^ LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF Received Accession No. y Q 44 3 (o> Class No. ?, GENESIS OF WORLDS. GENESIS OF WORLDS BY J. H. HOBART BENNETT. SPRINGFIELD, ILL.: H. W. BOKKEB. PBINTEB, BTNDEB AND STEBEOTTPEB. 1900. Copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. - f PREFACE. Explaining the formation of the sun and planets from a great nebula, has been said to be "beginning in the middle of the process." If that is true, in the absence of theories, of which the writer has seen none in the least comprehensive, no apology is required for sug- gesting means by which the commencement of the process may be explained. A beginning should be made. The intelligence of the age will justify an earnest effort to unfold the mysteries in which the genesis of the solar system is involved. Several efforts may be requisite to achieve a satisfactory result. The theory now in vogue in regard to the motions of the sun, the planets, and their satellites, is the sixth one that has been formed in succession all in the line of progress. We cannot hope to vi Preface. unravel all the mysteries on the various sub- jects to which this treatise refers, but it is to be desired that the suggestions, rendered prob- able by agreement with analogies and observed conditions, will receive the attention due to their intrinsic merits. It is not to be expected nor even desired that all the propositions ad- vanced will escape antagonism. Desirable inves- tigation is stimulated and made persistent by diversities of opinions. The criticism to be most feared is that of silence. Premature conclusions may be reached with very imperfect comprehension of a proposition relating to a mystery, but just and worthy criticisms can be expected only of those that can, as it were, rise above the phenomena in- volved in a proposition, and view it as enacted or occurring within the limits of observation. The apparently insurmountable aspect of a mys- tery must be overcome, that it may be brought into subjection to the power of mind. The avenues to scientific favor open slowly to- discoveries in mysteries. Sir Charles Lyell wrote : "We are sometimes tempted to ask whether Preface. vn the time will ever come, when science shall have attained such an ascendency in the educa- tion of the millions, that it will be possible to welcome new truths, instead of always looking upon them with fear and disquiet ; and to hail every important victory gained over error, in- stead of resisting new discoveries long after the evidence in their favor is conclusive." Few have the courage to assume the respon- sibility of approving new discoveries till they have the sanction of popular opinion. The writer must expect, without complaint, the history of such delays to repeat itself. Fifty years after Copernicus died, his great discovery was treated with contempt by the great philosopher Lord Bacon. The principles of Newton's discoveries were nearly as tardily admitted into the British universities. Doubtless some important discoveries are withheld from publication in consequence of such tardiness. If a tone of positive assertion appears to be unwarrantably assumed in this treatise, in treat- ing of hidden mysteries, it may be for brevity and perspicuity : The constant use of " may be" with so much that is speculative becomes mo- notonous. viii Preface. Any want of deferential regard for authors whose theories are controverted, that may ap- pear, is only apparent. The writer acknowledges a lively sense of obligation to all of them, not least among them to those whose works are criticised. The branches of science, or parts of them, considered in this treatise, may be said to be in their infancy. They relate to realms not yet thoroughly explored. The following, from Sir David Brewster's < 'Life of Kepler," may be found very apt and applicable. " In the infancy of a science there is no speculation so absurd as not to merit examina- tion. The most remote and fanciful explana- tions of facts have often been found the true ones, and opinions which have in one century been objects of ridicule, have in the next been admitted among tne elements of our knowledge. The physical world, teems with wonders, and the various forms of matter exhibit to us prop- erties and relations far more extraordinary than the wildest fancy could have conceived. Human reason stands appalled before the magnificent display of creative power, and they who have Preface. ix drunk deepest of its wisdom will be the least disposed to limit the excursions of physical speculation. ' ' It was desirable to have this work submitted to competent critics for correction and pruning, but it seemed, after a few fruitless attempts, that the more important matters being mainly new to them, they preferred not to assume the responsibility of forming and expressing their opinions on the merits or correctness of the work. Hence came the necessity of submitting it to a world of critics by publication. UNIVERSITY PALIFO* CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. THE SUN. PAGE The great nebula 3 Change of form of substances - .... 3 ^District in space - 5 Growth of the nebula - 6, 32 Transformation of matter 7 Source of heat - - 8 Origin of rotary motion - - 9 Motion accelerated - - 11 Uniformity of position of planetary planes - - - 12 Mosaic days explained - - - - 13 Sources of sun's energy - . * 15 Impact theory stated, analyzed, and found erratic - 16-19 JSb dark globes flying at random - - '- - : 20 The great nebula divides into planetary portions 21-25, 29 Heating and cooling of globes - :-- - -' 25-27,30 Meteoric supplies for the sun - - - r - 26 Form of solar system district in space - .- - - 31-34 Meteoric supplies from the polar regions - - - 35-3T Size and velocity of aerolites 38 Prominences and sun-spots - ... 40-46- Meteoric supplies maintain sun's heat - - - 48-54 Prospecting for discoveries - 55-59 The sun nebulous in its infancy .... 61-63- Planets receive but little meteoric matter - - 64 ^Growth of the very small sun to its recent culmination 65-70 Destiny of the sun and the planets ... 70 XII Contents. Their orii CHAPTEE II. COMETS. How comets are formed Length of journey of a comet Comets not star visitors - - . - First approach to the sun Dissolution of comets - - - - Kepulsion inherent in all cometic matter Sun's^ corona. Streams of meteoroids Light modified in comets Many comets from polar regions Supplies for the sun from polar regions S:>'ar system district, why elongated Cometic matter indestructible Meteoroids incombustible Practical utility of cometic matter Aerolites and comets from same regions Various cometic properties Meteoroids in scattered orbits Laws created A complication of laws - CHAPTER III. ZODIACAL LIGHT. Nebelous ring around the sun %& - A brilliant meteor - - - - '-'. MeteorsJieated in ring nebula Errors of heatingjdiscussed A list of propositions - - -.'- Cause of glacial epoch suggested - I ' Belated propositions"^ - Benefits of the ring nebula PAGE 71 72-76 77 - 78 79-85 86-88 89 - 91 91-93 95-97 98 99 101 103 105 107 109 111 112 115 116 - 119 - 121 123 125 127-128 129 131 133 Contents. xni CHAPTER IV. TRANSMUTATION OF THE EARTH'S CRUST. PAGE Moving spirit in the work - ; - 137 Heat of the molten globe 138 Wa er held alofFby great heat - - -/ - 13& Experience wTth granite boulder 141 With decrease of heat water begins to fall - .". .. 142 Rending of the earth's crust . - - - 143 Ocean volumejleluge inevitable 145 Ocean-laden clouds emptied upon the globe 147 Supposed process of re iding the rocky crust -. .-.. 149 Thickness of the broken crust 150 Heat of the crust during the rending 151 Rending of the crust inevitable .- -..-- - 152 Broken crust ground i.y steam power 153 Generally accepted hypothesis examined - 154-157 Geological history to date from the beginning 158 Advantage of working on a true basis - - - 159 Effect of slow erosion on earth's surface 160 Fertility follows the renovating process - . - " -. 161 Sand abundant after the rending - 162 Assorting minerals - - -' - - - - 165 Metals extracted and stored - - * - - 167 Parallel storing of metals and honey - -. - 169 Controlling influence of the use of metals - I - 170 "Stone age'' alternative - - , ~ i71 First and second periods of time noted - : -. - 172 Occurrences of second and third periods r," ..- - 175 The two systems of stratification - - ,? - 177 Some results of transmutation process 179 Transmutation theory summarized ... - 181 Geologists relieved of difficulties - 182 Prejudice to be overcome - - - - 183 Honor to whom honor is due - 184 xiv Contents. CHAPTER Y. ELEVATIONS. VOLCANOES. PAGE Earth_cooling 185 Investigating stratifications - - - 187 All stratifications once parallel 189 Contrast between two systems in cooling - - 191 Sun's service econ^mmefrTnillions of years - - - 192 Fissures. Porous crust accelerates cooling - 191 Interval between two systems emphasized 195 Vast intervals of time - 197 Fluctuations in temperature 199 Vegetable and animal life - 201 No organic life in parallel strata - 204 Investigation of errors 205 Some studious speculations - 207 Formation of power rooms, or caverns 208 Elevations, volcanoes, and earthquakes 209 Location ^Tcavern floor - - ; - 210,255 Failure of former hypothesis 211-215 Comparison with the planet Mars - 217 Thickness of the earth's crust in question - - 219, 253 Ratio of heinTin earth's_crust and center - 221 Thickness of crust esti_majd 223 Crust wrenching beneficial .225 Earth's form unchangable 227 Study of cavern forms and extensions ... 229 Elevations made permanent - - - - - - 233 Study of the depth to power caverns 237 Remarkable volcanic eruptions - - 239 Dust eruptions - - 241-244 Continuity of power caverns - - 247 Peak of Timor, how blown off 250 Variable thickness of the earth's crust - - - 253 Farther study ^TTocation of caverns ... 255 Discoveries. encounter prejudice - ... 259 Responsibilities of masters of science - 261 Contents. xv CHAPTER VI. GENERATIONS OF STARS. PAGE Inferences by analogies - - - - - - 265 Peopled planets attend the stars - - . - - 267 Duration of stars 269 Sun and earth to become dead worlds - - - - 270 A generation of stars -. 271 What becomes of dead worlds ? 272 Generations of stars in succession ... - 273 A study of generations 275 Terms of existence of stars 277 Complexions of stars - 278 Exploration of stardom - 281 CHAPTER VII. DISSOLUTION OF WORLDS. Accumulation of dead worlds - - - - - 283 Natural process of dissolution 284 Dissolution of inorganic forms 285 Repulsion and gravitation cooperate - - - - 287 Some inscrutable mysteries 288 An ignoble pedigree claimed - '- - ? - - - - 289 Stability in the universe - . ' -"" - -'* ' '" - " 29 Orderly evolution of worlds - - - - - 292 Discussion of dispersion of the substance of worlds - 294 Process of collisions analyzed 295 Matter not dispersed by collisions - - - - 297 Will there be catastrophes or order ? 299 Unification of a binary star 300 Dark stars and suns 301 Orderly evolution of worlds 302 Question of refitting worlds 304 Apparent infinities 306 xvi Contents. CHAPTER VIII. INTELLIGENCES. THEIR INTERESTS AND DESTINIES. PAGE Mighty procession of generations - - 309 Duration and occupancy of worlds compared - - 311 A free offer 313 Authority in the future state 315 Future state inquiries 317 Progress toward the perfect life 329 Theory of a future perfect life 320 Perfect rule only by infinite power 321 An Infinite Ruler must control - - 223 Responsibilities of science 325 Presumptuous hypothesis discussed 327 The worst enemy of self 329 One best planet in a system 331 Supreme value of spiritual creations 333 Boundless felicities 335 Feast of mind and flow of soul - 337 Some false impressions 339 Enjoyment in the perfect life - 341 School of preparation - - 343 Fruits of acceptance and renewal - 345 CHAPTER 1. NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS THE SUN. "Can man conceive beyond what God can do? Nothing but quite impossible is hard, He summons into being with like ease A whole creation and a single grain." Science has clearly revealed to us in these latter days, through the testimony of the rocks, that the earth was in process of preparation for the abode of man many millions of years. Since the beginning of vegetable and animal life, the history seems to be recorded there of at least sixteen millions of years, according to one very cautious investigator; and various esti- mates have been made by others, even to more than ten times as long. Any of those estimates of time, so inconceivably immense, would be more than sufficient for the purpose of this 2 Nebular Hypothesis. treatise. However, as only changes were noted of which the rocks and other witnesses give evidence; and as, doubtless, there were long in- tervals of time in which there was no record because the work done in them was not of a character to leave evidence of it; therefore we might reasonably allow an intermediate sum of forty millions of years for our purpose. The time may have been twice as long. Being awakened to the necessity of considering those inconceivable eras, and having accepted what we are forced to believe of their long continuance, we are prepared to consent to a belief in equally long intervals of time at an earlier date, even from the creation of the earth to the advent of organic life upon it. Having meagre records of those earlier Ijimes, we may need to explore the darkness of their mysteries. We may have to picture in fancy the events of the eras, and then to seek for evidence of the accuracy of the representation. The discovery, by aid of the telescope, of neb- ulous stars in various stages of advancement, supposed to be preparatory to the formation of worlds, or systems of worlds, suggests the prob- The Great Nebula. 3 ability that our solar system was once in like condition of preparation was once a vast nebula from which our sun and circling planets were evolved. Enquiring minds have a propensity for tracing things to a first cause, and would ask from whence came the great nebula. It could not have sprung into existence already formed. It had an origin which is worthy of a most careful inves- tigation, for it is one of a class that is repre- sented by thousands of similar bodies in the heavens. May not a conjecture of its antecedents be properly presented here? It is that when the great Creator would form a new system of worlds, having allotted a district of suitable form and dimensions for the purpose, He changes the primor- dial matter in it from a gaseous condition, in which it had been under the law of repulsion, into cos- mical dust, by which slight change it became subject to the law of gravitation. Criticisms on the change of the form of the substance may properly be withheld till after reading the seventh chapter, on the Dissolution of Worlds. For brevity and convenience, the terms pri- mordial matter, and cosmical dust, may thus be Xebular Hypothesis. applied to distinguish between two different forms of the same substance. Is it presumptuous to attempt to delineate the course of nature in the control of matter for the creation of worlds, a process so inextricably involved in mystery? It is proposed to bring the phenomena in the case into comparison with analogous matters y and so subject the mysteries to close scrutiny that they may, in a measure be overcome, and brought into subjection to the power of mind. There is a necessity for it. Commenc- ing with the nebular hypothesis in the middle of the process, leaves the beginning a blank which should be filled. Some of the occurrences of the beginning are essential to the very existence of the members of the middle. As well may a castle be built on the sand without foundation, as a theory for the construction of the solar system without accounting for the heat found in it a most essen- tial factor in the process. . For an account of the beginning, the first es- O O' sential thing to be noted is the district in space pertaining to the solar system, from which all the substance of it is gathered. District in Space. 