The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays

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Title: The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays

Author: John Joly

Release date: August 28, 2005 [eBook #16614]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BIRTH-TIME OF THE WORLD AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS ***

Produced by Hugh Rance

THE BIRTH-TIME OF THE WORLD AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS

J. JOLY, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S.,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK

Cover

Title page

CONTENTS PAGE

I. THE BIRTH-TIME OF THE WORLD - - - - - - - - - - - 1

II. DENUDATION - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30

III. THE ABUNDANCE OF LIFE - - - - - - - - - - - - 60

IV. THE BRIGHT COLOURS OF ALPINE FLOWERS - - - - - 102

V. MOUNTAIN GENESIS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 116

VI. ALPINE STRUCTURE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 146

VII. OTHER MINDS THAN OURS - - - - - - - - - - - - 162

VIII. THE LATENT IMAGE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 202

IX. PLEOCHROIC HALOES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 214

X. THE USE OF RADIUM IN MEDICINE - - - - - - - - - 244

XI. SKATING - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 260

XII. A SPECULATION AS TO A PRE-MATERIAL UNIVERSE - 288

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE I. LAKE OF LUCERNE, LOOKING WEST FROM BRUNNEN -
Frontispiece

PLATE II. "UPLIFTED FROM THE SEAS." CLIFFS OF THE TITLIS,
SWITZERLAND - to face p. 4

PLATE III. AN ALPINE TORRENT AT WORK--VAL D'HERENS, SWITZERLAND -
to face p. 31

PLATE IV. EARTH PILLARS--VAL D'HERENS - to face p. 34

PLATE V. "SCENES OF DESOLATION." THE WEISSHORN SEEN FROM BELLA
TOLA, SWITZERLAND - to face p. 40

PLATE VI. ALLUVIAL CONE--NICOLAI THAL, SWITZERLAND. MORAINE ON
ALETSCH GLACIER SWITZERLAND - to face p. 50

PLATE VII. IN THE REGION OF THE CROCI; DOLOMITES. THE ROTHWAND
SEEN FROM MONTE PIANO - to face p. 60

PLATE VIII. FIRS ASSAILING THE HEIGHTS OF THE MADERANER THAL,
SWITZERLAND - to face p. 73

PLATE IX. LIFE NEAR THE SNOW LINE; THE BOG-COTTON IN POSSESSION.
NEAR THE TSCHINGEL PASS, SWITZERLAND - to face p. 80

PLATE X. THE JOY OF LIFE. THE AMPEZZO THAL; DOLOMITES - to face
p. 93

PLATE XI. "PINES SOLEMNLY QUIET." DÜSSISTOCK; MADERANER THAL - to
face p. 100

PLATE XII. ALPINE FLOWERS IN THE VALLEYS - to face p. 105

PLATE XIII. ALPINE FLOWERS ON THE HEIGHTS - to face p. 106

PLATE XIV. MOUNTAIN SOLITUDES; VAL DE ZINAL. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
ROTHHORN; BESSO; OBERGABELHORN; MATTERHORN; PIC DE ZINAL (THROUGH
CLOUD); DENT BLANCHE - to face p. 116

PLATE XV. SECTOR OF THE EARTH RISE OF ISOGEOTHERMS INTO A DEPOSIT
EVOLVING RADIOACTIVE HEAT - to face p. 118

PLATE XVI. "THE MOUNTAINS COME AND GO." THE DENT BLANCHE SEEN
FROM THE SASSENEIRE - to face p. 133

PLATE XVII. DIAGRAMMATIC SECTIONS OF THE HIMALAYA - to face p.
140

PLATE XVIII. RESIDUES OF DENUDATION. THE MATTERHORN SEEN FROM THE
SUMMIT OF THE ZINAL ROTHHORN - to face p. 148

PLATE XIX. THE FOLDED ROCKS OF THE MATTERHORN, SEEN FROM NEAR
HÖHBALM. SKETCH MADE IN 1906 - to face p. 156

PLATE XX. SCHIAPARELLI'S MAP OF MARS OF 1882, AND ADDITIONS (IN
RED) OF 1892 - to face p. 166

PLATE XXI. GLOBE OF MARS SHOWING PATH OF IN-FALLING SATELLITE -
to face p. 188

PLATE XXII. CANALS MAPPED BY LOWELL COMPARED WITH CANALS FORMED
BY IN-FALLING SATELLITES - to face p. 192

PLATE XXIII. HALOES IN MICA; CO. CARLOW. HALO IN BIOTITE
CONTAINED IN GRANITE - to face p. 224

PLATE XXIV. RADIUM HALO, MUCH ENLARGED. THORIUM HALO AND RADIUM
HALO IN MICA - to face p. 228

PLATE XXV. HALO ROUND CAPILLARY IN GLASS TUBE. HALOES ROUND
TUBULAR PASSAGES IN MICA - to face p. 230

PLATE XXVI. ALETSCH GLACIER, SWITZERLAND - to face p. 282

PLATE XXVII. THE MIDDLE ALETSCH GLACIER JOINING THE GREAT ALETSCH
GLACIER. GLACIERS OF THE LAUTERBRUNNEN THAL - to face p. 285

PLATE XXVIII. PERCHED BLOCK ON THE ALETSCH GLACIER. GRANITE
ERRATIC NEAR ROUNDWOOD, CO. WICKLOW; NOW BROKEN UP AND REMOVED -
to face p. 286

And Fifteen Illustrations in the Text.

PREFACE

Tins volume contains twelve essays written at various times
during recent years. Many of them are studies contributed to
Scientific Reviews or delivered as popular lectures. Some are
expositions of views the scientific basis of which may be
regarded as established. Others--the greater number--may be
described as attempting the solution of problems which cannot be
approached by direct observation.

The essay on The Birth-time of the World is based on a lecture
delivered before the Royal Dublin Society. The subject has
attracted much attention within recent years. The age of the
Earth is, indeed, of primary importance in our conception of the
longevity of planetary systems. The essay deals with the
evidence, derived from the investigation of purely terrestrial
phenomena, as to the period which has elapsed since the ocean
condensed upon the Earth's surface. Dr. Decker's recent addition
to the subject appeared too late for inclusion in it. He finds
that the movements (termed isostatic) which geologists recognise
as taking place deep in the Earth's crust, indicate an age of the
same order of magnitude

as that which is inferred from the statistics of denudative
history.[1]

The subject of _Denudation_ naturally arises from the first essay.
In thinking over the method of finding the age of the ocean by
the accumulation of sodium therein, I perceived so long ago as
1899, when my first paper was published, that this method
afforded a means of ascertaining the grand total of denudative
work effected on the Earth's surface since the beginning of
geological time; the resulting knowledge in no way involving any
assumption as to the duration of the period comprising the
denudative actions. This idea has been elaborated in various
publications since then, both by myself and by others.
"Denudation," while including a survey of the subject generally,
is mainly a popular account of this method and its results. It
closes with a reference to the fascinating problems presented by
the inner nature of sedimentation: a branch of science to which I
endeavoured to contribute some years ago.

_Mountain Genesis_ first brings in the subject of the geological
intervention of radioactivity. There can, I believe, be no doubt
as to the influence of transforming elements upon the
developments of the surface features of the Earth; and, if I am
right, this source of thermal energy is mainly responsible for
that local accumulation of wrinkling which we term mountain
chains. The

[1] Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. xxvi, March 1915.

xii

paper on _Alpine Structure_ is a reprint from "Radioactivity and
Geology," which for the sake of completeness is here included. It
is directed to the elucidation of a detail of mountain genesis: a
detail which enters into recent theories of Alpine development.
The weakness of the theory of the "horst" is manifest, however,
in many of its other applications; if not, indeed, in all.

The foregoing essays on the physical influences affecting the
surface features of the Earth are accompanied by one entitled _The
Abundance of Life._ This originated amidst the overwhelming
presentation of life which confronts us in the Swiss Alps. The
subject is sufficiently inspiring. Can no fundamental reason be
given for the urgency and aggressiveness of life? Vitality is an
ever-extending phenomenon. It is plain that the great principles
which have been enunciated in explanation of the origin of
species do not really touch the problem. In the essay--which is an
early one (1890)--the explanation of the whole great matter is
sought--and as I believe found--in the attitude of the organism
towards energy external to it; an attitude which results in its
evasion of the retardative and dissipatory effects which prevail
in lifeless dynamic systems of all kinds.

_Other Minds than Ours_? attempts a solution of the vexed question
of the origin of the Martian "canals." The essay is an abridgment
of two popular lectures on the subject. I had previously written
an account of my views which carried the enquiry as far as it was
in

xiii

my power to go. This paper appeared in the "Transactions of the
Royal Dublin Society, 1897." The theory put forward is a purely
physical one, and, if justified, the view that intelligent beings
exist in Mars derives no support from his visible surface
features; but is, in fact, confronted with fresh difficulties.

_Pleochroic Haloes_ is a popular exposition of an inconspicuous but
very beautiful phenomenon of the rocks. Minute darkened spheres--a
microscopic detail--appear everywhere in certain of the rock
minerals. What are they? The discoveries of recent radioactive
research--chiefly due to Rutherford--give the answer. The
measurements applied to the little objects render the explanation
beyond question. They turn out to be a quite extraordinary record
of radioactive energy; a record accumulated since remote
geological times, and assuring us, indirectly, of the stability
of the chemical elements in general since the beginning of the
world. This assurance is, without proof, often assumed in our
views on the geological history of the Globe.

Skating is a discourse, with a recent addition supporting the
original thesis. It is an illustration of a common experience--the
explanation of an unimportant action involving principles the
most influential considered as a part of Nature's resources.

The address on _The Latent Image_ deals with a subject which had
been approached by various writers before the time of my essay;
but, so far as I know, an explanation

xiv

based on the facts of photo-electricity had not been attempted.
Students of this subject will notice that the views expressed are
similar to those subsequently put forward by Lenard and Saeland
in explanation of phosphorescence. The whole matter is of more
practical importance than appears at first sight, for the
photoelectric nature of the effects involved in the radiative
treatment of many cruel diseases seems to be beyond doubt.

It was in connection with photo-electric science that I was led
to take an interest in the application of radioactivity in
medicine. The lecture on _The Use of Radium in Medicine_ deals with
this subject. Towards the conclusion of this essay reference will
be found to a practical outcome of such studies which, by
improving on the methods, and facilitating the application, of
radioactive treatment, has, in the hands of skilled medical men,
already resulted in the alleviation of suffering.

Leaving out much which might well appear in a prefatory notice, a
word should yet be added respecting the illustrations of scenery.
They are a small selection from a considerable number of
photographs taken during my summer wanderings in the Alps in
company with Henry H. Dixon. An exception is Plate X, which is by
the late Dr. Edward Stapleton. From what has been said above, it
will be gathered that these illustrations are fitly included
among pages which owe so much to Alpine inspiration. They
illustrate the

subjects dealt with, and, it is to be hoped, they will in some
cases recall to the reader scenes which have in past times
influenced his thoughts in the same manner; scenes which in their
endless perspective seem to reduce to their proper insignificance
the lesser things of life.

My thanks are due to Mr. John Murray for kindly consenting to the
reissue of the essay on _The Birth-time of the World_ from the
pages of _Science Progress_; to Messrs. Constable & Co. for leave
to reprint _Pleochroic Haloes_ from _Bedrock_, and also to make some
extracts from _Radioactivity and Geology_; and to the Council of
the Royal Dublin Society for permission to republish certain
papers from the Proceedings of the Society.

_Iveagh Geological Laboratory, Trinity College, Dublin._

July, 1915.

xvi

THE BIRTH-TIME OF THE WORLD [1]

LONG ago Lucretius wrote: "For lack of power to solve the
question troubles the mind with doubts, whether there was ever a
birth-time of the world and whether likewise there is to be any
end." "And if" (he says in answer) "there was no birth-time of
earth and heaven and they have been from everlasting, why before
the Theban war and the destruction of Troy have not other poets
as well sung other themes? Whither have so many deeds of men so
often passed away, why live they nowhere embodied in lasting
records of fame? The truth methinks is that the sum has but a
recent date, and the nature of the world is new and has but
lately had its commencement."[2]

Thus spake Lucretius nearly 2,000 years ago. Since then we have
attained another standpoint and found very different limitations.
To Lucretius the world commenced with man, and the answer he
would give to his questions was in accord with his philosophy: he
would date the birth-time of the world from the time when

[1] A lecture delivered before the Royal Dublin Society, February
6th, 1914. _Science Progress_, vol. ix., p. 37

[2] _De Rerum Natura_, translated by H. A. J. Munro (Cambridge,
1886).

poets first sang upon the earth. Modern Science has along with
the theory that the Earth dated its beginning with the advent of
man, swept utterly away this beautiful imagining. We can, indeed,
find no beginning of the world. We trace back events and come to
barriers which close our vista--barriers which, for all we know,
may for ever close it. They stand like the gates of ivory and of
horn; portals from which only dreams proceed; and Science cannot
as yet say of this or that dream if it proceeds from the gate of
horn or from that of ivory.

In short, of the Earth's origin we have no certain knowledge; nor
can we assign any date to it. Possibly its formation was an event
so gradual that the beginning was spread over immense periods. We
can only trace the history back to certain events which may with
considerable certainty be regarded as ushering in our geological
era.

Notwithstanding our limitations, the date of the birth-time of
our geological era is the most important date in Science. For in
taking into our minds the spacious history of the universe, the
world's age must play the part of time-unit upon which all our
conceptions depend. If we date the geological history of the
Earth by thousands of years, as did our forerunners, we must
shape our ideas of planetary time accordingly; and the duration
of our solar system, and of the heavens, becomes comparable with
that of the dynasties of ancient nations. If by millions of
years, the sun and stars are proportionately venerable. If by
hundreds or thousands of millions of

years the human mind must consent to correspondingly vast epochs
for the duration of material changes. The geological age plays
the same part in our views of the duration of the universe as the
Earth's orbital radius does in our views of the immensity of
space. Lucretius knew nothing of our time-unit: his unit was the
life of a man. So also he knew nothing of our space-unit, and he
marvels that so small a body as the sun can shed so much, heat
and light upon the Earth.

A study of the rocks shows us that the world was not always what
it now is and long has been. We live in an epoch of denudation.
The rains and frosts disintegrate the hills; and the rivers roll
to the sea the finely divided particles into which they have been
resolved; as well as the salts which have been leached from them.
The sediments collect near the coasts of the continents; the
dissolved matter mingles with the general ocean. The geologist
has measured and mapped these deposits and traced them back into
the past, layer by layer. He finds them ever the same;
sandstones, slates, limestones, etc. But one thing is not the
same. _Life_ grows ever less diversified in character as the
sediments are traced downwards. Mammals and birds, reptiles,
amphibians, fishes, die out successively in the past; and barren
sediments ultimately succeed, leaving the first beginnings of
life undecipherable. Beneath these barren sediments lie rocks
collectively differing in character from those above: mainly
volcanic or poured out from fissures in

the early crust of the Earth. Sediments are scarce among these
materials.[1]

There can be little doubt that in this underlying floor of
igneous and metamorphic rocks we have reached those surface
materials of the earth which existed before the long epoch of
sedimentation began, and before the seas came into being. They
formed the floor of a vaporised ocean upon which the waters
condensed here and there from the hot and heavy atmosphere. Such
were the probable conditions which preceded the birth-time of the
ocean and of our era of life and its evolution.

It is from this epoch we date our geological age. Our next
purpose is to consider how long ago, measured in years, that
birth-time was.

That the geological age of the Earth is very great appears from
what we have already reviewed. The sediments of the past are many
miles in collective thickness: yet the feeble silt of the rivers
built them all from base to summit. They have been uplifted from
the seas and piled into mountains by movements so slow that
during all the time man has been upon the Earth but little change
would have been visible. The mountains have again been worn down
into the ocean by denudation and again younger mountains built
out of their redeposited materials. The contemplation of such
vast events

[1] For a description of these early rocks, see especially the
monograph of Van Hise and Leith on the pre-Cambrian Geology of
North America (Bulletin 360, U.S. Geol. Survey).

prepares our minds to accept many scores of millions of years or
hundreds of millions of years, if such be yielded by our
calculations.

THE AGE AS INFERRED FROM THE THICKNESS OF THE SEDIMENTS

The earliest recognised method of arriving at an estimate of the
Earth's geological age is based upon the measurement of the
collective sediments of geological periods. The method has
undergone much revision from time to time. Let us briefly review
it on the latest data.

The method consists in measuring the depths of all the successive
sedimentary deposits where these are best developed. We go all
over the explored world, recognising the successive deposits by
their fossils and by their stratigraphical relations, measuring
their thickness and selecting as part of the data required those
beds which we believe to most completely represent each
formation. The total of these measurements would tell us the age
of the Earth if their tale was indeed complete, and if we knew
the average rate at which they have been deposited. We soon,
however, find difficulties in arriving at the quantities we
require. Thus it is not easy to measure the real thickness of a
deposit. It may be folded back upon itself, and so we may measure
it twice over. We may exaggerate its thickness by measuring it
not quite straight across the bedding or by unwittingly including
volcanic materials. On the other hand, there

may be deposits which are inaccessible to us; or, again, an
entire absence of deposits; either because not laid down in the
areas we examine, or, if laid down, again washed into the sea.
These sources of error in part neutralise one another. Some make
our resulting age too long, others make it out too short. But we
do not know if a balance of error does not still remain. Here,
however, is a table of deposits which summarises a great deal of
our knowledge of the thickness of the stratigraphical
accumulations. It is due to Sollas.[1]

Feet.

Recent and Pleistocene - - 4,000
Pliocene - - 13,000
Miocene - - 14,000
Oligocene - - 2,000
Eocene - - 20,000
63,000

Upper Cretaceous - - 24,000
Lower Cretaceous - - 20,000
Jurassic - - 8,000
Trias - - 7,000
69,000

Permian - - 2,000
Carboniferous - - 29,000
Devonian - - 22,000
63,000

Silurian - - 15,000
Ordovician - - 17,000
Cambrian - - 6,000
58,000

Algonkian--Keeweenawan - - 50,000
Algonkian--Animikian - - 14,000
Algonkian--Huronian - - 18,000
82,000

Archæan - - ?

Total - - 335,000 feet.

[1] Address to the Geol. Soc. of London, 1509.

In the next place we require to know the average rate at which
these rocks were laid down. This is really the weakest link in
the chain. The most diverse results have been arrived at, which
space does not permit us to consider. The value required is most
difficult to determine, for it is different for the different
classes of material, and varies from river to river according to
the conditions of discharge to the sea. We may probably take it
as between two and six inches in a century.

Now the total depth of the sediments as we see is about 335,000
feet (or 64 miles), and if we take the rate of collecting as
three inches in a hundred years we get the time for all to
collect as 134 millions of years. If the rate be four inches, the
time is soo millions of years, which is the figure Geikie
favoured, although his result was based on somewhat different
data. Sollas most recently finds 80 millions of years.[1]

THE AGE AS INFERRED FROM THE MASS OF THE SEDIMENTS

In the above method we obtain our result by the measurement of
the linear dimensions of the sediments. These measurements, as we
have seen, are difficult to arrive at. We may, however, proceed
by measurements of the mass of the sediments, and then the method
becomes more definite. The new method is pursued as follows:

[1] Geikie, _Text Book of Geology_ (Macmillan, 1903), vol. i., p.
73, _et seq._ Sollas, _loc. cit._ Joly, _Radioactivity and Geology_
(Constable, 1909), and Phil. Mag., Sept. 1911.

