat could pass from the earth as a body into space without passing through the air. Heat can only pass from a hot medium to one less hot, and whatever heat the earth has lost in the course of time must have passed into space through the atmosphere as a medium. But we find at the present time that there are large areas of the earth, including land-and water-areas, so cold that they are much below the temperature of freezing-point the year round. And yet the cold, even in such places as are to be found within the Frigid Zones, cannot be as intense as the cold to be found in the upper parts of the atmosphere. But the true zonal region of cold is curiously distributed over the earth. In the Torrid Zone a spot is reached in vertical space known as the snow-line; a similar spot can be reached in diminishing elevations from the equator to the poles; in fact, the snowline, as Nansen has pointed out with respect to the glaciers of Greenland, is at the sea-level not far from the Arctic Circle. Little is known with respect to the condition of the Antarctic Zone; but Captains Cook and Wilkes, as also Sir James Ross, report the existence of an immense ice-barrier in that zone, which the late Professor Croll estimated to be some twelve miles in thickness (see ‘C limate and Time’). Here, then, we find barriers of cold in vertical space overshadowing land and water, and diminishing in height from the equator to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles; barriers of cold in the Frigid Zone; and, curious as it may appear, there is a cold-communicating area in the lower depths of the ocean, linking together, as it were, the cold areas of the north and south polar regions. Near the Arctic Circle, at a depth of 1,400 fathoms, the water was found to be 32 ½° Fahr., while in the Red and Arabian Seas, at a depth varying from 1,400 to 1,800 fathoms, the temperature was only 33 ½°. Thus there are cold barriers now surrounding the earth in every direction, which circumscribe the limits of inhabitability, if not of all animal and vegetable life, certainly of all the higher forms; and this circumscribed area, try how we may to avoid it, is slowly but surely becoming more circumscribed by reason of the loss of terrestrial heat that is slowly going on. Here, then, we see prospects of the coming time in the history of the earth as a planet, when the cold will be so intense that the higher and even the lower forms of life such as we are now acquainted with will cease to be, and when all inorganic life will have reached its greatest density. And between these two great time-periods, the incoming and outgoing of organic life on the earth, there will be a middle period of maximum variation and development, in which the seasonal contrasts will present their widest variety, and the organic world its greatest differentiation and growth. On the other hand, the nearer we approach the two great time-periods, the seasonal contrasts will be smaller, and the organic and inorganic differentiations will be fewer. And these conditions as to climate, life, and differentiation are what we should expect in dealing with a cooling earth. At one period in the history of the earth the heat which was given off was such that the climatic conditions of the North and South Polar Zones as to moisture and temperature were better suited to organic life than were the other zones. A cooling earth, assuming the rocks to be generally similar in the different zones, would sooner become suited for the abode of life in the Polar Zones than elsewhere. More heat was given off from the regions around the poles than from the region around the equator, for the reason that a six-months day, followed by a six-months night, in the Polar Zones, will produce wider variations of temperature than a twelve-hours

