- Email: [email protected]
On the origin of life
Items
and Noveltier.
301
know, chromospheric matter (red hydrogen in this case) has never before been observed at an altitude exoeeding 5/. The velocity of ascent also, 166 miles per second, is considerably greater than anything hitherto recorded. As the filaments rose they gradually faded away like a dissolving cloud, and at 1.15 only a few filmy wisps, with some brighter streamers low down near the chromosphere, remained to mark the place. But in the meanwhile the little “ thunder head,” before alluded to, had grown and developed wonderfully, into a mass of rolling and First it was ever-changing flame, to speak according to appearances. crowded down, as it were, along the solar surface ; later it rose almost pyramidally 50,000 miles in height ; then its summit was drawn out into long filaments and threads which were most curiously rolled backwards and downwards, like the volutes of an Ionic capital; and finally it faded away, and by 2.30 had vanished like the other. The whole phenomenon suggested most forcibly the idea of an explosion under the great prominence, acting mainly upwards, but also in all directions outwards, and then after an interval followed by a corresponding inrush ; and it seems far from impossible that the mysterious coronal streamers, if they turn out to be truly solar, as now seems likely, may find their origin and explanation in such events. The same afternoon a portion of the chromosphere on the opposite iwestern) limb of the sun was for several hours in a state of unusual brilliance and excitement, and showed in the spectrum more than 120 bright lines whose position was determined and catalogued,-all that I had ever seen before, and some 15 or 20 besides. Whether the fine Aurora Borealis which succeeded in the evening was really the earth’s response to this magnificent outburst of the sun is perhaps uncertain, but the coincidence is at least suggestive, and may easily become something more if, as I somewhat confidently expect to learn, the Greenwich magnetic record indicates a disturbance precisely simultaneous with the solar explosion. G. A. YOUNG. Dartmouth College, September, 18’71.
On the Origin of Life.- The address of Sir William Thompson, to the British Association, is in everything relating to physics a most masterly review of the present condition of soience, from one who is a recognized leader in modern scientific thought and research. It is therefore with considerable surprise, after so thorough and ex-
302
li’ditorial.
haustive an exposition
of the state of knowledge iti those branches, that we read his concluding sentences upon the origin of life on the earth. Utterly repudiating, aa unworthy of credence, the doctrine of
spontaneous generation, so vigorously maintained in our own times by Pasteur, Pouchet and Bastian, he suggests t,he following curious substitute, for the paternity of which his claim, we are inclined to believe, will never be disputed. Referring to the case of a volcanic island, suddenly emerging from the sea, and becoming in a few years clothed with vegetation through the agency of seeds transported to it from the sea and air, he inquires whether it may not be possible, or even probable, that the beginning of vegetable life upon the earth may be explained in a similar manner. Every year millions of fragments of sblid matter-meteoric stonesfall upon the earth, and he conceives that t,hese foreign visitants may be the fragments of worlds beyond ours, scattered in every direction through space, by collision with another, bearing upon them seeds, living animals and plants, which might be deposited, still endowed with “ The life, wherever they may, chance to find a final resting place. hypothesis,” he continues, “ that life originated on moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another wild and visionary ; all I maintain is that it is not With the alternative before them of accepting learned physicist, it would scarcely prove a subject that the. advocates of spontaneous generation refuse their position.
this earth through world, may seem unscientific.” the views of the of surprise to hea,r to be moved from
Nitrate of Silver and Charcoal.-Dr. Chandler* communicates the following interesting item, in connection with the materials solid nitrate of silver in placed upon glowing above named -.-When charcoa.1, deflagration takes place, the result being that the silver is The curious phenomenon attending left behind in the metallic state. the reaction is that the nitrate, being fused by the heat of the chemical action, sinks down int.o the pores of the coal, and as each particle of the latter is replaced by the reduced silver, the structure of the original wood is retained. Dr. C. states that he has succeeded in this way in producing masses of silver weighing an ounce or more, which show most beautifully the The author directs that a crysrings of annual growth in the wood. tal of the nitrate be placed on the end of a stick of charcoal, and the * American Chemist, September, 1871.
and Noveltier.
