Man's Place in the Universe Part 11

Notwithstanding this prevalence of warm and uniform conditions, there is also evidence of considerable changes of climate; and at two periods--in the Eocene and in the remote Permian--there are even indications of ice-action, so that some geologists believe that there were then actual glacial epochs. But it seems more probable that they imply only local glaciation, owing to there having been high land and other suitable conditions for the production of glaciers in certain areas.

The whole bearing of the geological evidence indicates the wonderful continuity of conditions favourable for life, and for the most part of climatal conditions more favourable than those now prevailing, since a larger extent of land towards the North Pole was available for an abundant vegetation, and in all probability for an equally abundant animal life. We know, too, that there was never any total break in life-development; no epoch of such lowering or raising of temperature as to destroy all life; no such general subsidence as to submerge the whole land-surface. Although the geological record is in parts very imperfect, yet it is, on the whole, wonderfully complete; and it presents to our view a continuous progress, from simple to complex, from lower to higher. Type after type becomes highly specialised in adaptation to local or climatal conditions, and then dies out, giving room for some other type to arise and be specialised in harmony with the changed conditions. The general character of the inorganic change appears to have been from more insular to more continental conditions, accompanied by a change from more uniform to less uniform climates, from an almost sub-tropical warmth and moisture, extending up to the Arctic Circle, to that diversity of tropical, temperate, and cold areas, capable of supporting the greatest possible variety in the forms of life, and which seems especially adapted to stimulate mankind to civilisation and social development by means of the necessary struggle against, and utilisation of, the various forces of nature.

WATER, ITS AMOUNT AND DISTRIBUTION ON THE EARTH

Although it is generally known that the oceans occupy more than two-thirds of the whole surface of the globe, the enormous bulk of the water in proportion to the land that rises above its surface is hardly ever appreciated. But as this is a matter of the greatest importance, both as regards the geological history of the globe and the special subject we are here discussing, it will be necessary to enter into some details in regard to it.

According to the best recent estimates, the land area of the globe is 0.28 of the whole surface, and the water area 0.72. But the mean height of the land above the sea-level is found to be 2250 feet, while the mean depth of the seas and oceans is 13,860 feet; so that though the water area is two and a half times that of the land, the mean depth of the water is more than six times the mean height of the land. This is, of course, due to the fact that lowlands occupy most of the land-area, the plateaus and high mountains a comparatively small portion of it; while, though the greatest depths of the oceans about equal the greatest heights of the mountains, yet over enormous areas the oceans are deep enough to submerge all the mountains of Europe and temperate North America, except the extreme summits of one or two of them. Hence it follows that the bulk of the oceans, even omitting all the shallow seas, is more than thirteen times that of the land above sea-level; and if all the land-surface and ocean-floors were reduced to one level, that is, if the solid ma.s.s of the globe were a true oblate spheroid, the whole would be covered with water about two miles deep. The diagram here given will render this more intelligible and will serve to ill.u.s.trate what follows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Diagram of proportionate mean height of Land and depth of Oceans_. _Land_ _Area. .28 of area of Globe._ _Ocean_ _Area .72 of area of Globe._]

In this diagram the lengths of the sections representing land and ocean are proportionate to their areas, while the thickness of each is proportionate to their mean height and mean depth respectively. Hence the two sections are in correct proportion to their cubic contents.

A mere inspection of this diagram is sufficient to disprove the old idea, still held by a few geologists and by many biologists, that oceans and continents have repeatedly changed places during geological times, or that the great oceans have again and again been bridged over to facilitate the distribution of beetles or birds, reptiles or mammals. We must remember that although the diagram shows the continents and oceans as a whole, yet it also shows, with quite sufficient accuracy, the proportions of each of the great continents to the oceans which are adjacent to them. It must also be borne in mind that there can be no elevation on a large scale without a corresponding subsidence elsewhere; because if there were not a vast unsupported hollow would be left beneath the rising land or in some part adjacent to it.

