Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth - Softcover

Fortey, Richard

 
9780375702617: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
Softcover
ISBN 10: 037570261X ISBN 13: 9780375702617
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"Extraordinary. . . . Anyone with the slightest interest in biology should read this book."--The New York Times Book Review

"A marvelous museum of the past four billion years on earth--capacious, jammed with treasures, full of learning and wide-eyed wonder."--The Boston Globe

From its origins on the still-forming planet to the recent emergence of Homo sapiens--one of the world's leading paleontologists offers an absorbing account of how and why life on earth developed as it did. Interlacing the tale of his own adventures in the field with vivid descriptions of creatures who emerged and disappeared in the long march of geologic time, Richard Fortey sheds light upon a fascinating array of evolutionary wonders, mysteries, and debates. Brimming with wit, literary style, and the joy of discovery, this is an indispensable book that will delight the general reader and the scientist alike.

"A drama bolder and more sweeping than Gone with the Wind . . . a pleasure to read."--Science

"A beautifully written and structured work . . . packed with lucid expositions of science."--Natural History

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Fortey lives in London.

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A "New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"Extraordinary. . . . Anyone with the slightest interest in biology should read this book."--"The New York Times Book Review
"A marvelous museum of the past four billion years on earth--capacious, jammed with treasures, full of learning and wide-eyed wonder."--"The Boston Globe
From its origins on the still-forming planet to the recent emergence of Homo sapiens--one of the world's leading paleontologists offers an absorbing account of how and why life on earth developed as it did. Interlacing the tale of his own adventures in the field with vivid descriptions of creatures who emerged and disappeared in the long march of geologic time, Richard Fortey sheds light upon a fascinating array of evolutionary wonders, mysteries, and debates. Brimming with wit, literary style, and the joy of discovery, this is an indispensable book that will delight the general reader and the scientist alike.
"A drama bolder and more sweeping than Gone with the Wind . . . a pleasure to read."--"Science
"A beautifully written and structured work . . . packed with lucid expositions of science."--"Natural History

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   Salterella dodged between the icebergs. While the small boat bucked and tossed, I hung over its side, peering down into the clear Arctic waters. I had not known that there could be such density of life. This frigid sea was a speckled mass of organisms. Tiny copepod crustaceans, looking like so many animated peas, beat their way in their thousands through the surface waters, feeding on plankton that I knew must be there, but which could not be seen without a microscope. There were jellyfish of every size: white, gently pulsing discs as delicate as spun glass; small pink barrage balloons decked with beating cilia, which appeared to be solid--but became gelatinous and impalpable if grasped from the water; an occasional orange monster with tentacles that promised evil stings for fish or mammal. They drifted in their millions, swirling and beating against the dumb tides, concealing purpose in contractions as instinctive as breathing, like protoplasmic lungs dilating and constricting in primitive obedience to the prompting of the currents. Behind the nearest iceberg arctic terns beat and hung in the air, peering down as I was, but with so much more precision, then darting to retrieve some living morsel from the sea. The ice floes were stained pink with their droppings.

   Salterella was tackling a stretch of sea, Hinlopenstretet, between the islands of Spitsbergen and Nordauslandet far beyond the Arctic Circle at 80 degrees north. Ice floes had melted in the summer thaw, sculpted by the vagaries of weather into plates or crags, or simulacra of giants. On the waterline they were notched deeply by the sea, lapped by insistent waves, and just occasionally one would teeter into instability, cracking and keeling over with a great resigned splash which sent waves to make our small boat buck and grind against the smaller fragments of ice. It was true: the greater part of an ice floe was always beneath the sea, and you approached too close at your peril. If you looked down, you could see the bluish mass curving down into the deeps, while jellyfish skimmed hidden protuberances with impunity. Little Salterella sought the spaces between the floes. Her wooden construction was designed to cope with ice. Winds herded floes into clots that could become almost impenetrable. Then, suddenly, patches of clear water would allow rapid progress, and the bleat of the motor sent little auks and black guillemots fluttering low across the sea to plunder the rich waters elsewhere. In the distance a mysterious coastline lay low on the horizon. Glaciers ran straight down to the sea. Ice cliffs groaned or barked to signal the inexorable creep of sheets of ancient ice. The boat seemed like an interloper.