The total mass of the sediments formed since denudation began may
be ascertained with comparative accuracy by a study of the
chemical composition of the waters of the ocean. The salts in the
ocean are undoubtedly derived from the rocks; increasing age by
age as the latter are degraded from their original character
under the action of the weather, etc., and converted to the
sedimentary form. By comparing the average chemical composition
of these two classes of material--the primary or igneous rocks and
the sedimentary--it is easy to arrive at a knowledge of how much
of this or that constituent was given to the ocean by each ton of
primary rock which was denuded to the sedimentary form. This,
however, will not assist us to our object unless the ocean has
retained the salts shed into it. It has not generally done so. In
the case of every substance but one the ocean continually gives
up again more or less of the salts supplied to it by the rivers.
The one exception is the element sodium. The great solubility of
its salts has protected it from abstraction, and it has gone on
collecting during geological time, practically in its entirety.
This gives us the clue to the denudative history of the
Earth.[1]

The process is now simple. We estimate by chemical examination of
igneous and sedimentary rocks the amount of sodium which has been
supplied to the ocean per ton of sediment produced by denudation.
We also calculate

[1] _Trans. R.D.S._, May, 1899.

the amount of sodium contained in the ocean. We divide the one
into the other (stated, of course, in the same units of mass),
and the quotient gives us the number of tons of sediment. The
most recent estimate of the sediments made in this manner affords
56 x 1016 tonnes.[1]

Now we are assured that all this sediment was transported by the
rivers to the sea during geological time. Thus it follows that,
if we can estimate the average annual rate of the river supply of
sediments to the ocean over the past, we can calculate the
required age. The land surface is at present largely covered with
the sedimentary rocks themselves. Sediment derived from these
rocks must be regarded as, for the most part, purely cyclical;
that is, circulating from the sea to the land and back again. It
does not go to increase the great body of detrital deposits. We
cannot, therefore, take the present river supply of sediment as
representing that obtaining over the long past. If the land was
all covered still with primary rocks we might do so. It has been
estimated that about 25 per cent. of the existing continental
area is covered with archæan and igneous rocks, the remainder
being sediments.[2] On this estimate we may find valuable

[1] Clarke, _A Preliminary Study of Chemical Denudation_
(Washington, 1910). My own estimate in 1899 (_loc. cit._) made as a
test of yet another method of finding the age, showed that the
sediments may be taken as sufficient to form a layer 1.1 mile
deep if spread uniformly over the continents; and would amount to
64 x 1018 tons.

[2] Van Tillo, _Comptes Rendues_ (Paris), vol. cxiv., 1892.

major and minor limits to the geological age. If we take 25 per
cent. only of the present river supply of sediment, we evidently
fix a major limit to the age, for it is certain that over the
past there must have been on the average a faster supply. If we
take the entire river supply, on similar reasoning we have what
is undoubtedly a minor limit to the age.

The river supply of detrital sediment has not been very
extensively investigated, although the quantities involved may be
found with comparative ease and accuracy. The following table
embodies the results obtained for some of the leading rivers.[1]

Mean annual Total annual Ratio of
discharge in sediment in sediment
cubic feet thousands to water
per second. of tons. by weight.

Potomac - 20,160 5,557 1 : 3.575
Mississippi - 610,000 406,250 1 : 1,500
Rio Grande - 1,700 3,830 1 : 291
Uruguay - 150,000 14,782 1 : 10,000
Rhone - 65,850 36,000 1 : 1,775
Po - 62,200 67,000 1 : 900
Danube - 315,200 108,000 1 : 2,880
Nile - 113,000 54,000 1 : 2,050
Irrawaddy - 475,000 291,430 1 : 1,610

Mean - 201,468 109,650 1 : 2,731

We see that the ratio of the weight of water to the

[1] Russell, _River Development_ (John Murray, 1888).

weight of transported sediment in six out of the nine rivers does
not vary widely. The mean is 2,730 to 1. But this is not the
required average. The water-discharge of each river has to be
taken into account. If we ascribe to the ratio given for each
river the weight proper to the amount of water it discharges, the
proportion of weight of water to weight of sediment, for the
whole quantity of water involved, comes out as 2,520 to 1.

Now if this proportion holds for all the rivers of the
world--which collectively discharge about 27 x 1012 tonnes of
water per annum--the river-born detritus is 1.07 x 1010 tonnes. To
this an addition of 11 per cent. has to be made for silt pushed
along the river-bed.[1] On these figures the minor limit to the
age comes out as 47 millions of years, and the major limit as 188
millions. We are here going on rather deficient estimates, the
rivers involved representing only some 6 per cent. of the total
river supply of water to the ocean. But the result is probably
not very far out.

We may arrive at a probable age lying between the major and minor
limits. If, first, we take the arithmetic mean of these limits,
we get 117 millions of years. Now this is almost certainly
excessive, for we here assume that the rate of covering of the
primary rocks by sediments was uniform. It would not be so,
however, for the rate of supply of original sediment must have
been continually diminishing

[1] According to observations made on the Mississippi (Russell,
_loc. cit._).

during geological time, and hence we may assume that the rate of
advance of the sediments on the primary rocks has also been
diminishing. Now we may probably take, as a fair assumption, that
the sediment-covered area was at any instant increasing at a rate
proportionate to the rate of supply of sediment; that is, to the
area of primary rocks then exposed. On this assumption the age is
found to be 87 millions of years.

THE AGE BY THE SODIUM OF THE OCEAN

I have next to lay before you a quite different method. I have
already touched upon the chemistry of the ocean, and on the
remarkable fact that the sodium contained in it has been
preserved, practically, in its entirety from the beginning of
geological time.

That the sea is one of the most beautiful and magnificent sights
in Nature, all admit. But, I think, to those who know its story
its beauty and magnificence are ten-fold increased. Its saltness
it due to no magic mill. It is the dissolved rocks of the Earth
which give it at once its brine, its strength, and its buoyancy.
The rivers which we say flow with "fresh" water to the sea
nevertheless contain those traces of salt which, collected over
the long ages, occasion the saltness of the ocean. Each gallon of
river water contributes to the final result; and this has been
going on since the beginning of our era. The mighty total of the
rivers is 6,500 cubic miles of water in the year!

There is little doubt that the primeval ocean was in the
condition of a fresh-water lake. It can be shown that a primitive
and more rapid solution of the original crust of the Earth by the
slowly cooling ocean would have given rise to relatively small
salinity. The fact is, the quantity of salts in the ocean is
enormous. We are only now concerned with the sodium; but if we
could extract all the rock-salt (the chloride of sodium) from the
ocean we should have enough to cover the entire dry land of the
Earth to a depth of 400 feet. It is this gigantic quantity which
is going to enter into our estimate of the Earth's age. The
calculated mass of sodium contained in this rock-salt is 14,130
million million tonnes.

If now we can determine the rate at which the rivers supply
sodium to the ocean, we can determine the age.[1] As the result
of many thousands of river analyses, the total amount of sodium
annually discharged to the ocean

[1] _Trans. R.D.S._, 1899. A paper by Edmund Halley, the
astronomer, in the _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society_ for 1715, contains a suggestion for finding the age of
the world by the following procedure. He proposes to make
observations on the saltness of the seas and ocean at intervals
of one or more centuries, and from the increment of saltness
arrive at their age. The measurements, as a matter of fact, are
impracticable. The salinity would only gain (if all remained in
solution) one millionth part in Too years; and, of course, the
continuous rejection of salts by the ocean would invalidate the
method. The last objection also invalidates the calculation by T.
Mellard Reade (_Proc. Liverpool Geol. Soc._, 1876) of a minor limit
to the age by the calcium sulphate in the ocean. Both papers were
quite unknown to me when working out my method. Halley's paper
was, I think, only brought to light in 1908.

by all the rivers of the world is found to be probably not far
from 175 million tonnes.[1] Dividing this into the mass of
oceanic sodium we get the age as 80.7 millions of years. Certain
corrections have to be applied to this figure which result in
raising it to a little over 90 millions of years. Sollas, as the
result of a careful review of the data, gets the age as between
80 and 150 millions of years. My own result[2] was between 80 and
90 millions of years; but I subsequently found that upon certain
extreme assumptions a maximum age might be arrived at of 105
millions of years.[3] Clarke regards the 80.7 millions of years
as certainly a maximum in the light of certain calculations by
Becker.[4]

The order of magnitude of these results cannot be shaken unless
on the assumption that there is something entirely misleading in
the existing rate of solvent denudation. On the strength of the
results of another and

[1] F. W. Clarke, _A Preliminary Study of Chemical Denudation_
(Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 1910).

[2] _Loc. cit._

[3] "The Circulation of Salt and Geological Time" (Geol. Mag.,
1901, p. 350).

[4] Becker (loc. cit.), assuming that the exposed igneous and
archæan rocks alone are responsible for the supply of sodium to
the ocean, arrives at 74 millions of years as the geological age.
This matter was discussed by me formerly (Trans. R.D.S., 1899,
pp. 54 _et seq._). The assumption made is, I believe, inadmissible.
It is not supported by river analyses, or by the chemical
character of residual soils from sedimentary rocks. There may be
some convergence in the rate of solvent denudation, but--as I
think on the evidence--in our time unimportant.

entirely different method of approaching the question of the
Earth's age (which shall be presently referred to), it has been
contended that it is too low. It is even asserted that it is from
nine to fourteen times too low. We have then to consider whether
such an enormous error can enter into the method. The
measurements involved cannot be seriously impugned. Corrections
for possible errors applied to the quantities entering into this
method have been considered by various writers. My own original
corrections have been generally confirmed. I think the only point
left open for discussion is the principle of uniformitarianism
involved in this method and in the methods previously discussed.

In order to appreciate the force of the evidence for uniformity
in the geological history of the Earth, it is, of course,
necessary to possess some acquaintance with geological science.
Some of the most eminent geologists, among whom Lyell and
Geikie[1] may be mentioned, have upheld the doctrine of
uniformity. It must here suffice to dwell upon a few points
having special reference to the matter under discussion.

The mere extent of the land surface does not, within limits,
affect the question of the rate of denudation. This arises from
the fact that the rain supply is quite insufficient to denude the
whole existing land surface. About 30 per cent. of it does not,
in fact, drain to the

[1] See especially Geikie's Address to Sect. C., Brit. Assoc.
Rep., 1399.

ocean. If the continents become invaded by a great transgression
of the ocean, this "rainless" area diminishes: and the denuded
area advances inwards without diminution. If the ocean recedes
from the present strand lines, the "rainless" area advances
outwards, but, the rain supply being sensibly constant, no change
in the river supply of salts is to be expected.

Age-long submergence of the entire land, or of any very large
proportion of what now exists, is negatived by the continuous
sequence of vast areas of sediment in every geologic age from the
earliest times. Now sediment-receiving areas always are but a
small fraction of those exposed areas whence the sediments are
supplied.[1] Hence in the continuous records of the sediments we
have assurance of the continuous exposure of the continents above
the ocean surface. The doctrine of the permanency of the
continents has in its main features been accepted by the most
eminent authorities. As to the actual amount of land which was
exposed during past times to denudative effects, no data exist to
show it was very different from what is now exposed. It has been
estimated that the average area of the North American continent
over geologic time was about eight-tenths of its existing
area.[2] Restorations of other continents, so far as they have
been attempted, would not

[1] On the strength of the Mississippi measurements about 1 to 18
(Magee, _Am. Jour. of Sc._, 1892, p. 188).

[2] Schuchert, _Bull. Geol. Soc. Am._, vol. xx., 1910.

suggest any more serious divergency one way or the other.

That climate in the oceans and upon the land was throughout much
as it is now, the continuous chain of teeming life and the
sensitive temperature limits of protoplasmic existence are
sufficient evidence.[1] The influence at once of climate and of
elevation of the land may be appraised at their true value by the
ascertained facts of solvent denudation, as the following table
shows.

Tonnes removed in Mean elevation.
solution per square Metres.
mile per annum.
North America - 79 700
South America - 50 650
Europe - 100 300
Asia - 84 950
Africa - 44 650

In this table the estimated number of tonnes of matter in
solution, which for every square mile of area the rivers convey
to the ocean in one year, is given in the first column. These
results are compiled by Clarke from a very large number of
analyses of river waters. The second column of the table gives
the mean heights in metres above sea level of the several
continents, as cited by Arrhenius.[2]

Of all the denudation results given in the table, those relating
to North America and to Europe are far the

[1] See also Poulton, Address to Sect. D., Brit. Assoc. Rep.,
1896.

[2] _Lehybuch dev Kosmischen Physik_, vol. i., p. 347.

most reliable. Indeed these may be described as highly reliable,
being founded on some thousands of analyses, many of which have
been systematically pursued through every season of the year.
These show that Europe with a mean altitude of less than half
that of North America sheds to the ocean 25 per cent. more salts.
A result which is to be expected when the more important factors
of solvent denudation are given intelligent consideration and we
discriminate between conditions favouring solvent and detrital
denudation respectively: conditions in many cases
antagonistic.[1] Hence if it is true, as has been stated, that we
now live in a period of exceptionally high continental elevation,
we must infer that the average supply of salts to the ocean by
the rivers of the world is less than over the long past, and
that, therefore, our estimate of the age of the Earth as already
given is excessive.

There is, however, one condition which will operate to unduly
diminish our estimate of geologic time, and it is a condition
which may possibly obtain at the present time. If the land is, on
the whole, now sinking relatively to the ocean level, the
denudation area tends, as we have seen, to move inwards. It will
thus encroach upon regions which have not for long periods
drained to the ocean. On such areas there is an accumulation of
soluble salts which the deficient rivers have not been able to
carry to the ocean. Thus the salt content of certain of

[1] See the essay on Denudation.

the rivers draining to the ocean will be influenced not only by
present denudative effects, but also by the stored results of
past effects. Certain rivers appear to reveal this unduly
increased salt supply those which flow through comparatively arid
areas. However, the flowoff of such tributaries is relatively
small and the final effects on the great rivers apparently
unimportant--a result which might have been anticipated when the
extremely slow rate of the land movements is taken into account.

The difficulty of effecting any reconciliation of the methods
already described and that now to be given increases the interest
both of the former and the latter.

THE AGE BY RADIOACTIVE TRANSFORMATIONS

Rutherford suggested in 1905 that as helium was continually being
evolved at a uniform rate by radioactive substances (in the form
of the alpha rays) a determination of the age of minerals
containing the radioactive elements might be made by measurements
of the amount of the stored helium and of the radioactive
elements giving rise to it, The parent radioactive substances
are--according to present knowledge--uranium and thorium. An
estimate of the amounts of these elements present enables the
rate of production of the helium to be calculated. Rutherford
shortly afterwards found by this method an age of 240 millions of
years for a radioactive mineral of presumably remote age. Strutt,
who carried

his measurements to a wonderful degree of refinement, found the
following ages for mineral substances originating in different
geological ages:

Oligocene - 8.4 millions of years.
Eocene - 31 millions of years.
Lower Carboniferous - 150 millions of years.
Archæan - 750 millions of years.

Periods of time much less than, and very inconsistent with, these
were also found. The lower results are, however, easily explained
if we assume that the helium--which is a gas under prevailing
conditions--escapes in many cases slowly from the mineral.

Another product of radioactive origin is lead. The suggestion
that this substance might be made available to determine the age
of the Earth also originated with Rutherford. We are at least
assured that this element cannot escape by gaseous diffusion from
the minerals. Boltwood's results on the amount of lead contained
in minerals of various ages, taken in conjunction with the amount
of uranium or parent substance present, afforded ages rising to
1,640 millions of years for archæan and 1,200 millions for
Algonkian time. Becker, applying the same method, obtained
results rising to quite incredible periods: from 1,671 to 11,470
millions of years. Becker maintained that original lead rendered
the determinations indefinite. The more recent results of Mr. A.
Holmes support the conclusion that "original" lead may be present
and may completely falsify results derived

from minerals of low radioactivity in which the derived lead
would be small in amount. By rejecting such results as appeared
to be of this character, he arrives at 370 millions of years as
the age of the Devonian.

I must now describe a very recent method of estimating the age of
the Earth. There are, in certain rock-forming minerals,
colour-changes set up by radioactive causes. The minute and
curious marks so produced are known as haloes; for they surround,
in ringlike forms, minute particles of included substances which
contain radioactive elements. It is now well known how these
haloes are formed. The particle in the centre of the halo
contains uranium or thorium, and, necessarily, along with the
parent substance, the various elements derived from it. In the
process of transformation giving rise to these several derived
substances, atoms of helium--the alpha rays--projected with great
velocity into the surrounding mineral, occasion the colour
changes referred to. These changes are limited to the distance to
which the alpha rays penetrate; hence the halo is a spherical
volume surrounding the central substance.[1]

The time required to form a halo could be found if on the one
hand we could ascertain the number of alpha rays ejected from the
nucleus of the halo in, say, one year, and, on the other, if we
determined by experiment just how many alpha rays were required
to produce the same

[1] _Phil. Mag._, March, 1907 and February, 1910; also _Bedrock_,
January, 1913. See _Pleochroic Haloes_ in this volume.

amount of colour alteration as we perceive to extend around the
nucleus.

The latter estimate is fairly easily and surely made. But to know
the number of rays leaving the central particle in unit time we
require to know the quantity of radioactive material in the
nucleus. This cannot be directly determined. We can only, from
known results obtained with larger specimens of just such a
mineral substance as composes the nucleus, guess at the amount of
uranium, or it may be thorium, which may be present.

This method has been applied to the uranium haloes of the mica of
County Carlow.[1] Results for the age of the halo of from 20 to
400 millions of years have been obtained. This mica was probably
formed in the granite of Leinster in late Silurian or in Devonian
times.

The higher results are probably the least in error, upon the data
involved; for the assumption made as to the amount of uranium in
the nuclei of the haloes was such as to render the higher results
the more reliable.

This method is, of course, a radioactive method, and similar to
the method by helium storage, save that it is free of the risk of
error by escape of the helium, the effects of which are, as it
were, registered at the moment of its production, so that its
subsequent escape is of no moment.

[1] Joly and Rutherford, _Phil. Mag._, April, 1913.

REVIEW OF THE RESULTS

We shall now briefly review the results on the geological age of
the Earth.

By methods based on the approximate uniformity of denudative
effects in the past, a period of the order of 100 millions of
years has been obtained as the duration of our geological age;
and consistently whether we accept for measurement the sediments
or the dissolved sodium. We can give reasons why these
measurements might afford too great an age, but we can find
absolutely no good reason why they should give one much too low.

By measuring radioactive products ages have been found which,
while they vary widely among themselves, yet claim to possess
accuracy in their superior limits, and exceed those derived from
denudation from nine to fourteen times.

In this difficulty let us consider the claims of the radioactive
method in any of its forms. In order to be trustworthy it must be
true; (1) that the rate of transformation now shown by the parent
substance has obtained throughout the entire past, and (2) that
there were no other radioactive substances, either now or
formerly existing, except uranium, which gave rise to lead. As
regards methods based on the production of helium, what we have
to say will largely apply to it also. If some unknown source of
these elements exists we, of course, on our assumption
overestimate the age.

As regards the first point: In ascribing a constant rate of
change to the parent substance--which Becker (loc. cit.) describes
as "a simple though tremendous extrapolation"--we reason upon
analogy with the constant rate of decay observed in the derived
radioactive bodies. If uranium and thorium are really primary
elements, however, the analogy relied on may be misleading; at
least, it is obviously incomplete. It is incomplete in a
particular which may be very important: the mode of origin of
these parent bodies--whatever it may have been--is different to
that of the secondary elements with which we compare them. A
convergence in their rate of transformation is not impossible, or
even improbable, so far as we known.

As regards the second point: It is assumed that uranium alone of
the elements in radioactive minerals is ultimately transformed to
lead by radioactive changes. We must consider this assumption.

Recent advances in the chemistry of the radioactive elements has
brought out evidence that all three lines of radioactive descent
known to us--_i.e._ those beginning with uranium, with thorium,
and with actinium--alike converge to lead.[1] There are
difficulties in the way of believing that all the lead-like atoms
so produced ("isotopes" of lead, as Soddy proposes to call them)
actually remain as stable lead in the minerals. For one

[1] See Soddy's _Chemistry of the Radioactive Elements_ (Longmans,
Green & Co.).

thing there is sometimes, along with very large amounts of
thorium, an almost entire absence of lead in thorianites and
thorites. And in some urano--thorites the lead may be noticed to
follow the uranium in approximate proportionality,
notwithstanding the presence of large amounts of thorium.[1] This
is in favour of the assumption that all the lead present is
derived from the uranium. The actinium is present in negligibly
small amounts.

