33 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 

 The Indiana of JSTature : Its Evolution. 



By W. S. Blatchley. 



Afar out in the limitless realms of space a planet moves— propelled 

 onward by an unseen, uncontrollable force around its parent orb, a sun. 

 For millions, perhaps billions, of years, as man counts time, that planet 

 has moved in the same pathway, meanwhile undergoing most wonderful 

 changes in bulk and form. At first a vast, irregular mass of burning, 

 gaseous matter, thrown off from that sun about which it still revolves, 

 the planet gradually cooled, condensed, and assumed a spheroidal form. 

 Its gaseous elements rearranged themselves to form new compounds, at 

 first liquid, then solid, until in time it came to be a solid globe, or at least 

 one with a solid but uneven crust. The processes of cooling and contrac- 

 tion still continued. The ocean of vapor which formed a large portion of 

 the atmosphere about the planet condensed and fell and formed an ocean 

 of water whicli filled the depressions in its crust. Above the rim of this 

 ocean there showed in places large areas of land — bare igneous rocli, abso- 

 lutely devoid of life— as, for millions of years, the temperature of both 

 rock and ocean remained too high for living things. 



When the mean temperature of its oceanic waters by continued and 

 oft repeated evaporation, cooling and condensation, was reduced to about 

 150° (degrees) F.. there occurred the grandest event in the history of that 

 planet. In some unknoioi, iinknoicabic niatnin-, Life came to be. Within the 

 waters of its ocean there was brought about a combination of matter— a 

 living thing — whicli could take from the water and from the air above 

 certain elements, and by their aid increase in size and reproduce its kind. 

 The first lowly parasites upon the face or surface of the planet were thus 

 aquatic plants— alga\ fungi and kindred forms. In the course of ages 

 there evolved from them other and hlglier plants which could live on 

 land; for the decay and erosion of the igneous rocks, added to the remains 

 of the aquatic plants thrown upon the beaches of the ocean, produced a 

 soil from which the higher land plants could derive a part of their nour- 

 ishment. As the centuries and the teons rolled by, the plants — true para- 

 sites that they were— found their way to every part of the planet's 



3— A. OF Science, '03. 



