The Story of Evolution Part 2

In any case, we have here a good suggestion of the origin of the spiral nebula and of its further development. As soon as the outbursts are over, and the scattered particles have reached the farthest limit to which they are hurled, the concentrating action of gravitation will slowly a.s.sert itself. If we conceive this gravitational influence as the pressure of the surrounding ether we get a wider understanding of the process. Much of the dispersed matter may have been shot far enough into s.p.a.ce to escape the gravitational pull of the parent ma.s.s, and will be added to the sum of scattered cosmic dust, meteors, and close shoals of meteors (comets) wandering in s.p.a.ce. Much of the rest will fall back upon the central body But in the great spiral arms themselves the distribution of the matter will be irregular, and the denser areas will slowly gather in the surrounding material. In the end we would thus get secondary spheres circling round a large primary.

This is the way in which astronomers now generally conceive the destruction and re-formation of worlds. On one point the new planetesimal theory differs from the other theories. It supposes that, since the particles of the whirling nebula are all travelling in the same general direction, they overtake each other with less violent impact than the other theories suppose, and therefore the condensation of the material into planets would not give rise to the terrific heat which is generally a.s.sumed. We will consider this in the next chapter, when we deal with the formation of the planets. As far as the central body, the sun, is concerned, there can be no hesitation. The 500,000,000 incandescent suns in the heavens are eloquent proof of the appalling heat that is engendered by the collisions of the concentrating particles.

In general outline we now follow the story of a star with some confidence. An internal explosion, a fatal rush into some dense nebula or swarm of meteors, a collision with another star, or an approach within a few million miles of another star, scatters, in part or whole, the solid or liquid globe in a cloud of cosmic dust. When the violent outrush is over, the dust is gathered together once more into a star. At first cold and attenuated, its temperature rises as the particles come together, and we have, after a time, an incandescent nucleus shining through a thin veil of gas--a nebulous star. The temperature rises still further, and we have the blue-hot star, in which the elements seem to be dissociated, and slowly re-forming as the temperature falls. After, perhaps, hundreds of millions of years it reaches the "yellow" stage, and, if it has planets with the conditions of life, there may be a temporary opportunity for living things to enjoy its tempered energy.

But the cooler vapours are gathering round it, and at length its luminous body is wholly imprisoned. It continues its terrific course through s.p.a.ce, until some day, perhaps, it again encounters the mighty cataclysm which will make it begin afresh the long and stormy chapters of its living history.

Such is the suggestion of the modern astronomer, and, although we seem to find every phase of the theory embodied in the varied contents of the heavens, we must not forget that it is only a suggestion. The spectroscope and telescopic photography, which are far more important than the visual telescope, are comparatively recent, and the field to be explored is enormous. The mist is lifting from the cosmic landscape, but there is still enough to blur our vision. Very puzzling questions remain unanswered. What is the origin of the great gaseous nebulae? What is the origin of the triple or quadruple star? What is the meaning of stars whose light ebbs and flows in periods of from a few to several hundred days? We may even point to the fact that some, at least, of the spiral nebulae are far too vast to be the outcome of the impact or approach of two stars.

We may be content to think that we have found out some truths, by no means the whole truth, about the evolution of worlds. Throughout this immeasurable ocean of ether the particles of matter are driven together and form bodies. These bodies swarm throughout s.p.a.ce, like fish in the sea; travelling singly (the "shooting star"), or in great close shoals (the nucleus of a comet), or lying scattered in vast clouds. But the inexorable pressure urges them still, until billions of tons of material are gathered together. Then, either from the sheer heat of the compression, or from the formation of large and unstable atomic systems (radium, etc.), or both, the great ma.s.s becomes a cauldron of fire, mantled in its own vapours, and the story of a star is run. It dies out in one part of s.p.a.ce to begin afresh in another. We see nothing in the nature of a beginning or an end for the totality of worlds, the universe. The life of all living things on the earth, from the formation of the primitive microbes to the last struggles of the superman, is a small episode of that stupendous drama, a fraction of a single scene.

But our ampler knowledge of it, and our personal interest in it, magnify that episode, and we turn from the cosmic picture to study the formation of the earth and the rise of its living population.