5 We know of a neighboring star which, we have reason to believe,, occupies a contiguous district, between which and our own there must be a limit of space up to which each world con- trols the gravitating matter around it. We are surrounded on all sides by stars and systems be- tween which and ours are like boundaries, enclosing & district in space in which the solar system is comprised a district, a recognition of which is essential to a full understanding of the phenomenal occurrences to which our attention is directed. A nebula is found in the district, of immense size, resembling, in appearance, a luminous cloud of the atmosphere which is known to be a gathering of the impalpable atoms of moisture in the air. That nebula surely had an origin. It would be unsci- entific to say it was either created or evolved in that form out of nothing. The most reasonable process of its formation conceivable is that by which the cloud of moisture that floats in the sky is formed. From the analogy we may presume, therefore, that the nebula was a gathering of the impalpable atoms which have been termed the cosmical dust, from the regions of space within the the district. As moisture of the air gathers into 6 Nebular Hypothesis. clouds, so atoms of cosmical dust unite throughout the district, forming minute nebulae, the union of which forms others larger, all tending to one point, the center of the district. At that point there is forming a constantly increasing body, beginning with the clustering of those minute nebulae of the nearer regions, and then also those from farther and farther away, till myriads were gathering in from all parts of the district, the largest of which, coming from the wide regions farthest out, and being long on the way, become solidified aerolites, such as occasionally fall now upon the earth, being formed in the same manner, and coming from the same distant regions. The central mass, having attained an immense size, attracts them powerfully, and they come charged with energy that, being converted into heat by forceful impact, gradually and continually raise the temperature of the great nebula. It is not essential that all shall accede to the assumption that the Creator had changed the form of the gaseou^primordial matter to the more attractable and condensable cosmical dust. Those that recognize the necessity of an Almighty Up- holder of the universe of worlds will not deny His Transformation of Matter. 7 agency in ordering and directing the construction of the solar system. Whatever others may deny or assume in regard to the transformation of the primordial matter, they must accede to the effect of gravitation upon matter In the formation of the great nebula. If all can agree thus far, leaving to a future convenience and determination the mystery of the change of matter in preparation for being assembled in the nebula, progress will have been made from the half way station in the middle of the process back nearly to the beginning possibly as near as men can ever get in concurrence of opinion. But there may be no difficulty in agree- ment from the very beginning. Matter must have existed in space, or it must have been created. Those who ascribe to matter and discern in it "the promise'and potency of all terrestrial life,"* will have no difficulty in admitting the transformation of matter, if necessary, from a gaseous to a con- densable form by its inherent power. Thus all may acknowledge the transformation, however they may differ as to the manner in which it is effected. Believers in a Creator of all things acknowledge *Tyndall. 8 Nebular Hypothesis. His all-controlling will in every expedient trans- formation. Thus retrogressing to the beginning of the pro- cess, step by step, and carefully analyzing the acceptance of the proposition to recognize the entire process from the beginning of the construc- tion of the solar system, it is to be hoped that general readers will find the apparent inaccessibility of the mystery overcome. The hypothesis of the existence of a gigan- tic nebula from which the globes of the solar system were formed, has met with general ap- proval. But the hypothesis fails to account for great heat found in the globes, which would probably have been produced by some earlier process or provision. Prominent astronomers have averred the insufficiency; and also that the effect of gravitation in the condensation of the nebula would not account for it. They have suggested that the supply may have resulted from the collision of worlds. A process more in accordance with the usual quiet course of nature in analogous matters may be discovered in the earlier progress of the forma- tion of the nebula. The impact in it during its Origin of Rotary Motion. 9 formation, of a constant inflow of aerolites and nebulous bodies formed by the gathering of cos- mical dust from the regions of space, as already stated, accounts for the heat pervading the vast extent of the nebula. That the prodigious heat of the sun and the molten bodies of* the planets and their satellites should all have been comprised in the comparatively attenuated matter of the nebula will not occasion surprise when it is remembered that the nebula was so much larger than all of them that no comprehensible figures will express their proportions. Contraction of its volume condensed the heat to a fiery intensity in the sun and all the smaller bodies. The difficulty of explaining the source of the rotary motion of the globes of the solar system satisfactorily has been deemed nearly insur- mountable. The difficulty may be due to seeking for the source within the space immediately around or within the solar system wherein no previous motion can be discerned. It may be found, and the difficulty overcome by making a more extended search. The space allotted for the new system has limits, though somewhat 10 Nebular Hypothesis. indefinite, and is contiguous to, and surrounded by, other similar districts that have rotary mo- tion. Through contact with them a rotary mo- tion is acquired by the new district, of which all matter within it partakes. A district in the midst of others having rotary motion must partake of it. Every district, or allotted space contributing to the formation and maintenance of a star is supposed to be surrounded by oth- ers, or is contiguous to at least one other. Therefore no district, or space having weight of matter, either embodied in globes, or diffused in impalpable form, is without motion. Will it be deemed incredible that a district in space should have rotary motion? It is pre- sumable that every such district that is to be allotted to the formation of a system of worlds will have weight, as in the instance of our own, which contained all the primordial matter of which the worlds of the solar system were made, and still much remains diffused; it therefore had weight, an unvarying amount, whether in form of worlds or disseminated throughout the district. The motion of the central mass, par- taking of that of the district was slow. Motion Accelerated. 11 Some philosopher has divined a process by which it may have been accelerated. He sup- posed that all meteoric accretions to the great nebula, partaking of the rotary motion of the outer portions of its district, are impelled for- ward and precipitated eastward of its center, and that the impetus of the falling bodies would thus accelerate the rotary motion of the nebula. The effect upon the outer portions of the nebula would be slight, if any, but as meteorites progressed inward their contact with each successive stratum would be more slanting, with proportionately greater effect, and the greatest accelerating effect would be upon the portion nearest the center. Evidence is not wanting that rotary motion was accelerated by some process, for there is no reason to suppose that the division of the great nebula into planetary portions would otherwise have occurred. Till no more possible process is recognized, the question may be allowed to rest . on the hypothesis, acceptance of which may involve the question of the continuance of the accel- erating effect upon the sun to the present time. It may possibly be so continued without detriment. 12 Nebular Hypothesis. The suggestion that contiguous world systems impart rotary motion to each other, gives rise to another that the planetary planes of such systems have a general uniformity of position, or inclination. Thus, also, there would be a uniformity of direction of their axes, and of their progress through space. As we proceed, we shall find the hypothesis of rotary motion given here well supported. Agreeably with it, we find that the planes of the planetary orbits are in the position that would result from having motion imparted to them by other systems, moving along with ours, side by side. The process of gathering impalpable primordial matter sufficient for the creation of an immense system of worlds, doubtless required time equal to many millions of our years. The field from which it was gathered was trillions of miles in extent. The nebulous clouds had imperceptible growth, and moved very slowly while in the more distant parts of the district. But the central mass continued to grow till it became an immense heated nebula, having a breadth of more than six thousand millions of miles. Mosaic Days Explained. 13- When we consider the inconceivable length of every interval denoting progress in the forma- tion of a system of worlds, we would marvel at the patient waiting of the Almighty Creator could we forget that he is busy with millions of other worlds in all stages of advancement, large numbers of them having mighty populations, individually and collectively needing His assistance every hour. Always busy, the years of eternity are His. He can wait through the immense periods consumed in the creation of a system of worlds. An illustration of the Creator's liberal use of time is found in His account given by Moses, of His creative work. There was no human witness of it, therefore there could have been no account of it transmitted to Moses by human agency, nor could he have known of it in any other way than by inspiration. We have a graphic account of the divine authorship, and the delivery to him of the ten commandments. Does not that instance of divine communication warrant us in the belief that God, in some manner, gave to Moses the account of the creation for the purpose of transmitting it down to posterity? Moses handed it down, not of his own knowledge, but as God, in his own 14 Nebular Hypothesis. terms, gave it. The plan of creation was God's own, the commands were His, the materials were His, the works were His, and the days were His own in length, "one day as a thousand years," or, perhaps, as a million of years. We have farther authority for giving the record of creation this construction, in the account of the sixth day's work. In it were created the beasts and the cattle, and every creeping thing. (Think of the time allowed by geologists for such multiplex accretions of animal life.) Then He created man, male and female, and gave them authority over every living thing. A more minute account, in the next chapter, states that Adam was placed in the garden of Eden, and charge was given him to dress it, and keep it; and that he gave names to all cattle, and to the fowls of the air, and to every beast of the field, but "there was not found a help meet for him," after which labors Eve was created; all this in the sixth day. It is so evident that God, in His works, made a liberal use of time doing all by natural methods and means, that we may say he could not have required Adam to go through an experience of years during a part only of the first twenty -four Sources of Heat. 15 hours of his life. We are constrained to regard the sixth day as one after God's reckoning of time, perhaps thousands of years, or of centuries, after the manner of the five previous days. Following this method, we find no discrepancy between the Mosaic account of creation and the time given in the geological records. As the evening and the morning of the seventh day were not mentioned in the account, it is pre- sumable that it had not expired, but that, like the preceding days, it was for many thousands of years possibly till the beginning of the next fol- lowing creation. Our great nebula^having attained full size, had an appearance similar to those seen in the starry heavens. A central nucleus had been forming by condensation of the nebulous matter, and was still gathering in and absorbing the matter near it, while that farther away felt the counter-attraction of the immense mass farther out, which, with its centrifugal force separated it from the central body. An eminent author has stated that : "There are two, and only two, conceivable sources from which the prodigious amount of energy possessed by our sun and solar system 1 6 Nebular Hypothesis. can possibly have been derived. The one source is gravitation." He styles the other source u the impact theory." By the former he seems to imply the con- densation only of the great nebula into the solid bodies, the sun and its attendants; beginning at the middle of the process, and considering only the effect of gravitation in the condensation of the nebula. In explanation of the impact theory, he says : < 'Suppose two bodies, each equal to one-half of the mass of the sun, moving directly toward each other with the velocity of four hundred and seventy- six miles per second. These bodies would, in virtue of that velocity, possess * * * energy, which, converted into heat by the stoppage of their motions, would suffice to maintain * the present rate of the sun's radiation for a period of fifty millions of years."* If we may presume to examine this theory, we would inquire into the probability of the as- sumed accelerated velocity of the supposed two bodies moving toward each other. " According to this theory,* the absolute motion of the stars is due to motions which originally belonged to the two component masses out of which the star *Jas. Croll, in "Stellar Evolution," (preface.) Impact Theory Staied. 17 * There is strong presumptive evidence that the motion of the stars is due to this cause. We know that there are stars which have a far greater velocity than can result from gravitation. ' ' * Applying that assertion to the star Groombridge 1830, which has an alleged velocity of two hundred miles a second, he adds : "The probability is, however, that the star de- rived its motion from the source from which it derived its light and heat, namely, from the col- lision of the two masses out of which it arose."* So much depends upon knowing the truth or error of the suggestion that acceler- ated motion may result from the collision of the two bodies in motion, that the solution of the problem requires our most careful attention^ The theory implies that upon the two bodies approaching each other obliquely and colliding, thus merging into one, the velocity of the resulting body will be greatly increased. Let us analyze the proposition by a few ex- amples. For brevity and convenience, let A and B represent two approaching globes of equal size and weight as above stated, and their velocities equal. *Jas. Croll, in "Stellar Evolution," (preface.") 2 18 Nebular Hypothesis. 