Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1858-10-07
Age and Destiny of the Earth.

The following is the conclusion of
remarkable paper by Prof. Helmboltz,
of Bonn, translated by Prof. Tryndall,
and published in the London Philoseph-
ical Magazine. The subject is, the 'sNat-
ural Action of Natural Forces" This
extract on great and narrowly under
stood subject will prove interesting to
the reader:
Men are in the habit of measuring
the greatness and the wisdom of the
universe by the duration and the profit
which it promises to their own race; but
the past history of the earth already
shows what an insignificant moment the
duration of eXistance of ou1 race upon it
constitutes. A Ninevah vessel, Ro-
man sword, awakes in US the conception
OF gay antiquity. What the museums
OF Europe shows US Of the remains of
Egypt and Assyrra, we gaze on with
silent establishment, and despair of be-
ing able to cary our thoughts back to
period SO remote. Still must the human
race have existed for ages and multi
piled itself, before the pyramid of Nine
veh could have been erected. We es-
innate the duration of human history at
5000 years; but immeasurable as this
time may appear to us, what is it in
comparison with the time during which
the earth carried successive series cf
rank plants and mighty animals, and no
men; during which our neighborhood
-Germany-the amber tree bloomed
and dropped its costly gum on the earth
and in the sea; when in Siberia Europe
and North America groves of tropical
palms f0urished; where gigantic liz
yards, and elephants whose mighty re-
mains we still find buried in the earth
found home?
Different biologists proceeding from
different premises, have sought to esti-
mate the duration of the above creative
period, and vary from million to nine
million years. And the time during
which the earth generated organic be-
ings is again small, when we compare
it with the ages during which the earth
was ball of fused rocks. For the du-
ration of its cooling from 1000 degrees
to 200 degrees Centigrade, the expert
ments of Bishop upon basalt shows that
about three hundred and fifty millions of
years would be necessary. And with
regard to the time during which the first
nebulous mass condensed into our plan
etary system, our most daring coniect-
ures must cease. The history of man,
therefore is but a short ripple in the
, ocean Of time For a much longer Sc
ries ofyears than that during which man
has already occupied this world the ex-
istance of the present state of inorganic
nature favorable to the duration OF man
seems to be secured, so that for our
selves and for long generations after US,
we have nothing to fear. But the same
forces of air and water, and of volcanic
interior, which produced former geolog-
ical revolutions, buried one series of liv-
ing forms after another, act still upon
the earth's crust. They more probably
will bring about the last day of the hui
man race, than those distant cosmical
alterations Of which we have spoken,
and perhaps force us to make way for
new and more complete living form,
mas the lizard and the mammoth
have given place to US and our fellow
creatures which now exist Thus the
thread which has conducted us to a uni
versal law of nature, to our own race
permits long but endless existence
it threatens it with day of judgment,
the dawn of which is still happily OBJ
scured. AS each Of us singly must en-
dure the thought of his death, the race
must endure the same. But above the
forms of life gone by, the human race
has higher moral problems before 1.-THE
bearer of which it is, and in the com pie
ton of which it fulfls it's destiny.
A method Of examining wells for as
pertaining whether they contain any
thing offensive has been recommended
as being simple and yet efficient:
Place a common mirror over the well
in such position as to catch and throw
the rays of the sun to the bottom of the
well which will be Immediately ipumi-