FUTURE of the EARTH.

Patea Mail, 23 February 1882, Page 3

FUTURE of the EARTH.

“ The future of this planet and of man, as indicated by geology,” was tlie heading of Mr Denton’s closing lecture delivered in Dunedin, Mr Denton said the earth has existed for at least one hundred millions of years, and all indications show that it is still in its youth, and therefore it will last yet for countless millions of years. There is not a man in the world— God has been trying for millions of years to make a man, but has not yet succeeded, as we are yet all babes, that being shown by our all having some petty object of ambition. Mr Denton narrated some of these objects, concluding the list by sayinghe has known men whose highest ambition was to get a colored meerschaum. They would suck away fur three years to color it, and then go about happy with it after. We are all yet babes, and those who suck pipes are the unweaned babes. (Laughter.) He ridiculed the notion that the world will be destroyed by a miracle—would any one build a magnificent factory and, just as it became capable of turning out the most beautiful machines, put a match to it ? The igneous activity in the interior of the earth is always growing less, and the time will arrive when the last earthquake will he felt, and the last volcano go out. Every plant and weed not useful to man will disappear, as will all noxious animals and insects, and in the course of evolution fresh animal and vegetable forms, now unimaginable, will take their place. The land area of the globe is always growing larger, and will continue to do so ; the water will diminish and be absorbed by the earth as the internal heat decreases —as has evidently been the experience of the planet Mars, The world’s climate will improve, and some of its improvements would be duo to man’s art. Mr Denton, as a proof of what can be effected by man, said if funds were at hand he could find a Yankee to make a hole and let in the Mediterranean to put out Vesuvius. People in the distant future will make the climate to suit themselves, even if they have to turn a whole country into a glass-covered conservatory. Mr Denton then said that after all the coal in the world has been burned there will ho still larger stores of oil (and in this connection he is convinced there are immense oil deposits in New Zealand, and that we shall very soon “ strike oil ”) to use, and, when everything else has been burned, water will be decomposed and used as fuel over and over again. Mr Denton then said the population would increase by the hundred-fold, and added incidentally, amid loud cheers, that it was one of the worst things ever done to let land-sharks grab largo tracts of land in New Zealand, as the time will come when land will be the common property of the race, like air and water, Mr Denton then, after expressing further views as to the future of the globe and its inhabitants, concluded his lecture and his season here with an eloquent peroration, for winch he was loudly applauded.