1. If they approach each other in a direct line, and collide, the resulting body will be at rest. 2. If B is at rest, and A, approaching, strikes it squarely, A will move on at half its former velocity, carrying B with it. 3. Now suppose both to be moving on lines of direction at right angles with each other. A, colliding with B squarely, loses half of its velocity, as in example 2. B, colliding similarly with A, loses half of its velocity, and the two move on diagonally together in one mass, at half of their former velocity, or with a little more than half, for the united mass would traverse the diagonal of a square to a corner as quickly as that in example 2 does the perpendicular, or the nearest point to the side of a square. 4. Now let them approach each other ob- liquely at any angle that will cause a collision that will result in a union of the two bodies in one globe. Each, in colliding with the other, must suffer a loss of speed, and the resulting body moves on accordingly with diminished velocity. Impact Theory in Error. 19 A crushing collision must always result in retarded motion. A crushing collision resulting from very ob- lique lines, approaching parallelism, could only result in a mass of craggy fragments, unfused by the scanty heat evolved in the crushing of the two colliding; bodies. o Thus we discover that the proposed theory provides no process by which accelerated mo- tion of the stars can be procured. To produce the amount of energy and heat required by the formula, requires more than twice the velocity of any star known. In the absence of the re- quired velocity, the complete failure of the impact theory is made evident. We are acutely sensible of the delicacy of attacking, or attempting to overthrow the pub- lished theory of any author engaged in the investigation of obscure possibilities whereby the interests of science may be advanced, especially where the closest scrutiny of all possibilities is desirable. But, do not the interests of science require the detection and disclosure of errors that perplex investigators, and obscure their minds with uncertainties 2 The impact theory 20 Nebular Hypothesis. has been quoted by eminent authors as being a possible true guide to the solution of certain problems of heat and velocity among the stars. The thought of a possibility of such a result causes them to relax their efforts in the line of their labors, and thus their possible achieve- ment of success is delayed. There are other details of the theory which it may not be necessary to discuss. But it is es- pecially desirable to consign to oblivion all sugges- tions of numbers of immense dark globes flying at random in every direction through space, not only exciting our fears of encountering them and endangering our safety, but also projecting other puzzling difficulties. The mysterious origin of those numerous dark bodies would remain to be explained. Having, in all our studies of the displays of creative wisdom and power, ob- served the marvellous order, stability, and com- pleteness that pervade the universe, the bare suggestion that many mighty worlds may be flying at random through the heavens does vio- lence to our reverence for the sublime perfec- tion of those displays violence the more rude if the suggestion emanates from a scientific No Dark Worlds Flying 21 man who is regarded as an oracle of wisdom . As infallible divine control in the physical* uni- verse is typical of the same governance in the spiritual world; so instances of failure in the former would be quoted to the destruction of faith in spiritual things. Science would also suffer irretrievable loss if her votaries lose faith in Him to whom she is solely indebted for an unerring basis for her every enterprise in the marvelous order and stability of His works. Suggestions have been made and repeated, that the ring of the outside planet was the first thrown off the great nebula. In adopting and advocating another theory, it is with an assurance of a good reason for it. Naturally, and without doubt, the central nucleus was the first formed, as has been observed of some of the distant nebulae now seen in the heavens. By its great attractive power, it would soonest gather all the nebulous matter from the space immediately around it, thus separating itself from the nebulous mass beyond. The first suggestions of the nebular hypothesis arose, doubtless, from observing the distant neb- ulae in the heavens. If we follow up the sug- 22 Nebular Hypothesis. gestions by observing the apparent development of worlds within them, noting in one a dim central nucleus, and in another the bright nucleus sep- arated from the nebulous ring around it; is it o not obvious that in some instances the first division within the nebula arises from the con- densation and shrinkao-e of the nucleus, thus o " separating it from the surrounding nebulous mass out of which the planets and their satel- lites were to be formed ? As a matter of econ- omy of heat, or exemption from excessive heat, it was expedient to make the separation of the sun from the nebulous mass the first in order, instead of throwing off matter for each planet from the outside, one by one, at intervals. Myriads of tributary nebulas were still pouring in and generating heat that was essential to the sun for future use, but which it were better not to have it imparted to the nebulous mass from which the planets were to be constructed. Had the ring for the outside planet been thrown off first, and the others by turns, at long intervals; the remaining inside mass would have been acquiring more intense heat from being in contact with the sun, Planetary Division of the Nebula. 23 which would have resulted in an intensity of heat in the inside planets that would have required additional millions of years for necessary cool- ing of the molten globes. Are not the star nebulae in the heavens supposed to represent the stages of progress through which our own great nebula passed toward planetary formation? If so, may not the ring nebula, with a star sun nucleus, represent the stages of our sun when it had been separated from the entire encircling nebulous mass? It may not be essen- tial to know by what method the nebulous ring was subdivided into planetary rings. ^ But *Since writing the foregoing, the following note has come to view: " M. Plateau places a quantity of oil in in a glass vessel, filled with a mixture of water and alcohol, the lower strata of which are less dense than the oil, whilst the upper strata are lighter. The mass of oil descends in the mixture as far as the stratum of of the same density, where it remains, taking the form of a sphere. In this state, the mass of oil is freed from the action of gravity, and the form it takes is due simply to the mutual attraction of its molecules. Next, by the help of a metallic disk introduced with care into the sphere of oil, and a stem which passes through its center and communicates with a handle, M. Plateau imparts to the system a progressive movement of rota- tion. When this movement is slow, the sphere is trans- formed into a spheroid, swelled at the equator, flattened at the poles, under the action of the centrifugal force, which develops the movement. The phenomenon ac- 24 N&bular Hypothesis. if analogous examples, as observed in the heavens coincide with nature's suggested method of sep- aration of the planetary nebulae from the sun; and if we find that it is the method requiring the least time for cooling the planets, it may be found impracticable to devise a theory re- quiring far longer time. Various estimates have been made of the time required for cooling the earth from its molten stage down to one hun- dred degrees. They have ranged from fifty mill- ions to three hundred and fifty millions of years. Doubtless they varied according to estimates of counts then perfectly for the form of the planets. If the movement becomes more rapid, the flattening be- comes more considerable: the spheroid at last becomes indented at the poles, spreading out more and more in the horizontal direction, until the oil, leaving the disk entirely, is formed into a circular ring. At this moment, the phenomena at once explains both the zones detached at the origin of the solar mass, and the rings of Saturn. Lastly, if the rotary movement, rendered more rapid, is continued with a disk of a diameter sufficiently large, the centrifugal force, in driving the particles of the surrounding medium towards the ring, soon separates it into several isolated masses, which form themselves into individual spheres; each of which preserves for a certain time a movement of rotation of its own in the same direction as the ring. This last phase of the phenomena offers a striking analogy with that of the formation of the centers of condensation which, on Laplace's hypo- thesis, are the origin of the planets of our system.'' Guillemen's "The Heavens,'' p. 393, (Footnote.) Heating and Cooling of Globes. 25 "the temperature of the molten globe at the beginning of the term. Even the shortest ^estimate that can be formed must apparently prove a severe trial of the sun's radiant energy, for geologists require at least an additional iifty millions of years to satisfy their theories of later evolutions. It would appear reasonable to so form our theories that the period of -existence of the earth to the present time shall l>e brought as far within the limit of the probable duration of the sun's radiant energy as ^appearances will justify. To that end the heat of the earth's nebulous ring should be kept, or estimated, as low as possible in order that the time of the cooling of the globe when iormed may not require an extravagant estimate. In that procedure may be seen the economy of nature's method of separating between the condensed nucleus and the encircling nebulous mass, previous to the division of the mass into planetary rings. We need to give some attention to the source of the unceasing heat of the sun. We have assumed that the great nebula was formed from myriads of smaller nebulae assembled from 26 Nebular Hypothesis. all parts of the district assigned for the pur- pose. There is no reason to suppose that upon the apparent completion of the great nebula, and the ensuing division of it, there was any cessation of the inflow of the tributary nebulae. There was no influence arising from the trans- formation in the great nebula that could afl'ect the gathering of cosmical dust throughout the district. It is evidently still gathering, and large numbers of meteors formed from it are flowing in, and in some degree sustaining the sun's energy; though the supply has apparently been so reduced that there would now be ob- served but a fraction of the amount required to sustain the sun in full vigor. But the supply may have been kept up in full many millions of years, even after the planets were all formed. If the supply began to diminish upon the complete formation of the sun's form, and continued in a constant ratio down to the present time, to exhaustion, say one hundred millions of years, there was an equivalent to a full supply for half of that length of time. If twenty millions of years passed before the supply began to fail, that period can be added Heat in the Nebula Discovered. 27 to the former; and we begin to see how the difficulties of accounting for long geological eras may be obviated consistently with the long continuance of the sun's radiant energy. It has been said, theoretically, that gravitation could not have been the sole source of the sun's radiant energy, that is, gravitation result- ing from the condensation of the nebula. But we have to accept the fact of the energy. To meet it we can recognize the heating effect of gravitation in the forming of the nebula, when the impact of every tributary meteorite in it contributed additional heat. If the heat of a nebula is sufficient to give it a glowing aspect,, as appears in those observed in the heavens; condensation of the substance and the heat into an extremely smaller compass accounts for the intensity of the heat of the sun and plan- ets. Too close attention cannot be given to this process of heating, for it will be presented several times, more or less directly, for con- sideration. The source of heat in the solar sysfem has- long been involved in mystery. Having hypothecated a long term of lively 28 Nebular Hypothesis. energy for the sun, we may still need to appor- tion the term economically among the historical phenomena of the long interval, with the hope of making some progress toward a satisfactory theory. In many instances of investigation of mysterious occurrences, suggestions have been made of the probable course of nature with them, which have subsequently been verified by discoveries of eventualities confirming the sug- gestions. In the matter of the evolution of the sun and planets from the great nebula, it is desirable to discover the shortest method of preparing the earth, among other planets, for the introduction of organic life upon it. While nature's methods are generous of time, we dare not presume them to be wasteful. The mystery of the stupendous phenomena by which the heat in the solar system was produced may justify a repetition of some of the suggestions offered, with additional particulars. The subject is full of mysteries so profound that, to many minds, reiterations of explanations Avith various connections will .assist them to grasp the mysteries. Order of Division of the Nebula. 2& A prominent item in the consumption of time is the cooling of the earth in the first stages- of its existence. The length of time required for it was proportioned to its temperature when it first took form. If the ring of the outer planet had been thrown off first, and the others in succession, aggregating more than three thousand millions of miles, radius measurement,, of nebulous rings, the earth ring would have been absorbing the intense and rapidly increas- ing heat of the central nucleus, the sun, through nearly all that time, probably thousands of centuries, or millions of years, till it was alsa thrown off; and its heat would have been ex- cessive, greater by several thousand degrees- than by the method of an earlier separation of the entire planetary nebula from the sun. The heat of the sun at the present time has been variously estimated at from four thousand de- grees F. to three millions. Later esti- mates, apparently most approved by recent writers, are eighteen thousand to fifty thousand degrees. It was probably greater when in its- full pristine vigor. Therefore the earliest pos- sible disconnection of all planetary matter from 30 Nebular Hypothesis. that body was desirable. In that interpretation of the phenomena of the process, the nearer the temperature of the earth, in its formation, could be kept down to five thousand degrees, the shorter time could be estimated for' its cooling. The cooling above that point, five thousand degrees in twenty or thirty millions of years, and perhaps many more, may have been saved by early separation. If the early separation of the entire planetary nebula from the nucleus is found to be the actual process among the starry nebulae, thus giving it an early delivery from an absorption of excessive solar heat, it will go far toward obviating the difficulty under which investigators have labored of being unable to find, within a reasonable interval of sun life, time for all the events and changes occurring, to satisfy the periods required by geological theories in the forma- tion and existence of the earth down to the present time. The time necessary for cooling the earth down to one hundred degrees of surface temperature has been represented by stupendous estimates. By the hypothesis of moderate heating of the globe, we may find Form of Solar System District. 