Evening star., 1932-05-08
SCIENTISTS HONOR D. C.. MAN
CROPPING IN PREHISTORIC AGES
DR.. David White Reveals FoS-
sill Traces Back $780,
100000 Years.
Gold Medal Awarded Him by
ACademy-AISo Gets BEL
gian Tribute.

The world Of science has started to
heap its honors on the head of mod
est Washington geologist who probably
has penetrated further than any other
man into the fog of dead time. CROP
ing toward the beginning Of life on
earth
Last week Dr. David White, chief
geclogist of the Geological Survey from
1919 TO 1922, was awarded gold medal
by the National Academy of Sciences
for his accomplishments. Almost ST.
multaneously he was elected an honor
airy member of the Geological Society
Of Belgium:
BY his latest work. still unpublished
DR.. White brings his career to its
crowning achievement. He has car
ried the trail of life back close to a bill
lion years-750,0 100000, he says, is a
conservative estimate This he has
done by microscopic studies of fossils"
from the Grand Canyon.
Finds Faint Traces.
Few men living except DR.. White
would even suspect that the rocks in
which he has found the earliest prints
the traces of minute algae and bsc-
terra. similar to microscopic plants
found in streams today. Around these
plants mineral deposits we're built up
This results in rock nodulss. the char
acteristic markings of which furnish
a clue to these remnants from the
distant past. But during the ages the
nature OF the mineral deposit NAV
have changed several times, the "fos-
sils" were pressed down by the mass
Of vast mountains and the whole re-
suit was something almost unrecogniz-
Dr. White has gone far into the pre-
Csmbrien geological age. Up to a few
years ago the earliest records of life
we're in the Cambrian formations, rocks
laid down approximately 6000000o0
years ago.
Beyond that point time seemed an
impenetrable maze. Obviously this life
must have had its own ancestry. But
the rocks living under the Cambrjan
had been pressed, churned and boiled
into such a confusion that. it was
thought. anything which even would
give hint of living creature must
have been DESTROYED. But Dr. White
with a few other geologists scattered
over the world. were persistent in the
search.
Rare Areas Found.
The result is that little pre-Cam-
brian islands have been found which,
through special geological cireum-
stances, escaped much Of the crushing
and churning,
Thus far, DR.. White says, he has
himself found nothing indicative of
animal life.
Dr. Whites following of the trail of
life through time has led him to "
philosophical concept of time itse~
He pictures it as great spiral, some
thing like one of the spiral nebulse
of the astronomers. Known time is
represented by the outer coil. The in
ner coils, representing far vaster
periods since the earth began. are so
intricate there Is no possibility even
of counting them.
Dr. White is described as perhaps
the leading authority in the world on
the now extinct plants whose fossil
imprints now are found so abundantly
in the roof shales of coal beds.
DR.. White was born in Wayne
County. N. Y, July l, 1862. and was
graduated from Cornell University in
1886. He joined the Geological Sur
vey staff that same year and has re-
manned with the organization ever
since.
He is vice president of the National
Academy, the senate of American
science, former president Of the Geo.
logical Society of America, and has
been prominently identified with the
work Of the National Research Council.
Twelve thousand dsffodils have Just