The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-12-12
TERRESTRIAL LIFE.
Dangers That Threaten the Earth and Its
Inhabitants.

INHABITANTS
Before reaching the present period OF
its history, the earth passed in success.
ion through great geological phases,
| during which it's continents and seas
were several times deranged by the
| internal forces that its nucleus of mat
| ter in fusion developed. None of these
revolutions has been able to destroy the
powerful germs of life, and it is to-iay
more impossible than ever for a geolog-
| zeal cataclysm to cause such a result
The most important of the historic
catastrophes OF this kind is contempo-
raneous. We refer to the gigantic
eruption OF Krakatoa, in 1888. which
claimed so, 900 victims, and totally trans
| formed the CONFORMATION of the Strait
of Sunda. Despite their great violence,
such phenomena are always local, and,
consequently, without untoward infu-
ence upon animate beings collectively.
The internal activity of our planet is
, now greatly reduced. So the earth has
entered upon its calm period Of exist
ence. A rapid examination of this
progressive dimunition of internal en-
ergy is to lead US to particularly
rational solution Of the problem Of the
worlds end. When the solid crust OF
our globe formed, it surrounded an
incandescent fluid spheroid, which af-
terward condensed towards its center
under the action Of cooling. In meas
ure as it contracted this nucleus dimin-
ished in volume, and the external Gov
ering gave way in places, and cracked in
order to follow the motion of shrinkage.
1t is in this way that were produced the
large folds that formed the principal
reliefs of the surface. Consequently
the terrestrial crust having become
thicker, will be covered with enormous
crevasses through which the oceans and
atmosphere will be gradually absorbed
in the numerous internal spaces. The
surface of the moon, deprived of air and
| water, with the immense burrows that
traverse its plains and mountains, pre-.
sents the spectacle of this beginning OF
rupture, for our satellite is moro ad-
vanced in development than the terres-
trial globe. Having passed t is stage.
the dead star, cracked in all directions.
| will break in pieces, and the fragments
will be scattered along its orbit This
destiny of the earth is still a thing of a
very remote future. Yet it seems as ii
the natural evolution of our globe will
cause the disappearance of life long be-
fore the extinction of the sun. 1t is,
moreover, easy to see that in the geo
logical epochs lost in the night of ages
the vital forces were more powerful
than those of our day. We have proof
of this in the exuberance of life that
then gave birth to animals and plants
beside which the present gigantic
beings are but dwarfs. The day on
which, through such general weakening
OF vitality, man will have fallen into a
physical decadence that his refined in
telligence will not be able to supply
the place of, will probably be also the
day on which the last representatives
of our race and of the entire creation will
have to live in the bowels of the earth
in the pursuit of air and water, which
will slowly descend toward the center
Of the earth. Deprived of atmospheric
fluid, the surface of the globe will
thereafter have for temperature only
that of interstellary space, say hun
dred centigrade degrees below zero.
And while our human race will be reim-
mersed in the nihility from which it
had emerged tor few thousands of CEN
turtles, other humanities will succeed
one another upon the innumerable stars
that people infinite space. -Jacques Leo
tard, in La Nature.