The Washington times., 1919-10-26
The Microscope Reveals Little Fossils
Imbedded In the Meteors from the
Outermost Depths of Space Which
Show Both Vegetable and Animal Life
By DR.. w. H. BalIou.

w there is life-as we know life, or
whether throughout space there spin other
worlds on which dwell plants and living.
mobile creatures, has long been bitterly
contested question.
II has been answered definitely and
finally, Science now believes. in the af,
irmative.
Metsors falling TO our earth's surface
out Of the iIlimitable intersteilar depths
have been subjected to the most exacting
microscopic and chemical analysis Under
this they have revealed not only the min
eraliEed forms Of such lower animals as
the crinoids--to which the starShsh and the
sea-urchin belong -corals and sponges, but
peat and coal as well. Furthermore, In
some OF these aerolites water has been
found and in others o4ygenl
These four things imbedded IN the stony
masses form message compact, unequiyo
cal and startling. They show that the
world they have been torn from must have
been much like our own. The crinoids,
sponges and corals prove that It possessed
an ocean; the peat and coal that 1t had
vegetation; the water and oxygen that It
possessed an atmosphere.
Where rolled that world Of which the
meteorite was q partf What ruled it--
creatures comparable to man. lower forms,
higher forms, or strange shapes produced
by processes Of evolution unknown to US
here? And what happened to that woridf
The nrst and second questions can be
guessed at only. Anything might have
become its dominant race. II might have
been planet Of our own solar system, de-
stroyed aeons ago--it might have been
world spinning about sun incalculable
distances away from as.
But to the third question there Is den-
mite answer. Whatever world Il was Of
which It was part was destroyed in some
vast cataciysm that sent It's fragments
hurting through the void like those Of an
exploding SHELF
aerolites or meteors be parts Of our own
earth projected into space beyond the
range Of earths grayitation In the frighttui
volcanic commissions Of the past7
Meteors are Of two kinds-tne stcny or
l:thoiites. and the metallic fragments which
contain no trace Of stony matter. The
evidences Of organic life are found only in
the tholites; the metallic meteors are
composed entirely Of iron. with now and
then traces Of cobalt chromium, tin. sui
phur, arsenic. phosphorus, aluminium. chlor-
inc, nitrogen. hydrogen and carbon.
It Is true that no element has ever been
found In any meteor which Is not also
found In earth.
But this is Offset In the cases Of the me
taIlic meteors by the fact that their crys-
tallization is absolutely unlike any crystal.
lization Of any iron yet found within earth
Ia difference so striking that II is one Of
the things that enable scientists 10 tell at
once whether the substance before them is
or Is not meteoric. It b further Offset by
the fact that about no volcano on earth are
such masses Of metal found. Volcanoes do
not eject masses Of iron and never did.
This would seem to dispose Of the metal
metsors as earth exiles, returning home
after long voyages in the infinite.
The same argument as to the volcanoes
applies to the htholites. And volcanoes
are the only guns We have ever had capable
of shooting any objects outside the intlu-
ence Of earth's gravitationaf force.
But beside that the total mass Of the
meteors alone whose orbits. like the plan
cts, are around our own sun. Is inconceiv-
ably vast. Unless we are prepared to ad-
NIT that our earth shot on at least thou.
sand times its own present bulk into space
before it steadied down, we are up q
stump. There are countless other swsrms
which do not revolVe around our sun.
There Is, too, another Law. Involving ceies-
jal mechanics, the possibility Of return TO
our own comparatively tiny sphere, and
many ether things which space forbids so
Ing into here.
It can be set down that Science, on sui.
hcientiy good grounds, has dismissed I'm
ally the theory Of meteors being volcanic
debris OF our own world.
The conclusive evidence that the stony
meteors were once parts OF worlds like
our own has been provided By scores Of