CHAPTER IV. THE PREPARATION OF THE EARTH

The story of the evolution of our solar system is, it will now be seen, a local instance of the great cosmic process we have studied in the last chapter. We may take one of the small spiral nebulae that abound in the heavens as an ill.u.s.tration of the first stage. If a still earlier stage is demanded, we may suppose that some previous sun collided with, or approached too closely, another mighty body, and belched out a large part of its contents in mighty volcanic outpours. Mathematical reasoning can show that this erupted material would gather into a spiral nebula; but, as mathematical calculations cannot be given here, and are less safe than astronomical facts, we will be content to see the early shape of our solar system in a relatively small spiral nebula, its outermost arm stretching far beyond the present orbit of Neptune, and its great nucleus being our present sun in more diffused form.

We need not now attempt to follow the shrinking of the central part of the nebula until it becomes a rounded fiery sun. That has been done in tracing the evolution of a star. Here we have to learn how the planets were formed from the spiral arms of the nebula. The principle of their formation is already clear. The same force of gravitation, or the same pressure of the surrounding ether, which compresses the central ma.s.s into a fiery globe, will act upon the loose material of the arms and compress it into smaller globes. But there is an interesting and acute difference of opinion amongst modern experts as to whether these smaller globes, the early planets, would become white-hot bodies.

The general opinion, especially among astronomers, is that the compression of the nebulous material of the arms into globes would generate enormous heat, as in the case of the sun. On that view the various planets would begin their careers as small suns, and would pa.s.s through those stages of cooling and shrinking which we have traced in the story of the stars. A glance at the photograph of one of the spiral nebulae strongly confirms this. Great luminous knots, or nuclei, are seen at intervals in the arms. Smaller suns seem to be forming in them, each gathering into its body the neighbouring material of the arm, and rising in temperature as the ma.s.s is compressed into a globe. The spectroscope shows that these knots are condensing ma.s.ses of white-hot liquid or solid matter. It therefore seems plain that each planet will first become a liquid globe of fire, coursing round the central sun, and will gradually, as its heat is dissipated and the supply begins to fail, form a solid crust.

This familiar view is challenged by the new "planetesimal hypothesis,"

which has been adopted by many distinguished geologists (Chamberlin, Gregory, Coleman, etc.). In their view the particles in the arms of the nebula are all moving in the same direction round the sun. They therefore quietly overtake the nucleus to which they are attracted, instead of violently colliding with each other, and much less heat is generated at the surface. In that case the planets would not pa.s.s through a white-hot, or even red-hot, stage at all. They are formed by a slow ingathering of the scattered particles, which are called "planetesimals" round the larger or denser ma.s.ses of stuff which were discharged by the exploding sun. Possibly these ma.s.ses were prevented from falling back into the sun by the attraction of the colliding body, or the body which caused the eruption. They would revolve round the parent body, and the shoals of smaller particles would gather about them by gravitation. If there were any large region in the arm of the nebula which had no single ma.s.sive nucleus, the cosmic dust would gather about a number of smaller centres. Thus might be explained the hundreds of planetoids, or minor planets, which we find between Mars and Jupiter. If these smaller bodies came within the sphere of influence of one of the larger planets, yet were travelling quickly enough to resist its attraction, they would be compelled to revolve round it, and we could thus explain the ten satellites of Saturn and the eight of Jupiter. Our moon, we shall see, had a different origin.

We shall find this new hypothesis crossing the familiar lines at many points in the next few chapters. We will consider those further consequences as they arise, but may say at once that, while the new theory has greatly helped us in tracing the formation of the planetary system, astronomers are strongly opposed to its claim that the planets did not pa.s.s through an incandescent stage. The actual features of our spiral nebulae seem clearly to exhibit that stage. The shape of the planets--globular bodies, flattened at the poles--strongly suggests that they were once liquid. The condition in which we find Saturn and Jupiter very forcibly confirms this suggestion; the latest study of those planets supports the current opinion that they are still red-hot, and even seems to detect the glow of their surfaces in their mantles of cloud. These points will be considered more fully presently. For the moment it is enough to note that, as far as the early stages of planetary development are concerned, the generally accepted theory rests on a ma.s.s of positive evidence, while the new hypothesis is purely theoretical. We therefore follow the prevailing view with some confidence.

