53 



Address of the President. 



Wilbur A. Cogshall 



The question of Evolution has long occupied the attention of scientists. 

 Especially has this been true in biological lines, and we are apt to think of 

 the probable for certain) changes that have taken place, either in plants or 

 animals, in connection with the Avord evolution. As soon as biological 

 investigation had proceeded to a point where significant differences and 

 likenesses were well established among certain forms, the laws underlying 

 the changes were sought, and are being sought. We have now a more or 

 less satisfactory theory built up based on certain fundamentals, though it 

 contains in part some elements of the speculative and the probable. One 

 of these truths that seems established is that some organisms have existed 

 in the very remote past, in a quite different form from what they now have, 

 and that it is very probable, if not certain, that they will change their forms. 

 habits, etc., still more as time goes on. 



In a little broader way we may say that evolutionary changes are just as 

 certain in the earth as a whole, or in the entire system of plenatary bodies, or 

 for that matter, in the whole visible universe. This conclusion is based on 

 several physical laws which man has discovered and believes to be true. 

 If the law of conservation of energy is true, then we have no alternative but 

 to believe that the continued radiation of heat from the sun and the earth 

 will eventually result in these bodies coming to a lower temperature, and 

 that the sun mil at some future date become dark, cold and dense. We 

 must also believe that its power to radiate heat and light was very different 

 in the remote past from what it is now. In as much as the sun is not essen- 

 tially different from a million other stars in the sky, it seems very probable 

 that the whole visible universe has undergone very great changes in past 

 time, and will undergo changes just as great in the future. 



There is really no more reason to suppose that the stars and the moon 

 have always been as we see them now, than to suppose that because an oak 

 tree has stood for a year without sensible change it has always been that 

 way and will continue so indefinitely. The oak goes through its life history, 

 or certain phases of it, in so short a time that we can see its whole history 

 in less than a life time, but the changes in the tree while faster, are no more 

 certain than those in the sun or earth. 