31 the probable time required for cooling the earth reduced to twenty-five millions of years, or less. The next chapter will explain a still farther reduction of the time required for cooling. Having suggested that twenty millions of years may have passed after the time of the apparent completion of the sun's form before the supply of matter for its sustentation began to diminish, now let us investigate the source of the con- tinued supply. To do that it is well to con- sider the form and direction of the district from which the cosmical dust is drawn for use in the solar system. Our nearest known neighboring world on one side is about twenty-two millions of miles distant from our system. There may be worlds as near, or nearer, on other sides of our district dead suns that are invisible, or giving so little light by reason of old age, that they are, with good reason, sup- posed to be very distant. The district pertaining to the solar system cannot be of spherical configuration. As in a heap of oranges, while they are in contact with each other, there are inter- 32 Nebular Hypothesis. slices of space among them, so between the districts of world systems there are immense intersticial regions, very distant, from which little matter was drawn, comparatively, for forming the great nebula. They, with other borders from which the supplies had not been mainly drawn, continue to send liberal contri- butions. We are not to presume that the central zone, from border to border of the district, was entirely cleansed of the cosmical dust. As rain-drops, descending through a cloud,, gather particles of water from it, leaving the cloud afloat, so minute nebulae, as they float,, attract many atoms of cosmical dust, but leave more than they gather. The cosmical dust remaining is slightly, but more and more rari- fied. It dispenses a slight portion to every passing nebula, but is probably never quite exhausted. In, and near the central part of the district, where the attraction of the great bodies was strongest, less cosmical dust remained; but near the limits, adjoining the other districts,, are immense borders in which the matter is but slightly attracted toward any system. They Gathering of Cosmic a I Dust. 33 furnish a constant, though slowly diminishing . supply, which has contributed meteoric nourish- ment, not merely for forming the sun, but for a continuation of its life and vigor, a provision that requires recognition and investigation. It is not probable that such districts were allotted with regard to economy of space, but with sufficient to furnish a continued supply of cos- mical dust for the sustentation of the sun's vigor. No theory will be quite satisfactory that provides a completed sun at the beginning of its radiant life stored with heat for only a limited number of years, liberal estimates of which fail to account for half of the time that would satisfy the periods of actual terrestrial occurrences. We are constrained to accept esti- mates of geological intervals of length heretofore unaccountable. Our hypotheses must aim to account reasonably for means of recognizing and -satisfying, the intervals, for we cannot cur- tail them. We can do so by assuming that the length of our district in space is two or three times its breadth; and that while the 3 34 The Sun. cosmical dust in the central portions has long since been absorbed by the sun, the prolonga- tions of the district have continued to furnish large supplies for sustaining the sun's vigor. It has been assumed that the amount of meteoric supplies for the purpose as appears from the meagre amount intercepted by the earth in passing to the sun must be very inadequate for its sustentation at the present time. But the planetary orbits lie in an exhausted zone one little traversed by the continuous supplies, a zone lying directly across the district, coin- ciding, or nearly so, with its shortest diameter, while the more abundant supplies come from the direction of its longest diameter, or axis. Our district may be supposed to be limited by contiguous world systems in the directions of them, but open to more extended space in other directions limited in the direction of the invariable plane of the planetary orbits, but open in the direction of the axis of that plane. Undiminished supplies may therefore come from both of those polar directions, and, if unde- flected from their direct course, would fall upon the northern and southern zones of the Meteoric Supplies for the Sun. 35 sun, leaving its equatorial zone around which the planets revolve, free from the main currents of meteors by which the sun is fed and its energy sustained. (Diversion of the supplies from the polar zones will be explained farther on.) Thus may continuation of the supply of cosmical dust be found to be promoted for. sustaining the sun's vigor. The supplies fur- nished mainly to the polar zones of the sun are not necessarily small. The circular zones that would be thus exposed to the peltings of the meteoric showers are each about seven hundred thousand miles in diameter; the extent of their breadth being three times the mini- mum distance from the earth to the moon, representing an immense breadth of those dis- tant regions that may yet yield .abundant sup- plies of world dust. In reference to such meteorites as are known to the inhabitants of the earth, coming, as they do from the regions of the shortest diameter of the district, Mr. A. Winchell says : "One of these cosmical bodies, falling upon the sun must, by the concussion, produce about seven thousand times as much heat as would be generated by an equal mass 36 The Sun. of coal. It is thus that the enormously high temperature of our sun is maintained."* Dr. Tyndall says : "A body coming from an infinite distance would develop more than nine thousand times the heat produced by an equal mass of coal."f Those aerolites coming from the farther re- gions of the longer diameter, being farther away from the influence of the sun's attraction, and are longer in forming, attain to larger size and increased velocity in approaching the sun, and produce a higher degree of heat, pro- portioned to their vastly increased force, which is the square of the velocity. Probably all that come so far as from those distant regions are solidified on the way. Their journeys last thousands of centuries, and would be equivalent to infinite distances referred to above. Compute the energy of those coming one hundred thousand times the distance of the earth from the sun, weighing one hundred tons, (twenty seven hundred tons at the surface of the sun,) entering its *' 'Sketches of Creation," p. 410. fGuilliraan's "The Sun," p. 276. Process of Heating the &un. 37 gaseous body with a velocity of three hundred and ninety miles a second. The elongations of the district permit these estimates of long distances, heavy aerolites, and great velocity. Altogether, the utmost energy is obtained for prolonging the pun's radiant capacity and long endurance. Among the estimates made of the sources of the sun's heat is one by Prof. Newcomb,* that in order to keep it up u a mass of matter equal to our planet would have to fall into our sun every century." But taking into account the great velocity of the larger part of meteoric accumulations, coming many thou- sand times farther than the distance of the earth from the sun, which distance was a factor in the above estimate, a many times smaller mass would cause as much heat. It would be increased, not merely in proportion to the velocity, but proportionate to the force that produced it, which is the square of the velocity. At the rate given by Prof. Newcomb the matter added in sixteen millions of years *Popular Astronomy, p. 507. 38 The Sun. would equal half of the mass of the sun, which would have been, at the beginning of that period, only half of the present size. If it had when newly formed, only half its present mass, its accumulated accretions, taking into account in their impact in the sun the mar- vellous energy derived from their velocity, its heat must have been sustained several times sixteen millions of years. The sun, being entirely gaseous, offers but little resistance to a falling meteorite, but too much to permit the passage of such a body through it. Aerolites formed in the most distant regions of the prolonged district may well be estimated to be of enormous size, being formed in regions where they were subject to very slight attractions till, by the union of many nebula?, they attained to immense volumes, and are condensed in their long journeys to the sun, into solid bodies, some of them hundreds of tons in weight. Coming from as remote regions, their velocity is equal to that of comets on their first journey to the vicinity of the sun. With such velocity and force, they plunge to astonishing depths in the body of the sun, whence, being Size and Velocity of Aerolites. 39 converted into enormously expanded volumes of gas, they are ejected with extreme force and velocity, and become very conspicuous in the form of the sun's prominences. Dr. Tyndall says : "It is easy to calculate the maximum and minimum velocity communicated by the sun's attraction to an asteroid circulating around it; the maximum occurs when the asteroid approaches the sun in a straight line, coming from an infinite distance, for then the entire force of attraction acts upon it without any loss; the minimum is the velocity which would be merely capable of causing to revolve around the sun a body in close proximity to its surface. The final velocity of the first body would be three hundred and ninety-two miles per second, that of the second two hundred and seventy-one miles. ' ' * The distance traversed by a meteorite from the farthest regions of our prolonged district would be equivalent to infinity so far as it relates to the sun's attraction. Therefore the maximum velocity would be attained, and in turn velocity would be given to the expelled matter proportionate to the depth to which it pierced the sun. A very great velocity would be required at *Guilliman's "The Sun," p. 275. 40 The Sun. the exit to raise a prominence three hundred thousand miles against the powerful attraction of the sun. The chief resistance to the downward pro- gress of a meteorite in the body of the sun would be in its density, especially at a great depth, but the greater the depth and density the greater the force and velocity with which the rarified body is expelled. The force may well be pronounced inconceivable and the velocity unaccountable that hurls gaseous matter three hundred thousand miles in height against the sun's powerful attraction. If with a producing cause so evidently practicable to some degree, the result is past man's under- standing, and the phenomena incomprehensible, how paralyzing to his utmost powers must the phenomena have been, with no apparent or imaginable cause. The gas generated from the dissolution of a large meteorite at a great depth would not be expelled in a globular body, but in a stream as the gas is evolved gradually from the con- version of the injected mass. In such cases if the entrance of the meteor is slanting, its Cause of the Sun's Prominences. 41 progress at an inclination during its dissolution would result in a continuous horizontal disruption of the sun's surface producing an elongated sun- spot, and also a leaning prominence. That many prominences rise obliquely from the sun's surface appears from reported observations and representations of the curve they make on reaching their outer limit. Were they caused by any force or thing entirely within the sun, not injected, the rise should be perpendicu- lar, as a bubble of air rises in water seeking exit at the nearest point. Were they caused by substances that had fallen perpendicularly upon the surface, the jets would rise vertically or nearly so> That they do not is susceptible of explanation. Aerolites formed in the polar elongations, in their progress toward the sun partake of the rotary motion of the district, "and are constantly deflected by centrifugal force farther from the axis than would be their direct course uninfluenced by any swerving force. Though the rotary motion of the district is slow, and the deflecting force therefore slight, the continual influence of it without O ' 42 The Sun. any opposing force, on a moving body / through journeys of thousands of centuries would cause a wide deviation of it from a direct course, and a consequent slanting entrance into the gaseous globe, followed by an inclination of a jet or prominence on being expelled. That wide deviation from a direct course seems to be sufficient to so deflect from the axis the supplies from the polar regions that they fall upon the sun more than fifty degrees from its poles. No elements have been known from which to estimate the extent of divergence of meteorites from the axis, but the effects of their impact in the sun serve as a guide by which the divergences are recog- nized. The laws are known by which their actions are regulated, and the existence of the prominences and sun-spots for which no other probable cause is known calls for the explanation which they afford. Something may be learned pertaining to this matter from the orbits of comets and the directions of their planes. A comet whose origin was Relations of Sun-spots to Prominences. 43 near the axis of the district would be subject to the same divergent laws as are the meteorites. Its flight is discernible, and its plane may be defined. While one plane alone would give no sure index of its origin r a preponderance of numbers of orbital planes would indicate with some precision the nearness of their origin to the axis. In their visible c 1 approach, the angle from the axis being known, and* comparison being made with the positions of the planes, not only their origin, but also the approximate amount of their divergence from the axis may possibly be ascertained. It is said that there seems to be a relation between sun-spots and prominences on the sun, nearly all occurring in zones within forty degrees of the equator. Does it not appear probable from the explanation given that they .are caused by meteorites that pierce the sun to great depths, and on being gasified and expelled in immense volumes with inconceivable force produce the prominences, and so violently disrupt the surface to great distance around as to cause the mysterious sun-spots? 44 The Sun. The comparatively small number of spots and prominences on the sun's equatorial zone is probably due to the exhaustion of meteoric supplies in the region of space pertaining to it. There would be an increase of numbers of spots from the equator to the poles, but that all meteorites by which they are caused are swerved from their direct course toward the equator in proportion to their distance from it, so that nearly all fall to the sun within forty degrees of the equator, but not within the planetary equatorial zone. The spreading out upon the sun's surface, of small meteors that are gasified and greatly ex- panded before reaching it, may cause the cloud-like prominences. They, of large volume, may cause spots on entering the sun, and on their exit in some other places may produce others. Thus two or three meteors would produce a group of sun-spots. The weight of gases composing the sun would, uncompressed upon the earth's surface, vary little from that of our atmosphere, but at the sun's surface their weight, like that of the entering meteorites, and of all bodies, is Velocities in Meteorites and Prominences. 