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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 657 



little short, it sinks to about 7. On the 

 other hand, the dolphin, a relatively recent 

 denizen of the deep, has had his concentra- 

 tion raised to 8.5. There are other facts 

 given by Quinton, regarding fresh and salt- 

 water turtles and crayfish, which I can not 

 give. 



But a host of further questions are raised 

 regarding the blood of seals and whales 

 and salmon that breed in fresh-water, and 

 eels that live in fresh water and breed in 

 salt. 



We see that this implies that the ocean 

 has grown in concentration. Quinton sug- 

 gests, as it seems to me rather wildly, that 

 the ocean is losing water into space. Put- 

 ting this aside, however, we find good rea- 

 son, in processes now known to go on, to 

 believe that the ocean is accumulating salts 

 and growing more concentrated. The water 

 evaporated from the ocean, carried up into 

 the clouds and rained down again upon the 

 earth, is subject to a natural distillation. 

 It is soft and fresh. On the other hand, 

 the rivers come into the ocean laden with 

 the products of solution. Murray and Du- 

 bois have given valuable tables of river 

 composition. The result is that every lake 

 without an outlet, receiving a river, like the 

 Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, becomes 

 very salt. And what is the ocean itself but 

 a much vaster lake. So Hi;nt, Joly, Du- 

 bois, Macallum and most of those who have 

 given the subject any especial thought have 

 inferred a concentration of the more soluble 

 salts in the sea. We can not, however, sepa- 

 rate a full discussion of concentration from 

 that of the composition of the ocean. I 

 can not see any escape from the general 

 conclusion that there must have been some 

 such concentration, except by supposing 

 that volcanoes from absorbed gases in the 

 interior of the earth are yielding more 

 water than enough to counterbalance the 

 soluble salts brought in by the rivers. This 



we can hardly disprove, if we assume that 

 there may also be a gradual transudation 

 of these waters from the interior, but it 

 does not seem likely. While, however, 

 Quinton 's theory agrees with processes now 

 going on in its suggestion that salts have 

 accumulated in the ocean, we are impelled 

 to ask, as we did in regard to the tempera- 

 ture, why should life have waited to begin 

 until the ocean was already brackish, or 

 why should the ocean have begun with a 

 concentration of 7 parts per thousand? 



May it not be that life began in an ocean 

 of much less concentration, but remained 

 open to it, with the body cavity not cut off, 

 until that best for cell life, to wit, a con- 

 centration of nearly 7 parts per thousand, 

 was reached? 



If we ask this we are led to turn to his- 

 torical geology, and to the line of enquiry 

 which is, I fear, the most diificult, the least 

 certain, and the most tedious, but to which 

 I feel bound to devote some time, since it 

 happens to be the gateway which led to my 

 interest in the whole subject. 



We may ask, what indications are there 

 of any such concentration less than the 

 present in the waters buried in the earlier 

 strata? 



Do they come at all, and if so, at the be- 

 ginning of life, or at that stage in the geo- 

 logical column when the land animals and 

 those who may with some assurance be 

 supposed to have a vital fluid distinct from 

 the sea water are known to have existed? 

 But before we can apply this test we must 

 ask and answer many difficult questions. 

 Can we fibtid analyses of rock waters which 

 can be fairly assumed to represent buried 

 ocean waters? Has not the circulation in 

 strata in the course of millions of years 

 been thorough? Then, again, how can we 

 tell, even supposing that there has been no 

 such circulation that strata were not laid 

 down and filled in the beginning with more 



