239 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Extension 

 Extravagances 



orous plants gradually kill the less vigor- 

 ous tho fully grown plants ; thus out 

 of twenty species grown on a little plot of 

 mown turf (three feet by four) nine species 

 perished, from the other species being al- 

 lowed to grow up freely. DARWIN Origin 

 of Species, ch. 1, p. 63. (Burt.) 



1165. EXTINCTION OF BISON At- 

 tempts to Avert. The buffalo should be a 

 very interesting animal to all American 

 citizens on account of the great danger 

 which exists of its becoming utterly extinct. 

 Only thirty-one years ago they still num- 

 bered several millions, more than five mil- 

 lions at the least, whereas in 1889 there 

 were but some twenty individuals in Texas, 

 a few in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and 

 Dakota, and two hundred preserved by the 

 Government in the Yellowstone National 

 Park. We have, however, recently been as- 

 sured that some private individual citizens 

 in the United States are trying to preserve 

 and propagate the buffalo. Canada, which 

 now exhibits such interesting examples of 

 political and social " survival," has been 

 practically conservative as regards the bi- 

 son, since it appears that some 500 individ- 

 uals of a race known as the wood-bison still 

 survive there. MIVART Types of Animal 

 Life, ch. 7, p. 178. (L. B. & Co., 1893.) 



1 1 66. EXTINCTION OF OTHER SUNS 



A Like Fate Awaits Our Own. In other 

 cases obscure heavenly bodies have discov- 

 ered themselves by their attraction on ad- 

 jacent bright stars, and the motions of the 

 latter thereby produced. Thus there are 

 extinct suns. The fact that there are such 

 lends new weight to the reasons which per- 

 mit us to conclude that our sun also is a 

 body which slowly gives out its store of 

 heat, and thus will some time become ex- 

 tinct. HELMHOLTZ Popular Lectures, lect. 

 4, p. 190. (L. G. & Co., 1898.) 



1167. EXTINCTION OF OUR SUN 



Brevity of Human Existence Insignificance 

 of Man. The term of 17,000,000 years 

 which I have given may perhaps become 

 considerably prolonged by the gradual 

 abatement of radiation, by the new accre- 

 tion of falling meteors, and by still greater 

 condensation than that which I have as- 

 sumed in that calculation. But we know 

 of no natural process which could spare 

 our sun the fate which has manifestly fall- 

 en upon other suns. This is a thought 

 which we only reluctantly admit; it seems 

 to us an insult to the beneficent Creative 

 Power which we otherwise find at work in 

 organisms and especially in living ones. 

 But we must reconcile ourselves to the 

 thought that, however we may consider our- 

 selves to be the center and final object of 

 creation, we are but as dust on the earth ; 

 which again is but a speck of dust in the 

 immensity of space; and the previous du- 

 ration of our race, even if we follow it far 

 beyond our written history, into the era of 

 the lake-dwellings or of the mammoth, is 



but an instant compared with the primeval 

 times of our planet when living beings ex- 

 isted upon it whose strange and unearthly 

 remains still gaze at us from their ancient 

 tombs; and far more does the duration of 

 our race sink into insignificance compared 

 with the enormous periods during which 

 worlds have been in process of formation, 

 and w T ill still continue to form when our 

 sun is extinguished, and our earth is either 

 solidified in cold or is united with the ig- 

 nited central body of our system. HELM- 

 HOLTZ Popular Lectures, lect. 4, p. 191. 

 (L. G. & Co., 1898.) 



1168. EXTINCTION OF SPECIES 



Fossils Show a Succession of Types. First, 

 in regard to the vicissitudes of the living 

 creation, all are agreed that the sedimen- 

 tary strata found in the earth's crust are 

 divisible into a variety of groups, more or 

 less dissimilar in their organic remains 

 and mineral composition. The conclusion 

 universally drawn from the study and 

 comparison of these fossiliferous groups is 

 this, that at successive periods distinct 

 tribes of animals and plants have inhabited 

 the land and waters, and that the organic 

 types of the newer formations are more 

 analogous to species now existing than those 

 of more ancient rocks. If we then turn to 

 the present state of the animate creation, 

 and inquire whether it has now become 

 fixed and stationary, we discover that, on 

 the contrary, it is in a state of continual 

 flux that there are many causes in action 

 which tend to the extinction of species, and 

 which are conclusive against the doctrine 

 of their unlimited durability. But natural 

 history has been successfully cultivated for 

 so short a period that a few examples only 

 of local, and perhaps but one or two of 

 absolute, extirpation can as yet be proved, 

 and these only where the interference of 

 man has been conspicuous. It will never- 

 theless appear evident . . . that man 

 is not the only exterminating agent; and 

 that, independently of his intervention, the 

 annihilation of species is promoted by the 

 multiplication and gradual diffusion of ev- 

 ery animal or plant. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. i, ch. 13, p. 181. (A., 1854.) 



1 1 69. EXTRAVAGANCES OF NATURE 



Possibilities of Existence Outrun Imag- 

 ination. " Do not be deterred," said Agas- 

 siz, in the course of one of the interviews 

 in which he obligingly indulged the writer 

 of these chapters, who had mentioned to 

 him that one of his opinions, just confirmed 

 by the naturalist, had seemed so extraor- 

 dinary that he had been almost afraid to 

 communicate it " do not be deterred, if 

 you have examined minutely, by any dread 

 of being deemed extravagant. The possi- 

 bilities of existence run so deeply into the 

 extravagant that there is scarcely any con- 

 ception too extraordinary for Nature to re- 

 alize." MILLER The Old Red Sandstone, 

 ch. 3, p. 52. (G. & L., 1851.) 



