Evening star., 1938-06-30
OF STARS
MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress
in Field, Laboratory
and Study.
By THOMAS r. HENRY.


OTTAWA, June 30.-Episodes of
Mother Earth's history for 100000, 900
years, during which the. eternal hills
have been like lines scrawled in water
and oceans like evaporating puddles,
were presented before geologists attend
ing the meetings of the American As
ISOLATION for the Advancement of Science
here today.
There are six thick rock pages of
Times scrawlings around Ottawa itself,
according to paper presented by Dr.
Alice E. Wilson of the Canadian Geo
logical Survey, reaching back beyond the
earliest known traces of life on earth
The record of the rocks starts with a
period of lofty mountains, bare and
rugged as the mountains of the moon
extending into an unfathomable antioui-
ty between the beginnings of life and the
origin of the world.
These mountains were cut down by
erosion through a very long period.
There are ancinet rock formations to-
day which may be the denuded roots of
the ancient hills. Then, about a half
billion years ago, the seas broke into
North America from three directions,
the Arctic, the present Gulf of St..
Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. A
narrow, shallow ocean arm covered the
present area of the Adirondacks and
in many places left the first traces Of
living things, curious crab-like creatures
which became fossilized in the mud of
the sea bottom which changed to rock.
This sea must have persisted through
millions of years until about 400 1000, 900
years ago, the so-called Ordivician
geological era. The sediment deposited
on its bottom formed rock layers 1000
feet thick.
1t was warm. quiet sea with low
lying shores. Them came a climatic
time in the earth's history. The sea
floor was lifted up and great cracks, or
faults, formed in the worlds crust. The
present-day Appalachian Mountains
were born in this earthquake moaning
birth agony and erosion, the aging pro-
cess Of hills, started again. Then, in
some other climatic episode in time,
came the great ice sheets, scraping
the mountains bare. The land sank
under the great weight of the ice and
all life was crushed out. Then the ice
withdrew and the ocean again broke
into the sunken land through the St.
Lawrence trough. The latest major
episode. perhaps shortly before the COM
ing OF man. was re-rising of the land
and the withdrawal of the ancient
ocean arm
extraordinarily complex is the geoloei-
cal story of the Gaspe Peninsula OF
quebec, now a favorite resort for sum-
mer motorists, as 1t was described by
DR.. /. w. Jones Of the Quebec Bureau
OF Mines. This is the northern end of
the far-strung Appalachian Mountain
system. Three times it has been part
OF the sea floor for very long periods.
during which thousands Of feet of rock
have been laid down. In long episodes
between the ocean invasions there has
been intense volcanic activity.
Titan bridge builders in the depths OF
the earth who erected 4,0O0-foot- high
piers for a 60-mile-long bridge go ,oO0.- :
600 years ago between the ancient Ap-
palachians and the still older Lauren
tian Mountains of Quebec were de-
scribed by DR.. F. Fitz Osborne of Nc
Gill University.
These bridge piers are the Monte
regian hills near Montreal. They are.
DR.. Osborne said. roots of great VOL
Nt@AAS~" "AAASAl WCIC dCtlNC uuFlIR the
Paleozoic geological era, when most
present forms of life were getting started
on earth. At that time there was a
continuous elevation between the Ap-
palachians and the mountains OF the
ancient Canadian shield" resulting
from the filling in of a great rift sepa-
rating the mountain systems by the de-
posits of an ancient sea.
Far down in the earth there were
titanic gas explosions. blowing holes to
the surface through the relatively soft
sea-lain deposits. Through these holes,
serving as gigantic pipe lines to the sur
face. great geysers of molten rock rose
to the surface and spouted over the
landscape, constituting volcanoes. Then
the molten rock in the great pipes hard
ened, leaving great concrete piers"
After time, nobody knows how long
ago, the surrounding sea formations and
the debris thrown out by the volcanoes
were swept clear. perhaps by some of
the great ice sheets which passed over
this part of the continent. They left
the hard-rock piers standing there, ready
for the rebuilding of the bridge In some
future age.
The present hills. DR.. Osborne said,
may be considered as sections cut from
5000 to 5000 feet below the surface at
which the original volcanic activity took
nlace