On the other hand, there is evidence arising from the atomic
weight of lead which seems to involve some other parent than
uranium. Soddy, in the work referred to, points this out. The
atomic weight of radium is well known, and uranium in its descent
has to change to this element. The loss of mass between radium
and uranium-derived lead can be accurately estimated by the
number of alpha rays given off. From this we get the atomic
weight of uranium-derived lead as closely 206. Now the best
determinations of the atomic weight of normal lead assign to this
element an atomic weight of closely

[1] It seems very difficult at present to suggest an end product
for thorium, unless we assume that, by loss of electrons, thorium
E, or thorium-lead, reverts to a substance chemically identical
with thorium itself. Such a change--whether considered from the
point of view of the periodic law or of the radioactive theory
would involve many interesting consequences. It is, of course,
quite possible that the nature of the conditions attending the
deposition of the uranium ores, many of which are comparatively
recent, are responsible for the difficulties observed. The
thorium and uranium ores are, again, specially prone to
alteration.

207. By a somewhat similar calculation it is deduced that
thorium-derived lead would possess the atomic weight of 208. Thus
normal lead might be an admixture of uranium- and thorium-derived
lead. However, as we have seen, the view that thorium gives rise
to stable lead is beset with some difficulties.

If we are going upon reliable facts and figures, we must, then,
assume: (a) That some other element than uranium, and genetically
connected with it (probably as parent substance), gives rise, or
formerly gave rise, to lead of heavier atomic weight than normal
lead. It may be observed respecting this theory that there is
some support for the view that a parent substance both to uranium
and thorium has existed or possibly exists. The evidence is found
in the proportionality frequently observed between the amounts of
thorium and uranium in the primary rocks.[1] Or: (b) We may meet
the difficulties in a simpler way, which may be stated as
follows: If we assume that all stable lead is derived from
uranium, and at the same time recognise that lead is not
perfectly homogeneous in atomic weight, we must, of necessity,
ascribe to uranium a similar want of homogeneity; heavy atoms of
uranium giving rise to heavy

[1] Compare results for the thorium content of such rocks
(appearing in a paper by the author Cong. Int. _de Radiologie et
d'Electricité_, vol. i., 1910, p. 373), and those for the radium
content, as collected in _Phil. Mag._, October, 1912, p. 697.
Also A. L. Fletcher, _Phil. Mag._, July, 1910; January, 1911, and
June, 1911. J. H. J. Poole, _Phil. Mag._, April, 1915

atoms of lead and light atoms of uranium generating light atoms
of lead. This assumption seems to be involved in the figures
upon, which we are going. Still relying on these figures, we
find, however, that existing uranium cannot give rise to lead of
normal atomic weight. We can only conclude that the heavier atoms
of uranium have decayed more rapidly than the lighter ones. In
this connection it is of interest to note the complexity of
uranium as recently established by Geiger, although in this case
it is assumed that the shorter-lived isotope bears the relation
of offspring to the longer-lived and largely preponderating
constituent. However, there does not seem to be any direct proof
of this as yet.

From these considerations it would seem that unless the atomic
weight of lead in uraninites, etc., is 206, the former complexity
and more accelerated decay of uranium are indicated in the data
respecting the atomic weights of radium and lead[1]. As an
alternative view, we may assume, as in our first hypothesis, that
some elementally different but genetically connected substance,
decaying along branching lines of descent at a rate sufficient to
practically remove the whole of it during geological time,
formerly existed. Whichever hypothesis we adopt

[1] Later investigation has shown that the atomic weight of lead
in uranium-bearing ores is about 206.6 (see Richards and Lembert,
_Journ. of Am. Claem. Soc._, July, 1914). This result gives support
to the view expressed above.

we are confronted by probabilities which invalidate
time-measurements based on the lead and helium ratio in minerals.
We have, in short, grave reason to question the measure of
uniformitarianism postulated in finding the age by any of the
known radioactive methods.

That we have much to learn respecting our assumptions, whether we
pursue the geological or the radioactive methods of approaching
the age of our era, is, indeed, probable. Whatever the issue it
is certain that the reconciling facts will leave us with much
more light than we at present possess either as respects the
Earth's history or the history of the radioactive elements. With
this necessary admission we leave our study of the Birth-Time of
the World.

It has led us a long way from Lucretius. We do not ask if other
Iliads have perished; or if poets before Homer have vainly sung,
becoming a prey to all-consuming time. We move in a greater
history, the landmarks of which are not the birth and death of
kings and poets, but of species, genera, orders. And we set out
these organic events not according to the passing generations of
man, but over scores or hundreds of millions of years.

How much Lucretius has lost, and how much we have gained, is
bound up with the question of the intrinsic value of knowledge
and great ideas. Let us appraise knowledge as we would the
Homeric poems, as some-

thing which ennobles life and makes it happier. Well, then, we
are, as I think, in possession today of some of those lost Iliads
and Odysseys for which Lucretius looked in vain.[1]

[1] The duration in the past of Solar heat is necessarily bound
up with the geological age. There is no known means (outside
speculative science) of accounting for more than about 30 million
years of the existing solar temperature in the past. In this
direction the age seems certainly limited to 100 million years.
See a review of the question by Dr. Lindemann in Nature, April
5th, 1915.

DENUDATION

THE subject of denudation is at once one of the most interesting
and one of the most complicated with which the geologist has to
deal. While its great results are apparent even to the most
casual observer, the factors which have led to these results are
in many cases so indeterminate, and in some cases apparently so
variable in influence, that thoughtful writers have even claimed
precisely opposite effects as originating from, the same cause.
Indeed, it is almost impossible to deal with the subject without
entering upon controversial matters. In the following pages I
shall endeavour to keep to broad issues which are, at the present
day, either conceded by the greater number of authorities on the
subject, or are, from their strictly quantitative character, not
open to controversy.

It is evident, in the first place, that denudation--or the wearing
away of the land surfaces of the earth--is mainly a result of the
circulation of water from the ocean to the land, and back again
to the ocean. An action entirely conditioned by solar heat, and
without which it would completely cease and further change upon
the land come to an end.

To what actions, then, is so great a potency of the

circulating water to be traced? Broadly speaking, we may classify
them as mechanical and chemical. The first involves the
separation of rock masses into smaller fragments of all sizes,
down to the finest dust. The second involves the actual solution
in the water of the rock constituents, which may be regarded as
the final act of disintegration. The rivers bear the burden both
of the comminuted and the dissolved materials to the sea. The mud
and sand carried by their currents, or gradually pushed along
their beds, represent the former; the invisible dissolved matter,
only to be demonstrated to the eye by evaporation of the water or
by chemical precipitation, represents the latter.

The results of these actions, integrated over geological time,
are enormous. The entire bulk of the sedimentary rocks, such as
sandstones, slates, shales, conglomerates, limestones, etc., and
the salt content of the ocean, are due to the combined activity
of mechanical and solvent denudation. We shall, later on, make an
estimate of the magnitude of the quantities actually involved.

In the Swiss valleys we see torrents of muddy water hurrying
along, and if we follow them up, we trace them to glaciers high
among the mountains. From beneath the foot of the glacier, we
find, the torrent has birth. The first debris given to the river
is derived from the wearing of the rocky bed along which the
glacier moves. The river of ice bequeaths to the river of
water--of which it is the parent--the spoils which it has won from
the rocks

The work of mechanical disintegration is, however, not restricted
to the glacier's bed. It proceeds everywhere over the surface of
the rocks. It is aided by the most diverse actions. For instance,
the freezing and expansion of water in the chinks and cracks in
those alpine heights where between sunrise and sunset the heat of
summer reigns, and between sunset and sunrise the cold of winter.
Again, under these conditions the mere change of surface
temperature from night to day severely stresses the surface
layers of the rocks, and, on the same principles as we explain
the fracture of an unequally heated glass vessel, the rocks
cleave off in slabs which slip down the steeps of the mountain
and collect as screes in the valley. At lower levels the
expansive force of vegetable growth is not unimportant, as all
will admit who have seen the strong roots of the pines
penetrating the crannies of the rocks. Nor does the river which
flows in the bed of the valley act as a carrier only. Listening
carefully we may detect beneath the roar of the alpine torrent
the crunching and knocking of descending boulders. And in the
potholes scooped by its whirling waters we recognise the abrasive
action of the suspended sand upon the river bed.

A view from an Alpine summit reveals a scene of remarkable
desolation (Pl. V, p. 40). Screes lie piled against the steep
slopes. Cliffs stand shattered and ready to fall in ruins. And
here the forces at work readily reveal themselves. An occasional
wreath of white smoke among

the far-off peaks, followed by a rumbling reverberation, marks
the fall of an avalanche. Water everywhere trickles through the
shaly _débris_ scattered around. In the full sunshine the rocks are
almost too hot to bear touching. A few hours later the cold is
deadly, and all becomes a frozen silence. In such scenes of
desolation and destruction, detrital sediments are actively being
generated. As we descend into the valley we hear the deep voice
of the torrents which are continually hurrying the disintegrated
rocks to the ocean.

A remarkable demonstration of the activity of mechanical
denudation is shown by the phenomenon of "earth pillars." The
photograph (Pl. IV.) of the earth pillars of the Val d'Hérens
(Switzerland) shows the peculiar appearance these objects
present. They arise under conditions where large stones or
boulders are scattered in a deep deposit of clay, and where much
of the denudation is due to water scour. The large boulders not
only act as shelter against rain, but they bind and consolidate
by their mere weight the clay upon which they rest. Hence the
materials underlying the boulders become more resistant, and as
the surrounding clays are gradually washed away and carried to
the streams, these compacted parts persist, and, finally, stand
like walls or pillars above the general level. After a time the
great boulders fall off and the underlying clay becomes worn by
the rainwash to fantastic spikes and ridges. In the Val d'Hérens
the earth pillars are formed

of the deep moraine stuff which thickly overlies the slopes of
the valley. The wall of pillars runs across the axis of the
valley, down the slope of the hill, and crosses the road, so that
it has to be tunnelled to permit the passage of traffic. It is
not improbable that some additional influence--possibly the
presence of lime--has hardened the material forming the pillars,
and tended to their preservation.

Denudation has, however, other methods of work than purely
mechanical; methods more noiseless and gentle, but not less
effective, as the victories of peace ate no less than those of
war.

Over the immense tracts of the continents chemical work proceeds
relentlessly. The rock in general, more especially the primary
igneous rock, is not stable in presence of the atmosphere and of
water. Some of the minerals, such as certain silicates and
carbonates, dissolve relatively fast, others with extreme
slowness. In the process of solution chemical actions are
involved; oxidation in presence of the free oxygen of the
atmosphere; attack by the feeble acid arising from the solution
of carbon dioxide in water; or, again, by the activity of certain
acids--humous acids--which originate in the decomposition of
vegetable remains. These chemical agents may in some instances,
_e.g._ in the case of carbonates such as limestone or
dolomite--bring practically the whole rock into solution. In other
instances--_e.g._ granites, basalts, etc.--they may remove some of
the

constituent minerals completely or partially, such as felspar,
olivine, augite, and leave more resistant substances to be
ultimately washed down as fine sand or mud into the river.

It is often difficult or impossible to appraise the relative
efficiency of mechanical and chemical denudation in removing the
materials from a certain area. There can be, indeed, little doubt
that in mountainous regions the mechanical effects are largely
predominant. The silts of glacial rivers are little different
from freshly-powdered rock. The water which carries them but
little different from the pure rain or snow which falls from the
sky. There has not been time for the chemical or solvent actions
to take place. Now while gravitational forces favour sudden shock
and violent motions in the hills, the effect of these on solvent
and chemical denudation is but small. Nor is good drainage
favourable to chemical actions, for water is the primary factor
in every case. Water takes up and removes soluble combinations of
molecules, and penetrates beneath residual insoluble substances.
It carries the oxygen and acids downwards through the soils, and
finally conveys the results of its own work to the rivers and
streams. The lower mean temperature of the mountains as well as
the perfect drainage diminishes chemical activities.

Hence we conclude that the heights are not generally favourable
to the purely solvent and chemical actions. It is on the
lower-lying land that soils tend to accumulate,

and in these the chief solvent and the chief chemical denudation
of the Earth are effected.

The solvent and chemical effects which go on in the
finely-divided materials of the soils may be observed in the
laboratory. They proceed faster than would be anticipated. The
observation is made by passing a measured quantity of water
backwards and forwards for some months through a tube containing
a few grammes of powdered rock. Finally the water is analysed,
and in this manner the amount of dissolved matter it has taken up
is estimated. The rock powder is examined under the microscope in
order to determine the size of the grains, and so to calculate
the total surface exposed to the action of the water. We must be
careful in such experiments to permit free oxidation by the
atmosphere. Results obtained in this way of course take no
account of the chemical effects of organic acids such as exist in
the soils. The quantities obtained in the laboratory will,
therefore, be deficient as compared with the natural results.

In this manner it has been found that fresh basalt exposed to
continually moving water will lose about 0.20 gramme per square
metre of surface per year. The mineral orthoclase, which enters
largely into the constitution of many granites, was found to lose
under the same conditions 0.025 gramme. A glassy lava (obsidian)
rich in silica and in the chemical constituents of an average
granite, was more resistant still; losing but 0.013 gramme per
square metre per year. Hornblende, a mineral

abundant in many rocks, lost 0.075 gramme. The mean of the
results showed that 0.08 gramme was washed in a year from each
square metre. Such results give us some indication of the rate at
which the work of solution goes on in the finely divided
soils.[1]

It might be urged that, as the mechanical break up of rocks, and
the production in this way of large surfaces, must be at the
basis of solvent and chemical denudation, these latter activities
should be predominant in the mountains. The answer to this is
that the soils rarely owe their existence to mechanical actions.
The alluvium of the valleys constitutes only narrow margins to
the rivers; the finer _débris_ from the mountains is rapidly
brought into the ocean. The soils which cover the greater part of
continental areas have had a very different origin.

In any quarry where a section of the soil and of the underlying
rock is visible, we may study the mode of formation of soils. Our
observations are, we will suppose, pursued in a granite quarry.
We first note that the material of the soil nearest the surface
is intermixed with the roots of grasses, trees, or shrubs.
Examining a handful of this soil, we see glistening flakes of
mica which plainly are derived from the original granite. Washing
off the finer particles, we find the largest remaining grains are
composed of the all but indestructible quartz.

[1] Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., VIII., Ser. A, p. 21.

This also is from the granite. Some few of the grains are of
chalky-looking felspar; again a granitic mineral. What is the
finer silt we have washed off? It, too, is composed of mineral
particles to a great extent; rock dust stained with iron oxide
and intermixed with organic remains, both animal and vegetable.
But if we make a chemical analysis of the finer silt we find that
the composition is by no means that of the granite beneath. The
chemist is able to say, from a study of his results, that there
has been, in the first place, a large loss of material attending
the conversion of the granite to the soil. He finds a
concentration of certain of the more resistant substances of the
granite arising from the loss of the less resistant. Thus the
percentage amount of alumina is increased. The percentage of iron
is also increased. But silica and most other substances show a
diminished percentage. Notably lime has nearly disappeared. Soda
is much reduced; so is magnesia. Potash is not so completely
abstracted. Finally, owing to hydration, there is much more
combined water in the soil than in the rock. This is a typical
result for rocks of this kind.

Deeper in the soil we often observe a change of texture. It has
become finer, and at the same time the clay is paler in colour.
This subsoil represents the finer particles carried by rain from
above. The change of colour is due to the state of the iron which
is less oxidised low down in the soil. Beneath the subsoil the
soil grows

again coarser. Finally, we recognise in it fragments of granite
which ever grow larger as we descend, till the soil has become
replaced by the loose and shattered rock. Beneath this the only
sign of weathering apparent in the rock is the rusty hue imparted
by the oxidised iron which the percolating rain has leached from
iron-bearing minerals.

The soil we have examined has plainly been derived in situ from
the underlying rock. It represents the more insoluble residue
after water and acids have done their work. Each year there must
be a very slow sinking of the surface, but the ablation is
infinitesimal.

The depth of such a soil may be considerable. The total surface
exposed by the countless grains of which it is composed is
enormous. In a cubic foot of average soil the surface area of the
grains may be 50,000 square feet or more. Hence a soil only two
feet deep may expose 100,000 square feet for each square foot of
surface area.

It is true that soils formed in this manner by atmospheric and
organic actions take a very long time to grow. It must be
remembered, however, that the process is throughout attended by
the removal in solution: of chemically altered materials.

Considerations such as the foregoing must convince us that while
the accumulation of the detrital sediments around the continents
is largely the result of activities progressing on the steeper
slopes of the land, that is,

among the mountainous regions, the feeding of the salts to the
ocean arises from the slower work of meteorological and organic
agencies attacking the molecular constitution of the rocks;
processes which best proceed where the drainage is sluggish and
the quiescent conditions permit of the development of abundant
organic growth and decay.

Statistics of the solvent denudation of the continents support
this view. Within recent years a very large amount of work has
been expended on the chemical investigation of river waters of
America and of Europe. F. W. Clarke has, at the expense of much
labour, collected and compared these results. They are expressed
as so many tonnes removed in solution per square mile per annum.
For North America the result shows 79 tonnes so removed; for
Europe 100 tonnes. Now there is a notable difference between the
mean elevations of these two continents. North America has a mean
elevation of 700 metres over sea level, whereas the mean
elevation of Europe is but 300 metres. We see in these figures
that the more mountainous land supplies less dissolved matter to
the ocean than the land of lower elevation, as our study has led
us to expect.

We have now considered the source of the detrital sediments, as
well as of the dissolved matter which has given to the ocean, in
the course of geological time, its present gigantic load of
salts. It is true there are further solvent and chemical effects
exerted by the sea water

upon the sediments discharged into it; but we are justified in
concluding that, relatively to the similar actions taking place
in the soils, the solvent and chemical work of the ocean is
small. The fact is, the deposited detrital sediments around the
continents occupy an area small when contrasted with the vast
stretches of the land. The area of deposition is much less than
that of denudation; probably hardly as much as one twentieth.
And, again, the conditions of aeration and circulation which
largely promote chemical and solvent denudation in the soils are
relatively limited and ineffective in the detrital oceanic
deposits.

The summation of the amounts of dissolved and detrital materials
which denudation has brought into the ocean during the long
denudative history of the Earth, as we might anticipate, reveals
quantities of almost unrealisable greatness. The facts are among
the most impressive which geological science has brought to
light. Elsewhere in this volume they have been mentioned when
discussing the age of the Earth. In the present connection,
however, they are deserving of separate consideration.

The basis of our reasoning is that the ocean owes its saltness
mainly if not entirely to the denudative activities we have been
considering. We must establish this.

We may, in the first place, say that any other view at once
raises the greatest difficulties. The chemical composition of the
detrital sediments which are spread over

the continents and which build up the mountains, differs on the
average very considerably from that of the igneous rocks. We know
the former have been derived from the latter, and we know that
the difference in the composition of the two classes of materials
is due to the removal in solution of certain of the constituents
of the igneous rocks. But the ocean alone can have received this
dissolved matter. We know of no other place in which to look for
it. It is true that some part of this dissolved matter has been
again rejected by the ocean; thus the formation of limestone is
largely due to the abstraction of lime from sea water by organic
and other agencies. This, however, in no way relieves us of the
necessity of tracing to the ocean the substances dissolved from
the igneous rocks. It follows that we have here a very causa for
the saltness of the ocean. The view that the ocean "was salt from
the first" is without one known fact to support it, and leaves us
with the burden of the entire dissolved salts of geological time
to dispose of--Where and how?