Now, looking at the diagram and at a chart or globe, try to imagine the ocean-bottom rising gradually, to form a continent joining Africa with South America or with Australia (both of which are demanded by many biologists): it is clear that, while such an elevation was going on, either some continental land or some other part of the ocean-bed must sink to a corresponding amount. We shall then see, that if such changes of elevation on a continental scale have taken place again and again at different periods, it would have been almost impossible, on every occasion, to avoid a whole continent being submerged (or even all the continents) in order to equalise subsidence with elevation while new continents were being raised up from the abyssal depths of the ocean. We conclude, therefore, that with the exception of a comparatively narrow belt around the continents, which may be roughly indicated by the thousand fathom line of soundings, the great ocean depths are permanent features of the earth's surface. It is this stability of the general distribution of land and water that has secured the continuity of life upon the earth. Had the great oceanic basins, on the other hand, been unstable, changing places with the land at various periods of geological time, they would, almost certainly, again and again have swallowed up the land in their vast abysses, and have thus destroyed all the organic life of the world.

There are many confirmatory proofs of this view (which is now widely accepted by geologists and physicists), and a few of them may be briefly stated.

1. None of the continents present us with marine deposits of any one geological age and occupying a large part of the surface of each, as must have been the case had they ever been sunk deep beneath the ocean and again elevated; neither do any of them contain extensive formations corresponding to the deep oceanic clays and oozes, which again they must have done had they been at any time raised up from the ocean depths.

2. All the continents present an almost complete and continuous series of rocks of _all_ geological ages, and in each of the great geological periods there are found fresh water and estuarine deposits, and even old land-surfaces, demonstrating continuity of continental or insular conditions.

3. All the great oceans possess, scattered over them, a few or many islands termed 'oceanic,' and characterised by a volcanic or coralline structure, with no ancient stratified rocks in anyone of them; and in none of these is there found a single indigenous land mammal or amphibian. It is incredible that, if these oceans had ever contained extensive continents, and if these oceanic islands are--as even now they are often alleged to be--parts of these now submerged continents, not one fragment of any of the old stratified rocks, which characterise all existing continents, should remain to show their origin. In the Atlantic we find the Azores, Madeira, and St. Helena; in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius, Bourbon, and Kerguelen Island; in the Pacific, the Fiji, Samoan, Society, Sandwich, and Galapagos Islands, all without exception telling us the same tale, that they have been built up from the ocean depths by submarine volcanoes and coralline growths, but have never formed part of continental areas.

4. The contours of the floors of all the great oceans, now fairly well known through the soundings of exploring vessels and for submarine telegraph lines, also give confirmatory evidence that they have never been continental land. For if any part of them were a sunken continent, that part must have retained some impress of its origin. Some of the numerous mountain ranges which characterise _every_ continent would have remained.

We should find slopes of from 20 to 50 not uncommon, while valleys bordered by rocky precipices, as in Lake Lucerne and a hundred others, or isolated rock-walled mountains like Roraima, or ranges of precipices as in the Ghats of India or the Fiords of Norway, would frequently be met with.

But not a single feature of this kind has ever been found in the ocean abysses. Instead of these we have vast plains, which, if the water were removed, would appear almost exactly level, with no abrupt slopes anywhere. When we consider that deposits from the land never reach these remote ocean depths, and that there is no wave-action below a few hundred feet, these continental features once submerged would be indestructible; and their total absence is, therefore, itself a demonstration that none of the great oceans are on the sites of submerged continents.

HOW OCEAN DEPTHS WERE PRODUCED

It is a very difficult problem to determine how the vast basins which are filled by the great oceans, especially that of the Pacific, were first produced. When the earth's surface was still in a molten state, it would necessarily take the form of a true oblate spheroid, with a compression at the poles due to its speed of rotation, which is supposed to have been very great. The crust formed by the gradual cooling of such a globe would be of the same general form, and, being thin, would easily be fractured or bent so as to accommodate itself to any unequal stresses from the interior. As the crust thickened and the whole ma.s.s slowly cooled and contracted, fissures and crumpling would occur, the former serving as outlets for volcanic activities whose results are found throughout all geological ages; the latter producing mountain chains in which the rocks are almost always curved, folded, or even thrust over each other, indicating the mighty forces due to the adjustments of a solid crust upon a shrinking fluid or semi-fluid interior.

