Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-01-12

- in that distant day when giant toaus'
frogs and other amphibians were rulers OF .iie
world and hoped crawled and -Figgiea
through huge forests of giant ierhs ana
MOSES
one Moon was Luna still resplendent IN,
the sky
The other Moon was the w-disin'egratcd
satellite of the Earth called Ephemeron--
Then as now. Luna marched its nightly
course from east TO west across the heavens
Of the Carboniferous age some 25O,oooooo
years ago
Mysterious Ephemeron now vanished into
mere dust that has settled indistingri 7hahly
to the Earth paraded the skies IN the reverse
direction from west 10 east.
Giant and midget were these satellites OF
the Earth Great Luna-some 2.163 miles
acrosS-,Uas far out in space more than Z5s'-
600 miles from the Earth. Little Ephemeron'
only 10 miles across. was only 1000 miles
from the Earth.
But because of their vast difference in
distance the two Moons looked about the same
size in the sky.
As the amphibians Of the Permian Age
wiggled through the great swamp lands lhai
then covered much OF the Earth they could
II they had looked and -comprehended' have
seen a weird nightly sight
At shutdown the two Moons rose in stately
gplpn0Of
their magnificent procession across the sky
anproachlng one another like huge silvery,
heavenly dollars.
soon however little Ephemeron passed
into the blackness of the Earths shadow ana
cut off from SUNLIGHT. became dark and in
visible in the sky Familiar Luna shone on in
all its spendor as 1t does even today
But often the line Of passage of Ephemeron
crossed that OF Luna and then the Permian
Age amphibians saw a truly curious moon
They saw Luna as single ring of light with
A dark disk over its center. This occurred
when the dark. eclipsed Ephemeron itself
eclipsed Luna AS astronomers would now
express II an annular. or ring, eclipse OF
Luna had occurred.
But on Earth there was no man 70 see
this spectacle; only short-tailed lahyrintho-
donts crawling in the dim moonlight through
warm. tropical swamps teeming with luxurious
vegetation that has never since been rivalled
on Earth.
II may seem fantastic that scientists seri-
ouslv speculate about the lost Moon of the
Earth Ephemeron. II 1t ever existed 1t IS long
since dead and no single bit of direct evidence
exists to prove thatit ever swept the sky.
But the great Permian Age of the Earth
once had an amazing Ice Age and the lost
moon Ephemeron has been suggested by
scientists to explain it,
No common Ice-Age was the glaciation Of
the Permian epoch in the Earth's history
Most everyone has heard Of the latter day Ice
Age like the one which covered the Polar and
temperate regions of the world perhaps as
late as % 900 years ago. Much of the modern
geography of the United States and the world
the way the rivers run, the lakes. the great
plains and the hills and valleys-all trace
their final pattern of today TO the last Ice Age.
But the Ice Age of the Permian epoch was
entirely different. 1t was an Ice Age at the
equator alone in lands that are now in the
hot tropics. 1t did not cover the North and
! South Polar regions of the Earth. 1t was an
= Ice Age in reverse, we ordinarily think of
Ice Ages.
In the heart of tropical Africa, in the dia-
mond mines on the Rand in sunny Texas in
the Vale OF Kashmir in India and other regions
that are now warm, biologists have discovered
on rocks the huge scrappings that are the
marks alone of giant glaciers. How did they
get there?
How could an ice sheet cover the tropics
when it did not, at the same time, cover the