The argument we have outlined above becomes convincingly strong
when examined more closely. For this purpose we first compare the
average chemical composition of the sedimentary and the igneous
rocks. The following table gives the percentages of the chief
chemical constituents: [1]

[1] F. W. Clarke: _A Preliminary Study of Chemical Denudation_,
p. 13

Igneous. Sedimentary.
Silica (SiO2) - 59.99 58.51
Alumina (Al2O3) - 15.04 13.07
Ferric oxide (F2O3) - 2.59 3.40
Ferrous oxide (FeO) - 3.34 2.00
Magnesia (MgO) - 3.89 2.52
Lime (CaO) - 4.81 5.42
Soda (Na2O) - 3.41 1.12
Potash (K2O) - 2.95 2.80
Water (H2O) - 1.92 4.28
Carbon dioxide (CO2) - -- 4.93
Minor constituents - 2.06 1.95
100.00 100.00

In the derivation of the sediments from the igneous rocks there
is a loss by solution of about 33 per cent; _i.e._ 100 tons of
igneous rock yields rather less than 70 tons of sedimentary rock.
This involves a concentration in the sediments of the more
insoluble constituents. To this rule the lime-content appears to
be an exception. It is not so in reality. Its high value in the
sediments is due to its restoration from the ocean to the land.
The magnesia and potash are, also, largely restored from the
ocean; the former in dolomites and magnesian limestones; the
latter in glauconite sands. The iron of the sediments shows
increased oxidation. The most notable difference in the two
analyses appears, however, in the soda percentages. This falls
from 3.41 in the igneous rock to 1.12 in the average sediment.
Indeed, this

deficiency of soda in sedimentary rocks is so characteristic of
secondary rocks that it may with some safety be applied to
discriminate between the two classes of substances in cases where
petrological distinctions of other kinds break down.

To what is this so marked deficiency of soda to be ascribed? It
is a result of the extreme solubility of the salts of sodium in
water. This has not only rendered its deposition by evaporation a
relatively rare and unimportant incident of geological history,
but also has protected it from abstraction from the ocean by
organic agencies. The element sodium has, in fact, accumulated in
the ocean during the whole of geological time.

We can use the facts associated with the accumulation of sodium
salts in the ocean as a means of obtaining additional support to
the view, that the processes of solvent denudation are
responsible for the saltness of the ocean. The new evidence may
be stated as follows: Estimates of the amounts of sedimentary
rock on the continents have repeatedly been made. It is true that
these estimates are no more than approximations. But they
undoubtedly _are_ approximations, and as such may legitimately be
used in our argument; more especially as final agreement tends to
check and to support the several estimates which enter into
them.

The most recent and probable estimates of the sediments on the
land assign an average thickness of one mile of

secondary rocks over the land area of the world. To this some
increase must be made to allow for similar materials concealed in
the ocean, principally around the continental margins. If we add
10 per cent. and assign a specific gravity of 2.5 we get as the
mass of the sediments 64 x 1016 tonnes. But as this is about 67
per cent. of the parent igneous rock--_i.e._ the average igneous
rock from which the sediments are derived--we conclude that the
primary denuded rock amounted to a mass of about 95 x 1016
tonnes.

Now from the mean chemical composition of the secondary rocks we
calculate that the mass of sediments as above determined contains
0.72 x1016 tonnes of the sodium oxide, Na2O. If to this amount we
add the quantity of sodium oxide which must have been given to
the ocean in order to account for the sodium salts contained
therein, we arrive at a total quantity of oxide of sodium which
must be that possessed by the primary rock before denudation
began its work upon it. The mass of the ocean being well
ascertained, we easily calculate that the sodium in the ocean
converted to sodium oxide amounts to 2.1 x 1016 tonnes. Hence
between the estimated sediments and the waters of the ocean we
can account for 2.82 x 1016 tonnes of soda. When now we put this
quantity back into the estimated mass of primary rock we find
that it assigns to the primary rock a soda percentage of 3.0. On
the average analysis given above this should be 3.41 per cent.
The agreement,

all things considered, more especially the uncertainty in the
estimate of the sediments, is plainly in support of the view that
oceanic salts are derived from the rocks; if, indeed, it does not
render it a certainty.

A leading and fundamental inference in the denudative history of
the Earth thus finds support: indeed, we may say, verification.
In the light of this fact the whole work of denudation stands
revealed. That the ocean began its history as a vast fresh-water
envelope of the Globe is a view which accords with the evidence
for the primitive high temperature of the Earth. Geological
history opened with the condensation of an atmosphere of immense
extent, which, after long fluctuations between the states of
steam and water, finally settled upon the surface, almost free of
matter in solution: an ocean of distilled water. The epoch of
denudation then began. It will, probably, continue till the
waters, undergoing further loss of thermal energy, suffer yet
another change of state, when their circulation will cease and
their attack upon the rocks come to an end.

From what has been reviewed above it is evident that the sodium
in the ocean is an index of the total activity of denudation
integrated over geological time. From this the broad facts of the
results of denudation admit of determination with considerable
accuracy. We can estimate the amount of rock which has been
degraded by solvent and chemical actions, and the amount of
sediments which has been derived from it. We are,

thus, able to amend our estimate of the sediments which, as
determined by direct observation, served to support the basis of
our argument.

We now go straight to the ocean for the amount of sodium of
denudative origin. There may, indeed, have been some primitive
sodium dissolved by a more rapid denudation while the Earth's
surface was still falling in temperature. It can be shown,
however, that this amount was relatively small. Neglecting it we
may say with safety that the quantity of sodium carried into the
ocean by the rivers must be between 14,000 and 15,000 million
million tonnes: _i.e._ 14,500 x 1012 tonnes, say.

Keeping the figures to round numbers we find that this amount of
sodium involves the denudation of about 80 x 1016 tonnes of
average igneous rock to 53 x 1016 tonnes of average sediment.
From these vast quantities we know that the parent rock denuded
during geological time amounted to some 300 million cubic
kilometres or about seventy million cubic miles. The sediments
derived therefrom possessed a bulk of 220 million cubic
kilometres or fifty million cubic miles. The area of the land
surface of the Globe is 144 million square kilometres. The parent
rock would have covered this to a uniform depth of rather more
than two kilometres, and the derived sediment to more than 1.5
kilometres, or about one mile deep.

The slow accomplishment of results so vast conveys some idea of
the great duration of geological time.

The foregoing method of investigating the statistics of solvent
denudation is capable of affording information not only as to the
amount of sediments upon the land, but also as to the quantity
which is spread over the floor of the ocean.

We see this when we follow the fate of the 33 per cent. of
dissolved salts which has been leached from the parent igneous
rock, and the mass of which we calculate from the ascertained
mass of the latter, to be 27 x 1016 tonnes. This quantity was at
one time or another all in the ocean. But, as we saw above, a
certain part of it has been again abstracted from solution,
chiefly by organic agencies. Now the abstracted solids have not
been altogether retained beneath the ocean. Movements of the land
during geological time have resulted in some portion being
uplifted along with other sediments. These substances constitute,
mainly, the limestones.

We see, then, that the 27 x 1016 tonnes of substances leached
from the parent igneous rocks have had a threefold destination.
One part is still in solution; a second part has been
precipitated to the bottom of the ocean; a third part exists on
the land in the form of calcareous rocks.

Observation on the land sediments shows that the calcareous rocks
amount to about 5 per cent. of the whole. From this we find that
3 x 1016 tonnes, approximately, of such rocks have been taken
from the ocean. This accounts for one of the three classes of
material

into which the original dissolved matter has been divided.
Another of the three quantities is easily estimated: the amount
of matter still in solution in the ocean. The volume of the ocean
is 1,414 million cubic kilometres and its mass is 145 x 1016
tonnes. The dissolved salts in it constitute 3.4 per cent. of its
mass; or, rather more than 5 x 1016 tonnes. The limestones on the
land and the salts in the sea water together make up about 8 x
1016 tonnes. If we, now, deduct this from the total of 27 x 1016
tonnes, we find that about 19 x 1016 tonnes must exist as
precipitated matter on the floor of the ocean.

The area of the ocean is 367 x 1012 square metres, so that if the
precipitated sediment possesses an average specific gravity of
2.5, it would cover the entire floor to a uniform depth of 218
metres; that is 715 feet. This assumes that there was uniform
deposition of the abstracted matter over the floor of the ocean.
Of course, this assumption is not justifiable. It is certain that
the rate of deposition on the floor of the sea has varied
enormously with various conditions--principally with the depth.
Again, it must be remembered that this estimate takes no account
of solid materials otherwise brought into the oceanic deposits;
_e.g._, by wind-transported dust from the land or volcanic
ejectamenta in the ocean depths. It is not probable, however,
that any considerable addition to the estimated mean depth of
deposit from such sources would be allowable.

The greatness of the quantities involved in these determinations
is almost awe inspiring. Take the case of the dissolved salts in
the ocean. They are but a fraction, as we have seen, of the total
results of solvent denudation and represent the integration of
the minute traces contributed by the river water. Yet the common
salt (chloride of sodium) alone, contained in the ocean, would,
if abstracted and spread over the dry land as a layer of rock
salt having a specific gravity of 2.2, cover the whole to a depth
of 107 metres or 354 feet. The total salts in solution in the
ocean similarly spread over the land would increase the depth of
the layer to 460 feet. After considering what this means we have
to remember that this amount of matter now in solution in the
seas is, in point of fact, less than a fifth part of the total
dissolved from the rocks during geological time.

The transport by denudation of detrital and dissolved matter from
the land to the ocean has had a most important influence on the
events of geological history. The existing surface features of
the earth must have been largely conditioned by the dynamical
effects arising therefrom. In dealing with the subject of
mountain genesis we will, elsewhere, see that all the great
mountain ranges have originated in the accumulation of the
detrital sediments near the shore in areas which, in consequence
of the load, gradually became depressed and developed into
synclines of many thousands of feet in depth. The most impressive
surface features of the Globe originated

in this manner. We will see too that these events were of a
rhythmic character; the upraising of the mountains involving
intensified mechanical denudation over the elevated area and in
this way an accelerated transport of detritus to the sea; the
formation of fresh deposits; renewed synclinal sinking of the sea
floor, and, finally, the upheaval of a younger mountain range.
This extraordinary sequence of events has been determined by the
events of detrital denudation acting along with certain general
conditions which have all along involved the growth of
compressive stresses in the surface crust of the Earth.

The effects of purely solvent denudation are less easily traced,
but, very probably, they have been of not less importance. I
refer here to the transport from the land to the sea of matter in
solution.

Solvent denudation, as observed above, takes place mainly in the
soils and in this way over the more level continental areas. It
has resulted in the removal from the land and transfer to the
ocean of an amount of matter which represents a uniform layer of
one half a kilometre; that is of more than 1,600 feet of rock.
The continents have, during geological time, been lightened to
this extent. On the other hand all this matter has for the
greater part escaped the geosynclines and become uniformly
diffused throughout the ocean or precipitated over its floor
principally on the continental slopes before the great depths are
reached. Of this material the ocean

waters contain in solution an amount sufficient to increase their
specific gravity by 2.7 per cent.

Taking the last point first, it is interesting to note the
effects upon the bulk of the ocean which has resulted from the
matter dissolved in it. From the known density of average sea
water we find that 100 ccs. of it weigh just 102.7 grammes. Of
this 3.5 per cent. by weight are solids in solution. That is to
say, 3.594 grammes. Hence the weight of water present is 99.1
grammes, or a volume of 99.1 ccs. From this we see that the salts
present have increased the volume by 0.9 ccs. or 0.9 per cent.

The average depth of the ocean is 2,000 fathoms or 3,700 metres.
The increase of depth due to salts dissolved in the ocean has
been, therefore, 108 feet or 33.24 metres. This result assumes
that there has been no increased elastic compression due to the
increased pressure, and no change of compressional elastic
properties. We may be sure that the rise on the shore line of the
land has not been less than 100 feet.

We see then that as the result of solvent denudation we have to
do with a heavier and a deeper ocean, expanded in volume by
nearly one per cent. and the floor of which has become raised, on
an average, about 700 feet by precipitated sediment.

One of the first conceptions, which the student of geology has to
dismiss from his mind, is that of the immobility or rigidity of
the Earth's crust. The lane, we live on sways even to the gentle
rise and fail of ocean tides

around the coasts. It suffers its own tidal oscillations due to
the moon's attractions. Large tracts of semi-liquid matter
underlie it. There is every evidence that the raised features of
the Globe are sustained by such pressures acting over other and
adjacent areas as serve to keep them in equilibrium against the
force of gravity. This state of equilibrium, which was first
recognised by Pratt, as part of the dynamics of the Earth's
crust, has been named isostasy. The state of the crust is that of
"mobile equilibrium."

The transfer of matter from the exposed land surfaces to the
sub-oceanic slopes of the continents and the increase in the
density of the ocean, must all along have been attended by
isostatic readjustment. We cannot take any other view. On the one
hand the land was being lightened; on the other the sea was
increasing in mass and depth and the flanks of the continents
were being loaded with the matter removed from the land and borne
in solution to the ocean. How important the resulting movements
must have been may be gathered from the fact that the existing
land of the Globe stands at a mean elevation of no more than
2,000 feet above sea level. We have seen that solvent denudation
removed over 1,600 feet of rock. But we have no evidence that on
the whole the elevation of land in the past was ever very
different from what it now is.

We have, then, presented to our view the remarkable fact that
throughout the past, and acting with extreme

slowness, the land has steadily been melted down into the sea and
as steadily been upraised from the waters. It is possible that
the increased bulk of the ocean has led to a certain diminution
of the exposed land area. The point is a difficult one. One thing
we may without much risk assume. The sub-aereal current of
dissolved matter from the land to the ocean was accompanied by a
sub-crustal flux from the ocean areas to the land areas; the
heated viscous materials creeping from depths far beneath the
ocean floor to depths beneath the roots of the mountains which
arose around the oceans. Such movements took ages for their
accomplishment. Indeed, they have been, probably, continuous all
along and are still proceeding. A low degree of viscosity will
suffice to permit of movements so slow. Superimposed upon these
movements the rhythmic alternations of depression and elevation
of the geosynclines probably resulted in releasing the crust from
local accumulation of strains arising in the more rigid surface
materials. The whole sequence of movements presents an
extraordinary picture of pseudo-vitality--reminding us of the
circulatory and respiratory systems of a vast organism.

All great results in our universe are founded in motions and
forces the most minute. In contemplating the Cause or the Effect
we stand equally impressed with the spectacle presented to us. We
shall now turn from the great effects of denudation upon the
history and evolution of a world and consider for a moment
activities

so minute in detail that their operations will probably for ever
elude our bodily senses, but which nevertheless have necessarily
affected and modified the great results we have been
considering.

The ocean a little way from the land is generally so free from
suspended sediments that it has a blackness as of ink. This
blackness is due to its absolute freedom from particles
reflecting the sun's light. The beautiful blue of the Swiss and
Italian lakes is due to the presence of very fine particles
carried into them by the rivers; the finest flour of the
glaciers, which remain almost indefinitely suspended in the
water. But in the ocean it is only in those places where rapid
currents running over shallows stir continually the sediments or
where the fresh water of a great river is carried far from the
land, that the presence of silt is to be observed. The beautiful
phenomenon of the coal-black sea is familiar to every yachtsman
who has sailed to the west of our Islands.[1]

There is, in fact, a very remarkable difference in the manner of
settlement of fine sediments in salt and in fresh water. We are
here brought into contact with one of those subtle yet
influential natural actions the explanation of which involves
scientific advance along many apparently unconnected lines of
investigation.

[1] See Tyndall's Voyage to Algeria in _Fragments of Science._ The
cause of the blue colour of the lakes has been discussed by
various observers, not always with agreement.

It is easy to observe in the laboratory the fact of the different
behaviour of salt and fresh water towards finely divided
substances. The nature of the insoluble substance is not
important.

We place, in a good light, two glass vessels of equal dimensions;
the one filled with sea water, the other with fresh water. Into
each we stir the same weight of very finely powdered slate: just
so much as will produce a cloudiness. In a few hours we find the
sea water limpid. The fresh water is still cloudy, however; and,
indeed, may be hardly different in appearance from what it was at
starting. In itself this is a most extraordinary experiment. We
would have anticipated quite the opposite result owing to the
greater density of the sea water.

But a still more interesting experiment remains to be carried
out. In the sea water we have many different salts in solution.
Let us see if these salts are equally responsible for the result
we have obtained. For this purpose we measure out quantities of
sodium chloride and magnesium chloride in the proportion in which
they exist in sea water: that is about as seven to one. We add
such an equal amount of water to each as represents the dilution
of these salts in sea water. Then finally we stir a little of the
finely powdered slate into each. It will be found that the
magnesium chloride, although so much more dilute than the sodium
chloride, is considerably more active in clearing out the
suspension. We may now try such marine salts as magnesium
sulphate,

or calcium sulphate against sodium chloride; keeping the marine
proportions. Again we find that the magnesium and calcium salts
are the most effective, although so much more dilute than the
sodium salt.

There is no visible clue to the explanation of these results. But
we must conclude as most probable that some action is at work in
the sea water and in the salt solutions which clumps or
flocculates the sediment. For only by the gathering of the
particles together in little aggregates can we explain their
rapid fall to the bottom. It is not a question of viscosity
(_i.e._ of resistance to the motion of the particles), for the
salt solutions are rather more viscous than the fresh water.
Still more remarkable is the fact that every dissolved substance
will not bring about the result. Thus if we dissolve sugar in
water we find that, if anything, the silt settles more slowly in
the sugar solution than in fresh water.

Now there is one effect produced by the solution of such salts as
we have dealt with which is not produced by such bodies as sugar.
The water is rendered a conductor of electricity. Long ago
Faraday explained this as due to the presence of free atoms of
the dissolved salt in the solution, carrying electric charges. We
now speak of the salt as "ionised." That is it is partly split up
into ions or free electrified atoms of chlorine, sodium,
magnesium, etc., according to the particular salt in solution.
This fact leads us to think that these electrified

atoms moving about in the solution may be the cause of the
clumping or flocculation. Such electrified atoms are absent from
the sugar solution: sugar does not become "ionised" when it is
dissolved.

The suspicion that the free electrified atoms play a part in the
phenomenon is strengthened when we recall the remarkable
difference in the action of sodium chloride and magnesium
chloride. In each of the solutions of these substances there are
free chlorine atoms each of which carries a single charge of
negative electricity. As these atoms are alike in both solutions
the different behaviour of the solutions cannot be due to the
chlorine. But the metallic atom is very different in the two
cases. The ionised sodium atom is known to be _monad_ or carries
but _one_ positive charge; whereas the magnesium atom is _diad_ and
carries _two_ positive charges. If, then, we assume that the
metallic, positively electrified atom is in each case
responsible, we have something to go on. It may be now stated
that it has been found by experiment and supported by theory that
the clumping power of an ion rises very rapidly with its valency;
that is with the number of unit charges associated with it. Thus
diads such as magnesium, calcium, barium, etc., are very much
more efficient than monads such as sodium, potassium, etc., and
again, triads such as aluminium are, similarly, very much more
powerful than diad atoms. Here, in short, we have arrived at the
active cause of the phenomenon. Its inner mechanism

is, however, harder to fathom. A plausible explanation can be
offered, but a study of it would take us too far. Sufficient has
been said to show the very subtile nature of the forces at work.

We have here an effect due to the sea salts derived by denudation
from the land which has been slowly augmenting during geological
time. It is certain that the ocean was practically fresh water in
remote ages. During those times the silt from the great rivers
would have been carried very far from the land. A Mississippi of
those ages would have sent its finer suspensions far abroad on a
contemporary Gulf stream: not improbably right across the
Atlantic. The earlier sediments of argillaceous type were not
collected in the geosynclines and the genesis of the mountains
was delayed proportionately. But it was, probably, not for very
long that such conditions prevailed. For the accumulation of
calcium salts must have been rapid, and although the great
salinity due to sodium salts was of slow growth the salts of the
diad element calcium must have soon introduced the cooperation of
the ion in the work of building the mountain.

