187 
Mar. 81, 1910. The Queensland Naturalist, 
(his paper is not immediately availalile), draw any conclu- 
sions as to the e-flect of this upon the life-history of the 
world. 
48. —Sir Robert Ball, on the other hand in l)ooks and 
in lectures (witli funny mechanical slides, too) lias averred 
that even as late as the Silurian the day was l)ut four or 
five hours long, and conse([uently raging tides of colossal 
magnitude swept round the world in two or three hours. 
49. — Now, this I empliatically deny. Every first- 
year student of geology can prove its falsity. What 
sort of higgledy-piggledy would our strata present if every 
drop of ocean were racing at a pace Avhich at the equator 
would he. about 8.000 miles an hour ! We know that tlie 
Cambrian rocks, in which the earliest known forms of life 
appear, were laid doAvh in waters as placid as those now 
playing upon Queensland’s shores. 
50. — Admitting, as one must, G. Darwin’s mathe- 
matical conclusions, Ave as geologists are sure that the 
conditions he postulates must have ante-dated the a\Eo1c 
of stratigraphical time. Sir Robert Ball erred as much 
in limiting time as evolutionists had done in extending it. 
And I would call the attention of mathematicians, 
physicists and astronomers to the great fact that from 
Cambrian times at least the Avorld has jogged along pretty 
much in the same fashion, and therefore the Sun, through 
a fair number of millions of years does not seem to have 
lost much of its (uiei’gy. Henceforth, these mathema- 
ticians, to Avhom Ave owe p(‘rhaps the deepest of all debts, 
must take this great geological fact into c.onsideration 
in dealing with (juestions relating to the age of the solar 
systeiu. But, though tempte^l, 1 must refrain myself 
jn this connection. 
51. — Neither dare 1 tax your patience AA'ith a criticism 
on the bearing of the splendid deduction of my old mathe- 
matico-geological friend, the Rev. Osmond Fisher, that the 
basins of the great oceans are areas Avhich supplied the 
matter of the moon. In like manner, 1 must refrain from 
noticing Prof, Love’s splendid harmonic analysis of tlu^ 
distorting poAvers of the sun, moon and planets in deter- 
mining the configuration of ocean and continent. Both 
are germane to our enquiry, but 1 at any rate, must to- 
night set a good example in economising time. 
52. — What 1 have striven to show is, firstly^ that 
geological time is strictly limited. It cannot have begun 
till the earth had slowed doA\n, so that the tides Avere 
tauu^d. Secondly^ that lengthening the span of life Avould 
not in the least affect the evolution problem as formu- 
lated in the rocks. Thirdly, that the birth of species must 
often, nay generally, have been ([uite a rapid process, for 
in no other way can avo read the testimony of the rocks. 
