Estimating the Age of the Earth.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 1, Issue 5, 20 January 1911, Page 6

Estimating the Age of the Earth.

Professor Darwin has declared his belief that the age of the earth cannot be less than one hundred millions of years. M. Flammarion tells us noAv that this estimate is too low by at least fifty millions of years. The late Lord Kelvin declared soon before his death that his former estimate— 10,000,000 years—was far too low, and that the more he studied the question the more strongly inclined he A\ r as to accept the estimate of Professor DarAvin. Finally, Professor Fournier feels convinced that the eventual estimate which shall be proved to be scientifically accurate AA'ill shoAv that the earth "must be at least as old as the son of the great Darwin declares it to be. The proof AA'hich has upset the common Biblical affirmation of 6,000 years as being the age of the earth is found, beyond the possibility of controversy, in the examination of geological strata. The great geologist Lyall Avas the first to apply the petric (stone) test, and his experiments demonstrated Beyond cavil that the time which must have elapsed betAveen the beginning of the cooling process of the fragment of the sun which we now inhabit and the formation of the outer strata must have been at least several millions of years. Modern criteria have changed all calculations Avhich were made previously to the new declarations made by Darwin and Harkness, the age of petric strata being now quite as easily and as accurately determinable as the age of trees, or as the age of disinterred human bones. As to the length of time the earth is likely to last, the calculations are that it will not cease to be active for a good many millions of years, such activity not, hoAvever, necessarily supposing that life, as we know it now, will always be possible, the eventuality of a universal ice-age being always a contingency that may occur again in the history of the globe. It is interesting to note that in this connection a SAvedish mystic called Stromberg has just declared that the Avorld will never know another ice-age, but that it is now running out its course to the end. Its existence, he declares, will endure as long as fire burns in the earth's bowels—that is, until the whole mass shall have become solidified. The internal fires, he says, provide the link Avhich maintains the earth in the sun's sphere of attraction. When this attraction shall fail the earth, according to the Swede, Avill cease to revolve and Avill fall aAvay, only to disappear by fire caused by friction, thus verifying the Biblical prophecy. As, however, the process of cooling down entirely will take some billions of years, the nervous person will note that there is really no immediate cause for alarm. —Science Siftings.