THE ABUNDANCE OF LIFE [1]

WE had reached the Pass of Tre Croci[2]and from a point a little
below the summit, looked eastward over the glorious Val Buona.
The pines which clothed the floor and lower slopes of the valley,
extended their multitudes into the furthest distance, among the
many recesses of the mountains, and into the confluent Val di
Misurina. In the sunshine the Alpine butterflies flitted from
stone to stone. The ground at our feet and everywhere throughout
the forests teamed with the countless millions of the small black
ants.

It was a magnificent display of vitality; of the aggressiveness
of vitality, assailing the barren heights of the limestone,
wringing a subsistence from dead things. And the question
suggested itself with new force: why the abundance of life and
its unending activity?

In trying to answer this question, the present sketch
originated.

I propose to refer for an answer to dynamic considerations. It is
apparent that natural selection can only be concerned in a
secondary way. Natural selection defines

[1] Proc. Roy. Dublin Soc., vol. vii., 1890.

[2] In the Dolomites of Southeast Tyrol; during the summer of
1890. Much of what follows was evolved in discussion with my
fellow-traveller, Henry H. Dixon. Much of it is his.

a certain course of development for the organism; but very
evidently some property of inherent progressiveness in the
organism must be involved. The mineral is not affected by natural
selection to enter on a course of continual variation and
multiplication. The dynamic relations of the organism with the
environment are evidently very different from those of inanimate
nature.

GENERAL DYNAMIC CONDITIONS ATTENDING INANIMATE ACTIONS

It is necessary, in the first place, to refer briefly to the
phenomena attending the transfer of energy within and into
inanimate material systems. It is not assumed here that these
phenomena are restricted in their sphere of action to inanimate
nature. It is, in fact, very certain that they are not; but while
they confer on dead nature its own dynamic tendencies, it will
appear that their effects are by various means evaded in living
nature. We, therefore, treat of them as characteristic of
inanimate actions. We accept as fundamental to all the
considerations which follow the truth of the principle of the
Conservation of Energy.[1]

[1] "The principle of the Conservation of Energy has acquired so
much scientific weight during the last twenty years that no
physiologist would feel any confidence in an experiment which
showed a considerable difference between the work done by the
animal and the balance of the account of Energy received and
spent."--Clerk Maxwell, _Nature_, vol. xix., p. 142. See also
Helmholtz _On the Conservation of Force._

Whatever speculations may be made as to the course of events very
distant from us in space, it appears certain that dissipation of
energy is at present actively progressing throughout our sphere
of observation in inanimate nature. It follows, in fact, from the
second law of thermodynamics, that whenever work is derived from
heat, a certain quantity of heat falls in potential without doing
work or, in short, is dissipated. On the other hand, work may be
entirely converted into heat. The result is the heat-tendency of
the universe. Heat, being an undirected form of energy, seeks, as
it were, its own level, so that the result of this heat-tendency
is continual approach to uniformity of potential.

The heat-tendency of the universe is also revealed in the
far-reaching "law of maximum work," which defines that chemical
change, accomplished without the intervention of external energy,
tends to the production of the body, or system of bodies, which
disengage the greatest quantity of heat.[1] And, again, vast
numbers of actions going on throughout nature are attended by
dissipatory thermal effects, as those arising from the motions of
proximate molecules (friction, viscosity), and from the fall of
electrical potential.

Thus, on all sides, the energy which was once most probably
existent in the form of gravitational potential, is being
dissipated into unavailable forms. We must

[1] Berthelot, _Essai de Mécanique Chimique._

recognize dissipation as an inevitable attendant on inanimate
transfer of energy.

But when we come to consider inanimate actions in relation to
time, or time-rate of change, we find a new feature in the
phenomena attending transfer of energy; a feature which is really
involved in general statements as to the laws of physical
interactions.[1] It is seen, that the attitude of inanimate
material systems is very generally, if not in all cases,
retardative of change--opposing it by effects generated by the
primary action, which may be called "secondary" for convenience.
Further, it will be seen that these secondary effects are those
concerned in bringing about the inevitable dissipation.

As example, let us endeavour to transfer gravitational potential
energy contained in a mass raised above the surface of the Earth
into an elastic body, which we can put into compression by
resting the weight upon it. In this way work is done against
elastic force and stored as elastic potential energy. We may deal
with a metal spring, or with a mass of gas contained in a
cylinder fitted with a piston upon which the weight may be
placed. In either case we find the effect of compression is to
raise the temperature of the substance, thus causing its

[1] Helmholtz, _Ice and Glaciers._ Atkinson's collection of his
Popular Lectures. First Series, p.120. Quoted by Tate, _Heat_,
p. 311.

expansion or increased resistance to the descent of the weight.
And this resistance continues, with diminishing intensity, till
all the heat generated is dissipated into the surrounding medium.
The secondary effect thus delays the final transfer of energy.

Again, if we suppose the gas in the cylinder replaced by a vapour
in a state of saturation, the effect of increased pressure, as of
a weight placed upon the piston, is to reduce the vapour to a
liquid, thereby bringing about a great diminution of volume and
proportional loss of gravitational potential by the weight. But
this change will by no means be brought about instantaneously.
When a little of the vapour is condensed, this portion parts with
latent heat of vaporisation, increasing the tension of the
remainder, or raising its point of saturation, so that before the
weight descends any further, this heat has to escape from the
cylinder.

Many more such cases might be cited. The heating of india-rubber
when expanded, its cooling when compressed, is a remarkable one;
for at first sight it appears as if this must render it
exceptional to the general law, most substances exhibiting the
opposite thermal effects when stressed. However, here, too, the
action of the stress is opposed by the secondary effects
developed in the substance; for it is found that this substance
contracts when heated, expands when cooled. Again, ice being a
substance which contracts in melting, the effect of pressure is
to facilitate melting, lowering its freezing point. But

so soon as a little melting occurs, the resulting liquid calls on
the residual ice for an amount of heat equivalent to the latent
heat of liquefaction, and so by cooling the whole, retards the
change.

Such particular cases illustrate a principle controlling the
interaction of matter and energy which seems universal in
application save when evaded, as we shall see, by the ingenuity
of life. This principle is not only revealed in the researches of
the laboratory; it is manifest in the history of worlds and solar
systems. Thus, consider the effects arising from the aggregation
of matter in space under the influence of the mutual attraction
of the particles. The tendency here is loss of gravitational
potential. The final approach is however retarded by the
temperature, or vis viva of the parts attending collision and
compression. From this cause the great suns of space radiate for
ages before the final loss of potential is attained.

Clerk Maxwell[1] observes on the general principle that less
force is required to produce a change in a body when the change
is unopposed by constraints than when it is subjected to such.
From this if we assume the external forces acting upon a system
not to rise above a certain potential (which is the order of
nature), the constraints of secondary actions may, under certain
circumstances, lead to final rejection of some of the energy, or,
in any

[1] _Theory of Heat_, p. 131.

case, to retardation of change in the system--dissipation of
energy being the result.[1]

As such constraints seem inherently present in the properties of
matter, we may summarise as follows:

_The transfer of energy into any inanimate material system is
attended by effects retardative to the transfer and conducive to
dissipation._

Was this the only possible dynamic order ruling in material
systems it is quite certain the myriads of ants and pines never
could have been, except all generated by creative act at vast
primary expenditure of energy. Growth and reproduction would have
been impossible in systems which retarded change at every step
and never proceeded in any direction but in that of dissipation.
Once created, indeed, it is conceivable that, as heat engines,
they might have dragged out an existence of alternate life and
death; life in the hours of sunshine, death in hours of darkness:
no final death, however, their lot, till their parts were simply
worn out by long use, never made good by repair. But the
sustained and increasing activity of organized nature is a fact;
therefore some other order of events must be possible.

[1] The law of Least Action, which has been applied, not alone in
optics, but in many mechanical systems, appears physically based
upon the restraint and retardation opposing the transfer of
energy in material systems.

GENERAL DYNAMIC CONDITIONS ATTENDING ANIMATE ACTIONS

What is the actual dynamic attitude of the primary organic
engine--the vegetable organism? We consider, here, in the first
place, not intervening, but resulting phenomena.

The young leaf exposed to solar radiation is small at first, and
the quantity of radiant energy it receives in unit of time cannot
exceed that which falls upon its surface. But what is the effect
of this energy? Not to produce a retardative reaction, but an
accelerative response: for, in the enlarging of the leaf by
growth, the plant opens for itself new channels of supply.

If we refer to "the living protoplasm which, with its unknown
molecular arrangement, is the only absolute test of the cell and
of the organism in general,[1] we find a similar attitude towards
external sources of available energy. In the act of growth
increased rate of assimilation is involved, so that there is an
acceleration of change till a bulk of maximum activity is
attained. The surface, finally, becomes too small for the
absorption of energy adequate to sustain further increase of mass
(Spencer[2]), and the acceleration ceases. The waste going on in
the central parts is then just balanced by the renewal at the
surface. By division, by spreading of the mass, by

[1] Claus, _Zoology_, p. 13.

[2] Geddes and Thomson, _The Evolution of Sex_, p. 220.

out-flowing processes, the normal activity of growth may be
restored. Till this moment nothing would be gained by any of
these changes. One or other of them is now conducive to
progressive absorption of energy by the organism, and one or
other occurs, most generally the best of them, subdivision. Two
units now exist; the total mass immediately on division is
unaltered, but paths for the more abundant absorption of energy
are laid open.

The encystment of the protoplasm (occurring under conditions upon
which naturalists do not seem agreed[1]) is to all appearance
protective from an unfavourable environment, but it is often a
period of internal change as well, resulting in a segregation
within the mass of numerous small units, followed by a breakup of
the whole into these units. It is thus an extension of the basis
of supply, and in an impoverished medium, where unit of surface
is less active, is evidently the best means of preserving a
condition of progress.

Thus, in the organism which forms the basis of all modes of life,
a definite law of action is obeyed under various circumstances of
reaction with the available energy of its environment.

Similarly, in the case of the more complex leaf, we see, not only
in the phenomenon of growth, but in its extension in a flattened
form, and in the orientation of greatest surface towards the
source of energy, an attitude towards

[1] However, "In no way comparable with death." Weismann,
_Biological Memoirs_, p. 158.

available energy causative of accelerated transfer. There is
seemingly a principle at work, leading to the increase of organic
activity.

Many other examples might be adduced. The gastrula stage in the
development of embryos, where by invagination such an arrangement
of the multiplying cells is secured as to offer the greatest
possible surface consistent with a first division of labour; the
provision of cilia for drawing upon the energy supplies of the
medium; and more generally the specialisation of organs in the
higher developments of life, may alike be regarded as efforts of
the organism directed to the absorption of energy. When any
particular organ becomes unavailing in the obtainment of
supplies, the organ in the course of time becomes aborted or
disappears.[1] On the other hand, when a too ready and liberal
supply renders exertion and specialisation unnecessary, a similar
abortion of functionless organs takes place. This is seen in the
degraded members of certain parasites.

During certain epochs of geological history, the vegetable world
developed enormously; in response probably to liberal supplies of
carbon dioxide. A structural adaptation to the rich atmosphere
occurred, such as was calculated to cooperate in rapidly
consuming the supplies, and to this obedience to a law of
progressive transfer of energy we owe the vast stores of energy
now accumulated

[1] Claus, _Zoology_, p. 157

in our coal fields. And when, further, we reflect that this store
of energy had long since been dissipated into space but for the
intervention of the organism, we see definitely another factor in
organic transfer of energy--a factor acting conservatively of
energy, or antagonistically to dissipation.

The tendency of organized nature in the presence of unlimited
supplies is to "run riot." This seems so universal a relation,
that we are safe in seeing here cause and effect, and in drawing
our conclusions as to the attitude of the organism towards
available energy. New species, when they come on the field of
geological history, armed with fresh adaptations, irresistible
till the slow defences of the subjected organisms are completed,
attain enormous sizes under the stimulus of abundant supply, till
finally, the environment, living and dead, reacts upon them with
restraining influence. The exuberance of the organism in presence
of energy is often so abundant as to lead by deprivation to its
self-destruction. Thus the growth of bacteria is often controlled
by their own waste products. A moment's consideration shows that
such progressive activity denotes an accelerative attitude on the
part of the organism towards the transfer of energy into the
organic material system. Finally, we are conscious in ourselves
how, by use, our faculties are developed; and it is apparent that
all such progressive developments must rest on actions which
respond to supplies with fresh demands. Possibly in the present
and ever-

increasing consumption of inanimate power by civilised races, we
see revealed the dynamic attitude of the organism working through
thought-processes.

Whether this be so or not, we find generally in organised nature
causes at work which in some way lead to a progressive transfer
of energy into the organic system. And we notice, too, that all
is not spent, but both immediately in the growth of the
individual, and ultimately in the multiplication of the species,
there are actions associated with vitality which retard the
dissipation of energy. We proceed to state the dynamical
principles involved in these manifestations, which appear
characteristic of the organism, as follows:--

_The transfer of energy into any animate material system is
attended by effects conducive to the transfer, and retardative of
dissipation._

This statement is, I think, perfectly general. It has been in
part advanced before, but from the organic more than the physical
point of view. Thus, "hunger is an essential characteristic of
living matter"; and again, "hunger is a dominant characteristic
of living matter,"[1] are, in part, expressions of the statement.
If it be objected against the generality of the statement, that
there are periods in the life of individuals when stagnation and
decay make their appearance, we may answer, that

[1] _Evolution of Sex._ Geddes and Thomson, chap. xvi. See also a
reference to Cope's theory of "Growth Force," in Wallace's
_Darwinism_, p. 425.

such phenomena arise in phases of life developed under conditions
of external constraint, as will be urged more fully further on,
and that in fact the special conditions of old age do not and
cannot express the true law and tendency of the dynamic relations
of life in the face of its evident advance upon the Earth. The
law of the unconstrained cell is growth on an ever increasing
scale; and although we assume the organic configuration, whether
somatic or reproductive, to be essentially unstable, so that
continual inflow of energy is required merely to keep it in
existence, this does not vitiate the fact that, when free of all
external constraint, growth gains on waste. Indeed, even in the
case of old age, the statement remains essentially true, for the
phenomena then displayed point to a breakdown of the functioning
power of the cell, an approximation to configurations incapable
of assimilation. It is not as if life showed in these phenomena
that its conditions could obtain in the midst of abundance, and
yet its law be suspended; but as if they represented a
degradation of the very conditions of life, a break up, under the
laws of the inanimate, of the animate contrivance; so that energy
is no longer available to it, or the primary condition, "the
transfer of energy into the animate system," is imperfectly
obeyed. It is to the perfect contrivance of life our statement
refers.

That the final end of all will be general non-availability there
seems little reason to doubt, and the organism, itself dependent
upon differences of potential, cannot

hope to carry on aggregation of energy beyond the period when
differences of potential are not. The organism is not accountable
for this. It is being affected by events external to it, by the
actions going on through inanimate agents. And although there be
only a part of the received energy preserved, there is a part
preserved, and this amount is continually on the increase. To see
this it is only necessary to reflect that the sum of animate
energy--capability of doing work in any way through animate
means--at present upon the Earth, is the result, although a small
one, of energy reaching the Earth since a remote period, and
which otherwise had been dissipated in space. In inanimate
actions throughout nature, as we know it, the availability is
continually diminishing. The change is all the one way. As,
however, the supply of available energy in the universe is
(probably) limited in amount, we must look upon the two as simply
effecting the final dissipation of potential in very different
ways. The animate system is aggressive on the energy available to
it, spends with economy, and invests at interest till death
finally deprives it of all. It has heirs, indeed, who inherit
some of its gains, but they, too, must die, and ultimately there
will be no successors, and the greater part must melt away as if
it had never been. The inanimate system responds to the forces
imposed upon it by sluggish changes; of that which is thrust upon
it, it squanders uselessly. The path of the energy is very
different in the two cases.

While it is true generally that both systems ultimately result in
the dissipation of energy to uniform potential, the organism can,
as we have seen, under particular circumstances evade the final
doom altogether. It can lay up a store of potential energy which
may be permanent. Thus, so long as there is free oxygen in the
universe, our coalfields might, at any time in the remote future,
generate light and heat in the universal grave.

It is necessary to observe on the fundamental distinction between
the growth of the protoplasm and the growth of the crystal. It is
common to draw comparison between the two, and to point to
metabolism as the chief distinction. But while this is the most
obvious distinction the more fundamental one remains in the
energy relations of the two with the environment.[1] The growth
of the crystal is the result of loss of energy; that of the
organism the result of gain of energy. The crystal represents a
last position of stable equilibrium assumed by molecules upon a
certain loss of kinetic energy, and the formation of the crystal
by evaporation and concentration of a liquid does not, in its
dynamic aspect, differ much from the precipitation of an
amorphous sediment. The organism, on the other hand, represents a
more or less unstable condition formed and maintained by inflow
of energy; its formation, indeed, often attended with a loss of
kinetic energy (fixation of carbon in plants), but, if so,
accompanied by

[1] It appears exceptional for the crystal line configuration to
stand higher in the scale of energy than the amorphous.

a more than compensatory increase of potential molecular energy.

Thus, between growth in the living world and growth in the dead
world, the energy relations with the environment reveal a marked
contrast. Again, in the phenomena of combustion, there are
certain superficial resemblances which have led to comparison
between the two. Here again, however, the attitudes towards the
energy of the environment stand very much as + and -. The life
absorbs, stores, and spends with economy. The flame only
recklessly spends. The property of storage by the organism calls
out a further distinction between the course of the two
processes. It secures that the chemical activity of the organism
can be propagated in a medium in which the supply of energy is
discontinuous or localised. The chemical activity of the
combustion can, strictly speaking, only be propagated among
contiguous particles. I need not dwell on the latter fact; an
example of the former is seen in the action of the roots of
plants, which will often traverse a barren place or circumvent an
obstacle in their search for energy. In this manner roots will
find out spots of rich nutriment.

Thus there is a dynamic distinction between the progress of the
organism and the progress of the combustion, or of the chemical
reaction generally. And although there be unstable chemical
systems which absorb energy during reaction, these are
(dynamically) no more than the expansion of the compressed gas.
There is a certain

initial capacity in the system for a given quantity of energy;
this satisfied, progress ceases. The progress of the organism in
time is continual, and goes on from less to greater so long as
its development is unconstrained and the supply of energy is
unlimited.

We must regard the organism as a configuration which is so
contrived as to evade the tendency of the universal laws of
nature. Except we are prepared to believe that a violation of the
second law of thermodynamics occurs in the organism, that a
"sorting demon" is at work within it, we must, I think, assume
that the interactions going on among its molecules are
accompanied by retardation and dissipation like the rest of
nature. That such conditions are not incompatible with the
definition of the dynamic attitude of the organism, can be shown
by analogy with our inanimate machines which, by aid of
hypotheses in keeping with the second law of thermodynamics, may
be supposed to fulfil the energy-functions of the plant or
animal, and, in fact, in all apparent respects conform to the
definition of the organism.

We may assume this accomplished by a contrivance of the nature of
a steam-engine, driven by solar energy. It has a boiler, which we
may suppose fed by the action of the engine. It has piston,
cranks, and other movable parts, all subject to resistance from
friction, etc. Now there is no reason why this engine should not
expend its surplus energy in shaping, fitting, and starting into
action other engines:--in fact, in reproductive sacrifice. All

these other engines represent a multiplied absorption of energy
as the effects of the energy received by the parent engine, and
may in time be supposed to reproduce themselves. Further, we may
suppose the parent engine to be small and capable of developing
very little power, but the whole series as increasing in power at
each generation. Thus the primary energy relations of the
vegetable organism are represented in these engines, and no
violation of the second law of thermodynamics involved.