Those of the spiral nebulae which face the earth squarely afford an excellent suggestion of the way in which planets are probably formed. In some of these nebulae the arms consist of almost continuous streams of faintly luminous matter; in others the matter is gathering about distinct centres; in others again the nebulous matter is, for the most part, collected in large glowing spheres. They seem to be successive stages, and to reveal to us the origin of our planets. The position of each planet in our solar system would be determined by the chance position of the denser stuff shot out by the erupting sun. I have seen Vesuvius hurl up into the sky, amongst its blasts of gas and steam, white-hot ma.s.ses of rock weighing fifty tons. In the far fiercer outburst of the erupting sun there would be at least thinner and denser ma.s.ses, and they must have been hurled so far into s.p.a.ce that their speed in travelling round the central body, perhaps seconded by the attraction of the second star, overcame the gravitational pull back to the centre. Recollect the force which, in the new star in Perseus, drove ma.s.ses of hydrogen for millions of miles at a speed of a thousand miles a second.

These denser nuclei or ma.s.ses would, when the eruption was over, begin to attract to themselves all the lighter nebulous material within their sphere of gravitational influence. Naturally, there would at first be a vast confusion of small and large centres of condensation in the arms of the nebula, moving in various directions, but a kind of natural selection--and, in this case, survival of the biggest--would ensue. The conflicting movements would be adjusted by collisions and gravitation, the smaller bodies would be absorbed in the larger or enslaved as their satellites, and the last state would be a family of smaller suns circling at vast distances round the parent body. The planets, moreover, would be caused to rotate on their axes, besides revolving round the sun, as the particles at their inner edge (nearer the sun) would move at a different speed from those at the outer edge. In the course of time the smaller bodies, having less heat to lose and less (or no) atmosphere to check the loss, would cool down, and become dark solid spheres, lit only by the central fire.

While the first stage of this theory of development is seen in the spiral nebula, the later stages seem to be well exemplified in the actual condition of our planets. Following, chiefly, the latest research of Professor Lowell and his colleagues, which marks a considerable advance on our previous knowledge, we shall find it useful to glance at the sister-planets before we approach the particular story of our earth.

Mercury, the innermost and smallest of the planets, measuring only some 3400 miles in diameter, is, not unexpectedly, an airless wilderness.

Small bodies are unable to retain the gases at their surface, on account of their feebler gravitation. We find, moreover, that Mercury always presents the same face to the sun, as it turns on its axis in the same period (eighty-eight days) in which it makes a revolution round the sun.

While, therefore, one half of the globe is buried in eternal darkness, the other half is eternally exposed to the direct and blistering rays of the sun, which is only 86,000,000 miles away. To Professor Lowell it presents the appearance of a bleached and sun-cracked desert, or "the bones of a dead world." Its temperature must be at least 300 degrees C.

above that of the earth. Its features are what we should expect on the nebular hypothesis. The slowness of its rotation is accounted for by the heavy tidal influence of the sun. In the same way our moon has been influenced by the earth, and our earth by the sun, in their movement of rotation.

Venus, as might be expected in the case of so large a globe (nearly as large as the earth), has an atmosphere, but it seems, like Mercury, always to present the same face to the sun. Its comparative nearness to the sun (67,000,000 miles) probably explains this advanced effect of tidal action. The consequences that the observers deduce from the fact are interesting. The sun-baked half of Venus seems to be devoid of water or vapour, and it is thought that all its water is gathered into a rigid ice-field on the dark side of the globe, from which fierce hurricanes must blow incessantly. It is a Sahara, or a desert far hotter than the Sahara, on one side; an arctic region on the other. It does not seem to be a world fitted for the support of any kind of life that we can imagine.

When we turn to the consideration of Mars, we enter a world of unending controversy. With little more than half the diameter of the earth, Mars ought to be in a far more advanced stage of either life or decay, but its condition has not yet been established. Some hold that it has a considerable atmosphere; others that it is too small a globe to have retained a layer of gas. Professor Poynting believes that its temperature is below the freezing-point of water all over the globe; many others, if not the majority of observers, hold that the white cap we see at its poles is a ma.s.s of ice and snow, or at least a thick coat of h.o.a.r-frost, and that it melts at the edges as the springtime of Mars comes round. In regard to its famous ca.n.a.ls we are no nearer agreement.

Some maintain that the markings are not really an objective feature; some hold that they are due to volcanic activity, and that similar markings are found on the moon; some believe that they are due to clouds; while Professor Lowell and others stoutly adhere to the familiar view that they are artificial ca.n.a.ls, or the strips of vegetation along such ca.n.a.ls. The question of the actual habitation of Mars is still open. We can say only that there is strong evidence of its possession of the conditions of life in some degree, and that living things, even on the earth, display a remarkable power of adaptation to widely differing conditions.

