Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, June 6, 1915, Page 23

THE ANGELS DRIVING ADAM AND EVE FROM EDEN. The ‘Artist A. T. Nowell’s Remarkable Conception of the Bibical s:uys:‘meh Professor Darwin By Prof. C. Darwin-Beasley of the University of London. HROUGH millions of years, race I after race of animals has suc- ceeded each other, each race be- fnig of a higher type structurally then its immediate predecessor. It follows that man himself will have a successor in & still higher type of being. This may come about at any moment by some natural convulsion induced by an astronomio dis- turbance or other natural phenomenoy, euch as has undoubtedly many 'tlmoa caused great changes on the earth's sur- face. In each prior disturbance, such as that induced by the increased weight of ice caps causing the earth to tiit over and assume a new position in respect to the sun, a few genera of animals have in- variably escaped and survived to special- ize in nmew functions to meet the new conditions of environment. The next colossal convulsion 18 not far off, and it will most probably oceur through the abnormal increase of ice forming in the Antarctic regions. When that happens, birds will be best fitted to escape. Enough of them in yarious parts of the world will undoubtedly survive to found the new and higher race. Remember that birds and mammals alene have specialized in brains and uilt up in their skulls ample brain case at the expense of other bones. With the brainier man and other brainy maminals all destroyed, the bird, having “become the dominant being, will have to all and Not a History of His First. durther specialize, as man did, through thousands of years largely in brain alone. The bird brain to-day has already ample cerebrum. Its descendants in the new era will have first to specialige in convolutions of the brain, each new con- volution increasing this intelligence. They will have to cultivate next for a long pérfod brain cells, with which thought s produced and stored in the form which we call memory. This development is not only possible; it is Indeed the way In which nature has always worked her will in the world. That it would take ages to accomplish means nothing. The life of the whole human race from the time it emerged as ape man until to-day is only an Instant in geological time. Forms perish, nature endures, Humanity’s vision of the angels, a higher form of life as winged beings, is, I believe, his clairvoyant perception of his own doom and the race that will fol- low him, All his ideas of future life take the form of wings. The vision is simply the farseeing of humanity that confuses with itself the actual creature that will follow it. Angels, winged things, will rule the future world, but they will not be transformed humanity. They will be intellectual birds! In material things of to-day, the bird- man is another expression of the same thing. It s either that or else it is an instinctive or unconscious effort of man to prepare himself for the struggle when he will have to compete with this future bird-race. The flyilng machine has been gradually perfected by mastering essen- tial details of bird fiight. In its perfected form it i{s a bird mechanism combined with a human brain. The coming super-race will necessarily approximate the same thing in a more compact form, in a single individual Great powers of flight and long endur- ance in air, while the earth below is un- dergoing its tremendous convulsions, will be essentlal for survival. The birds which can fly the highest above the poisonous gases unloosed, and encircle the globe if necessary, in the search for surviving food, will have the best chance to ulti- mately escape and found this new race. Unless man can do the same thing with an aerial machine, he will perish just as the beasts and beings that walk or crawl, But he cannot possibly by invention hope ever te accomplish survival, even in isolated imstances, during the per- sistance of a world convulsion, although many may escape results of minor dis- turbances. Fuel for his mechanism would be impossible to secure. His own strue- - ture is unfitted for indefinite endurance in air. The bird alone is hardened to nerfal indefinite endurance and hence is the only earthly being avallable with which to found the super-race. What birds would be best equipped to survive a world convulsion? It requires only a layman's knowledge to answer that. From the standpoint of science, we know that only carnivorous animals have been dominant in each age of the world, and that each highest type that has arisen after each convulsion has been a carnivore. We know that of existing types the birds of prey, such as condors, vultures and eagles, also storks, adju- tants and pelicans, have the powers of . “Beasley Considers a Premonition of Man’s Final pplied by Autotype Fine Art Co., Ltd. the loftiest flight, some of them rising to six miles altitude. They also have great endurance in the rarefled regions of at- mosphere. If any mountain tops re- mained, they could readily reach them. If any food existed anywhere, they could surely find it. Carnivorous birds are not subject to ptomaine poisoning, so far as | we know, The next class of birds that have the longest endurance in alr, far greater than of the birds of prey, are the sea birds, especially the man-of-war bird, albatross, petrels, some gulls, ete. Of these, the al- batross travels immense distances with- out moving the wings, by his wonderful power of soaring, If the convulsion were merely a water affair, such as the flood, they would not know it existed, so much are they at home on water, in air above the water, and even in the water itself up to certain depths when diving for food. None of these birds, however, are so well equipped with cerebrum in brain case as eertain Jand types, which also have great endurance in flight, such as the pigeon tribe. Their better brain alone, however, would save many of them, since even if they were humted by the carnivorous birds, they could escape because of su- perior intelligence. ‘The super-bird of the mext geological era, then, will be first a carnivore. He will be subject to no destroying pto- maines nor any of the diseases which cause mortality of man and other mam- aals. He will be at home at all alti- tudes, His flight will not be limited by mere globe girdling nor necessities of long endurance in air. As to-day, the birds of prey will have dominion om Birds Man’s Rival in lntelligence--ay