But during this whole process there seem to be no forces at work that could lead to the production of such a feature as the Pacific, a vast depression covering nearly one-third of the whole surface of the globe. The Atlantic Ocean, being smaller and nearly opposite to the Pacific, but approximately of equal depth, may be looked upon as a complementary phenomenon which will be probably explained as a result of the same causes as the vaster cavity.

So far as I am aware, there is only one suggested cause of the formation of these great oceans that seems adequate; and as that cause is to some extent supported by quite independent astronomical evidence, and also directly bears upon the main subject of the present volume, it must be briefly considered.

A few years ago, Professor George Darwin, of Cambridge, arrived at a certain conclusion as to the origin of the moon, which is now comparatively well known by Sir Robert Ball's popular account of it in his small volume, _Time and Tide_. Briefly stated, it is as follows. The tides produce friction on the earth and very slowly increase the length of our day, and also cause the moon to recede further from us. The day is lengthened only by a small fraction of a second in a thousand years, and the moon is receding at an equally imperceptible rate. But as these forces are constant, and have always acted on the earth and moon, as we go back and back into the almost infinite past we come to a time when the rotation of the earth was so rapid that gravity at the equator could hardly retain its outer portion, which was spread out so that the form of the whole ma.s.s was something like a cheese with rounded edges. And about the same epoch the distance of the moon is found to have been so small that it was actually touching the earth. All this is the result of mathematical calculation from the known laws of gravitation and tidal effects; and as it is difficult to see how so large a body as the moon could have originated in any other way, it is supposed that at a still earlier period the moon and earth were one, and that the moon separated from the parent ma.s.s owing to centrifugal force generated by the earth's rapid rotation. Whether the earth was liquid or solid at this epoch, and exactly how the separation occurred, is not explained either by Professor Darwin or Sir Robert Ball; but it is a very suggestive fact that, quite recently, it has been shown, by means of the spectroscope, that double stars of short period _do_ originate in this way from a single star, as already described in our sixth chapter; but in these cases it seems probable that the parent star is in a gaseous state.

These investigations of Professor G. Darwin have been made use of by the Rev. Osmond Fisher (in his very interesting and important work, _Physics of the Earth's Crust_) to account for the basins of the great oceans, the Pacific being the chasm left when the larger portion of the ma.s.s of the moon parted from the earth.

Adopting, as I do, the theory of the origin of the earth by meteoric accretion of solid matter, we must consider our planet as having been produced from one of those vast rings of meteorites which in great numbers still circulate round the sun, but which at the much earlier period now contemplated were both more numerous and much more extensive. Owing to irregularities of distribution in such a ring and through disturbance by other bodies, aggregations of various size would inevitably occur, and the largest of these would in time draw in to itself all the rest, and thus form a planet. During the early stages of this process the particles would be so small and would come together so gradually, that little heat would be produced, and there would result merely a loose aggregation of cold matter.

But as the process went on and the ma.s.s of the incipient planet became considerable--perhaps half that of the earth--the rest of the ring would fall in with greater and greater velocity; and this, added to the gravitative compression of the growing ma.s.s might, when nearly its present size, have produced sufficient heat to liquefy the outer layers, while the central portion remained solid and to some extent incoherent, with probably large quant.i.ties of heavy gases in the interstices. When the amount of the meteoric accretions became so reduced as to be insufficient to keep up the heat to the melting-point, a crust would form, and might have reached about half or three-fourths of its present thickness when the moon became separated.

