Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-08-18
Life from Other war,a.-

Professors Huxley, Darwin, and other sensa-
tional scientific gents, )" win now have to take
back seat for . while, and let Sir william
Thomson come 20 the front. He Is the new
president Of the British Association for the Adj
1anctment Of Science, and in his address at the
recent annual meeting OF the association he adj
vaneed the theory that every year thousands,
probably millions, of fragments Of solid matter
fan upon the earth. IL Is In the highest degree
probable that there are eosnless ssed-bearing
seteorie Jton<s-the Fragments Of other seorlds Of
13e-mOving about through space. II ut the
present instant no life existed upon this earth,
one such stone falling upon 1t might, by what
we blindly call natural causes, lead to It's be-
coming covered with vegetation. The hypothe-
sis that hfe originated on this earth through
psoss-STorn Jra1n>nts, from ae rsins of anotAer
world, may seem wild and yisionary-an MAIN
tain Is that IL Is not unscientihc. From the
earth stocked with such vegetation as It could
receive meteorically 10 the earth teeming with
AL the endless variety Of plants and animals
which now inhabit 1t, the step Is prodlsious, vet.
according 70 the doctrine Of continuity most ably
Laid before the association by Mr.. Grove, ali
creatures now living on earth have proceeded
by orderly evolution from some such origin.n
Sir William WIN have hard work to sustain
this theory. The fall OF thousands of meteoric
stones has been noted, and many OF them care
fully snaly sed, and metals have been found. but
never any indication of organic matter. The
degree Of heat evolved BY the passage of these
aerolites through the atmosphere Is about equal
% the melting point Of iron, sufficient one would
think to SINCE OF all the moss they might have
gathered in rolling through space, besides roast
ing the seeds beyond The possibility Of reproduc-
ton Admitting, however, for arguments, sake.
what Is claimed by Sir William, that life In this
world sprung from mossgrown fragments Of
another world, with which either this or a third
planet had come into collision, and which being
itself endowed with organic life had projected It's
fragments upon our surface, with all their germs
Of vegetable and animal growth, man included;
and admitting, further, that these organic germs
were not destroyed by the intense heat TO which
they must have been subjected in passing through
our atmosphere, we are as far a. ever from
getting back to the origin OF lfe for the question
still recurs how did the germs arrive on that
other orb from which we got them, and 30 on
Professor Huxley claims that this bombardment
theory is a declaration in favor OF his doctrine of
evolution, rearking that ''the forms Of life thus
tansmitted-that Is, In the shape OF the spores of
fungi, by meteoric stones-could not by any pos
Ebility have been anything but the very lowest
elements OF life; and therefore, IL Sir William
Thomson saw no difficulty In popping the world
IN that way, il must be because he was q sound
Derwinian at heart, and believed that all the
higher forms OF life had been evolved from the
lowest"