45 twenty-seven times greater, and would therefore present a denser and better defined surface. But gas is extremely elastic, and notwith- standing its greater density in the sun's body yields tc easy passage of those swift meteoric bodies to depths so profound that their expul- sion is with velocity that is unaccountable by any methods yet discovered. The effect of the sun's twenty-seven fold attraction upon a mete- orite, even after its entrance into that body, facilitating its passage through the resisting medium, is worth noting in estimating the depth of its plunge. The same powerful attraction has a counter effect upon the ejected mass, retarding, with the attendant friction, its outward movement, and yet such a mass has been estimated to have attained a velocity, in its exit, of one hundred and twenty miles per second. This hypothesis presents, in a greater degree than any explanation heretofore offered, the elements of possibilities in the tissue of forces, velocities, occurrences, bodily move- ments, and their observed effects. Indeed those 46 The Sun. effects demand a reasonable exposition of pro- ducing causes. The phenomena of solar disturbances and protuberances are known to exist, and intel- ligent curiosity eagerly investigates every clue to reasonable investigations of them. The enormous meteorites are possible, their veloc- ities possible, and the effects of their impact into the sun possible. Can any more effective or probable means be conceived for producing the mysterious prominences and spots on the sun? While only the meagre supply of meteorites was known of which those falling upon the earth were samples, they would not be deemed capable of producing those displays. While no probable cause or origin of the sun's prominences had been known or conceived, tacit consent could but be given to a supposition that the explanation of them was altogether in the inherent nature of the sun; but since a conceivable cause of them is found in the pos- sibility that the surface of the sun is punctured and disturbed by large numbers of aerolites falling upon it from distant regions, the question may well be raised whether any cause of a Discussion of Prominences. 47 disturbance sufficient to produce those explosive eruptions commonly termed prominences could imaginably be supposed to be inherent in the fiery mass of the sun after many millions of years duration in which all extraneous and dis- turbing substances" have been burned out, so that nothing remained in the sun to cause an eruption. If there are any disturbing elements within it, is it supposable that they can cause more than slight bubbling commotions on the surface ? Is it conceivable that any element can con- centrate in the gaseous body of the sun in such volume and explode with such force as to raise prominences three hundred thousand miles in height? It is far easier .to conclude that large bodies of extraneous matter penetrated the sun to great depths, and that the expulsion of the gases evolved from them produce the eruptive prominences. That prominences have different forms and appearances is explainable by the suggestion that aerolites varying greatly in their composition must evolve a variety of gases that, upon being expelled from the sun, take various forms in the prominences. 48 The Sun. Both the sources and the character of the sup- posed continued supplies may be brought in question by investigators. In regard to the sources, it is suggested and the consideration of it demanded by the necessity of accounting for the long continuance of the sun's radiant energy for which no other means has been found. The source suggested is but a continuation of supplies from a district in which there has been but little or no diminution of the inflow of tributary nebulae. The real change noted in the matter of meteoric nourishment for the sun consists in the discontinuance from exhaustion of nearly all the supplies from the direction of the equatorial zone in which are the planetary orbits. Objections that might be made to the char- acter of the supplies would relate to the large size imputed to them. Of aerolites that have fallen upon the earth only fragments were gen- erally found, but enough to indicate that some of them were very large, weighing several tons. One found in Greenland, said to weigh forty tons, may have been formed in a remote corner border of the central zone where the attractions of two t or more systems held it in balance till Supplies for the Sun Discussed. 49 it had attained to an immense size -before its course was determined. In the extreme limit of our supposed pro- longed district some may be formed under similar conditions at immensely greater distances, and proportionately larger. Being formed at distances four to eight thousand times that of the planet Neptune from the Sun, they approach it with such velocity that the heat resulting from" the impact is very great. If this be found to be the true theory, it will dispose of the conception, that the aerolites, on approaching the sun, are repelled and sent on orbital probation till they are found qualified to enter that sphere of light and warmth; and then settling gradually to the sun, producing only a nine-thousandth part as much heat as would result from falling directly upon it, with continual increase of velocity, from the region of their formation. There are some features that require close attention, even though it involves some repetition. The meteoric supplies that come from the farthest regions of the district are doubtless gathered into larger bodies, are thoroughly solid- 50 The Suit. ified, and, plunge into the sun with such speed and force many times greater than bodies of equal mass falling from the distance of the earth to the sun, that the heat produced by them is, proportionately at least, greater. The sun, therefore, suffers far less diminution of its energy from the failure of a large part of the supplies from the central zone than would be estimated from their volume alone. It follows from the character of the supplies, and from the tremendous force with which it is pierced by them, that the sun's energy is sustained far beyond the proportionate increase of its mass, a matter important to the problem of its en- durance. If the suggestion that the sun's prominences result from the plunging of meteorites into its body is entitled to belief, it gives force also to the estimates of the great size of the meteo- rites. Prominences three hundred thousand miles in height of such magnitude as to be observable more than ninety three millions of miles dis- tant could be produced only by enormous masses driven into the sun with tremendous force. The violence with which objects are thrown from Discussion Continued. 51 volcanoes more than two miles in height is ex- treme. Now conceive the force required to eject substances from the sun three hundred thousand miles in height against an attractive force twen- ty-seven times greater than the restraining force of the earth's attraction. Then estimate the depth in the sun, and the enormous bulk re- quired to give 'the repelling force displayed in the sun's prominences. Since such phenomena are known, they can be attributed to the precipi- tation of meteorites upon the sun, however in- conceivable the result. But reject the explana- tion afforded by the action of meteorites, and what other solution of the problem can be given? If the phenomena of prominences and sun- spots had their origin within the sun, their occurrence would not be confined mainly to two zones within forty degrees of the equator, but would be distributed more uniformly over the entire surface. Their occurrence within those zones therefore require other explanations. A more reasonable one has been given that they are the effects of meteorites from the polar regions, that have been so diverted from their regular course to the sun that they fall 53 The Sun. upon it more than fifty degrees from its poles. Were it assumed as a necessary conclusion that the sun's prominences are produced by bodies of matter falling upon and penetrating the sun, and were estimates to be made of the probable size of them, and the required force of their thrusts to raise prominences to their observed height, would the masses and velocities ascribed 1o the falling meteorites be deemed suf- ficient? Having observed prominences of un- known height, were it required to estimate the utmost height to which flaming jets could be raised from the sun's surface by the means suggested, would not one hundred miles height be deemed extravagant? Then to what height O O would it be supposible that prominences could be raised on the sun without the instrumental- ity of falling meteorites, but from forces in- herent in the sun? Propositions abounding with absurdities may be essential to place others in a proper light, but extremes of absurdities can scarcely equal the measurement of existing incomprehensible phe- nomena of natural achievements as observed in the amazing projectile forces of the sun's prom- How is the Sun's Heat Maintained? 53 inences. No effort to subject them to the un- derstanding should be neglected by earnest in- quirers. A difficulty arises of introducing theories in- volving strange movements in etherial regions of indefinite limits regarding the formation of imponderable bodies from impalpable dust. Even ably comprehensive minds require much time and repeated efforts to grasp the propositions, to conceive of the movements and limits in the regions of space, and the resulting effects upon the mysterious sun. There seems to be a growing conviction in the minds of men that the sun, completed at the time of its formation could not, of its in- herent capacity, have furnished the light and heat required to the present time without ex- haustion. A learned author says: "The sun's heat cannot be kept up by com- bustion, * ; * " * it would have burned out long ago, even if made of solid coal, burning in oxygen. Nor can it be simply a heated body cooling down. Huge as it is, an easy cal- culation shows that its temperature must have fallen greatly within the last two thousand years by such a loss of heat, even if it had a spe- cific heat higher than that of any known sub- stance. As matters stand at piesent, the avail- 54 The Sun, able theories seem to be reduced to two, that of Meyers, which ascribes the solar heat to the energy of metegric matter falling on the sun; and that of Helmholtz, who finds the cause is a slow contraction of the sun's diameter." The two theories are combined in the one proposed, the former to maintain the sun's en- ergy, and assist in maintaining it till the latter shall suffice to maintain it as long as it may be required. Efforts made to account for the continuance of the sun's radiant energy during all the time required to satisfy geological records had not been satisfactorily successful. While it was ap- parently impossible to account for a longer past life of the sun than forty to sixty millions of years, (and astronomical science would refuse to allow much longer time,) the records of geolog- ical science seem to demand many millions of years longer time. Now that a way is found for possibly accounting for a much longer con- tinuance of the sun's past life, an effort may reasonably be made to allow, for its continu- ance, the utmost limit. The possibility of doub- ling the former estimate will serve to show how *Young's General Astronomy, p. 222. Prospecting for Discoveries. 55 unsatisfactory that estimate was. In any case there will doubtless be a disposition to make the most liberal estimates that acceptable theories will warrant, with the probability that there is much that eludes us of the mighty movements under consideration, and that the estimates made of them are but feeble attempts at their meas- urement. We had been pressed to a conviction that there must be a source of supplies for the sun yet to be discovered, and because, the proposition is new and too stupendous to be grasped easily, it is repeated here with some variety and mi- nuteness of explanation, with a .view to fixing it more firmly in the mind, for, aside from its own importance, which is great; out of it many propositions arise contributing to explanations of some of the most profound mysteries of the solar system, each one of which will require the undivided attention of inquirers. It is like opening up a new mine abounding with many precious metals. Additional interest attaches to every one discovered. The meteoric matter, as indicated by the amount intercepted by the earth, being but a fraction 56 The Sun. of the amount required, the question had arisen, could there not be larger supplies found in some other direction? If the regions of our district are limited laterally, and their supplies of cos- mical dust are thereabouts nearly exhausted, may not the supplies be found more abundant in other directions? Our district may not be so confined on all sides as it traverses space. It may be found to extend much farther in* the directions of its axis. Then the sun may be re- ceiving upon its polar zones ample nourishment in meteoric supplies from the prolongations of the district, without injury or detriment to the planets or their inhabitants. There remains only enough in the planetary zone to suggest to dis- cerning minds the probable source of supplies for the mysterious long continuance of the sun's radiant energy. Is there not manifest design in so forming the district that while the zone comprising the planetary orbits should be nearly exhausted of cosmical dust, the sun should still be recruited and its vigor maintained from the directions of its polar regions without detriment to the ^planets, but for the benefit of their occu- Prospecting lor Discoveries, Continued. 57 pants ? Does not the adaptability of the hypo- thesis, in view of the necessity of accounting for the mysterious long life of the sun, com- mend its acceptance? It is possible, and even probable, that a continuous fall of meteorites upon the earth, at a rate, upon equal areas, sufficient to maintain the full vigor of the sun, would be a more afflictive scourge upon its occupants than all the floods, cyclones and earthquakes occurring in modern times, and would even render the earth uninhabitable. Cloud-like nebulse that are among the least resolvable and appear to be the latest formed, indicate by their irregular form, in some degree, the irregularity of the districts in space from which they are formed. The one in Andromeda is said to be two and one-half degrees long, and one degree broad. Its narrow breadth in- dicates the nearness of other world systems that limit its lateral dimensions, and probably im- part rotary motion to it, as all world systems must have it to preserve equilibrium under the law of gravitation. Therefore the plane of its planetary orbits, when formed, will be in the direction of its least diameter, and its axis 58 The Sun. lengthwise of the district, after the manner of our own solar system, as set forth in this treatise, whereby the sun receives prolonged nourishment from the polar extensions of its district in space, and wherein the abundance of comets have their origin, as explained in the next chapter. This hypothesis suggests phenomena by which the sun's vigor may have been prolonged twenty millions or more of years. But allowing for the matter added for the purpose during that interval, the sun may have had less than half of its present mass originally, and possibly radi- ated less heat. The heat of the sun was less needed while the planets were molten or sub- sequently intensely heated. As the possibility is apparent, it would be a reasonable suggestion that for the acceleration of the cooling of the planets it was originally very small, but that when the planets had become so cool as to need its heat, it had by constant growth by meteoric accre- tions attained nearly its present size. Then let us take still another step backward in our hypothesis of the solar system. It is possible, and even probable, that at the time Progress in Discovery. 