We might extend the analogy, and assuming these engines to spend
a portion of their surplus energy in doing work against chemical
forces--as, for example, by decomposing water through the
intervention of a dynamo--suppose them to lay up in this way a
store of potential energy capable of heating the boilers of a
second order of engines, representing the graminivorous animal.
It is obvious without proceeding to a tertiary or carnivorous
order, that the condition of energy in the animal world may be
supposed fulfilled in these successive series of engines, and no
violation of the principles governing the actions going on in our
machines assumed. Organisms evolving on similar principles would
experience loss at every transfer. Thus only a portion of the
radiant energy absorbed by the leaf would be expended in actual
work, chemical and gravitational, etc. It is very certain that
this is, in fact, what takes place.

It is, perhaps, worth passing observation that, from the
nutritive dependence of the animal upon the vegetable,

and the fact that a conversion of the energy of the one to the
purposes of the other cannot occur without loss, the mean energy
absorbed daily by the vegetable for the purpose of growth must
greatly exceed that used in animal growth; so that the chemical
potential energy of vegetation upon the earth is much greater
than the energy of all kinds represented in the animal
configurations.[1] It appears, too, that in the power possessed
by the vegetable of remaining comparatively inactive, of
surviving hard times by the expenditure and absorption of but
little, the vegetable constitutes a veritable reservoir for the
uniform supply of the more unstable and active animal.

Finally, on the question of the manner of origin of organic
systems, it is to be observed that, while the life of the present
is very surely the survival of the fittest of the tendencies and
chances of the past, yet, in the initiation of the organised
world, a single chance may have decided a whole course of events:
for, once originated, its own law secures its increase, although
within the new order of actions, the law of the fittest must
assert itself. That such a progressive material system as an
organism was possible, and at some remote period was initiated,
is matter of knowledge; whether or not the initiatory living
configuration was rare and fortuitous, or the probable result of
the general action of physical laws acting among innumerable
chances, must remain matter of

[1] I find a similar conclusion arrived at in Semper's _Animal
Life_, p. 52.

speculation. In the event of the former being the truth, it is
evidently possible, in spite of a large finite number of
habitable worlds, that life is non-existent elsewhere. If the
latter is the truth, it is almost certain that there is life in
all, or many of those worlds.

EVOLUTION AND ACCELERATION OF ACTIVITY

The primary factor in evolution is the "struggle for existence."
This involves a "natural selection" among the many variations of
the organism. If we seek the underlying causes of the struggle,
we find that the necessity of food and (in a lesser degree) the
desire for a mate are the principal causes of contention. The
former is much the more important factor, and, accordingly, we
find the greater degree of specialisation based upon it.

The present view assumes a dynamic necessity for its demands
involved in the nature of the organism as such. This assumption
is based on observation of the outcome of its unconstrained
growth, reproduction, and life-acts. We have the same right to
assert this of the organism as we have to assert that retardation
and degradation attend the actions of inanimate machines, which
assertion, also, is based on observation of results. Thus we pass
from the superficial statements that organisms require food in
order to live, or that organisms desire food, to the more
fundamental one that:

_The organism is a configuration of matter which absorbs energy
acceleratively, without limit, when unconstrained._

This is the dynamic basis for a "struggle for existence." The
organism being a material system responding to accession of
energy with fresh demands, and energy being limited in amount,
the struggle follows as a necessity. Thus, evolution guiding' the
steps of the energy-seeking organism, must presuppose and find
its origin in that inherent property of the organism which
determines its attitude in presence of available energy.

Turning to the factor, "adaptation," we find that this also must
presuppose, in order to be explicable, some quality of
aggressiveness on the part of the organism. For adaptation in
this or that direction is the result of repulse or victory, and,
therefore, we must presuppose an attack. The attack is made by
the organism in obedience to its law of demand; we see in the
adaptation of the organism but the accumulated wisdom derived
from past defeats and victories.

Where the environment is active, that is living, adaptation
occurs on both sides. Improved means of defence or improved means
of attack, both presuppose activity. Thus the reactions to the
environment, animate and inanimate, are at once the outcome of
the eternal aggressiveness of the organism, and the source of
fresh aggressiveness upon the resources of the medium.

As concerns the "survival of the fittest" (or "natural
selection"), we can, I think, at once conclude that the organism
which best fulfils the organic law under the circumstances of
supply is the "fittest," _ipso facto._ In many

cases this is contained in the commonsense consideration, that to
be strong, consistent with concealment from enemies which are
stronger, is best, as giving the organism mastery over foes which
are weaker, and generally renders it better able to secure
supplies. Weismann points out that natural selection favours
early and abundant reproduction. But whether the qualifications
of the "fittest" be strength, fertility, cunning, fleetness,
imitation, or concealment, we are safe in concluding that growth
and reproduction must be the primary qualities which at once
determine selection and are fostered by it. Inherent in the
nature of the organism is accelerated absorption of energy, but
the qualifications of the "fittest" are various, for the supply
of energy is limited, and there are many competitors for it. To
secure that none be wasted is ultimately the object of natural
selection, deciding among the eager competitors what is best for
each.

In short, the facts and generalisations concerning evolution must
presuppose an organism endowed with the quality of progressive
absorption of energy, and retentive of it. The continuity of
organic activity in a world where supplies are intermittent is
evidently only possible upon the latter condition. Thus it
appears that the dynamic attitude of the organism, considered in
these pages, occupies a fundamental position regarding its
evolution.

We turn to the consideration of old age and death, endeavouring
to discover in what relation they stand to the innate
progressiveness of the organism.

THE PERIODICITY OF THE ORGANISM AND THE LAW OF PROGRESSIVE
ACTIVITY

The organic system is essentially unstable. Its aggressive
attitude is involved in the phenomenon of growth, and in
reproduction which is a form of growth. But the energy absorbed
is not only spent in growth. It partly goes, also, to make good
the decay which arises from the instability of the organic unit.
The cell is molecularly perishable. It possesses its entity much
as a top keeps erect, by the continual inflow of energy.
Metabolism is always taking place within it. Any other condition
would, probably, involve the difficulties of perpetual motion.

The phenomenon of old age is not evident in the case of the
unicellular organism reproducing by fission. At any stage of its
history all the individuals are of the same age: all contain a
like portion of the original cell, so far as this can be regarded
as persisting where there is continual flux of matter and energy.
In the higher organisms death is universally evident. Why is
this?

The question is one of great complexity. Considered from the more
fundamental molecular point of view we should perhaps look to
failure of the power of cell division as the condition of
mortality. For it is to this phenomenon--that of cell
division--that the continued life of the protozoon is to be
ascribed, as we have already seen. Reproduction is, in fact, the
saving factor here.

As we do not know the source or nature of the stimulus

responsible for cell division we cannot give a molecular account
of death in the higher organisms. However we shall now see that,
philosophically, we are entitled to consider reproduction as a
saving factor in this case also; and to regard the death of the
individual much as we regard the fall of the leaf from the tree:
_i.e._ as the cessation of an outgrowth from a development
extending from the past into the future. The phenomena of old age
and natural death are, in short, not at variance with the
progressive activity of the organism. We perceive this when we
come to consider death from the evolutionary point of view.

Professor Weismann, in his two essays, "The Duration of Life,"
and "Life and Death,"[1] adopts and defends the view that "death
is not a primary necessity but that it has been secondarily
acquired by adaptation." The cell was not inherently limited in
its number of cell-generations. The low unicellular organisms are
potentially immortal, the higher multicellular forms with
well-differentiated organs contain the germs of death within
themselves.

He finds the necessity of death in its utility to the species.
Long life is a useless luxury. Early and abundant reproduction is
best for the species. An immortal individual would gradually
become injured and would be valueless or even harmful to the
species by taking the place of those that are sound. Hence
natural selection will shorten life.

[1] See his _Biological Memoirs._ Oxford, 1888.

Weismann contends against the transmission of acquired characters
as being unproved.[1] He bases the appearance of death on
variations in the reproductive cells, encouraged by the ceaseless
action of natural selection, which led to a differentiation into
perishable somatic cells and immortal reproductive cells. The
time-limit of any particular organism ultimately depends upon the
number of somatic cell-generations and the duration of each
generation. These quantities are "predestined in the germ itself"
which gives rise to each individual. "The existence of immortal
metazoan organisms is conceivable," but their capacity for
existence is influenced by conditions of the external world; this
renders necessary the process of adaptation. In fact, in the
differentiation of somatic from reproductive cells, material was
provided upon which natural selection could operate to shorten or
to lengthen the life of the individual in accordance with the
needs of the species. The soma is in a sense "a secondary
appendage of the real bearer of life--the reproductive cells." The
somatic cells probably lost their immortal qualities, on this
immortality becoming useless to the species. Their mortality may
have been a mere consequence of their differentiation (loc. cit.,
p. 140), itself due to natural selection. "Natural death was
not," in fact, "introduced from absolute intrinsic necessity
inherent in the nature of living matter, but on grounds of
utility,

[1] Biological Memoirs, p. 142.

that is from necessities which sprang up, not from the general
conditions of life, but from those special conditions which
dominate the life of multicellular organisms."

On the inherent immortality of life, Weismann finally states:
"Reproduction is, in truth, an essential attribute of living
matter, just as the growth which gives rise to it.... Life is
continuous, and not periodically interrupted: ever since its
first appearance upon the Earth in the lowest organism, it has
continued without break; the forms in which it is manifest have
alone undergone change. Every individual alive today--even the
highest--is to be derived in an unbroken line from the first and
lowest forms." [1]

At the present day the view is very prevalent that the soma of
higher organisms is, in a sense, but the carrier for a period of
the immortal reproductive cells (Ray Lankester)[2]--an appendage
due to adaptation, concerned in their supply, protection, and
transmission. And whether we regard the time-limit of its
functions as due to external constraints, recurrently acting till
their effects become hereditary, or to variations more directly
of internal origin, encouraged by natural selection, we see in
old age and death phenomena ultimately brought about in obedience
to the action of an environment. These are not inherent in the
properties of living matter. But, in spite

[1] Loc. cit., p. 159

[2] Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, chap. xviii.

of its mortality, the body remains a striking manifestation of
the progressiveness of the organism, for to this it must be
ascribed. To it energy is available which is denied to the
protozoon. Ingenious adaptations to environment are more
especially its privilege. A higher manifestation, however, was
possible, and was found in the development of mind. This, too, is
a servant of the cell, as the genii of the lamp. Through it
energy is available which is denied to the body. This is the
masterpiece of the cell. Its activity dates, as it were, but from
yesterday, and today it inherits the most diverse energies of the
Earth.

Taking this view of organic succession, we may liken the
individual to a particle vibrating for a moment and then coming
to rest, but sweeping out in its motion one wave in the
continuous organic vibration travelling from the past into the
future. But as this vibration is one spreading with increased
energy from each vibrating particle, its propagation involves a
continual accelerated inflow of energy from the surrounding
medium, a dynamic condition unknown in periodic effects
transmitted by inanimate actions, and, indeed, marking the
fundamental difference between the dynamic attitudes of the
animate and inanimate.

We can trace the periodic succession of individuals on a diagram
of activity with some advantage. Considering, first, the case of
the unicellular organism reproducing by subdivision and recalling
that conditions, definite and inevitable, oppose a limit to the
rate of growth, or, for our

present purpose, rate of consumption of energy, we proceed as
follows:

{Fig. 1}

Along a horizontal axis units of time are measured; along a
vertical axis units of energy. Then the life-history of the
amoeba, for example, appears as a line such as A in Fig. 1.
During the earlier stages of its growth the rate of absorption of
energy is small; so that in the unit interval of time, t, the
small quantity of energy, e1, is absorbed. As life advances, the
activity of the organism augments, till finally this rate attains
a maximum, when e2 units of energy are consumed in the unit of
time.[1]

[1] Reference to p. 76, where the organic system is treated as
purely mechanical, may help readers to understand what is
involved in this curve. The solar engine may, unquestionably,
have its activity defined by such a curve. The organism is,
indeed, more complex; but neither this fact nor our ignorance of
its mechanism, affects the principles which justify the diagram.

On this diagram reproduction, on the part of the organism, is
represented by a line which repeats the curvature of the parent
organism originating at such a point as P in the path of the
latter, when the rate of consumption of energy has become
constant. The organism A has now ceased to act as a unit. The
products of fission each carry on the vital development of

{Fig. 2}

the species along the curve B, which may be numbered (2), to
signify that it represents the activity of two individuals, and
so on, the numbering advancing in geometrical progression. The
particular curvature adopted in the diagram is, of course,
imaginary; but it is not of an indeterminate nature. Its course
for any species is a characteristic of fundamental physical
importance, regarding the part played in nature by the particular
organism.

In Fig. 2 is represented the path of a primitive multicellular
organism before the effects of competition produced or fostered
its mortality. The lettering of Fig. 1 applies; the successive
reproductive acts are marked P1, P2; Q1, Q2, etc., in the paths
of the successive individuals.

{Fig. 3}

The next figure (Fig. 3) diagrammatically illustrates death in
organic history. The path ever turns more and more from the axis
of energy, till at length the point is reached when no more
energy is available; a tangent to the curve at this point is at
right angles to the axis of energy and parallel to the time axis.
The death point is reached, and however great a length we measure
along the axis of time, no further consumption of energy is

indicated by the path of the organism. Drawing the line beyond
the death point is meaningless for our present purpose.

It is observable that while the progress of animate nature finds
its representation on this diagram by lines sloping _upwards_ from
left to right, the course of events in inanimate nature--for
example, the history of the organic configuration after death, or

{Fig. 4}

the changes progressing--let us say, in the solar system, or in
the process of a crystallisation, would appear as lines sloping
downwards from left to right.

Whatever our views on the origin of death may be, we have to
recognise a periodicity of functions in the life-history of the
successive individuals of the present day; and whether or not we
trace this directly or indirectly to

a sort of interference with the rising wave of life, imposed by
the activity of a series of derived units, each seeking energy,
and in virtue of its adaptation each being more fitted to obtain
it than its predecessor, or even leave the idea of interference
out of account altogether in the origination or perpetuation of
death, the truth of the diagram (Fig. 4) holds in so far as it
may be supposed to graphically represent the dynamic history of
the individual. The point chosen on the curve for the origination
of a derived unit is only applicable to certain organisms, many
reproducing at the very close of life. A chain of units are
supposed here represented.[1]

THE LENGTH OF LIFE

If we lay out waves as above to a common scale of time for
different species, the difference of longevity is shown in the
greater or less number of vibrations executed in a given time,
_i.e._ in greater or less "frequency." We cannot indeed draw the
curvature correctly, for this would necessitate a knowledge which
we have not of the activity of the organism at different periods
of its life-history, and so neither can we plot the direction of
the organic line of propagation with respect to the

[1] Projecting upon the axes of time and energy any one complete
vibration, as in Fig. 4, the total energy consumed by the
organism during life is the length E on the axis of energy, and
its period of life is the length T on the time-axis. The mean
activity is the quotient E/T.

axes of reference as this involves a knowledge of the mean
activity.[1]

The group of curves which follow, relating to typical animals
possessing very different activities (Fig. 5), are therefore
entirely diagrammatic, except in respect to the approximate

{Fig. 5}

longevity of the organisms. (1) might represent an animal of the
length of life and of the activity of Man; (2), on the same scale
of longevity,

[1] In the relative food-supply at various periods of life the
curvature is approximately determinable.

one of the smaller mammals; and (3), the life-history of a cold
blooded animal living to a great age; _e.g._ certain of the
reptilia.

It is probable, that to conditions of structural development,
under the influence of natural selection, the question of longer
or shorter life is in a great degree referable. Thus, development
along lines of large growth will tend to a slow rate of
reproduction from the simple fact that unlimited energy to supply
abundant reproduction is not procurable, whatever we may assume
as to the strength or cunning exerted by the individual in its
efforts to obtain its supplies. On the other hand, development
along lines of small growth, in that reproduction is less costly,
will probably lead to increased rate of reproduction. It is, in
fact, matter of general observation that in the case of larger
animals the rate of reproduction is generally slower than in the
case of smaller animals. But the rate of reproduction might be
expected to have an important influence in determining the
particular periodicity of the organism. Were we to depict in the
last diagram, on the same time-scale as Man, the vibrations of
the smaller and shorter-lived living things, we would see but a
straight line, save for secular variations in activity,
representing the progress of the species in time: the tiny
thrills of its units lost in comparison with the yet brief period
of Man.

The interdependence of the rate of reproduction and

the duration of the individual is, indeed, very probably revealed
in the fact that short-lived animals most generally reproduce
themselves rapidly and in great abundance, and vice versa. In
many cases where this appears contradicted, it will be found that
the young are exposed to such dangers that but few survive (_e.g._
many of the reptilia, etc.), and so the rate of reproduction is
actually slow.

Death through the periodic rigour of the inanimate environment
calls forth phenomena very different from death introduced or
favoured by competition. A multiplicity of effects simulative of
death occur. Organisms will, for example, learn to meet very
rigorous conditions if slowly introduced, and not permanent. A
transitory period of want can be tided over by contrivance. The
lily withdrawing its vital forces into the bulb, protected from
the greatest extremity of rigour by seclusion in the Earth; the
trance of the hibernating animal; are instances of such
contrivances.

But there are organisms whose life-wave truly takes up the
periodicity of the Earth in its orbit. Thus the smaller animals
and plants, possessing less resources in themselves, die at the
approach of winter, propagating themselves by units which,
whether egg or seed, undergo a period of quiescence during the
season of want. In these quiescent units the energy of the
organism is potential, and the time-energy function is in
abeyance. This condition is, perhaps, foreshadowed in the
encyst-

ment of the amoeba in resistance to drought. In most cases of
hibernation the time-energy function seems maintained at a loss
of potential by the organism, a diminished vital consumption of
energy being carried on at the expense of the stored energy of
the tissues. So, too, even among the largest organisms there will
be a diminution of activity periodically inspired by
climatological conditions. Thus, wholly or in part, the activity
of organisms is recurrently affected by the great energy--tides
set up by the Earth's orbital motion.

{Fig. 6}

Similarly in the phenomenon of sleep the organism responds to the
Earth's axial periodicity, for in the interval of night a period
of impoverishment has to be endured. Thus the diurnal waves of
energy also meet a response in the organism. These tides and
waves of activity would appear as larger and smaller ripples

on the life-curve of the organism. But in some, in which life and
death are encompassed in a day, this would not be so; and for the
annual among plants, the seed rest divides the waves with lines
of no activity (Fig. 6).

Thus, finally, we regard the organism as a dynamic phenomenon
passing through periodic variations of intensity. The material
systems concerned in the transfer of the energy rise, flourish,
and fall in endless succession, like cities of ancient dynasties.
At points of similar phase upon the waves the rate of consumption
of energy is approximately the same; the functions, too, which
demand and expend the energy are of similar nature.

That the rhythm of these events is ultimately based on harmony in
the configuration and motion of the molecules within the germ
seems an unavoidable conclusion. In the life of the individual
rhythmic dynamic phenomena reappear which in some cases have no
longer a parallel in the external world, or under conditions when
the individual is no longer influenced by these external
conditions.,, In many cases the periodic phenomena ultimately die
out under new influences, like the oscillations of a body in a
viscous medium; in others when they seem to be more deeply rooted
in physiological conditions they persist.