day and a twelve-hours night will do in the Torrid Zone. Hence, I think it may be assumed that in the earlier periods of the earth the polar regions were warm regions, and were possibly the abode of organic life earlier—indeed, much earlier—than the Temperate and Torrid Zones, unless the land in those zones was very much higher than the land in the Frigid Zones, which is improbable. How long the north and south polar regions continued to be favourable to the development of animal and vegetable life cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty, but there is plenty of evidence even now to prove that both plants and animals of tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate facies lived in those regions even as late as the Tertiary period. But such evidence, though valuable as showing that a warm climate once prevailed where now ice and snow of immense depth and thickness are to be found the year round, is not sufficient to determine whether the north and south zones were the first abodes of organic life on the earth. In order to determine this we require to deal with a succession of geological time-periods long anterior to the Tertiary—from the time, in fact, when the rocks give evidence that life had appeared on the earth to the present day, when differentiation is so marked in each of the three natural kingdoms. If traces of organic life could be found in the older rocks of the Frigid Zones, showing a gradual progress from the lowest forms of animal and vegetable life up to the types of fossil life found among the Tertiary rocks of those zones, the evidence would be complete; but there is no such evidence yet to hand. So far as acquaintance has yet been made with the stratified rocks in the various continents, it is found that the lowest organisms and simplest forms of animal and vegetable life appeared in the oldest rocks, and as we pass upward in the series through the Palæozoic, Mesozoic, and Tertiary ages we find not only traces of increased life, but also traces of progressive life from lower to higher types. But it is hardly possible to account for progressive forms of life, with their attendant variations, except on the supposition that in the course of time such climatic changes took place that the earth became better adapted to the maintenance of higher forms, and that the life that was before the changes began adapted itself to the new conditions as they were in progress. To change meant to live, then, as it does now. In the case of a cooling earth, every climatic change that produces greater seasonal contrasts tends to greater differentiations in the organic world. The geological records show that life, which began with the lowest forms, has progressed by a series of differentiations and adaptations; that from the simple it has gone on to the complex, and from the complex to the yet more complex. From the cell to the tissue, from the tissue to the individual, from the individual to the species, and so on to the class, the genus, and the order—such is the progress of life, and such its development in time, as told on the tablet-stones of the past. And does not this progress from the lower to the higher, from the simple to the complex, in the organic world strike the keynote as to the incoming of new forms of diseases by new adaptations of lowly organisms in the physical world, operating, as Darwin points out, through countless millions of years? We cannot suppose that differentiations and new adaptations have not their attendant ills. The body will be rendered liable to disease of new forms and new kinds, just as it undergoes variations and new developments. Adaptations are in progress now, as they have ever been; and, while scientific skill may and will continue to discover means to lessen pain and diminish suffering, science will not, cannot, free humanity from the ills that flesh is heir to through the ages; for, try how we may, science will never be able to transform the body mortal into the body immortal.”

Second Meeting: 8th June, 1891. L. Lessong, C.E., Vice-president, in the chair. Papers.—1. “Plain and Practical Thoughts and Notes on New Zealand Botany,” by the Rev. W. Colenso, F.R.S., F.L.S. (Transactions, p. 400.) 2. “On the Native Dog of New Zealand,” by Taylor White. (Transactions, p. 540.) Third Meeting: 9th July, 1891. H. Hill, B.A., President, in the chair.

Fourth Meeting: 10th August, 1891. H. Hill, B.A., President, in the chair. Paper.—“Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe,” by H. Hill, B.A. (Transactions, p. 603.) The paper was illustrated with views of these mountains thrown on a canvas screen by the aid of a magic lantern. Fifth Meeting: 14th September, 1891. H. Hill, B.A., President, in the chair.

Sixth Meeting: 12th October, 1891. Papers.—1. “Vestiges: Reminiscences: Memorabilia of Works, Deeds, and Sayings of the Ancient Maoris,” by W. Colenso, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c. (Transactions, p. 445.) The author showed photographs in illustration of some of the forms of Maori house-decoration.

2. “Description of Three Species of Newly-discovered New Zealand Ferns,” by W. Colenso, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c. (Transactions, p. 394.) Specimens of these three ferns, in their various stages, were shown by the author. 3. “A Description of some Newly-discovered Indigenous Plants, being a Further Contribution towards the making known the Botany of New Zealand,” by W. Colenso, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c. (Transactions, p. 387.) 4. “A List of New Species of Hepaticæ novæ-zelandiæ, named by F. Stephani, Leipzig,” by W. Colenso, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c. (Transactions, p. 398.) Mr. Taylor White sent papers as follows, which were taken as read:—

Annual General Meeting: 22nd February, 1892. H. Hill, B.A., President, in the chair. Abstract of Annual Report. Six ordinary meetings were held during the year. which were well attended. The number of papers and addresses read was fifteen, compared with twelve for the previous year. The Council report a noticeable improvement in the financial position. The year commenced with a debit of £78 3s. 3d. The present liability is £39 7s., against which there are subscriptions amounting to £47 5s. still due. The value of the books belonging to the society is about £350, and there are articles of great value in the Museum. The number of members now on the roll is 100. The thanks of the Institute are given to Mr. Hamilton for his generosity in presenting so many articles to the Museum; to Dr. Moore for a presentation of the “Science Series” to the library; and to Mr. Large, the Honorary Treasurer, for his efforts in connection with a concert which added £10 to the funds. Seven Council meetings were held during the session. A satisfactory arrangement has been made for compiling a complete catalogue of the articles owned by and deposited with the Institute.