AGE OF THE WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 179, 21 August 1909, Page 4

AGE OF THE WORLD.

About the time when Mr. Dur

wrote "Tlie Origin of Species" there weie many geologists who thought that the

earth must have been in existence at least '>;«),not),000 years. Thin view was rudely shaken by the calculations of the mathematical physicists, who, basing their computations on the time required

for a world oncu white-hot to cool. do-flnn-t! lh<it, the «r.i itself eould not have existed fop more 'than half that period at the outside. The discovery of radium and the theories of radio-activity w : ll apparently shod new light on tin* difficult. problem. The Hon. Is. J. Stnitt writes to "Nature" from the Imperial College of Science that an experiment '»telv made seems to alTord direct proof of the great -antiquity of radio-active minerals. A sample of' thorianite was' found to contain nine cubic een'timelrrs of helium pas per gram. and. reckoning from the annual rate at which helium produced per gram, the conclusion is reached "that the 0 e.c. initially present cannot have accumulated in less time than 240.0(10.01)0 years." It in added that "experiment* on u lnvge v scale that are. in progress will probably lead to an extension of (his estimate." There is a notable resemblance between this result j"id the figures nf the geologists. Nothing a few years ago would have seemed more unlikely thun that a niitwral derived from (lie ojirtlr* crust should reveal its age in the laboratory.