301
know, chromospheric matter (red hydrogen in this case) has never before been observed at an altitude exoeeding 5/. The velocity of ascent also, 166 miles per second, is considerably greater than anything hitherto recorded. As the filaments rose they gradually faded away like a dissolving cloud, and at 1.15 only a few filmy wisps, with some brighter streamers low down near the chromosphere, remained to mark the place. But in the meanwhile the little “ thunder head,” before alluded to, had grown and developed wonderfully, into a mass of rolling and First it was ever-changing flame, to speak according to appearances. crowded down, as it were, along the solar surface ; later it rose almost pyramidally 50,000 miles in height ; then its summit was drawn out into long filaments and threads which were most curiously rolled backwards and downwards, like the volutes of an Ionic capital; and finally it faded away, and by 2.30 had vanished like the other. The whole phenomenon suggested most forcibly the idea of an explosion under the great prominence, acting mainly upwards, but also in all directions outwards, and then after an interval followed by a corresponding inrush ; and it seems far from impossible that the mysterious coronal streamers, if they turn out to be truly solar, as now seems likely, may find their origin and explanation in such events. The same afternoon a portion of the chromosphere on the opposite iwestern) limb of the sun was for several hours in a state of unusual brilliance and excitement, and showed in the spectrum more than 120 bright lines whose position was determined and catalogued,-all that I had ever seen before, and some 15 or 20 besides. Whether the fine Aurora Borealis which succeeded in the evening was really the earth’s response to this magnificent outburst of the sun is perhaps uncertain, but the coincidence is at least suggestive, and may easily become something more if, as I somewhat confidently expect to learn, the Greenwich magnetic record indicates a disturbance precisely simultaneous with the solar explosion. G. A. YOUNG. Dartmouth College, September, 18’71.
On the Origin of Life.- The address of Sir William Thompson, to the British Association, is in everything relating to physics a most masterly review of the present condition of soience, from one who is a recognized leader in modern scientific thought and research. It is therefore with considerable surprise, after so thorough and ex-
302
li’ditorial.
haustive an exposition
of the state of knowledge iti those branches, that we read his concluding sentences upon the origin of life on the earth. Utterly repudiating, aa unworthy of credence, the doctrine of
spontaneous generation, so vigorously maintained in our own times by Pasteur, Pouchet and Bastian, he suggests t,he following curious substitute, for the paternity of which his claim, we are inclined to believe, will never be disputed. Referring to the case of a volcanic island, suddenly emerging from the sea, and becoming in a few years clothed with vegetation through the agency of seeds transported to it from the sea and air, he inquires whether it may not be possible, or even probable, that the beginning of vegetable life upon the earth may be explained in a similar manner. Every year millions of fragments of sblid matter-meteoric stonesfall upon the earth, and he conceives that t,hese foreign visitants may be the fragments of worlds beyond ours, scattered in every direction through space, by collision with another, bearing upon them seeds, living animals and plants, which might be deposited, still endowed with “ The life, wherever they may, chance to find a final resting place. hypothesis,” he continues, “ that life originated on moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another wild and visionary ; all I maintain is that it is not With the alternative before them of accepting learned physicist, it would scarcely prove a subject that the. advocates of spontaneous generation refuse their position.
this earth through world, may seem unscientific.” the views of the of surprise to hea,r to be moved from
Nitrate of Silver and Charcoal.-Dr. Chandler* communicates the following interesting item, in connection with the materials solid nitrate of silver in placed upon glowing above named -.-When charcoa.1, deflagration takes place, the result being that the silver is The curious phenomenon attending left behind in the metallic state. the reaction is that the nitrate, being fused by the heat of the chemical action, sinks down int.o the pores of the coal, and as each particle of the latter is replaced by the reduced silver, the structure of the original wood is retained. Dr. C. states that he has succeeded in this way in producing masses of silver weighing an ounce or more, which show most beautifully the The author directs that a crysrings of annual growth in the wood. tal of the nitrate be placed on the end of a stick of charcoal, and the * American Chemist, September, 1871.