Pa.s.sing over the 700 planetoids, which circulate between Mars and Jupiter, and for which we may account either by the absence of one large nucleus in that part of the nebulous stream or by the disturbing influence of Jupiter, we come to the largest planet of the system. Here we find a surprising confirmation of the theory of planetary development which we are following. Three hundred times heavier than the earth (or more than a trillion tons in weight), yet a thousand times less in volume than the sun, Jupiter ought, if our theory is correct, to be still red-hot. All the evidence conspires to suggest that it is. It has long been recognised that the shining disk of the planet is not a solid, but a cloud, surface. This impenetrable ma.s.s of cloud or vapour is drawn out in streams or belts from side to side, as the giant globe turns on its axis once in every ten hours. We cannot say if, or to what extent, these clouds consist of water-vapour. We can conclude only that this mantle of Jupiter is "a seething cauldron of vapours" (Lowell), and that, if the body beneath is solid, it must be very hot. A large red area, at one time 30,000 miles long, has more or less persisted on the surface for several decades, and it is generally interpreted, either as a red-hot surface, or as a vast volcanic vent, reflecting its glow upon the clouds. Indeed, the keen American observers, with their powerful telescopes, have detected a cherry-red glow on the edges of the cloud-belts across the disk; and more recent observation with the spectroscope seems to prove that Jupiter emits light from its surface a.n.a.logous to that of the red stars. The conspicuous flattening of its poles is another feature that science would expect in a rapidly rotating liquid globe. In a word, Jupiter seems to be in the last stage of stellar development. Such, at some remote time, was our earth; such one day will be the sun.

The neighbouring planet Saturn supports the conclusion. Here again we have a gigantic globe, 28,000 miles in diameter, turning on its axis in the short s.p.a.ce of ten hours; and here again we find the conspicuous flattening of the poles, the trailing belts of ma.s.sed vapour across the disk, the red glow lighting the edges of the belts, and the spectroscopic evidence of an emission of light. Once more it is difficult to doubt that a highly heated body is wrapped in that thick mantle of vapour. With its ten moons and its marvellous ring-system--an enormous collection of fragments, which the influence of the planet or of its nearer satellites seems to have prevented from concentrating--Saturn has always been a beautiful object to observe; it is not less interesting in those features which we faintly detect in its disk.

The next planet, Ura.n.u.s, 32,000 miles in diameter, seems to be another cloud-wrapt, greatly heated globe, if not, as some think, a sheer ma.s.s of vapours without a liquid core. Neptune is too dim and distant for profitable examination. It may be added, however, that the dense ma.s.ses of gas which are found to surround the outer planets seem to confirm the nebular theory, which a.s.sumes that they were developed in the outer and lighter part of the material hurled from the sun.

From this encouraging survey of the sister-planets we return with more confidence to the story of the earth. I will not attempt to follow an imaginative scheme in regard to its early development. Take four photographs--one of a spiral nebula without knots in its arms, one of a nebula like that in Canes Venatici, one of the sun, and one of Jupiter--and you have an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the chief stages in its formation. In the first picture a section of the luminous arm of the nebula stretches thinly across millions of miles of s.p.a.ce. In the next stage this material is largely collected in a luminous and hazy sphere, as we find in the nebula in Canes Venatici. The sun serves to ill.u.s.trate a further stage in the condensation of this sphere. Jupiter represents a later chapter, in which the cooler vapours are wrapped close about the red-hot body of the planet. That seems to have been the early story of the earth. Some 6,000,000,000 billion tons of the nebulous matter were attracted to a common centre. As the particles pressed centreward, the temperature rose, and for a time the generation of heat was greater than its dissipation. Whether the earth ever shone as a small white star we cannot say. We must not hastily conclude that such a relatively small ma.s.s would behave like the far greater ma.s.s of a star, but we may, without attempting to determine its temperature, a.s.sume that it runs an a.n.a.logous course.

One of the many features which I have indicated as pointing to a former fluidity of the earth may be explained here. We shall see in the course of this work that the mountain chains and other great irregularities of the earth's surface appear at a late stage in its development. Even as we find them to-day, they are seen to be merely slight ridges and furrows on the face of the globe, when we reflect on its enormous diameter, but there is good reason to think that in the beginning the earth was much nearer to a perfectly globular form. This points to a liquid or gaseous condition at one time, and the flattening of the sphere at the poles confirms the impression. We should hardly expect so perfect a rotundity in a body formed by the cool accretion of solid fragments and particles. It is just what we should expect in a fluid body, and the later irregularities of the surface are accounted for by the constant crumpling and wearing of its solid crust. Many would find a confirmation of this in the phenomena of volcanoes, geysers, and earthquakes, and the increase of the temperature as we descend the crust. But the interior condition of the earth, and the nature of these phenomena, are much disputed at present, and it is better not to rely on any theory of them. It is suggested that radium may be responsible for this subterraneous heat.

