Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA : 1861 - 1954)
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COLD AND HEAT NEAR THE POLES
LAST Wednesday's issue of the Border Watch contains some remarks contributed by the Duke of Argyle on the above subject, but dealing more particularly with the traces of fossil flora found in extreme northern latitudes. After referring to the striking and curious natural phenomena found in the rocks of Greenland, the Duke refers to an older flora than the Miocene, and says that this is the flora of the coal measures. He remarks-"Yet this flora, too, in long ages before the Miocene, has certainly flourished on the area which is now occupied by Greenland, and that it must have been associated with a tepid and steamy atmosphere. It is needless to point out what curious questions these facts raise."
In connection with the above, and without referring to the beautifully elaborated theories of La Place, there is such a large amount of reasoning presenting to one's mind-that it is so difficult to know how to condense in one short and readable article something that will be instructive.
Referring to creative agencies in the past ages it will be necessary to abandon the very prevalent idea that climate, atmosphere and earth surface, were then as now. When we read of gigantic animals, men, and forest trees, we must remember that all these had their birth, life, and decay in a period of time when the operations of natural law were as they always have been, the inevitable result of the physical forces of the period. In asserting this I do not desire to be classed amongst "those who deny the requirements of the addition to ordinary matters of an unmaterial and spiritual essence, substance, or power, general or local, whose presence is the efficient cause of life." On the contrary, I believe that the forces and the director of them are both eternal.
Let us, however, glance at one or two of the most notable deductions of modern science. Dr. Sterry Hunt says, in his observations on the chemistry of the primeval earth "This crust is now everywhere buried beneath its own ruins, and we can only from chemical considerations attempt to reconstruct it. If we consider the conditions through which it has passed and the chemical affinities* which must have come into play we shall see that these are just what would now result if the solid land, sea, and air were made to react upon each other under the influence of intense heat. To the chemist it is at once evident that from this would result the conversion of all carbonates, chlorides, and sulphates into silicates, and the separation of the carbon, chlorine, and sulphur in the form of acid gases, which, with nitrogen, watery vapour, and a probable excess of oxygen, would form the dense primeval atmosphere. The resulting fused mass would contain all the bases of silicates, and must have much resembled in composition certain furnace slags or volcanic glasses. The atmosphere charged with acid gases which surrounded this primitive rock must have been of immense density. Under pressure of such a high barometric column, condensation would take place at a temperature much above the present boiling point of water, and the depressed portions of the half-cooled crust would be flooded with a highly-heated solution of hydrochloric acid, whose action in decomposing the silicates is easily intelligible to the chemist. The formation of the chlorides of the various bases and the separation of silica would go on until the affinities oi the acid were satisfied, and there would be a separation of silica taking the form of quartz, and the production of a sea-water holding in solution, besides the chlorides of sodium, calcium, and magnesium, salts of aluminium and other metallic bases. The atmosphere being thus deprived of its volatile chlorine and sulphur compounds would approximate more to that of our our time, but would differ in its greater amount of carbonic acid. It is only necessary for the casual reader or elementary student to bear this italicised portion of the above in mind while I take him a step further in advance, and quote again from the same author, as quoted by Mr. J. W. Dawson, L L.D.,F.R.S., F.G.S., in his work on the origin of the world according to revelation and science. He says :-
"The agency of plants in purifying the primitive atmosphere was long since pointed out by Brongneart, and our great stores of fossil fuel have been derived from the decomposition, by the ancient vegetation of the excess of carbonic acid of the early atmosphere, which, through this agency, was exchanged for oxygen gas. In this connection the vegetation of former periods presents the curious phenomenon of plants allied to those now growing beneath the tropics flourishing within the Polar circles. Many ingenious hypotheses have been proposed to account for the warmer climate of earlier times, but are at best unsatisfactory; and it appears to me that the true solution of the problem may be found in the constitution of the early atmosphere, when considered in the light of Dr. Tyndall's beautiful researches on radiant heat. He has found that the presence of a few hundredths of carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere, while offering almost no obstacle to the passage of the solar rays, would suffice to prevent almost entirely the loss by radiation of obscure heat, so that the surface of the land beneath such an atmosphere would become like a vast orchid house, in which the conditions of climate necessary to a luxuriant vegetation would be extended even to the polar regions.
ALBERT K. VARLEY, F.R.S. Mount Gambier, June 12, 1884.
Click to jump to the following mentioned in the newspaper article:
- Duke of Argyll
- Laplace
- Sterry Hunt
- J. W. Dawson and his referred book
- Brongniart
- Tyndall
- Albert K. Varley
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