The Washington times., 1920-07-04

70 crawl out and try a land life
voluntarily.
Some Of the water animals be-
came serpents, some lizards,
some 'four-legged, blood
ed" creatures, some birds and
some, like the whale and the
manatee, lived -, on land long
enough to develop into warm
blooded vertebrates, then went
back to the ocean again, deciding
that 1t was safer. Look closely at
q whales skeleton and you will
sec tiny thigh bones, remains of
legs with which he used to walk
around on the land.
Some became snakes and got no
further, others stopped at the
gorilla or chimpanzee stage, others
changed the fms of the fish into
wings of birds. Then they stop
ped thinking and developing be-
cause, having found safety in
flight, no further thinking was
necessary.
We, feebler than the gorilla,
without wings, or powerful claws,
or long teeth, were compelled to
think always or die, and now,
with the name Of MEN We rule
this round ball of earth.
We have climbed up from the
heavy atmosphere Of the first ocean
at the bottom of which we once
lived and live now at the bottom
Of another Ocean," the atmos-
pheric air, which we take into our
lungs, AZ we used to draw the
water into our mouths and let it
out through our gills in the fish
stage. .e.,.-.. !. is>s....e ...,~
The man who says it is utterly
ridiculous to suggest that we
were once fish, may be right. Let
him explain the anatomical re-
semblance between the human
ear, with Eustachian tube, and the
gill of the fish, and the fact that
even today, with our ocean life
millions Of years back Of US, babes
are born occasionally with open
gills >on their necks from which
the milk runs as they drink.
We have moved up from the
heavy HsO of water to the
lighter ocean of air, made up of
oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon
dioxide, ozone, aqueous vapor, am
monia and atmospheric dust, mil
lions of particles in every cubic
inch of air.
We wonder how the fish live
with the heavy weight of the ocean
on them. The wonder is how we
live, standing on two legs, with
the weight of 400 miles of atmos-
phere bearing down upon US. The
strongest man or horse would be
crushed fiat to the earth if you
suddenly loaded on his back the
weight that young girl bears
upon her shoulders. That pressure
amounts to more than fourteen
pounds for every square inch Of
the surface Of your body-a load
for an elephant; not one could
carry it.
The fish in the ocean do not
know it is the ocean.
Staying in the deep part, they
never heard of waves, or of the
lightning flashing on the surface.
How many human beings know
anything about their atmospheric
ocean? Until recently we were
crawling on the bottom of it on
our feet or in steam cars. Now
we have acquired swimming
'1fins," which are the wings of our
flying machines. We go up few
miles, six or seven, then come
down, frozen and astonished.
Go up $4,000 feet-the highest
fight ever made by human being
and you find a temperature SO de-
grees below zero, with a powerful
wind blowing always to the east.
The .earth's motion 10 the east
causes that.
At about that height you reach
0 region called "the equally heat
ed" region, OF "isothermal." After
about seven miles you 20 up long
way and find no temperature
change. That is the "belt" of air
around the earth in which man
will probably do most Of his flying.
Further up, the air gets too
Nthin," losing various parts of
itself. At thirty miles up there is
no moro oxygen, and at that height
no sound could be heard. 1t would
be difficult to hear the human voice
at height of even ten miles. A
yell would sound like a faint
whisper.
At fifty miles up. nitrogen and
hydrogen (moisture held in sus-
pension) disappear from the air.
Two hundred miles up, the air is
Absolutely dark, even at midday
and the temperature stands close
70 absolute Zero" about 400
degrees below our zero.
! Scientists tell you that when