The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1921-02-24
FIRST FORMS OF LIFE
45,OOO,OOO YEARS AGO
SCIENTIST TELLS OF TIME CON-
SUMED IN MAKING THE
WORLD.

January ], 1921 New Years day
we call il. Yet it isn't a new year al
all, according to DR.. Charles d. Wal
colt. scientist, secretary Of the Smith
sonian Institution, but very very
old year. says a Washington cores
pondent
The only real new year, Dr. Wal
colt holds. occurred many millions OF
years ago-probably 1OO.OOOOOO at
least.
"A recent resume" says Walcott
showing the relative age of the sed-
mentary strata for each period OF
history points to a minimum of go
100000 years since water and wind
began to transport continental earth
and rocks over the land and into the
seas and lakes"
But how about life? Where does
science put the first new year for
life?
Life Began Centuries Ago.
"A concrete conception of the age
Of life on earth" Walcott says, lis
suggested by recalling that the So
called Cambrian period with its
early and semi primitive forms Of
invertebrate marine fossils, stands
roughly speaking. midway in the
earths history Approximately as
long a period of time was required to
develop life to the Cambrian stage OF
evolution as has elapsed up 90 the
present time"
In other words a form of life which
already had undergone long era OF
development from the arst animal
culae that was evolved from the
steaming waters of a lifeless earth
existed something like 100000
years ago
Through long ages life was moth
ing more than swimming and creep
ing things in water. Chief among
the life of this period were the trilo-
bites. crawling things like big sea
woodlice and probably related to the
American king crab of today Dur
ing this time the land was apparent
~ barren of life.
Then came fish and giant reptiles
living partly n water, partly on land
Then land vertebrates, mammals and
through millions of generations, the
animal life of today
Just when the new year for man
arrived is uncertain. Earliest evil
dence of some human or sub human
life is found i'm strata placed at 500
600 years Old. These consist of nints
and stones roughly Clipped and
shaped as though to he held i'm the
hand But there have heen found no
bones or fossil remains of the man
or animal using these implements
Mans First New Year.
Mans new year may have been
about 100000 years ago. Scattered
bones Of creature about halfway
between that of a chimpanzee and a
man have been found at Trinil Java
in strata Of about that age. The
creature was not a man nor was it
an arboreal ape Naturalists have
named it the walking ape-man.
While these early men or snb-men
were running around Europe mann
moths and giant species of hippopot-
ami. bison and wild cattle roamed the
earth
In a sand pit at Heidelberg Ger
many i'm strata identified as of the
second interglacial period or about
100000 years ago. was found a jaw
bone with human teeth. The jaw
bone was not that of a man as we
know him today the narrowness at
the back could not have given the
tongue sufficient play for articulate
speech. and it has absolutely no
trace Of a chin
Dawn Man Appears.
The next leaf i'm sciences quest for
mans new year turns forward by
about another 100000 years and
brings MS to the Pntdown sub-man.
Scraps of the PHtdown sub mans
skull were found i'm excavating for
road gravel in Sussex. England. It is
thicker skull than of any living
race of man, and with much small
er brain capacity This creature has
been named the dawn-man.
For another lapse of $4,000 years.
little or nothing is known of mans
development But by about $4,000
years ago quite passable human
being had appeared Science calls
him the Neanderthal man; he was
not quite of the human species. but
mdisputably of the genus homo