168 



DISCOVERY 



third stage was inaugurated when domes or ridges of 

 the solid crust of the earth emerged as islands or 

 embr>-o-contincnts above the prime\'al ocean. An- 

 chored submarine plants found themselves transferred 

 from water to air : for a time they would be washed 

 at intervals by the waves, but as elevation continued 

 they became more and more restricted to an environ- 

 ment of air containing an abundant supply of aqueous 

 vapour. This change naturally imposed serious prob- 

 lems upon organisms adapted to a purely watery 

 habitat. The better-equipped types, Dr. Church 

 suggests, successfully coped with the new conditions ; 

 their anchoring holdfasts acquired the function of 

 absorbing organs ; and the water with mineral salts 

 in solution, which the}' imbibed, had to be conveyed 

 by newly developed conducting tissues to all parts of 

 the plant-body, which was now no longer bathed by 

 water. Adjustment was necessitated in the mechanism 

 for propagation ; reproductive cells capable of dis- 

 persal in the air were substituted for cells adapted for 

 locomotion or transport in water. Thus was effected 

 a transformation of complex seaweeds into land-plants, 

 and it was this direct passage from sea to air that 

 gave birth to the future vegetation of continents and 

 islands. If this hypothesis is correct, it means, as its 

 author points out, that all the groups of land-plants 

 trace their ancestry to a stage in the historj' of the 

 world when a world-ocean was inhabited bj' swarms 

 of free-floating, single-celled representatives of the 

 plant kingdom. 



Dr. Church is of opinion that the uplift of portions 

 of the earth's crust, with their attached seaweeds, 

 occurred in the Archaean era, in the earliest stage of 

 geological history. If this was so, it is surprising that 

 no fossil remains of this first land vegetation have been 

 found ; and it may well be that the first stage in the 

 evolution of a land-vegetation — assuming the general 

 correctness of the hypothesis that has been outlined — 

 occurred at a later period in the history of the earth. 

 It is a well-established fact that in some parts of the 

 world, mostly in the north-west European area, there 

 was a great uplift of the earth's crust in the Silurian, 

 and during the earlier phase of the Devonian periods. 

 This widespread folding of the crust produced vast 

 mountain systems, called by the late Professor Suess 

 the Caledonides, and the worn-down roots of some of 

 these ranges form the present mountains of the north- 

 west Highlands of Scotland. As we have seen, it is 

 in the Devonian rocks that the earliest undoubted 

 land floras have been discovered. Wliether or not 

 the successful transference of seaweeds to life on the 

 land occurred in the Archaean or in a subsequent period, 

 the interest of Dr. Church's attractive and abl\- worked- 

 out hypothesis lies in the possibility of the adaptation 

 of organs, \\hich had been evolved in the sea, to the 



very different conditions of life on land. The views 

 he expresses, though open to criticism on geological 

 and biological grounds, are worthy of close examina- 

 tion ; they are concerned with a problem that is 

 perhaps insoluble, but they are at least suggestive, 

 and in many respects more convincing than any 

 previously put forward. 



St. Francis of Assisi 

 (a.d. 1182-1226) 



By A. G. Little, M.A. 



" Why after thee ? " asked one of his companions of 

 St. Francis. " \Miy doth all the world follow after thee, 

 and why doth every man desire to see thee and to hear 

 thee and to obey thee ? Thou art not fair to look 

 upon ; thou art not a man of great parts ; thou art not 

 of noble birth. Wlience cometh it, then, that all 

 the world followeth after thee ? " St. Francis's " lowly 

 answer " that God had chosen him to confound the 

 might and wisdom of the world, " because He hath 

 found no \aler creature on earth," can hardly have 

 seemed a complete explanation to Brother Masseo, 

 nor can it satisfy us. The interest showTi in St. Francis 

 is different, not only in degree but in kind, from the 

 interest taken in any other mediaeval saint ; it is not 

 only erudite or devotional, though it is both of these ; 

 but men of verj' different faiths have studied, and are 

 studying, the life of St. Francis Nvith the con\iction 

 that it contains some practical message for all time 

 and for to-daj'. 



The hold which St. Francis always had on the 

 affection of the world is no doubt partly due to the 

 large amount and to the nature of the literary material 

 concerning him which has survived from early times. 

 No saint is so well known. The charming and poetical 

 stories known as the Fiorctti, or Litlle Flouers of St. 

 Francis, have rejoiced generation after generation 

 e\-er since they were collected together and translated 

 into Italian early in the fourteenth centurj". There are 

 excellent English translations of the Fiorelii, such as that 

 by Professor Arnold and that by Professor Okey ; but 

 they are easy to read in the original, and form an attrac- 

 tive introduction to the study of Italian. The collection 

 does not include, by any means, all the stories which 

 were current at the time when it was made, and several 

 which might well have been included have recently 

 come to light. One of these tells how Francis and his 

 first follower, Bernardo, being tired and hungry, went 