The "length of life is dependent upon the number

[1] The _Descent of Man._

of generations of somatic cells which can succeed one another in
the course of a single life, and furthermore the number as well
as the duration of each single cell-generation is predestined in
the germ itself."[1]

Only in the vague conception of a harmonising or formative
structural influence derived from the germ, perishing in each
cell from internal causes, but handed from cell to cell till the
formative influence itself degrades into molecular discords, does
it seem possible to form any physical representation of the
successive events of life. The degradation of the molecular
formative influence might be supposed involved in its frequent
transference according to some such dynamic actions as occur in
inanimate nature. Thus, ultimately, to the waste within the cell,
to the presence of a force retardative of its perpetual harmonic
motions, the death of the individual is to be ascribed. Perhaps
in protoplasmic waste the existence of a universal death should
be recognised. It is here we seem to touch inanimate nature; and
we are led back to a former conclusion that the organism in its
unconstrained state is to be regarded as a contrivance for
evading the dynamic tendencies of actions in which lifeless
matter participates.[2]

[1] Weismann, _Life and Death; Biological Memoirs_, p. 146.

[2] In connection with the predestinating power and possible
complexity of the germ, it is instructive to reflect on the very
great molecular population of even the smallest spores--giving
rise to very simple forms. Thus, the spores of the unicellular
Schizomycetes are estimated to dimensions as low as 1/10,000 of a
millimetre in diameter (Cornil et Babes, _Les Batteries_, 1. 37).
From Lord Kelvin's estimate of the number of molecules in water,
comprised within the length of a wave-length of yellow light
(_The Size of Atoms_, Proc. R. I., vol. x., p. 185) it is
probable that such spores contain some 500,000 molecules, while
one hundred molecules range along a diameter.

THE NUMERICAL ABUNDANCE OF LIFE

We began by seeking in various manifestations of life a dynamic
principle sufficiently comprehensive to embrace its very various
phenomena. This, to all appearance, found, we have been led to
regard life, to a great extent, as a periodic dynamic phenomenon.
Fundamentally, in that characteristic of the contrivance, which
leads it to respond favourably to transfer of energy, its
enormous extension is due. It is probable that to its instability
its numerical abundance is to be traced--for this, necessitating
the continual supply of all the parts already formed, renders
large, undifferentiated growth, incompatible with the limited
supplies of the environment. These are fundamental conditions of
abundant life upon the Earth.

Although we recognise in the instability of living systems the
underlying reason for their numerical abundance, secondary
evolutionary causes are at work. The most important of these is
the self-favouring nature of the phenomenon of reproduction. Thus
there is a tendency not only to favour reproductiveness, but
early reproductiveness, in the form of one prolific
reproductive.

act, after which the individual dies.[1] Hence the wavelength of
the species diminishes, reproduction is more frequent, and
correspondingly greater numbers come and go in an interval of
time.

Another cause of the numerical abundance of life exists, as
already stated, in the conditions of nourishment. Energy is more
readily conveyed to the various parts of the smaller mass, and
hence the lesser organisms will more actively functionate; and
this, as being the urging dynamic attitude, as well as that most
generally favourable in the struggle, will multiply and favour
such forms of life. On the other hand, however, these forms will
have less resource within themselves, and less power of
endurance, so that they are only suitable to fairly uniform
conditions of supply; they cannot survive the long continued want
of winter, and so we have the seasonal abundance of summer. Only
the larger and more resistant organisms, whether animal or
vegetable, will, in general, populate the Earth from year to
year. From this we may conclude that, but for the seasonal
energy-tides, the development of life upon the globe had gone
along very different lines from those actually followed. It is,
indeed, possible that the evolution of the larger organisms would
not have occurred; there would have been no vacant place for
their development, and a being so endowed as Man could hardly

[1] Weismann, _The Duration of Life._

have been evolved. We may, too, apply this reasoning elsewhere,
and regard as highly probable, that in worlds which are without
seasonal influences, the higher developments of life have not
appeared; except they have been evolved under other conditions,
when they might for a period persist. We have, indeed, only to
picture to ourselves what the consequence of a continuance of
summer would be on insect life to arrive at an idea of the
antagonistic influences obtaining in such worlds to the survival
of larger organisms.

It appears that to the dynamic attitude of life in the first
place, and secondarily to the environmental conditions limiting
undifferentiated growth, as well as to the action of heredity in
transmitting the reproductive qualities of the parent to the
offspring, the multitudes of the pines, and the hosts of ants,
are to be ascribed. Other causes are very certainly at work, but
these, I think, must remain primary causes.

We well know that the abundance of the ants and pines is not a
tithe of the abundance around us visible and invisible. It is a
vain endeavour to realise the countless numbers of our
fellow-citizens upon the Earth; but, for our purpose, the
restless ants, and the pines solemnly quiet in the sunshine, have
served as types of animate things. In the pine the gates of the
organic have been thrown open that the vivifying river of energy
may flow in. The ants and the butterflies sip for a brief moment
of its waters, and again vanish into the

100

inorganic: life, love and death encompassed in a day.

Whether the organism stands at rest and life comes to it on the
material currents of the winds and waters, or in the vibratory
energy of the æther; or, again, whether with restless craving it
hurries hither and thither in search of it, matters nothing. The
one principle--the accelerative law which is the law of the
organic--urges all alike onward to development, reproduction and
death. But although the individual dies death is not the end; for
life is a rhythmic phenomenon. Through the passing ages the waves
of life persist: waves which change in their form and in the
frequency to which they are attuned from one geologic period to
the next, but which still ever persist and still ever increase.
And in the end the organism outlasts the generations of the
hills.

101

THE BRIGHT COLOURS OF ALPINE FLOWERS [1]

IT is admitted by all observers that many species of flowering
plants growing on the higher alps of mountainous regions display
a more vivid and richer colour in their bloom than is displayed
in the same species growing in the valleys. That this is actually
the case, and not merely an effect produced upon the observer by
the scant foliage rendering the bloom more conspicuous, has been
shown by comparative microscopic examination of the petals of
species growing on the heights and in the valleys. Such
examination has revealed that in many cases pigment granules are
more numerous in the individuals growing at the higher altitudes.
The difference is specially marked in Myosotis sylvatica,
Campanula rotundifolia, Ranunculus sylvaticus, Galium cruciatum,
and others. It is less marked in the case of Thymus serpyllum and
Geranium sylvaticum; while in Rosa alpina and Erigeron alpinus no
difference is observable.[2]

In the following cases a difference of intensity of colour is,
according to Kerner ("Pflanzenleben," 11. 504), especially
noticeable:-- _Agrostemma githago, Campanula

[1] _Proc. Royal Dublin Society_, 1893.

[2] G. Bonnier, quoted by De Varigny, _Experimental Evolution_,
p. 55.

102

pusilla, Dianthus inodorus (silvestris), Gypsophila repens, Lotus
corniculatus, Saponaria ocymoides, Satureja hortensis, Taraxacumm
officinale, Vicia cracca, and Vicia sepium._

To my own observation this beautiful phenomenon has always
appeared most obvious and impressive. It appears to have struck
many unprofessional observers. Helmholtz offers the explanation
that the vivid colours are the result of the brighter sunlight of
the heights. It has been said, too, that they are the direct
chemical effects of a more highly ozonized atmosphere. The latter
explanation I am unable to refer to its author. The following
pages contain a suggestion on the matter, which occurred to me
while touring, along with Henry H. Dixon, in the Linthal district
of Switzerland last summer.[1]

If the bloom of these higher alpine flowers is especially
pleasing to our own æsthetic instincts, and markedly conspicuous
to us as observers, why not also especially attractive and
conspicuous to the insect whose mission it is to wander from
flower to flower over the pastures? The answer to this question
involves the hypothesis I would advance as accounting for the
bright colours of high-growing individuals. In short, I believe a
satisfactory explanation is to be found in the conditions of
insect life in the higher alps.

In the higher pastures the summer begins late and

[1] The summer of 1892.

103

closes early, and even in the middle of summer the day closes in
with extreme cold, and the cold of night is only dispelled when
the sun is well up. Again, clouds cover the heights when all is
clear below, and cold winds sweep over them when there is warmth
and shelter in the valleys. With these rigorous conditions the
pollinating insects have to contend in their search for food, and
that when the rival attractions of the valleys below are so many.
I believe it is these rigorous conditions which are indirectly
responsible for the bright colours of alpine flowers. For such
conditions will bring about a comparative scarcity of insect
activity on the heights; and a scarcity or uncertainty in the
action of insect agency in effecting fertilization will intensify
the competition to attract attention, and only the brightest
blooms will be fertilized.[1]

This will be a natural selection of the brightest, or the

[1] Grant Allen, I have recently learned, advances in _Science in
Arcady_ the theory that there is a natural selective cause
fostering the bright blooms of alpines. The selective cause is,
however, by him referred to the greater abundance of butterfly
relatively to bee fertilizers. The former, he says, display more
æsthetic instinct than bees. In the valley the bees secure the
fertilization of all. I may observe that upon the Fridolins Alp
all the fertilizers we observed were bees. I have always found
butterflies very scarce at altitudes of 7,000 to 8,000 feet. The
alpine bees are very light in body, like our hive bee, and I do
not think rarefaction of the atmosphere can operate to hinder its
ascent to the heights, as Grant Allen suggests. The observations
on the death-rate of bees and butterflies on the glacier, to be
referred to presently, seem to negative such a hypothesis, and to
show that a large preponderance of bees over butterflies make
their way to the heights.

104

brightest will be the fittest, and this condition, along with the
influence of heredity, will encourage a race of vivid flowers. On
the other hand, the more scant and uncertain root supply, and the
severe atmospheric conditions, will not encourage the grosser
struggle for existence which in the valleys is carried on so
eagerly between leaves and branches--the normal offensive and
defensive weapons of the plant--and so the struggle becomes
refined into the more æsthetic one of colour and brightness
between flower and flower. Hence the scant foliage and vivid
bloom would be at once the result of a necessary economy, and a
resort to the best method of securing reproduction under the
circumstances of insect fertilizing agency. Or, in other words,
while the luxuriant growth is forbidden by the conditions, and
thus methods of offence and defence, based upon vigorous
development, reduced in importance, it would appear that the
struggle is mainly referred to rivalry for insect preference. It
is probable that this is the more economical manner of carrying
on the contest.

In the valleys we see on every side the struggle between the
vegetative organs of the plant; the soundless battle among the
leaves and branches. The blossom here is carried aloft on a
slender stem, or else, taking but a secondary part in the
contest, it is relegated to obscurity (P1. XII.). Further up on
the mountains, where the conditions are more severe and the
supplies less abundant, the leaf and branch assume lesser
dimensions, for they are costly weapons to provide and the
elements are unfriendly

105

to their existence (Pl. XIII.). Still higher, approaching the
climatic limit of vegetable life, the struggle for existence is
mainly carried on by the æsthetic rivalry of lowly but
conspicuous blossoms.

As regards the conditions of insect life in the higher alps, it
came to my notice in a very striking manner that vast numbers of
such bees and butterflies as venture up perish in the cold of
night time. It appears as if at the approach of dusk these are
attracted by the gleam of the snow, and quitting the pastures,
lose themselves upon the glaciers and firns, there to die in
hundreds. Thus in an ascent of the Tödi from the Fridolinshüte we
counted in the early dawn sixty-seven frozen bees, twenty-nine
dead butterflies, and some half-dozen moths on the Biferten
Glacier and Firn. These numbers, it is to be remembered, only
included those lying to either side of our way over the snow, so
that the number must have mounted up to thousands when integrated
over the entire glacier and firn. Approaching the summit none
were found. The bees resembled our hive bee in appearance, the
butterflies resembled the small white variety common in our
gardens, which has yellow and black upon its wings. One large
moth, striped across the abdomen, and measuring nearly two inches
in length of body, was found. Upon our return, long after the
sun's rays had grown strong, we observed some of the butterflies
showed signs of reanimation. We descended so quickly to avoid the
inconvenience of the soft snow that we had time for no

106

close observation on the frozen bees. But dead bees are common
objects upon the snows of the alps.

These remarks I noted down roughly while at Linthal last summer,
but quite recently I read in Natural Science[1] the following
note:

"Late Flowering Plants.--While we write, the ivy is in flower, and
bees, wasps, and flies are jostling each other and struggling to
find standing-room on the sweet-smelling plant. How great must be
the advantage obtained by this plant through its exceptional
habit of flowering in the late autumn, and ripening its fruit in
the spring. To anyone who has watched the struggle to approach
the ivy-blossom at a time when nearly all other plants are bare,
it is evident that, as far as transport of pollen and
cross-fertilization go, the plant could not flower at a more
suitable time. The season is so late that most other plants are
out of flower, but yet it is not too late for many insects to be
brought out by each sunny day, and each insect, judging by its
behaviour, must be exceptionally hungry.

"Not only has the ivy the world to itself during its flowering
season, but it delays to ripen its seed till the spring, a time
when most other plants have shed their seed, and most edible
fruits have been picked by the birds. Thus birds wanting fruit in
the spring can obtain little but ivy, and how they appreciate the
ivy berry is evident

[1] For December, 1892, vol. i., p. 730.

107

by the purple stains everywhere visible within a short distance
of the bush."

These remarks suggest that the ivy adopts the converse attitude
towards its visitors to that forced upon the alpine flower. The
ivy bloom is small and inconspicuous, but then it has the season
to itself, and its inconspicuousness is no disadvantage, _i.e._
if one plant was more conspicuous than its neighbours, it would
not have any decided advantage where the pollinating insect is
abundant and otherwise unprovided for. Its dark-green berries in
spring, which I would describe as very inconspicuous, have a
similar advantage in relation to the necessities of bird life.

The experiments of M. C. Flahault must be noticed. This
naturalist grew seeds of coloured flowers which had ripened in
Paris, part in Upsala, and part in Paris; and seed which had
ripened in Upsala, part at Paris, and part at Upsala. The flowers
opening in the more northern city were in most cases the
brighter.[1] If this observation may be considered indisputable,
as appears to be the case, the question arises, Are we to regard
this as a direct effect of the more rigorous climate upon the
development of colouring matter on the blooms opening at Upsala?
If we suppose an affirmative answer, the theory of direct effect
by sun brightness must I think be abandoned. But I venture to
think that the explanation of the Upsala

[1] Quoted by De Varigny, _Experimental Evolution_, p. 56.

108

experiment is not to be found in direct climatic influence upon
the colour, but in causes which lie deeper, and involve some
factors deducible from biological theory.

The organism, as a result of the great facts of heredity and of
the survival of the fittest, is necessarily a system which
gathers experience with successive generations; and the principal
lesson ever being impressed upon it by external events is
economy. Its success depends upon the use it makes of its
opportunities for the reception of energy and the economy
attained in disposing of what is gained.

With regard to using the passing opportunity the entire seasonal
development of life is a manifestation of this attitude, and the
fleetness, agility, etc., of higher organisms are developments in
this direction. The higher vegetable organism is not locomotory,
save in the transferences of pollen and seed, for its food comes
to it, and the necessary relative motion between food and
organism is preserved in the quick motion of radiated energy from
the sun and the slower motion of the winds on the surface of the
earth. But, even so, the vegetable organism must stand ever ready
and waiting for its supplies. Its molecular parts must be ready
to seize the prey offered to it, somewhat as the waiting spider
the fly. Hence, the plant stands ready; and every cloud with
moving shadow crossing the fields handicaps the shaded to the
benefit of the unshaded plant in the adjoining field. The open
bloom

109

is a manifestation of the generally expectant attitude of the
plant, but in relation to reproduction.

As regards economy, any principle of maximum economy, where many
functions have to be fulfilled, will, we may very safely predict,
involve as far as possible mutual helpfulness in the processes
going on. Thus the process of the development towards meeting any
particular external conditions, A, suppose, will, if possible,
tend to forward the development towards meeting conditions B; so
that, in short, where circumstances of morphology and physiology
are favourable, the ideally economical system will be attained
when in place of two separate processes, a, ß, the one process y,
cheaper than a + ß, suffices to advance development
simultaneously in both the directions A and B. The economy is as
obvious as that involved in "killing two birds with the one
stone"--if so crude a simile is permissible--and it is to be
expected that to foster such economy will be the tendency of
evolution in all organic systems subjected to restraints as those
we are acquainted with invariably are.

Such economy might be simply illustrated by considering the case
of a reservoir of water elevated above two hydraulic motors, so
that the elevated mass of water possessed gravitational
potential. The available energy here represents the stored-up
energy in the organism. How best may the water be conveyed to the
two motors [the organic systems reacting towards conditions A and
B] so

110

that as little energy as possible is lost in transit? If the
motors are near together it is most economical to use the one
conduit, which will distribute the requisite supply of water to
both. If the motors are located far asunder it will be most
economical to lay separate conduits. There is greatest economy in
meeting a plurality of functions by the same train of
physiological processes where this is consistent with meeting
other demands necessitated by external or internal conditions.

But an important and obvious consequence arises in the supply of
the two motors from the one conduit. We cannot work one motor
without working the other. If we open a valve in the conduit both
motors start into motion and begin consuming the energy stored in
the tank. And although they may both under one set of conditions
be doing useful and necessary work, in some other set of
conditions it may be needless for both to be driven.

This last fact is an illustration of a consideration which must
enter into the phenomenon which an eminent biologist speaks of as
physiological or unconscious "memory,"[1] For the development of
the organism from the ovum is but the starting of a train of
interdependent events of a complexity depending upon the
experience of the past.

[1] Ewald Hering, quoted by Ray Lankaster, _The Advancement of
Science_, p. 283.

111

In short, we may suppose the entire development of the plant,
towards meeting certain groups of external conditions,
physiologically knit together according as Nature tends to
associate certain groups of conditions. Thus, in the case in
point, climatic rigour and scarcity of pollinating agency will
ever be associated; and in the long experience of the past the
most economical physiological attitude towards both is, we may
suppose, adopted; so that the presence of one condition excites
the apparent unconscious memory of the other. In reality the
process of meeting the one condition involves the process and
development for meeting the other.

And this consideration may be extended very generally to such
organisms as can survive under the same associated natural
conditions, for the history of evolution is so long, and the
power of locomotion so essential to the organism at some period
in its life history, that we cannot philosophically assume a
local history for members of a species even if widely severed
geographically at the present day. At some period in the past
then, it is very possible that the individuals today thriving at
Paris, acquired the experience called out at Upsala. The
perfection of physiological memory inspires no limit to the date
at which this may have occurred--possibly the result of a
succession of severe seasons at Paris; possibly the result of
migrations --and the seed of many flowering plants possess means
of migration only inferior to those possessed by the flying and
swimming animals. But, again, possibly the experi-

112

ence was acquired far back in the evolutionary history of the
flower.[1]

But a further consideration arises. Not only at each moment in
the life of the individual must maximum income and most judicious
expenditure be considered, but in its whole life history, and
even over the history of its race, the efficiency must tend to be
a maximum. This principle is even carried so far that when
necessary it leads to the death of the individual, as in the case
of those organisms which, having accomplished the reproductive
act, almost immediately expire. This view of nature may be
repellent, but it is, nevertheless, evident that we are parts of
a system which ruthlessly sacrifices the individual on general
grounds of economy. Thus, if the curve which defines the mean
rate of reception of energy of all kinds at different periods in
the life of the organism be opposed by a second curve, drawn
below the axis along which time is measured, representing the
mean rate of expenditure of energy on development, reproduction,
etc. (Fig. 7), this latter curve, which is, of course,

[1] The blooms of self-fertilising, and especially of
cleistogamic plants (_e.g._ Viola), are examples of unconscious
memory, or unconscious "association of ideas" leading to the
development of organs now functionless. The _Pontederia crassipes_
of the Amazon, which develops its floating bladders when grown in
water, but aborts them rapidly when grown on land, and seems to
retain this power of adaptation to the environment for an
indefinite period of time, must act in each case upon an
unconscious memory based upon past experience. Many other cases
might be cited.

113

physiologically dependent on the former, must be of such a nature
from its origin to its completion in death, that the condition is
realized of the most economical rate of expenditure at each
period of life.[1] The rate of expenditure of energy at any
period of life is, of course, in such a curve defined by the
slope of the curve towards the axis of time at the period in
question; but this particular slope _must be led to by a previous
part of the curve, and involves its past and future course to a
very great extent_.

