THE STORY OF LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1766, 3 June 1913, Page 6

THE STORY OF LIFE.

A VIVID PORTRAYAL. LECTURE BY MR. JOS. M'CABE. "The Story of Life on the Earth" was vividly sketched by Mr. Joseph M'Cabe in his lecture at tho Conccrt Chamber of tho Town Hnll last evening. Gifted with an admirable delivery, Mr. M'Cabe imparted to his utterances an air of dramatic realism, and his explanations were extremely clear and lucid. 11l the main he avoided scientific terminology, and confined himself to simple language, which all could understand. Tho series of lan-tern-pictures, which illustrated the lecture, was a very fine one. Mr. M'C'abe was careful to explain that they were not fancy pictures, but that evidence mado available by modern scientific research supplied tho groundwork of each picture. The audience comfortably filled the hall. In opening, Mr. M'Oabe said that it was the great aim of science, and its greatest triumph, to take the ashes of the past and build tliem up into a wonderful picture, bringing before the mind almost the very scenes and the very populations of past ages in the life of the world. The 6tory of life on the earth was a very long one: at the lowest estimate it was a story of 50 or GO million years. No doubt his hearers would tremble at the idea that he was going to discuss CO million years of evolution, but of this period lie intended to cut off entirely the first half. Tho story of life was written on the rocks under foot, which were one vast cemetery of living things which had gone before us on this globe. Millions of forms of plants and animals that lived long ago had been disentombed. Records of life in the 'first half of earth's existence wero very meagre, and were .represented by little more than a few little streaks of carbon. The earth was at one time a little sun or small star having a heat of ten thousand degrees. It cooled down in the course of time, the oceans settled, and the crust of the globe was formed. Science to-d?.y simply assumed that life was born spontaneously. It was accepted that one higher type after another had evolved age after age. There seemed to be no reason why primitive life forms should not have been evolved, but there was no positive knowledge on the subject. At least there haft come a time when something in the nature of very little and primitive worms, numbering many millions, peopled the waters Of the earth. Almost all. tho subsequent living forms had evolved from this little red worm-like organism.

From this point onward the lecture was illustrated with a, series of lantern slides. The first half-dozen slides showed developments in marine life separated by periods of one or two million years. The earlier forms shown wore worm-like creatures, jelly-fishes, star-fishes, and sea-lilies of simple formation. These, said the lecturer, were tho highest animals on tho earth at that remote period. For ages, the process of evolution went on very slowly and millions of years separated the appoaranoe of star-flsh and jelly-fish and that of a giant shrimp of formidable development. Later still appeared armoured creatures with five-feet jaws and, simultaneously, largo fish-like animals came upon, the scene. There were still no animals on land. The'two pairs of fins on the early fish were mere folds of skin • which in time were strengthened with ribs of cartilage. In much later evolutions the two pairs of fins became the two pairs of legs of land animals. In passing, Mr. M'Cabe mentioned that a modern descendant of one of the fish that, ages ago, left the water and commenced tho story of life on land, was still to bo found in some of the rivers of Australia, Egypt and South America.

One of a number of beautiful coloured pictures thrown upon the screen the lecturer described as an impression of the earth before l'ifo appearod upon the land. It showerl .in the foreground a tumble of land and water surrounded by volcanic hills richly clad in vegetation. At that time, paid l Mr. M'Cabe, the earth knew no such thing as frost or snow. From pole to pole over the whole of the globe thero was a perpetual summer. The atmosphere carried two hundred times as much carbon as at the present day. It was denser and fouler than the foulest air at tho bottom of a coal-mine. This was the kind of air in which the vegetation of the period thrived. Giant mosses and other plants sprang up and developed until the whole earth was covered with a luxuriant mass of vegetation. It was this vegetation which had supplied the c<\ildeposits which were used to-day. The forests which covered the earth ten million years ago were dense and sombre. They had neither birds, flowers, nor butterflies,' but somo of tho plants were beginning to show the rudiments of flowers. One of the moist warm valleys, not far from Wellington, where tree-ferns survived, supplied an excellent picture of what the whole earth must havo been in the ago of the coal "forests.

Prom'this poiiit, Mr. M'Cabo went on to trace in vivid language the further evolution of fdant and animal life. Some of tire pictures sliown were of insects two feet long in body, and measuring threo feet from wing-tip to wing-tip. A wonderful chapter/in the unfolding story was that which described the great amphibious, and, later, land inhabiting reptiles which developed from the older fish forms. In the ago of tho giant reptiles, New Zealand was part of a continent which included Australia. The first great check in tho rapid development of the reptiles 'was the descent of an ioe ago which wiped out *29 out of every thirty v living species of animals and plants. At this time fivo or six million square miles- of the earth's surface were under snow and ice. Birds and mammals, capable of caring for their young, made their appearance, and to a great extent displaced the reptiles. Ono of the' most interesting pictures shown by the lecturer was that of the fossil remains of a bird discovered in Germany. Its tail was a continuation of tho backbone, with feathers growing out from «ithor side, its jaws carried a serviceable set of teeth, and on its wings were several fingers. This Mr. .M'Caba described as a perfect missing link between the reptile and the'bird. In an equally interesting way the lecturer went on to describe the later developments of evolution, how one ice age after another restricted the reptiles more and moro to tho tropical bolt, and afforded scope for the development of the higher animals. In his later remarks, he traced interestingly the development of the horse and the elephant. The former was pictured at first as an animal of about the size of a wolf, with four toes on its front feet and three on its hind feet. In ages of strife, the horse maintained its existence by running away, and so developed the characteristic features which distinguish it to-day. The lecturer appeared to l>e followed with close interest throughout, and was loudly applauded as he concluded. To-night Mr. M'Cabo will deliver his second new illustrated lecture, "The End of tho World," in which lie will discuss, with the aid of many rare slides, the several ways in which our earth may como to an end, whether from "inflammation of the interior," collision in the streets of space, senile decay, or any other way which modern science may suggest.