162 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



fied rocks ; and these changes are more evident as we 

 approach the invading igneous mass. If a change 

 from stratified rocks into igneous seems possible, is it a 

 wonder that some geologists, of whom Hutton is a 

 striking example, have urged that our planet shows no 

 signs of a beginning, and that the processes that 

 mould its surface may go on to all eternity ? l 



However this may be, the history of this world is 

 best described as a fairy tale. Once upon a time a 

 time so remote that to our minds it seems eternity 

 the world consisted of land, water, and the gases above 

 the land and water. All consisted of molecules built 

 up of atoms, probably the same number of species of 

 atoms, and probably the same atoms (minus atoms 

 which have arrived at the earth's surface from time to 

 time) as exist to-day. The atoms which build up 

 organisms had not yet been able to get a footing as 

 organisms, except, perhaps, the very lowest organisms, 

 those amoeba-like objects which have existed through 

 all time and exist now. The waters, and the air above 

 the waters, were ceaselessly, and are still, warring 

 upon the solid earth, tearing it to minute pieces and 

 depositing the very finely divided matter in the 

 ocean ; there, under great pressure, this was and is 

 being solidified to make rocks. As the old land thus 

 became worn down by a process tending to equilibrium, 

 new lands appeared, they rose out of the waters. By 

 lateral pressure the layers of rocks (which were always 

 deposited in the oceans and other waters horizontally, or 

 nearly so) become contorted in every conceivable form, 

 and are often forced up into mountains. Water from 



1 See " Text-book of Geology," Sir Archibald Geikie, F.R.S., 3rd 

 edition, 1893. Book iv., part viii. 



