LOOKING BACKWARD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 8

LOOKING BACKWARD

THE CORRIDOR OF LIFE. By W. E. Swinton, illustrated by Erna Pinner, Jonathan Cape, London. [N one of the early chapters of this book our earth is likened to a pingpong ball adrift in the Atlantic. With this engaging simile to give:us a sort of celestial perspective the author proceeds to take his readers on a tour of the family skeletons. We are introduced to the basic geology of the earth and there is an interesting speculation as to the manner of origin’ of life without, of course, anything other than the vaguest of conclusions. This problem shelved, Swinton is free to roam among the fascinating relics of past life. He does not minimise the risks of mistakes in the identification of fossil remains, nor does he deny the strong element of surmise in much of our reconstruction of them. Yet he manages to present a reasonably coherent account of the development cf life against a time-scale the vastness of which he does not permit the reader to forget. That is Something of a feat. If there is one point upon which it is possible to dwell adversely it is the too lengthy detail of much of the fossil description. The book is clearly intended for the common reader and has many passages of particular interest to that very person, but a detailed discussion of comparative anatomy is not one of these. Many readers will be surprised to find that reptiles occupy very nearly half the book. As this was the dominant form of life for nearly half the time that life itself has been upon the earth the allowance is not really excessive and we can hardly dispute the matter when the period of our dominance has been so short. The last. chapter deals with evolution and extinction and is, in a _ sense, a summing up of the author’s conclusions as to whither man. There may be a _ little "writing-down" verging on bathos in the latter paragraphs, but this passage is worth more than passing attention, We are instructed architects; the plans of the future are in our hands. ... There is perhaps only one thing we should learn from the study of these creatures of the past . . . in the long history of vertebrate and invertebrate of life there is no group that planned deliberately, or even attempted casually, to end the race to which it happened to belong. Warmongers, please note! The illustrations are superb and add so much to the text as to warrant Miss

Pinner being regarded as a co-author, Not only do they display that imagination for which the author calls in his foreword, but they also reduce to an understandable simplicity almost diagrammatic, the confusing detail of photography. In these days of paper shortage it is heartening to see so much space devoted to the acini setting out of illustrations, As the book could be wine as a source of information as well as a stimulating connected account of the past the omission of an index is inexplicable.

J. D.

McDonald