XXVIII 

 MAKING A HOME FOR LIFE 



WHETHER the earth condensed from a 

 whirling ring separated off from a spinning 

 nebular mass, whose center formed our sun, or 

 whether it began its separate existence as a knot in 

 a spiral nebula heaved off from the sun, or whether 

 its origin was otherwise, there was a time when it 

 passed from being " without form and void " to 

 become a dense body with a predominantly metallic 

 core and an outer slag of lighter materials. At 

 that time, preferably left undated, but many 

 millions of years ago, the high temperature excluded 

 the possibility of there being upon the earth any- 

 thing like the living organisms we know. The time 

 for life was not yet, and what we wish to think over 

 are some of the preparations (if the word, not quite 

 scientific, we fear, be permissible) that made the 

 earth fit to be, if not mother of, in any case a 

 home for, living creatures. When these eventually 

 came to their own, many of them acquired a con- 

 siderable toughness, and some a capacity for in- 

 surgence, but the present-day delicacy of individual 

 beginnings, the tenuity of the germ, the helplessness 

 of the infant, remind us of the probable frailty of 

 the earliest forms of life. It is interesting to 



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