   I was twenty-one and on my first expedition. Cambridge University had a tradition of sending young geologists to Spitsbergen. For a young naturalist it was very heaven. Here there were birds on every side that had only existed as pictures in bird books. The sea, the profligate sea, was a shimmering textbook of zoology. There seemed nothing to interfere with the joy of observation, no end to knowledge, no possibility that any discovery should be less than astounding.

   The boat comprised two crew and several scientists, including myself and Geoff. We had already suffered in the old whaling vessel which had carried us from Norway, a switchback ride across the Barents Sea all the way to Spitsbergen. Few on board could face the whale-meat stew. Our expedition leader was the worst sailor of all, having disappeared below decks just after leaving the Norwegian port of Boda, and only reappearing a week later when we reached the base at Longyearbyen.

   Geoff and I were to live together for weeks in a small tent, watching our beards grow from speckled patches to whiskers worthy of a Victorian paterfamilias. Together, we were in search of ancient fossils. An expedition from the previous year had stopped off to replenish their water supplies from a melt stream running off the great glacier of Valhallfonna in this remote and unwelcoming northern part of the archipelago. To everyone's surprise, the crew had picked up lumps of dark limestone on the beach that teemed with fossils: trilobites and brachiopods and many unrecognizable things besides. Nobody knew that fossil remains of such animals existed in this part of Spitsbergen. It was all completely new. But there had been no time to investigate that year because the Arctic night was closing in. Perpetual dusk was soon replaced by perpetual night. The few lumps of rock were brought back to Cambridge, and were studied by the great Professor Whittington, who pronounced them very interesting. Thus it was that two students came to be sitting side by side on Salterella looking at swarming jellyfish, and in such serendipitous ways lives are decided. It was 1967. "All You Need Is Love" was top of the hit parade, and stayed there for the whole expedition.

   Expeditions are curious things. They last for weeks or sometimes months, during which time they acquire a life of their own, a structure, like a drama. Members of the expedition get to play roles, and the most curious aspect of all is that it is impossible to predict in advance quite what those roles will be. People have to get on together; there is simply no choice. Even pathological personalities have to survive the whole affair. There is, of course, the leader--well, there has to be--who has managed many of these things before. Of an evening, he recounts tales of blizzards past that make the present one seem tame. He knows stories of Nordenskjold and the other great men, who did it all with pemmican and huskies. He legitimizes the whole experience by accommodating the current namby-pamby lot within a great tradition. If you follow in the footsteps of giants, don't you walk taller yourself?

   Then there is the expedition joker. He is not necessarily the wittiest man in the party, but he has a knack of igniting humour. Every member of the expedition likes to have him around in the evening. He has a generous gift of appreciating the humour of others, puffing up a glancing remark into hilarity, keeping flagging conversations alive, massaging morale. It is impossible to recall the humour that keeps an expedition afloat. It is concocted by the joker out of nothing and vanishes once more into nothing, but while it is there it seems to be the best thing in the world. The expedition's Practical Man knows how to fix a paraffin stove, or an engine. He can splice a broken guy rope. He can take out splinters, make splints; he can build machines from bits of wire and bottle tops. He is a wonder, as his ham-fisted friends who rely on him never tire of reiterating. I dare say that in ordinary life in suburbia Practical Man may seem a bit of a dullard, but when the outboard engine is failing among the ice floes he has his moment of glory. My own role, a modest one, was that of chef. Our food was nearly all dried: peas, onions, potatoes, rice, oats. Worst of all was the meat bar, 200 grams of dried protein which had to be reconstituted with hot water and which stayed insipid no matter what ingredients you added. Hours of ingenuity went into spinning these ingredients into something spectacular. I tried meat balls, curry, shepherd's pie, patties, pasties and pastries. I bashed them flat, or stuffed them with onion and peas. I married meat bars with oats. I was left undisturbed to follow my arcane trade, which was good news for one incapable of peering at an engine without exhibiting patent confusion. While Practical Man did his vital stuff, the leader led, and the joker cheered up the bystanders, the cook could be quietly abandoned to try to fabricate an onion souffle with powdered milk, flour, yeast extract and dried shallots.

   The oddest role in...

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Verlag
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
037570261X
ISBN 13 
9780375702617
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
346
Kontakt zum Hersteller
EDITIONS GALLIMARD
ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it

Via Verdi, 8.
Assago Milano
20090
Italien

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