The next stage in the formation of the earth is necessarily one that we can reach only by conjecture. Over the globe of molten fire the vapours and gases would be suspended like a heavy canopy, as we find in Jupiter and Saturn to-day. When the period of maximum heat production was pa.s.sed, however, the radiation into s.p.a.ce would cause a lowering of the temperature, and a sc.u.m would form on the molten surface. As may be observed on the surface of any cooling vessel of fluid, the sc.u.m would stretch and crack; the skin would, so to say, prove too small for the body. The molten ocean below would surge through the crust, and bury it under floods of lava. Some hold that the slabs would sink in the ocean of metal, and thus the earth would first solidify in its deeper layers.

There would, in any case, be an age-long struggle between the molten ma.s.s and the confining crust, until at length--to employ the old Roman conception of the activity of Etna--the giant was imprisoned below the heavy roof of rock.

Here again we seem to find evidence of the general correctness of the theory. The objection has been raised that the geologist does not find any rocks which he can identify as portions of the primitive crust of the earth. It seems to me that it would be too much to expect the survival at the surface of any part of the first sc.u.m that cooled on that fiery ocean. It is more natural to suppose that millions of years of volcanic activity on a prodigious scale would characterise this early stage, and the "primitive crust" would be buried in fragments, or dissolved again, under deep seas of lava. Now, this is precisely what we find, The oldest rocks known to the geologist--the Archaean rocks--are overwhelmingly volcanic, especially in their lower part. Their thickness, as we know them, is estimated at 50,000 feet; a thickness which must represent many millions of years. But we do not know how much thicker than this they may be. They underlie the oldest rocks that have ever been exposed to the gaze of the geologist. They include sedimentary deposits, showing the action of water, and even probable traces of organic remains, but they are, especially in their deeper and older sections, predominantly volcanic. They evince what we may call a volcanic age in the early story of the planet.

But before we pursue this part of the story further we must interpolate a remarkable event in the record--the birth of the moon. It is now generally believed, on a theory elaborated by Sir G. Darwin, that when the formation of the crust had reached a certain depth--something over thirty miles, it is calculated--it parted with a ma.s.s of matter, which became the moon. The size of our moon, in comparison with the earth, is so exceptional among the satellites which attend the planets of our solar system that it is a.s.signed an exceptional origin. It is calculated that at that time the earth turned on its axis in the s.p.a.ce of four or five hours, instead of twenty-four. We have already seen that the tidal influence of the sun has the effect of moderating the rotation of the planets. Now, this very rapid rotation of a liquid ma.s.s, with a thin crust, would (together with the instability occasioned by its cooling) cause it to bulge at the equator. The bulge would increase until the earth became a pear-shaped body. The small end of the pear would draw further and further away from the rest--as a drop of water does on the mouth of a tap--and at last the whole ma.s.s (some 5,000,000,000 cubic miles of matter) was broken off, and began to pursue an independent orbit round the earth.

There are astronomers who think that other cosmic bodies, besides our moon, may have been formed in this way. Possibly it is true of some of the double stars, but we will not return to that question. The further story of the moon, as it is known to astronomers, may be given in a few words. The rotational movement of the earth is becoming gradually slower on account of tidal influence; our day, in fact, becomes an hour longer every few million years. It can be shown that this had the effect of increasing the speed, and therefore enlarging the orbit, of the moon, as it revolved round the earth. As a result, the moon drew further and further away from the earth until it reached its present position, about 240,000 miles away. At the same time the tidal influence of the earth was lessening the rotational movement of the moon. This went on until it turned on its axis in the same period in which it revolves round the earth, and on this account it always presents the same face to the earth.

Through what chapters of life the moon may have pa.s.sed in the meantime it is impossible to say. Its relatively small ma.s.s may have been unable to keep the lighter gases at its surface, or its air and water may, as some think, have been absorbed. It is to-day practically an airless and waterless desert, alternating between the heat of its long day and the intense cold of its long night. Careful observers, such as Professor Pickering, think that it may still have a shallow layer of heavy gases at its surface, and that this may permit the growth of some stunted vegetation during the day. Certain changes of colour, which are observed on its surface, have been interpreted in that sense. We can hardly conceive any other kind of life on it. In the dark even the gases will freeze on its surface, as there is no atmosphere to retain the heat.

