INORGANIC EVOLUTION. 21 



not only of iron, magnesium, and calcium, but of other metals 

 such as titanium, copper, manganese, etc. To these, which we 

 may call metals in the making, the prefix 'proto-' has been applied. 

 Thus we have proto-iron, proto-calcium, proto-manganese, etc. 

 Professor Pickering, of Harvard University, recently discovered 

 some lines in the spectrum of a star in the constellation Argo 

 which he identified with some of the hydrogen lines, and 

 considers them to be produced by hydrogen of a very rudimentary 

 atomic type, or proto-hydrogen. Afterwards proto-hydrogen 

 was discovered in other stars, but it seems to be confined to 

 those celestial bodies which appear to be the hottest. This is 

 to be expected, as the atom of this element is probably much 

 smaller and simpler even than that of hydrogen. 



Thus by inorganic evolution we mean for one thing that the 

 elements as we know them are really compound bodies ; that the 

 atoms have not been specially created as such and are not 

 indivisible, but made up of a great number of very much smaller 

 bodies which we call corpuscles ; that these corpuscles are all 

 exactly similar to each other and unchangeable ; and that the 

 more complex atoms have gradually been evolved from lighter 

 and simpler atoms, and these again from still simpler fonns, 

 back perhaps to the very simplest of all, the corpuscles themselves 

 in a free state. This process must have taken almost an infinity 

 of time, so inconceivable a period indeed that the millions of 

 millions of years required for organic development on our earth 

 would be exceedingly short in comparison. There is good reason 

 to believe that the governing agent in this development is simply 

 temperature ; indeed, that the evolution itself residts mainly, if 

 not entirely, from progressive loss of temperature. As the 

 temperature falls, more and more complicated atoms and 

 molecules are produced, until finally, as happened on our Earth 

 many million years ago, the temperature falls at length 

 sufiiciently to allow of the building up of very complex forms 

 of matter; then simple organisms are produced, and the cycle 

 of organic evolution begins. 



Let us now turn to evolution on a grander scale, the evolution 

 of our Earth and all the various bodies, large and small, which 

 exist in the immensity of space. And first let me sketch briefly 

 some of the things which we know concerning these difilerent 

 masses of matter. Throughout the Universe, scattered through 

 almost infinite space, are found an immense number of bodies 

 varying in size to a most amazing extent, from the merest speck 

 of meteoric dust to mighty orbs perhaps many millions of 