Let us now try to picture to ourselves what happened. We should have a globe somewhat larger than our earth is now, both because it then contained the material of the moon and also because it was hotter, revolving so rapidly as to be very greatly flattened at the poles; while the equatorial belt bulged out enormously, and would probably have separated in the form of a ring with a very slight increase of the time of rotation, which is supposed to have been about four hours. This globe would have a comparatively thin crust, beneath which there was molten rock to an unknown depth, perhaps a few hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand miles.

At this time the attraction of the sun acting on the molten interior produced tides in it, causing the thin crust to rise and fall every two hours, but to so small an extent--only about a foot or so--as not necessarily to fracture it; but it is calculated that this slight rhythmic undulation coincided with the normal period of undulation due to such a large ma.s.s of heavy liquid, and so tended to increase the instability due to rapid rotation.

The bulk of the moon is about one-fiftieth part that of the earth, and an easy calculation shows us that, taking the area of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans combined as about two-thirds that of the globe, it would require a thickness (or depth) of about forty miles to furnish the material for the moon. We must, of course, a.s.sume that there were some inequalities in the thickness of the crust and in its comparative rigidity, so that when the critical moment came and the earth could no longer retain its equatorial protuberance against the centrifugal force due to rotation combined with the tidal undulations caused by the sun, instead of a continuous ring slowly detaching itself, the crust gave way in two or more great ma.s.ses where it was weakest, and as the tidal wave pa.s.sed under it and a quant.i.ty of the liquid substratum rose with it, the whole would break up and collect into a sub-globular ma.s.s a short distance from the earth, and continue revolving with it for some time at about the same rate as the surface had rotated. But as tidal action is always equal on opposite sides of a globe, there would be a similar disruption there, forming, it may be supposed, the Atlantic basin, which, as may be seen on a small globe, is almost exactly opposite a part of the Central Pacific. So soon as these two great ma.s.ses had separated from the earth, the latter would gradually settle down into a state of equilibrium, and the molten matter of the interior, which would now fill the great oceanic basins up to a level of a few mile below the general surface would soon cool enough to form a thin crust. The larger portion of the nascent moon would gradually attract to itself the one or more smaller portions and form our satellite; and from that time tidal friction by both moon and sun would begin to operate and would gradually lengthen our day and, more rapidly, our month in the way explained in Sir Robert Ball's volume.

A very interesting point may now be referred to, because it seems confirmatory of this origin of the great ocean basins. In Mr. Osmond Fisher's work it is explained how the variations in the force of gravity, at numerous points all over the world, have been determined by observations with the pendulum, and also how these variations afford a measure of the thickness of the solid crust, which is of less specific gravity than the molten interior on which it rests. By this means a very interesting result was obtained. The observations on numerous oceanic islands proved that the sub-oceanic crust was considerably more dense than the crust under the continents, but also thinner, the result being to bring the average ma.s.s of the sub-oceanic crust and oceans to an equality with that of the continental crust, and this causes the whirling earth to be in a state of balance, or equilibrium. Now, both the thinness and the increased density of the crust seem to be well explained by this theory of the origin of the oceanic basins. The new crust would necessarily for a long time be thinner than the older portion, because formed so much later, but it would very soon become cool enough to allow the aqueous vapour of the atmosphere and that given off through fissures from the molten interior to collect in the ocean basins, which would thenceforth be cooled more rapidly and kept at a uniform temperature and also under a uniform pressure, and these conditions would lead to the steady and continuous increase of thickness, with a greater compactness of structure than in the continental areas. It is no doubt to this uniformity of conditions, with a lowering of the bottom temperature throughout the greater part of geological time, till it has become only a few degrees above the freezing-point, that we owe the remarkable persistence of the vast and deep ocean basins on which, as we have seen, the continuity of life on the earth has largely depended.

There is one other fact which lends some support to this theory of the origin of the ocean basins--their almost complete symmetry with regard to the equator. Both the Atlantic and Pacific basins extend to an equal distance north and south of the equator, an equality which could hardly have been produced by any cause not directly connected with the earth's rotation. The polar seas which are coterminous with the two great oceans are very much shallower, and cannot, therefore, be considered as forming part of the true oceanic basins.

