side
J. $. Wallace

He stripped himself of all spare weight
And suffered from its lack
Because he bore such precious freight,
The future, on his back.
—SOVIET WORKERS, THE PIONEER YEARS
Y BROTHER Howard once said to me in exasperation:
the trouble with you is that you question even the
experts. I replied: yes, even the experts on Russia.
Here I go again: *

Thirty specialists from government, university, and
private research institutions have presented to the Ameri-
can Congress a five-volume symposium on the USSR econ-
omy. Its trend is indicated by the Globe and Mail head-
line: U.S. Industry Keeps Lead as Soviet Advance Lags.

Lags?

‘In the first six months of this year industrial output
increased 8 percent against the 6.7 percent planned: a mat-
ter of billions of dollars, extra.

In agriculture the sowing goals were surpassed. The.
number of livestock has grown: Government purchases
are 20 percent above last year. Milk output is up 6 percent,

eggs 10 percent. (The output of both is high, has been for _

years. Yet when I was there in 1962 there were disgraceful
snags in distribution. Twice, during two months at the
writers’ resort in Maleyevka, milk failed to arrive. The wife
of the late Victor Jerome once said in my hearing: there
were eggs in the market today. After that I hesitate about
repeating what Eve Colby told me about her last stay in
England, hesitate but don’t halt: a girl friend called her up
and invited her to supper. To clinch the invitation she said:
“Tll buy an egg.”’)

During my last stay in the Soviet Union (I skip over
the marvelous trip three months ago on the Alexander
Pushkin because I had only three days in Leningrad) I was
asked to compile an anthology of Canadian poetry and
agreed. Later I welched: hiding behind my age. On the
same grounds I don’t compile a Golden Lines in the
English Language: I believe there are only a thousand at
most instead of the thousands in most anthologies. Again
I don’t tackle what needs doing: an anthology on Death:
whatever has been said about it, helpful or hurtful, prose
or poetry, biblical and secular. Finally I forego, for laziness,
a compilation of what all the “experts” have said about
the Soviet Union since Nov. 7, 1917.

Is there a young writer in the house?

bx¢ ~~
FOR ALL MY CHILDREN
Everything over four and everything under five
I beat them up and I heat them up
And I eat them up alive, (This is—just pretend)

eel

Schmitt {GDR)

“Would you mind opening a can of meat for me, please?”

driven electrically.

GRANDFATHER OF CLOCKS

Montreal's oldest public clock adorns the steeple of the Sulpician Seminary in Place d’Armes.
is more than 250 years old. At left Rev. Eugene Morin checks the clock’s mechanism, which now is

How did earth

F ALL the planets of the
solar system Earth is, as
far as we know, the only

one whose atmosphere contains
large quantities of free oxygen.

It is the only planet which
contains advanced forms of life
of the type we know. Was this
development of higher forms of

" life an inevitable process, or did.

it occur by chance?

The theory of evolution, that
is, that plants and animals dev-
eloped from previously existing
species instead of being created
separately is not doubted by
scientists, nowadays. The fact
that the theory still cannot be
taught, legally, in Arkansas and
a few other American states
doesn’t alter its truth for those
parts of the world, of course.

But there are many unsolved
problems in evolutionary theory.
For example, how did the first
animal or plant- originate?

Leaving that much discussed
question for another article
there is another problem: why
has evolution occurred in surges,
sometimes after long periods of
little change. Why, for instance
did the dinosaurs develop rapid-
ly, and then after many millions
of years disappear rapidly?

One way of accounting for the
disappearance of the dinosaurs
is to suppose that the Earth be-
came cooler, perhaps because
the solar system passed through
a cloud of dust. As less heat
reached the Earth the cold-
blooded dinosaurs. died out.
Other catastrophes are called
upon to account for other
changes.

Now a new theory has been
put forward by two biologists
from Dallas, Texas. Their ideas
do not depend on chance fac-
tors, but on changes brought
about by interactions between
living things and the atmo-
sphere.

The primitive Earth, formed
3,000 million years ago, prob-

ably had neo atmosphere. This

would have been produced by
volcanic processes, releasing

evolve?

gases formed by internal deve-
lopments inside the Earth.

But volcanoes do not release
free oxygen. They give out a
tremendous volume of gas, main-
ly steam, but also nitrogen, car-
bon dioxide, sulphur dioxide,

-methane and others.

The water vapor would soon
cool and form the oceans. The
first atmosphere on the Earth
would be a poisonous mixture to
us. :

Not only would the atmo-
sphere be poisonous, but ultra-
violet light from the sun would
destroy life. Ultra-violet light
does not reach us in great quan-
tity because of an absorbing
layer of ozone on the upper at-
mosphere. Ozone is a form of
oxygen and therefore was not
present originally.

But life could exist in pools of
water, 30 feet or more deep.
Probably the first green single-
celled plants formed in these
pools.

Being green they could carry
on photosynthesis and produce
a certain amount of oxygen from
water and carbon dioxide.

Gradually, due to the action
of plants, oxygen must have
built up in the atmosphere.
When the level reached about
one percent, two vital changes
would occur.

There would be enough oxy-
gen for larger animals, and a
partial protective layer of ozone
would be developed.

Life would become possible to
within one foot of the surface
of the water.

The fossil record in the rocks
fits the theory. For about 2,000
years only single-celled plant
fossils are known. Then, about
600 million years ago life rap-
idly branched out into a myriad
of forms,

With larger plants now in ex-
istence the oxygen production
speeded up. When the level
reached 10 percent no shield of
water was needed for protection
from the ultra violet rays.

4

October 21,

1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE--Page 6

Life now became possible 0%

the land. Four hundred milliot
years ago the first plants creph
‘ashore. Twenty million yeatS —

later, fossils show great forests
existed, well populated with
animals. ;

Now photosynthesis could

‘proceed at an enormous rate

}

o |
t

The great coal beds were Jai@ 4

down and the oxygen level may —
have risen to well above the 4

present level.

But this would check thé
growth of plants and animals;
because carbon dioxide woulé

| E

4

be removed from the atmosphere ee

in producing oxygen.

Carbon dioxide in the air act§

as a blanket to the Earth, pre
venting heat escaping. The purst
of photosynthesis led to great

ice ages 200 million years 48° _

and

forms. As plants were destroyed |

After the ice age the oxyge”
Jevel built up again slowly al-
lowing the development of thé

the oxygen level dropped. 2

large reptiles. Again this w45 —

followed by over production ° —
oxygen and later the cool JoW
oxygen period which helped d&
stroy the dinosaurs. i

According to this theory the
whole nature of the atmosphel®
has been changed through the
action of living things. Thes®
changes have reacted back. al-
lowing changes to occur withi?
the plants and animals.

It also means that if Jife e*

ists on planets of other solat

systems somewhere else it is
likely to have followed a simile!

path.

It’s not Jikely that the authors |

of this theory are Marxists, yet
this is a Marxist way of Jookin&
at things — to look for changes
brought about by interaction®

between factors and the slow |

build up leading to rapid chang®

But like any other theory #
does not depend on how nice It

sounds. It musi also fit the facl® 4

and there will be plenty of arg

ment yet before this theory be

the extinction of many»

4

i
i

]
'

|

|

o-

comes widely accepted. =