Where did life begin?1883 - 64 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
advent air and ocean arctic zone became cool bottom currents carboniferous cause cerned climatic change climatic conditions coal-beds coal-plants colder commenced common ancestry conclusion concurrent conditions constantly cooler course of migration currents of air degeneration dispersed distribution ditions earth by radiation earth's surface eastern and western epoch equator equatorial belt exterminated flora and fauna flowering plants forms frigid zones geological glacial period habitable habitat hairy elephant heat into space herbivor hypothesis ice and snow increasing cold isothermal lines land loss of heat lowering temperature ment miles miocene molten mass mountain ranges movement north and south north pole northern hemisphere ocean currents offset organic passed plants and animals polar regions polar zones probable proportion received the least remains are found rhinoceros southern square foot temperate climate temperate zones tinents tion torrid climate torrid zone tribal sense vast vegetal and animal warm climate warmer whole earth
Popular passages
Page 61 - In scientific investigations it is permitted to invent any hypothesis, and if it explains various large and independent classes of facts it rises to the rank of a well-grounded theory.
Page 62 - I have already amply illustrated it elsewhere. I would merely say here that we should bear in mind that in this later half of the Lower Laurentian, or if we so choose to style it, Middle Laurentian period, we have the conditions required for life in the sea and on the land ; and since in other periods we know that life was always present when its conditions were present, it is not unreasonable to look for the first traces of life in this formation, in which we find for the first time the completion...
Page 54 - ... lingering behind and struggling for life in a climate of increasing cold, would have become extremely degenerated and so easily disposed of, if not actually exterminated by the climate itself ; thus leaving as the nearest in resemblance to man, and yet the remotest in actual relationship both to him and to his ancestry, the later tribes of anthropoid apes since developed, nearer to the equator, from the next lower animals which accompanied him in his southward march.
Page 53 - ... moving tropical climate, down the eastern and western continents alike, until it and he, arriving in the lapse of ages at the equatorial belt, and being always at the head and still rising in the scale of being by this movement, discipline, and process, became sufficiently advanced by slow degrees to build fires, clothe himself, make implements, and, possibly, domesticate animals, at least the first and most useful to primitive man, the dog, and so prepared for conflict and for...
Page 59 - ... Scribner's answer to the question, " Where did Life begin ? " human as well as floral and faunal life should be included. After examining these fresh lines of evidence it is believed that the reader will find more impressive than ever the words with which our author concludes his charming tractate : — " Thus the Arctic zone, which was earliest in cooling down to the first and highest heat degree in the great life-gamut, was also first to become fertile, first to bear life, and first to send...
Page 27 - I have mentioned cold, as the all-sufficient cause of a dispersion to the southward of plants and animals. To those who would admit the cause but doubt the effect, I would quote a sentence from the admirable book of Professor Dana, entitled " The Geological Story Briefly Told," in which he says (speaking of the glacial epoch, page 224): "There must have been some exterminations as a consequence of the cold of the glacial period and of the ice of the high latitude regions; many plants were driven...
Page 22 - We may therefore safely conclude, if the code of natural laws has been uniformly in force, — " First, — That life commenced on those parts of the earth which were first prepared to maintain it ; at any rate, that it never could have commenced elsewhere. " Second, — As the whole earth was at one time too hot to maintain life, so those parts were probably first prepared to maintain it which cooled first. "Third, — That those parts which received the least heat from the sun, and which radiated...
Page 53 - ... long epochs than the glacial period, it would afford a possible ground for the claim of the unity of the origin of man, and also a reason for the absence on earth of his immediate predecessor. His arboreal progenitor in the pioneer ranks of this great southern movement, ages before the Quaternary (during all of which period man has probably inhabited the earth), was possibly driven naked by the ever-following, merciless cold, thus keeping him within the southward-moving tropical climate, down...
Page 62 - ... enormous pressure at the bottom of the ocean does not exercise so much influence on life as the temperature of the water. There are few, I presume, who reflect on the subject that will not readily admit that, whether as regards the great physical changes which are taking place on the surface of our globe, or as regards the growth and distribution of plant and animal life, the ordinary climatic agents are the real agents at work, and that, compared with them, all other agencies sink into insignificance.
Page 53 - ... driven naked by the ever following, merciless cold, thus keeping him within the southward moving tropical climate, down the eastern and western continents alike, until it and he, arriving in the lapse of ages at the equatorial belt, and being always at the head and still rising in the scale of being by this movement, discipline, and process, became sufficiently advanced by slow degrees to build fires, clothe himself, make...