142 



SCIENCE 



[N.S. Vol. XXVI. No. 65T 



mentary column of Huronian and Lauren- 

 tian, I think, for I think the pre-Ordo- 

 vieian column of rocks is hardly more than 

 one fourth of that since. 



I presume some will grumble at being 

 curtailed to so short a time before the 

 Trenton, only twenty million years or so 

 '(if the time since is eighty million 

 yeara). As we have said, the progress 

 is probably not exactly uniform. But 

 really twenty million years is quite a while. 

 The following illustration may help us to 

 appreciate this. There has been a change 

 of 15 per cent, to 20 per cent, in the flora 

 of Michigan and Ohio in the past 200 

 years. If then in each year there was an 

 average deposit of but one two-hundredth 

 ■of a foot there could be an accumulation of 

 ten thousand feet of strata with a 15 to 

 20 per cent, change of plants every foot in 

 twenty million years. Have we any facts 

 to make us feel sure that that is not time 

 enough ? 



' The growth of scientific doctrine and 

 theory is like that of some modern in- 

 vention like the steam engine. Different 

 men contribute, the one this improvement, 

 and one that, until in looking at the per- 

 fect machine one wonders and admires and 

 forgets that it is an embodiment of the 

 ideas not merely of one designer, Watt, or 

 Corliss, or Nordberg, but of many, who 

 have each contributed something. So 

 many have discussed the physiological salt 

 solution and the oceanic origin of life, but 

 Bunge, Ma<callum, and especially Quinton 

 have brought them into relation. Before 

 them Hunt, Goessman, Joly, Mackie, Dubois 

 and others have theorized on the evolution 

 of the composition of the ocean. 



From them aU we have borrowed, or by 

 them been anticipated. So of previous 

 writers on the conditions of early life, it 

 will be seen that I agree with Chamberlin 

 as to the relatively fresh character of the 



early medium in which animals appear, 

 that I adopt Daly's suggestion that the 

 scarcity of hard parts of pre-Cambrian ani- 

 mals was physiological and due to the 

 chemical character of the ocean, though 

 we can not at all agree with his conclusion 

 that it was limeless, which seems to be 

 negatived by the composition of the vital 

 fluid, the evidence of fossil brines, and the 

 deposits of the early oceans. 



What we bring (besides some detail 

 studies of buried waters) is the correla- 

 tion, and the suggestion that the develop- 

 ment of hard parts, and a relatively per- 

 manent vital fluid, were both physiological 

 reactions to the chemical evolution of the 

 ocean, as it reached and passed its best con- 

 ditions for life in the early Paleozoic. 



The wider the area of our knowledge the 

 greater the circumference of our ignorance, 

 and the test of a good theory is that it opens 

 up new lines of research. Let me mention 

 a few. Further tests of the composition 

 of the vital medium would be very interest- 

 ing, especially in salmon, and eels and the 

 like, as Avell as in seals, whales and insects. 



The field which I hope to help cultivate, 

 myself, is the study of waters which may be 

 in part buried sea waters. It would be very 

 interesting to extract the quarry moisture 

 of impervious rocks. I do not know how to 

 do it, without danger of extracting solid 

 constituents at the same time. 



To sum up in conclusion, it seems likely 

 that early evolution was very rapid— the 

 history of the race in this respect being like 

 that of the individual— because of some of 

 the following factors: 



1. A warmer ocean, and consequent 

 greater activity of life. 



2. A constant approach of the same up 

 to early Paleozoic times toward better con- 

 ditions for life, which caused the organisms 

 not to cut themselves off from it, but re- 

 main open, while hard parts were rare, thus 