WATER AS AN EQUALISER OF TEMPERATURE

The importance of water in regulating the temperature of the earth is so great that, even if we had enough water on the land for all the wants of plants and animals, but had no great oceans, it is almost certain that the earth could not have produced and sustained the various forms of life which it now possesses.

The effect of the oceans is twofold. Owing to the great specific heat of water, that is, its property of absorbing heat slowly but to a large amount, and giving it out with equal slowness, the surface-waters of the oceans and seas are heated by the sun so that by the evening of a bright day they have become quite warm to a depth of several feet. But air has much less specific heat than water, a pound of water in cooling one degree being capable of warming four pounds of air one degree; but as air is 770 times as light as water, it follows that the heat from one cubic foot of water will warm more than 3000 cubic feet of air as much as it cools itself. Hence the enormous surface of the seas and oceans, the larger part of which is within the tropics, warms the whole of the lower and denser portions of the air, especially during the night, and this warmth is carried to all parts of the earth by the winds, and thus ameliorates the climate. Another quite distinct effect is due to the great ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream and the j.a.pan Current, which carry the warm water of the tropics to temperate and arctic regions, and thus render many countries habitable which would otherwise suffer the rigour of an almost arctic winter. These currents are, however, directly due to the winds, and properly belong to the section on the atmosphere.

The other equalising action, due primarily to the great area of the seas and oceans, is a result of the vast evaporating surface from which the land derives almost all its water in the form of rain and rivers; and it is quite evident that if there were not sufficient water-surface to produce an ample supply of vapour for this purpose, arid districts would occupy more and more of the earth's surface. How much water-surface is necessary for life we do not know; but if the proportions of water and land-surfaces were reversed, it seems probable that the larger proportion of the earth might be uninhabitable. The vapour thus produced has also a very great effect in equalising temperature; but this also is a point which will come better under our next chapter on the atmosphere.

There are, however, some matters connected with the water-supply of the earth, and its relation to the development of life, that call for a few remarks here. What has determined the total quant.i.ty of water on the earth or on other planets does not appear to be known; but presumably it would depend, partially or wholly, on the ma.s.s of the planet being sufficient to enable it to retain by its gravitative force the oxygen and hydrogen of which water is composed. As the two gases are so easily combined to form water, but can only be separated under special conditions, its quant.i.ty would be dependent on the supply of hydrogen, which is but rarely found on the earth in a free state. The important fact, however, is, that we do possess so great a quant.i.ty of water, that if the whole surface of the globe was as regularly contoured as are the continents, and merely wrinkled with mountain chains, then the existing water would cover the whole globe nearly two miles deep, leaving only the tops of high mountains above its surface as rows of small islands, with a few larger islands formed by what are now the high plateaus of Tibet and the Southern Andes.

Now there seems no reason why this distribution of the water should not have occurred--in fact it seems probable that it would have occurred, had it not been for the fortunate coincidence of the formation of enormously deep ocean basins. So far as I am aware, no sufficient explanation of the formation of these basins has been given but that of Mr. Osmond Fisher, as here described, and that depends upon three unique circ.u.mstances: (1) the formation of a satellite at a very late period of the planet's development when there was already a rather thick crust; (2) the satellite being far larger in proportion to its primary than any other in the solar system; and (3) its having been produced by fission from its primary on account of extremely rapid rotation, combined with solar tides in its molten interior, and a rate of oscillation of that molten interior coinciding with the tidal period.[17]

Whether this very remarkable theory of the origin of our moon is the true one, and if so, whether the explanation it seems to afford of the great oceanic basins is correct, I am not mathematician enough to judge. The tidal theory of the origin of the moon, as worked out mathematically by Professor G.H. Darwin, has been supported by Sir Robert Ball and accepted by many other astronomers; while the researches of the Rev. Osmond Fisher into the _Physics of the Earth's Crust_, together with his mathematical abilities and his practical work as a geologist, ent.i.tle his opinion on the question of the mode of origin of the ocean basins to the highest respect.