Prof. W. H. H. Ballou, Sc. D. superseded by a race of super- birds, which will comtrol all the earth as man does now, is not entirely & ¢ one to scientists. nel‘;ir‘;: beve continuously evolved, in one forr o another, since the Jurassic era. It is also noted that they have sur- vived the several natural convulsions and phenomena occurring since them, sueh as the evaporation of water in large areas of the world during the hot Mio- cene period, the verious .sluhl epochs, “';‘urlhrr confirmation, bearing on the point, is the admission by the distin- guished Professor J. Arthur Thompson, of the University of Aberdeen. He says: “There is a possibility of a vast in- orease of intelligence, of brain improve- ment, sinvilar to that of man and the primates, as |s instanced In rooks, cranss and parrots. There ls aleo a chance for changes In constitution and " THE theory that mankind will be hal It is also to be noted that when & bird finds & new form of food he abandons the use of certain functions and utilizes new means to capture it. His descendants, continuing his efforts, specialize in new functions until there is a complete change and an entirely new form of bird 18 produced. There are ample instances in support of this. The penguin affords one of the most drastic incidents of natural selec- +ion. It is a general proposition that a bird must have feathers. The ancestral penguins, therefore, must have had them. Being unable to escape the Antarctic reglons when the ice cap commenced forming they specialized in several radi- cal ways. Gradually their feathers be- came something between scales and hairs. This new coating not being warm enough they accumulated fat sufficlent to defy the Antarctie cold and storms and enjoy themselves. The penguin further specialized wing power for swim- ming only, until the wings became pow- erful paddles, moved by strong breast muscles, and leg power for walking. The latter is so powerful that whea walking, as he does in a straight line, he forces movable objects out of his way, and not even & mau can stop him. Birds vary the use of their limbs to suit circumstances. The steamer duck of the Falkland Islands is a conspleuous instance. In youth these birds iy about like thelr kind in general. As soon as the adult stage is reached they abandon fiying altogether, and use wings and feet for swimming only. The hoactzin of British-Gulana is an- other striking instance. Soon after hatching the young birds begin to travel by means of legs and wings. They have well developed claws on the thumb and finger, by which they hook on to limbs or other objects, If taken by the legs they hang on to something with bill and wings. If their nest falls down they cling to the branches with bill, wings and feet. Later they take to true flight. The ostrich speclalized in running, and on local American pacing tracks has about equalled the trotting horse by hauling & sulky and man at the mear record speed of 2:10. He apparently has never attempted flight, whatever his an- cestors did. He utilizes his rather large wings and long feathers to assist in ronning. The migrations of birds undoubtedly are indicative of their greatest intelli- gence. Books have been written about them, but I happen to have from the Rus- slan Government data far more remark- able than that found In books. Siberia, the coldest storage reservoir extant the Penguins of the Antarctic Continent, a Strangely Human Race of Birds he Now Dominate That Part of the World year around, attracts the largest number of specles for Bummer nesting. Birds as- semble there for nesting from many parts of the Old World, arriving and departing annually on very exact dates, as if moved by clockwork, {5 e A ) ; g (0. by Sir Douglas Mawson.) Copyright, 1916, by the Btar Comnany ireat Rritain Richts Reserved. tolateMinsPaco amdRule Qurfarth? The Astounding Theory of An English Scientist That Intellectual and Carnivorous Birds Will Supplant Hu- manity and That Our Ideas of Angels and the Expulsion From Eden Are Simply a Prevision of Our Doom CIENTIST® are agreed that man has attained his position as master of the world only through a series of accidents and a prolonged conflict with nature. his position only by an unceasing fight against natural forces. man, other animals occupled the place of the dominant speeles, and there are sections of the world where even now another species than man is dominant inhabitant. There are, for instance, certain African stretches where the mosquito is ruler, and in the Antarctic the quaint Penguin is practically monarch of the frozen stretches. Bernard Shaw, the great English philosopher, has recently pointed out that man is not measuring up in all ways to the destiny that he so vaingloriously assumes for himself—that of final master of his planet. Mr. Shaw has predicted that humaaity must give place, sooner or later, to a superrace and sink back to the level of a domestic animal—per- haps be wiped out. H. G. Wells, an equally famous scientific prophet, has taken the same point of view. He, unlike Mr. Bernard Shaw, has predicted the actual creation which he tinks will take place of man— the spider! The following remarkable article by Professor C. Darwin-Beasley, of the University of London, deals with the same question and makes the ulol:llhln: prediction that a race of superdbirds wwill some day rule the world. They are also agreed that he maintaines Refore architecture of to-day. Although they are self-clothed, they will no doubt seek further adornment. The bower bird of India ornaments his nest and collects beariiful stones even now. There will be bird fashions. Gradually a new life will cover the world, to be ia its turn de- stroyed and another race of entire- ly different belngs take its place. land, and the sea birds on alone, with all the other animal lite destroyed, they will be forced to speclalize in brain power. Thelr ultimate descendants will have complete dominion on land, sea and in air, besides belng self clothed. They will, as their bralns in- crease in power and they become more and more social, build bird cities. The nest will no doubt give way to habitations of great architectural beauty, just as man's early caves and tree shelters still form the basis of his elaborate | Skelston of a Bird's Wing Com- pared with a Human Arm and Hand, and Skeletons of Man and Bird, Showing the Close Resem- blance Betwsen the Anatomy of the Twe. The Winged Beings Who Rule on Mars, as Imagined by H. Conception of a Dominant Race Regarded b.ymSehn:hu & x&l.‘ S e