THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



by the man of the ice age in the chalk clifF and 

 I compare it with the tunnel, which man as I 

 know him drives through the granite base of a 

 great mountain, a tunnel which he uses to bind 

 together unhindered his net of commerce around 

 the whole globe. On the mountain there still lies 

 eternal ice, a remnant of the ice age which low- 

 ering degrees of temperature could bring 

 further down upon the plain. But in the tunnel 

 we strike upon a glowing blast of hot air. Boil- 

 ing water springs out of the stone. The deeper 

 you go into the earth the greater is the glow 

 Man has already begun to send down his tunnel 

 structure building perpendicularly into the 

 depths. He drives shafts into the earth that are 

 still very small, but even in the thin upper strata 

 they have given him that wonderful heating ma- 

 terial, coal — , primitive life, the remnants of a 

 petrified forest which stiU serve to protect later 

 generations against the threatening cold of outer 

 space. Certainly it is true that the coal beds 

 would help but little against an icing over of the 

 whole earth surface. But what if the miner 

 should bring forth the warmth of the earth it- 

 self which today only serves to bum out the 

 lungs of the mine laborers.? What if man by 

 means of his skill should be able to place the 

 depths of this planet against its outer surface, 

 the inner warmth of the earth against the cold 

 of the world space.? The savage of the ice age 

 150 



