Evolution by means of hybridization / by J.P. Lotsy.

  • Lotsy, Johannes Paulus, 1867-1931.
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Evolution by means of hybridization / by J.P. Lotsy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION. 5 celestial bodies which we call the globe, a layer des¬ tined to persist for countless ages as a horizontal crust. But below this crust, forces whose action never cea¬ ses continued their work of change. Under the influ¬ ence of the cold of celestial Space, our globe was forced to part with much of its heat and consequently had to contract. This caused the appearance of folds on her surface, of one of which the Thuringian hills are a rest. By such folding the fragments of rocks, as well as the coral reefs enclosed in the, up till then hori¬ zontal, ocean bottom underwent a considerable uphea¬ val. And of the fold, so formed, Thuringia is but a small rest; it has been lowered by the action of wind and water and the latter especially cut into it those deep valleys of Drachenschlucht and Mariathal which now delight our eyes, and isolated the Wartburgtop, enclo¬ sing in its conglomerate a coral-reef, destined to form in a distant future the foundation of the Castle which should serve Luther as a temporary abode. So it happened, that the translation of the Bible took place on the rests of small living beings, who countless ages ago, peopled an ocean, expanded hundreds of feet below the point where those corals are now found. What seemed so permanent, was thus but a short phase in the chain of changes which the earth and all it contains or supports, has to undergo. These changes of which there is no escape, neither for rocks nor for seas, nor for living beings, we call evolution. No wonder that man, once convinced of the exis¬ tence of so universal a change, wanted to know