334 The National Geographic Magazine 



mute testimony comes -to full interpre- 

 tation. Lesser chapters of world- 

 growth may be read from the shorter 

 records of smaller provinces ; longer 

 chapters are read from the fuller records 

 of larger provinces, such as those of our 

 own well-studied continent ; but it can- 

 not be doubted that the fullest record of 

 all will be found "in the foremost of geo- 

 graphic features, to form the bod}' of the 

 book of world- history. If, as biology 

 and paleontology seem to teach, the 

 earliest living things on the globe were 

 aquatic if not marine, it would seem 

 probable that the life of the world began 

 somewhere about the present Pacific, 

 and spread thence over the growing 

 continents eastward and westward, as 

 well as northward and southward until 

 the eternal barriers of arctic and antarc- 

 tic ice were built out from the poles of 

 the cooling planet. Hazy as the vital 

 vista ma}' be in its remoter stages, there 

 is nothing questionable about the lead- 

 ing role of the Pacific as a factor in the 

 later life of the globe ; the horse, as 

 shown by Marsh, and the dog, as held 

 by Osborn, are among the animals that 

 came up on the eastern purlieus of the 

 Pacific, to be somehow translated to the 

 western border-land during later geo- 

 logic times ; the paths of several migra- 

 tory birds still cross the narrow north- 

 erly portion of the Pacific in such wise 

 as to bind hemispheres into a single 

 f aunal province and prove that the avian 

 instinct outlasts continental outlines ; 

 while Cook contends that the palm, and 

 perhaps the banana and other plants, 

 must have been carried across the Pacific 

 from east to west by human agency 

 after prehistoric man reached the plane 

 of primitive husbandry. Still less is 

 there question as to primacy of the role 

 played by the Pacific in human develop- 

 ment. Counting in the basin the lands 

 draining toward its depths, the Pacific 

 province is the home of half the popula- 

 tion of the earth ; the abiding-place — 

 if not the birthplace — of the black, yel- 



low, brown, and red races of mankind, 

 and now the realm of the white ; the 

 seat of societies ranging from the lowly 

 clanship of the prime to the most re- 

 splendent empires of history; the field of 

 cultures rising from bestial savagery to 

 the world's highest enlightenment. 



Such are some of the aspects of the 

 earth's greatest feature, of that bound- 

 less theater of life and human activity 

 on which the eyes of the world are 

 turned today. 



THE GENESIS OF THE OCEAN 



Foremost among the greater problems 

 of the Pacific is that connected with the 

 origin of the basin in which the great 

 ocean is cradled; and this problem can 

 hardly be approached save along the 

 lines of world-growth suggested by the 

 relation of our sun and other stars, our 

 earth with the rest of the planets, and 

 our moon with the other satellites of 

 the solar family — for the problem of the 

 Pacific basin is large enough to be viewed 

 as a cosmic problem. Since the days of 

 Laplace, author of the nebular hypothe- 

 sis, the attention of astronomers has 

 been attracted by the great world- 

 chasm, and several students have con- 

 ceived it as the scar left by the off-cast- 

 ing of the moon during an early stage 

 in the condensation of the earth from a 

 primordial chaos of matter. The latest 

 noteworthy discussion of these views of 

 the Pacific is that of G. H. Darwin, son 

 of the naturalist, and our leading author- 

 ity on tides. ''According to his lumi- 

 nous theory the tidal action of the sun 

 on the viscous earth formed two protu- 

 berances at opposite points of the equa- 

 tor; one of the protuberances broke 

 away and solidified as the moon, which 

 revolved around the earth much nearer 

 than at present." So Gregory summa- 

 rizes the conclusions of the eminent 

 mathematician (Smithsonian Report, 

 1S98, p. 366). Another view of the 

 great basin connects it with the general 