{Fig. 7}

There will, therefore, be impressed upon the
organism by the factors of evolution a unified course of
economical expenditure completed only by its death, and which
will give to the developmental progress of the individual its
prophetic character.

In this way we look to the unified career of each organic unit,
from its commencement in the ovum to the day

[1] See _The Abundance of Life_.

114

when it is done with vitality, for that preparation for momentous
organic events which is in progress throughout the entire course
of development; and to the economy involved in the welding of
physiological processes for the phenomenon of physiological
memory, wherein we see reflected, as it were, in the development
of the organism, the association of inorganic restraints
occurring in nature which at some previous period impressed
itself upon the plastic organism. We may picture the seedling at
Upsala, swayed by organic memory and the inherited tendency to an
economical preparation for future events, gradually developing
towards the æsthetic climax of its career. In some such manner
only does it appear possible to account for the prophetic
development of organisms, not alone to be observed in the alpine
flowers, but throughout nature.

And thus, finally, to the effects of natural selection and to
actions defined by general principles involved in biology, I
would refer for explanation of the manner in which flowers on the
Alps develop their peculiar beauty.

115

MOUNTAIN GENESIS

OUR ancestors regarded mountainous regions with feelings of
horror, mingled with commiseration for those whom an unkindly
destiny had condemned to dwell therein. We, on the other hand,
find in the contemplation of the great alps of the Earth such
peaceful and elevated thoughts, and such rest to our souls, that
it is to those very solitudes we turn to heal the wounds of ife.
It is difficult to explain the cause of this very different point
of view. It is probably, in part, to be referred to that cloud of
superstitious horror which, throughout the Middle Ages, peopled
the solitudes with unknown terrors; and, in part, to the
asceticism which led the pious to regard the beauty and joy of
life as snares to the soul's well-being. In those eternal
solitudes where the overwhelming forces of Nature are most in
evidence, an evil principle must dwell or a dragon's dreadful
brood must find a home.

But while in our time the aesthetic aspect of the hills appeals
to all, there remains in the physical history of the mountains
much that is lost to those who have not shared in the scientific
studies of alpine structure and genesis. They lose a past history
which for interest com-

116

petes with anything science has to tell of the changes of the
Earth.

Great as are the physical features of the mountains compared with
the works of Man, and great as are the forces involved compared
with those we can originate or control, the loftiest ranges are
small contrasted with the dimensions of the Earth. It is well to
bear this in mind. I give here (Pl. XV.) a measured drawing
showing a sector cut from a sphere of 50 cms. radius; so much of
it as to exhibit the convergence of its radial boundaries which
if prolonged will meet at the centre. On the same scale as the
radius the diagram shows the highest mountains and the deepest
ocean. The average height of the land and the average depth of
the ocean are also exhibited. We see how small a movement of the
crust the loftiest elevation of the Himalaya represents and what
a little depression holds the ocean.

Nevertheless, it is not by any means easy to explain the genesis
of those small elevations and depressions. It would lead us far
from our immediate subject to discuss the various theoretical
views which have been advanced to account for the facts. The idea
that mountain folds, and the lesser rugosities of the Earth's
surface, arose in a wrinkling of the crust under the influence of
cooling and skrinkage of the subcrustal materials, is held by
many eminent geologists, but not without dissent from others.

The most striking observational fact connected with mountain
structure is that, without exception, the ranges

117

of the Earth are built essentially of sedimentary rocks: that is
of rocks which have been accumulated at some remote past time
beneath the surface of the ocean. A volcanic core there may
sometimes be--probably an attendant or consequence of the
uplifting--or a core of plutonic igneous rocks which has arisen
under the same compressive forces which have bowed and arched the
strata from their original horizontal position. It is not
uncommon to meet among unobservant people those who regard all
mountain ranges as volcanic in origin. Volcanoes, however, do not
build mountain ranges. They break out as more or less isolated
cones or hills. Compare the map of the Auvergne with that of
Switzerland; the volcanoes of South Italy with the Apennines.
Such great ranges as those which border with triple walls the
west coast of North America are in no sense volcanic: nor are the
Pyrenees, the Caucasus, or the Himalaya. Volcanic materials are
poured out from the summits of the Andes, but the range itself is
built up of folded sediments on the same architecture as the
other great ranges of the Earth.

Before attempting an explanation of the origin of the mountains
we must first become more closely acquainted with the phenomena
attending mountain elevation.

At the present day great accumulations of sediment are taking
place along the margins of the continents where the rivers reach
the ocean. Thus, the Gulf of Mexico receiving the sediment of the
Mississippi and Rio Grande;

118

the northeast coast of South America receiving the sediments of
the Amazons; the east coast of Asia receiving the detritus of the
Chinese rivers; are instances of such areas of deposition. Year
by year, century by century, the accumulation progresses, and as
it grows the floor of the sea sinks under the load. Of the
yielding of the crust under the burthen of the sediments we are
assured; for otherwise the many miles of vertically piled strata
which are uplifted to our view in the mountains, never could have
been deposited in the coastal seas of the past. The flexure and
sinking of the crust are undeniable realities.

Such vast subsiding areas are known as geosynclines. From the
accumulated sediments of the geosynclines the mountain ranges of
the past have in every case originated; and the mountains of the
future will assuredly arise and lofty ranges will stand where now
the ocean waters close over the collecting sediments. Every
mountain range upon the Earth enforces the certainty of this
prediction.

The mountain-forming movement takes place after a certain great
depth of sediment is collected. It is most intense where the
thickness of deposit is greatest. We see this when we examine the
structure of our existing mountain ranges. At either side where
the sediments thin out, the disturbance dies away, till we find
the comparatively shallow and undisturbed level sediments which
clothe the continental surface.

Whatever be the connection between the deposition and

119

the subsequent upheaval, _the element of great depth of
accumulation seems a necessary condition and must evidently enter
as a factor into the Physical Processes involved_. The mountain
range can only arise where the geosyncline is deeply filled by
long ages of sedimentation.

Dana's description of the events attending mountain building is
impressive:

"A mountain range of the common type, like that to which the
Appalachians belong, is made out of the sedimentary formations of
a long preceding era; beds that were laid down conformably, and
in succession, until they had reached the needed thickness; beds
spreading over a region tens of thousands of square miles in
area. The region over which sedimentary formations were in
progress in order to make, finally, the Appalachian range,
reached from New York to Alabama, and had a breadth of 100 to 200
miles, and the pile of horizontal beds along the middle was
40,000 feet in depth. The pile for the Wahsatch Mountains was
60,000 feet thick, according to King. The beds for the
Appalachians were not laid down in a deep ocean, but in shallow
waters, where a gradual subsidence was in progress; and they at
last, when ready for the genesis, lay in a trough 40,000 feet
deep, filling the trough to the brim. It thus appears that epochs
of mountain-making have occurred only after long intervals of
quiet in the history of a continent."[1]

[1] Dana, _Manual of Geology_, third edition, p. 794

120

On the western side of North America the work of
mountain-building was, indeed, on the grandest scale. For long
ages and through a succession of geological epochs, sedimentation
had proceeded so that the accumulations of Palaeozoic and
Mesozoic times had collected in the geosyncline formed by their
own ever increasing weight. The site of the future Laramide range
was in late Cretaceous times occupied by some 50,000 feet of
sedimentary deposits; but the limit had apparently been attained,
and at this time the Laramide range, as well as its southerly
continuation into the United States, the Rockies, had their
beginning. Chamberlin and Salisbury[1] estimate that the height
of the mountains developed in the Laramide range at this time was
20,000 feet, and that, owing to the further elevation which has
since taken place, from 32,000 to 35,000 feet would be their
present height if erosion had not reduced them. Thus on either
side of the American continent we have the same forces at work,
throwing up mountain ridges where the sediments had formerly been
shed into the ocean.

These great events are of a rhythmic character; the crust, as it
were, pulsating under the combined influences of sedimentation
and denudation. The first involves downward movements under a
gathering load, and ultimately a reversal of the movement to one
of upheaval; the second factor, which throughout has been in

[1] Chamberlin and Salisbury, _Geology_, 1906, iii., 163.

121

operation as creator of the sediments, then intervenes as an
assailant of the newly-raised mountains, transporting their
materials again to the ocean, when the rhythmic action is
restored to its first phase, and the age-long sequence of events
must begin all over again.

It has long been inferred that compressive stress in the crust
must be a primary condition of these movements. The wvork
required to effect the upheavals must be derived from some
preexisting source of energy. The phenomenon--intrinsically one of
folding of the crust--suggests the adjustment of the earth-crust
to a lessening radius; the fact that great mountain-building
movements have simultaneously affected the entire earth is
certainly in favour of the view that a generally prevailing cause
is at the basis of the phenomenon.

The compressive stresses must be confined to the upper few miles
of the crust, for, in fact, the downward increase of temperature
and pressure soon confers fluid properties on the medium, and
slow tangential compression results in hydrostatic pressure
rather than directed stresses. Thus the folding visible in the
mountain range, and the lateral compression arising therefrom,
are effects confined to the upper parts of the crust.

The energy which uplifts the mountain is probably a surviving
part of the original gravitational potential energy of the crust
itself. It must be assumed that the crust in following downwards
the shrinking subcrustal magma, develops immense compressive
stresses in

122

its materials, vast geographical areas being involved. When
folding at length takes place along the axis of the elongated
syncline of deposition, the stresses find relief probably for
some hundreds of miles, and the region of folding now becomes
compressed in a transverse direction. As an illustration, the
Laramide range, according to Dawson, represents the reduction of
a surface-belt 50 miles wide to one of 25 miles. The marvellous
translatory movements of crustal folds from south to north
arising in the genesis of the Swiss Alps, which recent research
has brought to light, is another example of these movements of
relief, which continue to take place perhaps for many millions of
years after they are initiated.

The result of this yielding of the crust is a buckling of the
surface which on the whole is directed upwards; but depression
also is an attendant, in many cases at least, on mountain
upheaval. Thus we find that the ocean floor is depressed into a
syncline along the western coast of South America; a trough
always parallel to the ranges of the Andes. The downward
deflection of the crust is of course an outcome of the same
compressive stresses which elevate the mountain.

The fact that the yielding of the crust is always situated where
the sediments have accumulated to the greatest depth, has led to
attempts from time to time of establishing a physical connexion
between the one and the other. The best-known of these theories
is that of Babbage and Herschel. This seeks the connexion in the
rise of the

123

geotherms into the sinking mass of sediment and the consequent
increase of temperature of the earth-crust beneath. It will be
understood that as these isogeotherms, or levels at which the
temperature is the same, lie at a uniform distance from the
surface all over the Earth, unless where special variations of
conductivity may disturb them, the introduction of material
pressed downwards from above must result in these materials
partaking of the temperature proper to the depth to which they
are depressed. In other words the geotherms rise into the sinking
sediments, always, however, preserving their former average
distance from the surface. The argument is that as this process
undoubtedly involves the heating up of that portion of the crust
which the sediments have displaced downwards, the result must be
a local enfeeblement of the crust, and hence these areas become
those of least resistance to the stresses in the crust.

When this theory is examined closely, we see that it only amounts
to saying that the bedded rocks, which have taken the place of
the igneous materials beneath, as a part of the rigid crust of
the Earth, must be less able to withstand compressive stress than
the average crust. For there has been no absolute rise of the
geotherms, the thermal conductivities of both classes of
materials differing but little. Sedimentary rock has merely taken
the place of average crust-rock, and is subjected to the same
average temperature and pressure prevailing in the surrounding
crust. But are there any grounds for the

124

assumption that the compressive resistance of a complex of
sedimentary rocks is inferior to one of igneous materials? The
metamorphosed siliceous sediments are among the strongest rocks
known as regards resistance to compressive stress; and if
limestones have indeed plastic qualities, it must be remembered
that their average amount is only some 5 per cent. of the whole.
Again, so far as rise of temperature in the upper crust may
affect the question, a temperature which will soften an average
igneous rock will not soften a sedimentary rock, for the reason
that the effect of solvent denudation has been to remove those
alkaline silicates which confer fusibility.

When, however, we take into account the radioactive content of
the sediments the matter assumes a different aspect.

The facts as to the general distribution of radioactive
substances at the surface, and in rocks which have come from
considerable depths in the crust, lead us to regard as certain
the widespread existence of heat-producing radioactive elements
in the exterior crust of the Earth. We find, indeed, in this fact
an explanation--at least in part--of the outflow of heat
continually taking place at the surface as revealed by the rising
temperature inwards. And we conclude that there must be a
thickness of crust amounting to some miles, containing the
radioactive elements.

Some of the most recent measurements of the quantities of radium
and thorium in the rocks of igneous origin--_e.g._ granites,
syenites, diorites, basalts, etc., show that the

125

radioactive heat continually given out by such rocks amounts to
about one millionth part of 0.6 calories per second per cubic
metre of average igneous rock. As we have to account for the
escape of about 0.0014 calorie[1] per square metre of the Earth's
surface per second (assuming the rise of temperature downwards,
_i.e._ the "gradient" of temperature, to be one degree centigrade
in 35 metres) the downward extension of such rocks might, _prima
facie_, be as much as 19 kilometres.

About this calculation we have to observe that we assume the
average radioactivity of the materials with which we have dealt
at the surface to extend uniformly all the way down, _i.e._ that
our experiments reveal the average radioactivity of a radioactive
crust. There is much to be said for this assumption. The rocks
which enter into the measurements come from all depths of the
crust. It is highly probable that the less silicious, _i.e._ the
more basic, rocks, mainly come from considerable depths; the more
acid or silica-rich rocks, from higher levels in the crust. The
radioactivity determined as the mean of the values for these two
classes of rock closely agrees with that found for intermediate
rocks, or rocks containing an intermediate amount of silica.
Clarke contends that this last class of material probably
represents the average composition of the Earth's crust so far as
it has been explored by us.

[1] The calorie referred to is the quantity of heat required to
heat one gram of water, _i.e._ one cubic centimetre of
water--through one degree centigrade.

126

It is therefore highly probable that the value found for the mean
radioactivity of acid and basic rocks, or that found for
intermediate rocks, truly represents the radioactive state of the
crust to a considerable depth. But it is easy to show that we
cannot with confidence speak of the thickness of this crust as
determinable by equating the heat outflow at the surface with the
heat production of this average rock.

This appears in the failure of a radioactive layer, taken at a
thickness of about 19-kilometres, to account for the deep-seated
high temperatures which we find to be indicated by volcanic
phenomena at many places on the surface. It is not hard to show
that the 19-kilometre layer would account for a temperature no
higher than about 270° >C. at its base.

It is true that this will be augmented beneath the sedimentary
deposits as we shall presently see; and that it is just in
association with these deposits that deep-seated temperatures are
most in evidence at the surface; but still the result that the
maximum temperature beneath the crust in general attains a value
no higher than 270° C. is hardly tenable. We conclude, then, that
some other source of heat exists beneath. This may be radioactive
in origin and may be easily accounted for if the radioactive
materials are more sparsely distributed at the base of the upper
crust. Or, again, the heat may be primeval or original heat,
still escaping from a cooling world. For our present purpose it
does not much matter which view

127

we adopt. But we must recognise that the calculated depth of 19
kilometres of crust, possessing the average radioactivity of the
surface, is excessive; for, in fact, we are compelled by the
facts to recognise that some other source of heat exists
beneath.

If the observed surface gradient of temperature persisted
uniformly downwards, at some 35 kilometres beneath the surface
there would exist temperatures (of about 1000° C.) adequate to
soften basic rocks. It is probable, however, that the gradient
diminishes downwards, and that the level at which such
temperatures exist lies rather deeper than this. It is,
doubtless, somewhat variable according to local conditions; nor
can we at all approximate closely to an estimate of the depth at
which the fusion temperatures will be reached, for, in fact, the
existence of the radioactive layer very much complicates our
estimates. In what follows we assume the depth of softening to
lie at about 40 kilometres beneath the surface of the normal
crust; that is 25 miles down. It is to be observed that Prestwich
and other eminent geologists, from a study of the facts of
crust-folding, etc., have arrived at similar estimates.[1] As a
further assumption we are probably not far wrong if we assign to
the radioactive part of this crust a thickness of about 10 or 12
kilometres; _i.e._ six or seven miles. This is necessarily a
rough approximation only; but the conclusions at which

[1] Prestwich, _Proc. Royal Soc._, xii., p. 158 _et seq._

128

we shall arrive are reached in their essential features allowing
a wide latitude in our choice of data. We shall speak of this
part of the crust as the normal radioactive layer.

An important fact is evolved from the mathematical investigation
of the temperature conditions arising from the presence of such a
radioactive layer. It is found that the greatest temperature, due
to the radioactive heat everywhere evolved in the layer--_i.e._
the temperature at its base--is proportional to the square of the
thickness of the layer. This fact has a direct bearing on the
influence of radioactivity upon mountain elevation; as we shall
now find.

The normal radioactive layer of the Earth is composed of rocks
extending--as we assume--approximately to a depth of 12 kilometres
(7.5 miles). The temperature at the base of this layer due to the
heat being continually evolved in it, is, say, t1°. Now, let us
suppose, in the trough of the geosyncline, and upon the top of
the normal layer, a deposit of, say, 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) of
sediments is formed during a long period of continental
denudation. What is the effect of this on the temperature at the
base of the normal layer depressed beneath this load? The total
thickness of radioactive rocks is now 22 kilometres. Accordingly
we find the new temperature t2°, by the proportion t1° : t2° ::
12° : 22° That is, as 144 to 484. In fact, the temperature is more
than trebled. It is true we here assume the radioactivity of the
sediments

129

and of the normal crust to be the same. The sediments are,
however, less radioactive in the proportion of 4 to 3.
Nevertheless the effects of the increased thickness will be
considerable.

Now this remarkable increase in the temperature arises entirely
from the condition attending the radioactive heating; and
involves something _additional_ to the temperature conditions
determined by the mere depression and thickening of the crust as
in the Babbage-Herschel theory. The latter theory only involves a
_shifting_ of the temperature levels (or geotherms) into the
deposited materials. The radioactive theory involves an actual
rise in the temperature at any distance from the surface; so that
_the level in the crust at which the rocks are softened is nearer
to the surface in the geosynclines than it is elsewhere in the
normal crust_ (Pl. XV, p. 118).

In this manner the rigid part of the crust is reduced in
thickness where the great sedimentary deposits have collected. A
ten-kilometre layer of sediment might result in reducing the
effective thickness of the crust by 30 per cent.; a
fourteen-kilometre layer might reduce it by nearly 50 per cent.
Even a four-kilometre deposit might reduce the effective
resistance of the crust to compressive forces, by 10 per cent.

Such results are, of course, approximate only. They show that as
the sediments grow in depth there is a rising of the geotherm of
plasticity--whatever its true temperature may be--gradually
reducing the thickness of that part

130

of the upper crust which is bearing the simultaneously increasing
compressive stresses. Below this geotherm long-continued stress
resolves itself into hydrostatic pressure; above it (there is, of
course, no sharp line of demarcation) the crust accumulates
elastic energy. The final yielding and flexure occur when the
resistant cross-section has been sufficiently diminished. It is
probable that there is also some outward hydrostaitic thrust over
the area of rising temperature, which assists in determining the
upward throw of the folds.

When yielding has begun in any geosyncline, and the materials are
faulted and overthrust, there results a considerably increased
thickness. As an instance, consider the piling up of sediments
over the existing materials of the Alps, which resulted from the
compressive force acting from south to north in the progress of
Alpine upheaval. Schmidt of Basel has estimated that from 15 to
20 kilometres of rock covered the materials of the Simplon as now
exposed, at the time when the orogenic forces were actively at
work folding and shearing the beds, and injecting into their
folds the plastic gneisses coming from beneath.[1] The lateral
compression of the area of deposition of the Laramide, already
referred to, resulted in a great thickening of the deposits. Many
other cases might be cited; the effect is always in some degree
ne

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