The sun., 1903-08-30
is THIS LIFE'S OLDEST FORM?
BATELLT THAT THRIVE ALIKE
~ COID AND MEAT.
Gould Something Like Them Have been
waiting for the Earth to Cool E0ns
AEo"-Prokress From the Single Cen
10 the Complex Thing Called Nian
Br PROF. WILLIAM BpELscHE

ri PROF. WILLIAM BDELSCHE.
lf intelligent eyes watch the earth from
any distant planet they must gain their
direct knowledge, first Of oil, through the
light that tho earth planet sends to them.
The great mass of this light is, of course,
reflected sunlight But the earth also sends
out light from the side that is turned from
the sun, when it ia not illuminated even by
the moon
This is light of two kinds: First. light
diffused by great mechanical causes, such
as northern lights. lightmngs, star showers
and the red CLEANS of active volcanoes.
The second sort of light is more mysterious
II is light that depends on the existence
OF organic creatures
The distant observer might perceive
the great cities of man az faint misty stars
the work Of man, the height of all organic
development on earth. But long before
that he would probably have seen some-
thing more remarkable. He would have
seen difrused pale light, phosphoroscent,
lowering over vast areas.
What causes these fireworks? Single
celled things unicels, creatures of the
order of the atoms of the ocean which,
singly only microsCopical bits of muc'is,
ilhrmine the oceans by their myriads.
The distant observer, then would see
the works Of the two great oppostcs of
world-life This kingdom of the minute,
the kingdom of the bacillus. is truly great
enough to make it's effects seen afar through
the universe. Like sandstorm that
threatens 10 bury mankind it sweeps over
humanity.
And in this bacillus are traits that point
TO a life form beyond the limits that are
drawn on earth for other forms Of life,
Everywhere We see the true vegetable,
the true animal life, limited to certain grades
of temperature. In the terrible Polar
cold life gradually ceases. In boiling
water life ends.
While the earth still was rod hot in it's
interior we picture life rs absent from it.
In the great glacial periods it must have
been destroyed in great areas Of the Garth.
In the icy universe. in the star spaces, or
on a planet for which no sun shines. we
Imagine again that life is totally extinct.
Yet ertain bacilli Withstand intense
temperatures. high and low; temperatures
that destroy the vital albumcn entirely.
This fart furnishes much food for thought
The primeva existence OF these unicells.
Tho entire world Of plants and animals
shows one-sidcd adaptation to certain
conditions, with death as the result Of any
violent change. But the tough bacillus
faces liz like an arch-form OF life that is far
superior to these limits. 1t enables us to
imagine a life that does not know any
limits Of temperature.
This would he life corresponding 10
the life speculated on by Fechtner who
advanced the idea Of an existence that
has adapted itself through the cons TO all
the changes of temperatures and is as
"rnal as the motion that is the cause
Of all warmth
The bacillus of to-day that can with
stand 13O degrees Celsius of cold may be
capable of existence in the ever frozen
space of the universe even now-the uni
verse cold" that rules between the planets.
between tine solar systems and that lies
between us and the moon, between us and
Mars and bet tween the sun and its red
double star,
Such bacillus gives point to the theory
OF Humboldt, that life never began on
earth through birth on earth, but that it
reached this planet through some agency
that brought it out Of the universe in the
right moment, when the cooling earth Of
fered proper conditions
He suggested that such an agenc v might
have been Il meteoric stone, carrying the
primeval germ OF life in tlssure.
We need not fall back on the meteorio
stone. We have it in the presence of bacilh
that can bear 100 degrees Celsius and more
Of cold.
We might ask il the earth in its daring
fight around the sun does not at times
cut through cosrnic swarms OF bacilli az
it cuts through meteoric swarms. II tho
astronomers of the middle ages, who used
TO hold that all great comets brought pesti-
lences to the earth. had been in possession
of our present knowledge of bacilli, they
might well have been led to imagine that
the comets tail carried the baoilli of the
pest and rained them down on the unlucky
earth.
These are dreams Yet it is undeniable
that there is something weird about the
properties Of bacill. something that points
at one and the same time to the oldest ex-
istence on earth and to the last living thing,
man.
Max Schultze counted 800, 600 limeshels
OF certain unlcells IN thirty grammeS of
sand. Now, remind yourself that thou
sands Of square miles OF the oceans are one
single, compact layer Of gray mud, and
that this gray mud consists practically of
nothing except such shells.
The whole bottom Of the North Atlantic
Ocean from Greenland to the Azores is SO
formed 1t lis the so-callcd cable plateau.
and over it's entire breadth, from the British
TO the American coast, lies this mud.
We marvel aC the Cheops pyramid as a
gigantic achievement OF man. Yet long
before man upreared this royal mountain
unicells made the stone that was used by
man afterward,
They did not merely furnish material
enough for pyramids. The limestone.
into which they finally changed, lies over
the whole earth, now as hopeless deserts.
then as beautiful Rivieras. as mighty,
handicapped mountains, from the western
ocean to the Sahara and across the Call-
casus TO the Hmalayas; yes, across India. |
Borneo and Java into the Philippines and
beyond then over the Pacific Ocean. And