Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-05-17
Old Ideas of Things Fall Before Science,
Now Aiding Civilizations Advance

the church can ill afford to much longer dis
pute it.
Most scientists only contend that men and
apes, and even fishes, sprung from a common
stem. When they reached the parting or the
ways each simply went in a different direc-
ton. 1t is not generally suggested that we
were necessarily once apes and fishes; merely
that we had a common origin.
To our eat-grandfathers the thought that
elephants and tigers, camels and dinosaurs
once roamed this fair continent would have
provoked side-splitting merriment. Yet only
a few weeks ago workmen digging in modern
New York came upon the fossil remains OF a
mammoth And laborers who removed the
fagstones from the front porch of James
Monroes home, only few miles down In
Virginia, some years ago turned them over
and found stamped upon the under surfaces
of several the unmistakable prints of a dino
saurs foot.
The prints of those mighty feet We're
stamped into the fagstones when they were
still moist sand, untold ages back in the his
tory of creation. Through the ages they were
preserved intact, but when the stones were
quarried and laid down as floor for the front
porch Of one of our most ilustrious Presidents
homes, they either passed unnoticed alto
gether or failed to impress the unenlightened
workmen of the past century. Similar tracks.
and even the bones of creatures long extinct,
may still be found in virtually every part of
the United States, and with them fossil fishes
to prove that this continent once emerged
from the sea.
1t has long been a popular belief that man
cannot improve upon nature With the trained
mind that nature provided man, however, he
not only can improve upon the craftsmanship
of Mother Nature but he actually does, even
the point of duplicating in his laboratory
in a single day better rocks than she manu-
featured in spans of time great that they
are most easily conceived in terms of geo
logic ages. And mans synthetic rocks, while
not nearly so large, are purer.
Lifes Span Increased.
Because man improved upon nature the nor
NAL span of his life has been increased by II
years in the last decade Some scientists who
recently journeyed to the jungles of Central
America and lived with the monkeys in their
natural. open-air habitats, learned that despite
their muscular activities and abundance of
ozone and sunshine our simian cousins are not
nearly so healthy as city-bound clif-dwell-
ers, who must depend upon specks OF goil
courses for meager exercise
One might quite easily write a library on the
accomplishments of the scientist during the
last century and yet the half would not De
told One by one some of our strongest concep
tions are having the props knocked from under
them. AS the bystander watches this amazing
What next?" 1t would be difficult to find a
single instance, however where this great work
has not marked another step forward IN the
onward march of civilization.
Without any blare of advertising or loss OF
time with useless words, the scientist has been
plugging ahead with his tedious researches
in unattractive laboratories. To him this sud
den burst of progress is due largely to the
broader view civilization has come 10 take OF
things and mans readiness to absorb the new
light that has been shed not only upon his sur
roundings, but himself As one outstanding stu
dent expressed 1t:
I'VE owe our present state of enlightenment
to scientific research. But if mankind had not
been willing accept it with an open mind 1t
would have awaited nothing. More and more
the world is coming to accept the truth with a
broader vision. and so long as that state pre-
walls civilizations progress is inevitable.