5 of the separation of the sun from the envelop- ing mass of the great nebula it was itself still o D in a nebulous condition,* far advanced, at the center, toward a gaseous density, but on the whole nebulous, with a bulk of less magnitude than any of the nebulous rings of which the surrounding planets were to be formed. That central nebulous bulk, when condensed into a . gaseous body, but for the constant meteoric accretions, would have but little exceeded the size of the largest planets. Its heating and lighting capacities, however, would be sufficient for all purposes during many millions of year& in which those benefits were not needed, but as they became necessary the sun would have vastly and sufficiently increased in size. The desirability of overcoming the difficulty of accounting satisfactorily for a length of life of the sun that will cover the claims for geological occurrences and intervals attributed to its term of existence, will justify a speculative explora- tion of the mysteries of the division of the great nebula into many nebulous masses, in the hope of discovering other possible occur- rences or conditions in that solar life that will 60 The Sun. serve for farther acceptable explanation. If well known occurrences fail to satisfy require- ments, possibilities may be acceptable. Estimates of the duration of sun life have generally been based on a full size and com- pleted form of the solar body from the begin- ning. Its assets of known capacities have been scheduled and found insufficient to meet both expenditures of the alleged past eras, and appar- ent liabilities for the future. Now if it can be shown possible that the sun attained to nearly its full size only when the planets, having their temperature reduced to a moderate degree had need of its light and heat for the support of organic life upon them; or, only when the growing sun, having, in the past, at- tained to a sufficient energy for all then exist- ing requirements may have reached its maxi- mum condition many millions of years later, will not that leave the hypothetical conditions of early sun-life unimpaired? If there be allotted to the sun on the divis- ion of the great nebula into annular portions so much of it as would form a mass equal to that of all the other bodies of the solar sys- The Sun Nebulous in Its Infancy. (51 tern, would not that suffice at a time when there was no need of a sun only as a central attraction and a globe upon which to build for future use? The hypothesis long entertained that there was, in the beginning of planetary formation, in any sense a completed sun, gives occasion for a farther discussion of the process by which it is supposed to have been formed. While the separation of the mass was progressing, of that which was to form the sun, from that which was around it, whether the latter had been divided and thrown off one by one from the outside, or, the division of the outward mass into planetary rings had progressed simultane- ously; the central mass must have still been nebulous, and undergoing condensation from a nebulous to a gaseous form a very slow pro- cess, which should not be forgotten. It is far from probable that the central neb- ulous mass was a half of that of the great nebula. If it was not, it would not have equalled a seven-hundredth part of the present mass of the sun. Though its body was continually aug- mented by meteoric accretions, it would, when 62 The Sun. first in completed form, from the distance of the earth appear but a little larger than a first class star large enough, however, for the needs of the new planets of the system just adapted in size for the beginning of a growth that should be adequate for the requirements of grad- ually maturing planets, and for the culmination of its capacity whenever in the maturity of the system it could best be applied. Rotary motion, in its origin having been slow, it was probably increased before the division of the great nebula, and it is also possible that it has been accelerated gradually with the increase of the mass and attraction of the sun. For an inspiring conception of the continual growth of the sun, its mass may properly be roughly estimated at nearly four hundred times that of the original great nebula at the time of its division. That is a larger proportion than former figures represent. The estimate of the proportion grows with repeated consideration of the subject. There has probably been suggested to many minds the possibility of the division of the great nebula into planetary fragments siraulta- Continual Supplies for the Sun. 63 neously with their separation from the sun, and not without reason. It might result from the acceler- ated rotary motion produced by the continual falling of meteorites east of the axis of the neb- ula, the effect of which would be greatest on the central portions, as appears by the veloc- ities derived therefrom by the planets near the- center, and the gradually slower motion of every planet in its order, numbering outward. The rate of motion of the central mass having o increased to such an extent that the contiguous mass could not move along with it, they may have therefore separated. Each planetary por- tion of the nebula may for a like reason have separated from the next outside one, all by an undeviating law of velocities and proportions applicable to the great nebulae throughout the universe. If this explanation be correct, it would indi- cate that the central mass was still nebulous very far from having become a completed sun, and of proportions infinitely less than has gen- erally been estimated. The mass of the sun is estimated by astron- omers to be about seven hundred times greater 64 . The Sun. than the aggregate of all other bodies of the solar system. If they also have growth, it is too slight to be taken into account in connec- tion with that of the sun. A planet twenty- four thousand miles in diameter, ninety-three millions of miles from the sun, would present an area of a capacity to intercept more falling meteorites than do all the planets together with their satellites and the asteroids in their vari- ous positions. The area presented by such a globe is less than one-two hundred and forty millionth of the sphere having for its radius the earth's distance from the sun, or ninety-three millions of miles. The fraction indicates the slight proportion of meteoric matter received by the planets even when the supply was undiimn- ished in the planetary zone. It appears there- fore that almost the entire amount of meteoric matter supplied through all the ages of the solar system has contributed to the augmenta- tion of the sun's mass and energy. If the sup- ply has been abundant, as represented, it has had vast and continual growth, and must .have derived only infantile proportions from its origin Mending the Old Ways. 65 in the great nebula. It now has a monopoly of the supplies. Of the small portions of meteoric matter that have been distributed among the bodies of the solar system, the earth's portion may be esti- mated at a trifle more than one-ninth. These estimates can never be verified because the original masses of the bodies named cannot c5 be known, but they will serve the purpose of familiarizing the mind with the probabilities of the phenomena. Out of them may be discerned the probability that the time has not yet ar- rived for ascribing the cause of the sun's heat to a contraction of its diameter. Satisfactory estimates may also be ventured that will meet the requirements of geological science for possible phenomena and occurrences, the accounting for which has heretofore baffled the efforts of astronomers. Because of the novelty of the propositions offered regarding mysterious great movements, and the consequent difficulty of procuring their acceptance, the discussion proceeds with some reiterations. It will be observed that, properly, no effort is made to assign the culmination of 5 66 The Sun. the sun to a definite age, whether to the pres- ent time, or a little earlier or later. But it is desirable to present the general proposition with some persistence that the sun has grown continu- ally from a very small body, by meteoric accretions, to its completed form and size in recent times. Familiarity with the possibilities of the grad- ual growth of the sun through all the periods of formation, cooling, solidifying, transmutation, and reconstruction of the earth (see chapters and 5) will beget such acquiescence in its prob- ability, that there will be little inclination to base ' estimates of the duration of the sun upon a belief in a completion of its body at the time of its separation from the surrounding nebulous mass. The culmination of the sun's energy may be placed early or late in plan- etary existence. Let it be admitted a possibility, and assent may be obtained to a probability that the sun was, upon its separation from the great nebula, only a basis up;,n which to build, as above de- scribed, and that from the supplies of meteoric matter showered upon its mass, it was enlarged during all the time that it and the other bodies Discussion of Sun's Growth. 67 of the solar system were being condensed into gaseous bodies, during the millions of years in which the planets were being solidified, and farther during the many millions of years while the temperature of the earth was being reduced from upward of four thousand degrees down to less than one hundred decrees. Still o the temperature of the planets was very high, and the extreme heat of the sun would not be needed, nor would it be necessary till about the carboniferous period or later far into the reign of organic life. A later period may therefore have experienced the culmination of the sun's energy, 'possibly extending to about the present era. We have no reason to adjudge nature waste- ful of heat by providing it in full power before it was needed. It is therefore possible that the sun attained to the full limit of its power of light and heat at a period nearly coincident with the present age, and that it may not yet have begun to wane to an extent unfavorable to a very long continuance of life. Material changes of its temperature are measured by millions of years. Especially at 68 The Sun. the culminating limit of its energy including the last unit of enlargement, a long era of inappreciable change, and a fraction of diminu- tion, a hundred thousand years may pass with- out a change of temperature amounting to one degree. How appropriate is it that such an interval of the sun's . existence should be coin- cident with the occupancy of the earth by the human race. Inasmuch as such occupancy is doubtless the purpose of the existence of the solar system, the possibility of the most desirable concurrence of conditions and occurrences becomes happily a strong probability. It would ill accord with the economy of nature's forces to so arrange the one important purpose and use of the solar system as to have it precede, or follow, the most favorable time for the full benefit and occupancy of it ; or to suffer a waste of power by failing to improve the period of the fullness of it. Hence it may be reiterated with confi- dence that the possibility of the growth of the sun from the beginning to about the present era of its existence becomes a probability too apparent to be lightly rejected. Infant Sun Nebulous. 69 Now having recognized the possible growth of tlie sun through all its existence to the cul- mination of its vigor and power at or near the present time, does it not appear impossible that there could have been any semblance of a completed sun at the time of the division of the great nebula into planetary rings ? Is it not possible that it was itself a nebulous body, somewhat condensed at its center, having there- fore a mass when condensed into a gaseous body, comparable with the aggregate mass of the solidified planets ? An acceptance of the hypothesis of the gradual growth of the sun from a very svnall beginning will probably follow a ratioeirative effort on the subject, and thus will appear a probability of overcoming the difficulty of accounting for the mysterious long duration of the sun. It will be seen that the coincidence in time, of the culmination of the sun's radiant energy, as herein described, with the highest purpose and use for which the solar system was de- signed intellectual and moral culture and disci- pline, is in accordance with the systematic law 70 The Sun. and order that pervade nature's works through-, out the physical world. Human life presents a parallel instance of the feebleness of infancy, and growth to the size, strength, and energy .of maturity. Is it not only the most gratifying evidence, but also the highest glory of intel- lectual achievement, to be found in accord, in our theories of world movements, with the per- fection of order that pervades the works of nature ? Doubtless the sun etill receives abundant me- teoric supplies through its polar regions, and will not fail while the planets have need of it. They, being smaller than it, cool much faster. They will lose their heat, and their surfaces will become waterless and cloudless. The sun will shine upon dead worlds, itself destined to a like fate. The vitality of our solar system will be run out, never to be revived. Like a cast-off garment it will pass into desolate oblivion and return to dust, while many of its former occupants will have donned . imperishable garments, and passed on into an endless existence. CHAPTER II. COMETS. Time was, O mighty Comet, when thy sway Filled sons of war with trembling and dismay. How changed! art civilized? and gentle grown? Now welcomes wait thee for thy beauty known. The belief having steadily grown for many years that the sun and other bodies of the solar system had their origin and growth from the gathering and absorption of the cosmical dust of the regions of space, the suggestion is of- fered as most reasonable, that comets also have their origin in like manner, and from the same source. The sun, planets, and satellites came into existence through the intervention of a great nebula through which they acquired an orderly system of rotation that is very essen- tial to their stability. The comets, without the intervention of an intermediate process, come directly from the 72 Comets. regions of space. They have come from all directions, the planes of their orbits follow no order of position, and their orbital motion is as often retrograde as direct. Unlike the planets, they are doubtless as perfect in their first rev- olutions as ever afterward. That they have had their origin in the same district of space with the other bodies of the solar system is far more reasonable and easy of belief than that their substance was gathered within the sun and ejected or erupted with such force as to send them on excursions of many thousands of years duration. Any matter erupted from the sun can return to it again, as it does constantly from its prom- inences. But there seems to be a repulsion be- tween all comets and the sun. They are at- tracted toward it, but never to it. After one revolution, the reason may be given that they have established orbits. But that reason does not apply to the first approach. Any other bod- ies gravitating toward the sun from the depths of space would fall directly upon it. But com- etary matter seems to be governed by an un- known law, a law of gravitation limited. There Cometary Repulsion. 