20 Where did Life Begin? 



nest approval for these, or any estimates for 

 that matter, of the lapse of time since life 

 began — the data being so insufficient and the 

 conclusions so widely different — yet it is emi- 

 nently conservative, in view of them and other 

 accepted calculations, to claim, so far as time is 

 a factor, that a first life-bearing climate might 

 have commenced anywhere and travelled ev- 

 erywhere (and all sorts of organisms might 

 have travelled with it in the natural thorough- 

 fares) over a globe only 25,000 miles in cir- 

 cumference without movinof faster than one 

 mile in ten millenniums. 



On the other hand, a zone of torrid climate 

 beginning near and surrounding the north 

 pole, and creeping thence to the equator at 

 such a slow pace, would have given ample 

 time in its long journey for the development 

 of highly complex forms evolved from the very 

 simplest, for all organisms moving within its 

 isothermal limits. 



Considerations will be hereafter presented 

 showing absolutely that there was time enough 

 and to spare for vast and highly developed 

 orders of life within the frigid and temperate 