Indeed, some students of the moon (Fauth, etc.) believe that it is an unchanging desert of ice, bombarded by the projectiles of s.p.a.ce.

An ingenious speculation as to the effect on the earth of this dislodgment of 5,000,000,000 cubic miles of its substance is worth noting. It supposes that the bed of the Pacific Ocean represents the enormous gap torn in its side by the delivery of the moon. At each side of this chasm the two continents, the Old World and the New, would be left floating on their molten ocean; and some have even seen a confirmation of this in the lines of crustal weakness which we trace, by volcanoes and earthquakes, on either side of the Pacific. Others, again, connect the shape of our great ma.s.ses of land, which generally run to a southern point, with this early catastrophe. But these interesting speculations have a very slender basis, and we will return to the story of the development of the earth.

The last phase in preparation for the appearance of life would be the formation of the ocean. On the lines of the generally received nebular hypothesis this can easily be imagined, in broad outline. The gases would form the outer sh.e.l.l of the forming planet, since the heavier particles would travel inward. In this mixed ma.s.s of gas the oxygen and hydrogen would combine, at a fitting temperature, and form water.

For ages the molten crust would hold this water suspended aloft as a surrounding sh.e.l.l of cloud, but when the surface cooled to about 380 degrees C. (Sollas), the liquid would begin to pour on it. A period of conflict would ensue, the still heated crust and the frequent volcanic outpours sending the water back in hissing steam to the clouds. At length, and now more rapidly, the temperature of the crust would sink still lower, and a heated ocean would settle upon it, filling the hollows of its irregular surface, and washing the bases of its outstanding ridges. From that time begins the age-long battle of the land and the water which, we shall see, has had a profound influence on the development of life.

In deference to the opinion of a number of geologists we must glance once more at the alternative view of the planetesimal school. In their opinion the molecules of water were partly attracted to the surface out of the disrupted matter, and partly collected within the porous outer layers of the globe. As the latter quant.i.ty grew, it would ooze upwards, fill the smaller depressions in the crust, and at length, with the addition of the attracted water, spread over the irregular surface.

There is an even more important difference of opinion in regard to the formation of the atmosphere, but we may defer this until the question of climate interests us. We have now made our globe, and will pa.s.s on to that early chapter of its story in which living things make their appearance.

To some it will seem that we ought not to pa.s.s from the question of origin without a word on the subject of the age of the earth. All that one can do, however, is to give a number of very divergent estimates.

Physicists have tried to calculate the age of the sun from the rate of its dissipation of heat, and have a.s.signed, at the most, a hundred million years to our solar system; but the recent discovery of a source of heat in the disintegration of such metals as radium has made their calculations useless. Geologists have endeavoured, from observation of the action of geological agencies to-day, to estimate how long it will have taken them to form the stratified crust of the earth; but even the best estimates vary between twenty-five and a hundred million years, and we have reason to think that the intensity of these geological agencies may have varied in different ages. Chemists have calculated how long it would take the ocean, which was originally fresh water, to take up from the rocks and rivers the salt which it contains to-day; Professor Joly has on this ground a.s.signed a hundred million years since the waters first descended upon the crust. We must be content to know that the best recent estimates, based on positive data, vary between fifty and a hundred million years for the story which we are now about to narrate.

The earlier or astronomical period remains quite incalculable. Sir G.

Darwin thinks that it was probably at least a thousand million years since the moon was separated from the earth. Whatever the period of time may be since some cosmic cataclysm scattered the material of our solar system in the form of a nebula, it is only a fraction of that larger and illimitable time which the evolution of the stars dimly suggests to the scientific imagination.

THE GEOLOGICAL SERIES

[The scale of years adopted--50,000,000 for the stratified rocks--is merely an intermediate between conflicting estimates.]

ERA. PERIOD. RELATIVE LENGTH.

Quaternary Holocene 500,000 years Pleistocene

Tertiary Pliocene 5,500,000 years or Miocene Cenozoic Oligocene Eocene

Secondary Cretaceous 7,200,000 years or Jura.s.sic 3,600,000 "

Mesozoic Tria.s.sic 2,500,000 "

Primary Permian 2,800,000 years or Carboniferous 6,200,000 "

Palaeozoic Devonian 8,000,000 "

Silurian 5,400,000 "