73 is attraction at a great distance, but repulsion on near approach. Is it not evident from the following quotation? "The great comet of 1843 passed within three or four minutes of the surface of the sun, and therefore directly through the midst of the corona. At the time of nearest approach, its velocity was three hundred and fifty miles a second, and it went with nearly this velocity through at least three hundred thousand miles of. corona, coming out without having suffered any visible damage or retardation."* Was not that a clear case of mutual shrink- age, or gathering of skirts as two persons would gather their delicate robes to avoid contact when passing too near each other? Were the earth to encounter a mighty trans- lucent comet, it would, doubtless, pass unharmed through it as a man would through a drove of sheep, both comet and sheep avoiding contact, and the earth's inhabitants being unaware of the encounter if it were in the full light of day. Should such encounter take place in a cloudless night, there might be a meteoric display in the atmosphere, the usual height above the earth > possibly not more than forty miles. *Kewcomb's "Popular Astronomy," p. 251. 74 Comets. Will any one say such repulsion is not accord- ing to any observed law, and reject the sug- gestion? ' The reply is, neither is the conduct of a comet according to any known law excepting that of gravitation at a distance. Its entire course is inexplicable by observed laws, its origin, its mysterious flights, its substance, its appendages, its purpose, its disintegration. Hence we must observe laws which they have unto themselve/s. Doubtless they are under laws as strict as any others. A very evident one relates to that mys- terious repulsion. Noting their avoidance of the sun, we can but attribute it to a combination of elements, or, for brevity, call it an unknown property of its substance. As is the strange property in the comet, so it is in the atomic matter of which it is composed, between which and the matter that enters into aerolites there is no affinity, but repulsion instead. That gravi- tation is limited and repulsion prevalent in comets is manifest not only in their eccentric flights, but in the manner of their dissolution into meteoroids when the slight attraction that drew their particles together, and held them in form while they were in the prime of their ex- Eepulsion in Matter Forming Comets. 75 istence has been overcome in their decline, and repulsion prevails, dividing and separating them into diminutive meteoroids, and by and 'unceas- ing power scattering them into orbital streams, some of which are well known. Repulsion seems to be inherent in the sub- stance of comets throughout their existence, and therefore may be assumed to be. in full force in their formation, separating their substance from that of which the sun and planets have been formed and sustained. If we ignore the property and the law governing it because we do not understand it, and because science fails to explain it, we make it a stumbling block. Possibly repulsion has never had full recogni- tion to the extent of its power. As its effects are observed in gases and perfumes, its mild- ness exhibits little force. But so gentle in ap- pearance is the power of gravitation also. The relative power of the two forces as they come in conflict is more fully displayed in their effects upon mighty globes. Gravity is supreme in its effects upon all bodies, but when it would seem greatest, repulsion is able to overcome it to prevent contact in some cases, as in the first 76 Comets. approach of cornets toward the sun. It is worthy of emphatic note that this is not a case of atomic repulsion for the purpose of dispersion of a sub- stance, but a direct conflict of the two forces exerted by immense globes not far distant from each other, and in fields most favorable for both powers, that is, nearly in contact. The power of gravitation exerted by the mighty sun, aided by the momentum of the comet, is met and effectually resisted by that of repulsion in the comparatively insignificant body of a comet. We have no reason to suppose that cometary nebulae, formed in the district pertaining to the solar system, make their first approach to the sun otherwise than as do all other bodies attracted by it, that is, directly toward it. Were it not for their property of repulsion, they would go directly to it ; but at a certain unknown distance from the sun its repulsion exerts its power, and the comet is deflected from its course, escapes absorbtion by the sun, and passes around it. This repellant force is attributed to comets, not only for the manner of their first approach to the sun, but because it is consistent with all other phenomena of How Comets Are Formed. 77 their formation and movements, and of the me- teor oids that result from their disintegration. Which is the more noteworthy in those sharp conflicts, repulsion as a force, or the property of cometic matter that exerts the force ? A recognition of both, aVid of all other cometic properties, is essential to the investigations of phenomena relating to them. In the formation of comets the atomic matter repelling or being repelled by that which enters into planetary nebulae, unites with that of its kind, forming flocculi, which, assembling in space till a body is formed of such size as to be more powerfully attracted by the sun than by the smaller bodies around it, sets out on its first journey of millions, it may be, of years to take its place in the cometary world. We can best estimate the length of the journey, or the period required for it, by re- ferring to astronomer R. A. Proctor's works. * He estimates the time required for the passage of a comet from aCentauri, the nearest star, so far as is known, to our sun, to be nearly eight millions of years. The star being reported *' 'Expanse of Heaven." Note, p. 135. 78 Comets. much the larger body, he assigned to it two- thirds of the distance from the border between ; and to pur sun, the smaller body, one-third of the distance. Then he found the time for the journey from the nearest border to our sun to be three millions and tw0 hundred and seventy - five thousand years. By that estimate, if a omet in its outward flight from the sun, should fail, by a few miles, to pass the border its return would require an equal interval, the entire period of one revolution being six millions five hundred and fifty thousand years. So long to the nearest border. The planes of the orbits of nearly all the comets lie in the directions of the most distant borders, as will be seen farther on, hence their periods would be much longer. O According to the astronomer's estimate, the first approach to the sun, of comets formed by the nearest borders, must occupy more than three millions of years. Those from the farthest borders would occupy several millions more. Comets and other nebulae, to attain the largest size, would be formed on the border of the district, or near it, where the attractions exist- Comets Not Star Visitors. 79 ing there would be nearly equal in different directions, and when turned toward their main attraction they would move so slowly as to float far from the border before they could be said to have any appreciable impetus. On their return from the sun after having passed around it, they cannot possibly have acquired additional impetus to carry them again to the border and beyond it. If those formed on the border fail to reach it again, so must those formed farther within the district. A flight from the sun could never exceed one of the same body toward it, and must always proceed from the distance of the forma- tion of a body within the border. For similar reasons it may be assumed that in no other system can comets, by known laws, acquire the velocity required to send them beyond their borders into our system. We have no warrant to assume that other world systems have greater projectile forces than ours ; nor that their comets can by other means gain additional velocity sufficient to carry them beyond their borders. As many readers are unfamiliar with the 80 Comets. examinations of mysteries here discussed, a more amplified statement may be acceptable. A bare statement of the case would fail to impress upon the average mind evidence of the utter impossibility of the migration of a comet from the system in which it is formed. Assuming comets to be star visitors that their origin O being in some distant part of the universe the process of their formation is a mystery impen*- etrable to the mind of man, is a position suit- able for past ages in which to use the power of reason in investigations of mysteries was deemed sacrilegious and fit for anathema. The hypothesis that all material forms have their origin in primordial matter having in recent years found more and more favorable acceptance by thinking minds, there may be a willingness to patiently join in an investigation of the genesis of a comet by a similar process. Near a border of the farthest regions, but within our district, say fifteen millions of mill- ions of miles distant a great nebula has long been forming of the union of vast numbers of the flocculi, or clouds of cometic substance that repels all solid matter, but unites with its kind. Formation and Movement of Comets.. 81 first in minute clouds, then in larger nebulae, an aggregation of which forms a comet. In that distant region so near a border between systems, there is very nearly a balance of solar attractions. The comet remains, while forming, and till it attains to a size worthy of its name, nearly stationary, or floats hither and thither im- perceptibly, jostled or crowded betimes by neb- ulae destined for forming heavier bodies. Its slow progress is, on the whole, toward the cen- ter of the system. During a million of years it may have floated a million of millions of miles from the border with so little motion that it could not confidently be said to have started on its journey to the vicinity of the sun. Dur- ing the next million of- years it may have moved twice as far and be said, at its expiration, to have a regular, though very slow, motion. In another million of years, with more than doubly increased motion, it may have reached the half-way point of its journey toward the sun. During the next million of years it will have reached Hs perihelion curve and started on its return toward its native region. Who will es- timate the return journey to measure half the 6 82 Comets. distance to the border? It could not possibly cover the distance in which it merely floated during its first two millions of years. The comet must fail to cover at least the first one-fifth, and probably one-half of its journey sunward. In this illustration distances and intervals may be, and probably are, far from correct; but the trend of the argument is indisputable that every nebula must float while forming, and still longer through a great distance from the border, with so little motion that the impetus necessary to traverse the region again on the return toward the border would not be acquired. The same will hold true in all systems in which there is the same process of formation from primordial matter. As there is no evidence nor appearance of any exception, it may be presumed that from no system can comets be said to proceed to oth- ers by any means or process yet discovered. Is it not, therefore, reasonable to assume that they are all formed in the space pertaining to our solar system? We cannot doubt that small nebulae are formed in great numbers. Comets are nebulas, often of large size, for the forming of which it cannot Our District Maintains All Its Comets. 83 be said that anything is wanting. As materials were abundant for the construction of all the worlds in the system, doubtless they were also abundant for the formation of all the comets. That substances so heterogeneous as those from which w r orlds and comets are formed should be found in the same regions, and gathered into orbs mutually repulsive may be parallelled by analogies of familiar character, and quite as mysterious both in the matter, and in the pro- cess of formation. From the same food, liquid, and air, we have bones, muscles, nerves, hair, nails, teeth, and blood. Out of the same soil grow healthful and poisonous plants. In a thor- ough acquaintance with our solar system and its capacities we may expect to find it fully com- petent to produce and maintain its cometary, as well as its planetary family. Within it may be found, with all the elements required, ample space and materials with their properties for ex- planation of all the phenomena pertaining to the formation and movements of comets, as there is also, fcfter their disintegration, room and use in the sun's corona for all the cometic matter of which they are composed. 84 Comets. The following from a "Popular Astronomy"* gives the process by which conclusions have been reached by which comets are said to leave our solar system never to return: ' ' If the velocity of a comet exceeds twenty- six miles a second at that point of its orbit which is ninety- two and one-half millions of miles from the sun, then the comet must go off into infinite space, never to return to our system. But with a less velocity the comet must be brought back by the sun's attraction at some future time, the time being longer the more nearly the velocity reaches twenty-six miles a second. It is by the velocity that the astron- omer must, in general, determine the form of the orbit. If it corresponds exactly to the cal- culated limit, the orbit is a parabola; if it ex- ceeds this limit, it is a hyperbola; if not it is an ellipse. In the large majority of comets the velocity is so near the parabolic limit, that it is not possible to decide, from observations, whether it falls short of it or exceeds it. In the case of a few comets, the observations in- dicate an excess of velocity, but an excess so minute that its reality cannot be confidently as- serted. It cannot, therefore, be said with certainty that any known comet revolves in a hyperbolic orbit, and thus it is possible that all comets belong to our system, and will ultimately re- turn to it. It is, however, certain that in the majority of cases the return will be delayed many centuries." *Newcomb's, p. 373. No Perplexing' Visitant Comets. 