And, as we have seen, the existence of these vast and deep ocean basins, produced by the agency of a series of events so remarkable as to be quite unique in the solar system, played an important part in rendering the earth fit for the development of the higher forms of animal life, while without them it seems not improbable that the conditions would have been such as to render any varied forms of terrestrial life hardly possible.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] For a fuller account of this Arctic fauna and flora see the works of Sir C. Lyell, Sir A. Geikie, and other geologists. A full summary of it is also given in the author's _Island Life_.

[17] Professor G.H. Darwin states that it is nearly certain that no other satellite nor any of the planets originated in the same way as the moon.

CHAPTER XIII

THE EARTH IN RELATION TO LIFE: ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS

We have seen in our tenth chapter that the physical basis of life--protoplasm--consists of the four elements, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, and that both plants and animals depend largely upon the free oxygen in the air to carry on their vital processes; while the carbonic acid and ammonia in the atmosphere seem to be absolutely essential to plants. Whether life could have arisen and have been highly developed with an atmosphere composed of different elements from ours it is, of course, impossible to say; but there are certain physical conditions which seem absolutely essential whatever may be the elements which compose it.

The first of these essentials is an atmosphere which shall be of such density at the surface of the planet, and of so great a bulk, as to be not too rare to fulfil its various functions at all alt.i.tudes where there is a considerable area of land. What determines the total quant.i.ty of gaseous matter on the surface of a planet will be, mainly, its ma.s.s, together with the average temperature of its surface.

The molecules of gases are in a state of rapid motion in all directions, and the lighter gases have the most rapid motions. The average speed of the motion of the molecules has been roughly determined under varying conditions of pressure and temperature, and also the probable maximum and minimum rates, and from these data, and certain known facts as to planetary atmospheres, Mr. G. Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S., has calculated what gases will escape from the atmospheres of the earth and the other planets. He finds that all the gases which are const.i.tuents of air have such comparatively low molecular rates of motion that the force of gravity at the upper limits of the earth's atmosphere is amply sufficient to retain them; hence the stability in its composition. But there are two other gases, hydrogen and helium, which are both known to enter the atmosphere, but never acc.u.mulate so as to form any measurable portion of it, and these are found to have sufficient molecular motion to escape from it. With regard to hydrogen, if the earth were much larger and more ma.s.sive than it is, so as to retain the hydrogen, disastrous consequences might ensue, because, whenever a sufficient quant.i.ty of this gas acc.u.mulated, it would form an explosive mixture with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and a flash of lightning or even the smallest flame would lead to explosions so violent and destructive as perhaps to render such a planet unsuited for the development of life. We appear, therefore, to be just at the major limit of ma.s.s to secure habitability, except in such planets as may have no continuous supply of free hydrogen.

Perhaps the most important mechanical functions of the atmosphere dependent on its density are: (1) the production of winds, which in many ways bring about an equalisation of temperature, and which also produce surface-currents on the ocean; and (2) the distribution of moisture over the earth by means of clouds which also have other important functions.

Winds depend primarily on the local distribution of heat in the air, especially on the great amount of heat constantly present in the equatorial zone, due to the sun being always nearly vertical at noon, and to its being similarly vertical at each tropic once a year, with a longer day, leading to even higher temperatures than at the equator, and producing also that continuous belt of arid lands or deserts which almost encircle the globe in the region of the tropics. Heated air being lighter, the colder air from the temperate zones continually flows towards it, lifting it up and causing it to flow over, as it were, to the north and south. But as the inflow comes from an area of less rapid to one of more rapid rotation, the course of the air is diverted, and produces the north-east and south-east trades; while the overflow from the equator going to an area of less rapid rotation, turns westward and produces the south-west winds so prevalent over the north Atlantic and the north temperate zone generally, and the north-west in the southern hemisphere.