85 It is impossible to conceive of any other pro- jectile force that can give a comet greater velocity than it acquires in its passage to the sun from the distant regions where it is formed, and this assertion applies to all other systems as well as our own. Especially will that appear when it shall be shown more clearly farther on that some of those regions extend about as far away as are the neighboring stars Comets forming at such distances would acquire greater velocity than any would have that should come from other stars over the nearest borders. When it is conceded that all the comets in the solar system were formed within it, and must remain in it, there will no longer be con- jectures of parabolic and hyperbolic orbits, for all will be regarded as being indisputably ellip- tical. There will no longer be occasion for perplexing conjectures of star visitant comets, and more satisfactory results of investigations may be expected. Investigators may follow up their observations more thoroughly when imag- inary star visitants can no longer serve as scapegoats of apparent impenetrabilities. In a discussion of the peculiar properties of 86 Comets. comets, close attention should be given to the repulsion manifested in their first approach to the sun, which must be as direct as that of any other body till they come within a dis- tance from it in which repulsion takes ef- fect, and exhibits its power by which comets are diverted out of their course farther than half the diameter of the sun, or nearly a half million of miles. Then the invincible obstinacy of repulsion must be evident in the abrupt turn made when the direct approach of a comet brings it so near the sun that the turn when made will apparently / be a sharp curve. It will be seen farther on that the distance to which the power of repulsion extends appears to have a somewhat definite limit. The narrower the limit is, the sharper will be the turn after the comet's repulsion begins to resist a farther approach to the sun. If the sphere of distance in which repulsion takes effect has much depth, the turn it gives a comet would be less abrupt. The mass of a comet being inconsiderable, offers but little resistance to an abrupt turn. Only comets from the central zone would approach the center of the sun directly. One Divers Cometic Properties, 87 coming from the polar regions, being deflected from the axis of the district by centrifugal force during its long journey, would approach the sun in a slanting direction. The turn made when diverted from the sun by repulsion in the comet would therefore be less abrupt. While in the matter of some aerolites, follow- ing its own affinities in assembling, iron pre- dominates ; in that of others the materials are much lighter, and crumble to dust under in- tense heat, so cometic matter throughout the same regions of space in which aerolites are formed has its peculiar properties that combine in divers proportions in the formation of comets, giving them various degrees of what has been termed cometic properties, unknown properties that affect not only their movements, but their wonderful influence upon light. Comets have, apparently, in no sense the stability, nor the endurance of planets. Several of them are known to have been swerved from the course of their orbits by the attraction of planets. Many of them have orbits that must have been greatly changed since the time of their first revolution around the sun. 88 Comets, It is difficult to conceive of a comet's first perihelion distance from the sun being very great. Its first approach must be very direct. It is not according to any analogy that a body attracted by the sun from a great distance should approach directly a point at a distance, either great or small, to one side of it. But when swerved from contact with the sun by the law of repulsion in its matter, its perihelion curve must be a close one. Then with' successive revolutions its orbits become wider, and, with old age y shorter. Repulsion, in force near the sun, may have the effect to increase the distance during several revolutions. A feature that we need to recognize of the mysterious life and destiny of comets is that they wear out. An instance is given with some minuteness of the dissolution of a comet, and its separation, by repulsion, into meteoroids, as follows : "I have already described Biela's comet as first breaking into two pieces, and then entirely disappearing, as though its parts had become completely scattered. * There was every reason to believe that the earth would encounter a stream of meteoroids consisting of the remains Dissolution of Comets. 89 of the lost comet, and that a small meteoric shower would be the result. The prediction was fully verified in every respect. ' That the meteoroids originally belonged to the comet, few will dispute. They will, in the course of many revolutions, gradually scatter themselves around the entire orbit. "* The meteoric shower occurred on the twenty - seventh of November. The discovery had been made that the meteoric stream encountered on the thirteenth or fourteenth of November, about every thirty-third year developing a brilliant shower of meteors, had TempePs comet in its train. Then it was discovered that the stream producing the August shower of meteors also had a comet in its train Tuttle's. It is now also known that a swarm giving the April shower has an attendant comet. It appears from all these, and some other known instances, that meteoric streams and swarms are only the remains of comets that have run their course as such, and having disintegrated, have developed, by repulsion into streams of scattered meteors. It would appear that the powers of gravita- *Newcomb's " Popular Astronomy; 1 ' p. 346. 90 Comets. tion and repulsion are nearly balanced in the substance of a comet. The former prevails in the formation of a comet, but by its relative decrease, or the increase of the power of re- pulsion, the latter prevails in the old age of a comet. What but the relative increase of the power of repulsion could cause the division of Biela's comet into two parts, its subsequent disintegration into diminutive meteoroids, and the scattering of them along the path of the comet's orbit till u they will, in the course of many revolutions, gradually scatter themselves around the entire orbit." Having these and other evidences, the con- clusion is unavoidable that repulsion is a prop- erty of cometic matter inherent in it. It may be found that its substance never becomes solid like planetary matter. Is it possible to conceive of any other power than repulsion that holds the substance of the corona supposably meteoroids that have been attracted to the vicinity of the sun, to the lim- ited distance of the corona from it; that diverts comets from their direct course on their first ap- proach to the sun causing them to pass around Repulsion Emphasized. 91 it instead of coming in contact with it; and that finally causes the meteoroids of which com- ets are composed to leave the bodies of the comets and scatter in streams farther and farther from each other till they span the entire orbits in which they move. The power seems to be inherent in cometic matter in all its forms; in the meteoroids of the corona to withhold them from the sun, and in comets to resist, at a certain distance from the sun, its powerful attraction, causing them to take a sharp turn in which the two powers in conflict combine to hold them a certain distance from the sun during their perihelion course. The supposed sharp , turn made on reaching their perihelion distance arrests attention as be- ing a strange and astonishing phenomenon, the account of which is liable to discredit if it can be controverted. But if it must be sanctioned, it will shed new light, not only on the move- ments, but on the imponderable and indestructi- ble character of those anomalous bodies. ' ' % The position, and the distance to which com- etic matter in the corona is withheld from the sun by repulsion inherent in that singular mat- i)2 Comets. ter seems to indicate a definite limit to which its repulsion extends. On recognizing the posi- tion, it is difficult to imagine the extension of the limit to a great thickness in which repul- sion would begin to swerve a comet from its course before reaching a definite limit indicated in the corona. Hence the turn of a comet at or near that limit must be a very sharp one, however slanting may be its first approach to the sun's vicinity. It would suggest that a comet is about as imponderable and as easily diverted from its course as smoke, which is quite conceivable, as stars are easily discerned through the full thickness of large comets. It is possible that in the end repulsion will prevail in the minute meteoroids, and that they will disintegrate into primordial matter, and be diffused in the regions of space from which they were assembled. More than one hundred swarms are now rec- ognized/* of which it may be supposed, as they have no other known origin, that they are the remains of so many comets. Having evidence of the changes by which one, Biela's, was be- *Young's " General' Astronomy," p. 445. Co wets Continually Forming. 93 ing transformed into a swarm of meteors, and seeing several others undergoing the same pro- cess, it is reasonable to infer that other similar swarms have come to their condition by the same process. The swarms that are now recognized are only those whose orbits cross the earth's orbit, for only by a meeting of the bodies in the inter- section of the orbits can a swarm be found. It is improbable that the earth's orbit intersects one-thousandth part of the orbits of the meteor' swarms in the solar system. If that be true the number of them must be over one hundred thousand. If so many comets have passed into the swarm or stream form, it denotes great and and continued activity of the gravitating force in the region where they are formed. It sig- nifies also that they have but brief existence compared with that of the planets. Several gen- erations of them may have passed away in the one hundred millions of years that it is claimed the earth has existed. What though a comet's period is thousands of years, or one hundred thousand years ? One hundred such revolutions would measure out a long life for a globe of 94 Comets. such tenuity of substance, but only a small part of the time of existence of planets. Many of the groups may be remnants of small comets formed in the nearer regions, therefore sooner attracted by the sun, sooner drawn into orbital service, and sooner exhausted. Disintegration and passing away of so many comets implies the probability that new ones are forming, as well as old ones failing. Comets of fiery brilliancy like those of 1843 and 1882 may be in their first revolution, hav- ing been formed in very distant parts of the sun's domain, and destined for most protracted periods. The unaccountable displays of light accompany- ing the flights of comets suggests the presence in them of peculiar properties. The wonderful effects produced by the modifications of polar- ized light in connection with certain substances, intimates the possibility of such modification of light in passing through a comet that its tail is formed by the peculiar action of polarized, or other transformed light, on the ether of o / space. The possibility becomes a strong prob- ability in the case of comets that display a Light Modified in Comets. 95 number of tails, of slender extra streamers, or other adornments, of forms that cannot be at- tributed to movements of substances. Of those that make no display of appendages, some may never have had the cometic quality that produces it, others, through the deteriora- tion of old age, may have lost the power of transforming light. That light should be so wonderfully affected in permeating the bodies of comets should not seem incredible when it is remembered that the sole purpose of them, so far as is known, is display. They bear the same pleasing relation to life-bearing worlds that the beauteous flowers of the conservatory bear to nourishing products of the field. They apparently exist that the senses may be regaled with their beauty, and the mind uplifted by the sublimity of the marvellous power and skill manifested in their display. If ether of space has sufficient density for the transmission of light, why should it not be sus- ceptible of the display upon its field of some modification of light, a suggestion of which we have in the display of the beauteous rainbow on the cerulean canopy of the sky. The sug- 96 Comets. gestion that light is so modified has the excuse of supplying a need no other satisfactory ex- planation of the phenomena has been given. Light only is capable of the velocity required to account for the aspects of comets and their appendages in the vicinity of the sun. That any vaporous substance of a comet can be driven out one hundred millions of miles in space, expanded millions of miles in diameter, and with that ex- pansion be made to sweep the perihelion curve in two hours, the tail all the while opposite from the sun, is inexplicable, and is deemed in- credible by prominent astronomers. That the substance of a comet can be driven out of it by the sun's heat, or that it is affected by it may be subject to doubt. On the basis that the tails of comets are formed by the transmission of light, the center of the tails being dark in some, and brighter than the sides in others, is susceptible of explanation. The nucleus in some comets may be impervious to light, or may lack the power of transmitting it equal to the sides, thus causing darkness of the center of the tail. The nucleus in other comets Many Comets from Polar Regions. 97 may transmit, or transform light more fectly than the sides, or better adapt the transformation to the field of display, causing a brighter illumination of the center of the taiL Though marvellous discoveries in the modifi- o cation of life by art have been made, the capacity of comets to excel the limited powers of human skill by the transformation of light in its passage through them may well be deemed possible. That they should be endowed with an aptitude for transcendent displays is highly prob^ able, for such is apparently the purpose of their .existence. Doubtless such aptitude is due to the peculiar quality of their substance, both substance and quality being unknown. They will probably remain unknown. Unlike and dis- tinct from any other, the substance can neither be captured for examination, nor imitated for experiment. The assumption in the preceding chapter, that a large amount of meteoric supplies is still furnished from the polar regions of space for the continued sustentation of the sun has cor- roberative support in the fact that the supply of comets from the same regions is also very 98 Comets. abundant. The list of recorded comets up to 1855 shows by the positions of their orbital planes that they are eleven and one-half times more abundant in the ten degrees about the poles than in equal areas near the plane of the ecliptic. The zones of forty degrees radius about the poles of the ecliptic produce in the proportion of 22.78 to 3.88 in like areas in the zone of forty degrees from the planes. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who compiled this state- ment, adds : 'That comets are more abundant about the axis of the solar system, and grow rarer as they approach its plane, implies that the gene- sis of comets has followed some law a law in some way concerned with the genesis of the solar system."* The law to which he referred without dis- cerning it, is that of supplies drawn simulta- neously from the same regions for the formation of the comets, and for the other bodies of the solar system. Doubtless at the beginning the supplies were uniform from all directions, but having become almost exhausted in the narrower limits in the direction of the plane of the *" Universal Progress." Sun Supplies from Polar Regions. 99 ecliptic, while they are still abundant in the more extended polar regions, the disproportion of comets furnished from the two compared regions is very great. But the comparison made relates to the supply for long past time, from that when the quotas furnished were more uniformly full from every direction, down to recent time when the regions near the plane furnish but a small amount, and the extended regions about the axis still furnish abundant supplies. Probably the proportion of new com- ets appearing at the present time from the regions near the plane are still farther dimin- ished, possibly down to one to thirty from the regions of the poles. On the basis that comets are star visitants an explanation of the propor- tions furnished by the different regions might be difficult, so difficult as to disclose the error of such basis. A paramount interest in the fact that the supplies of the comets are so "much more abundant from the regions of the poles lies in the probability that the apparently more useful supplies of meteoric matter for sustaining the sun are drawn in like manner and proportions 100 Cornets. from the same regions. Although in neither case can the amounts furnished be measured, we may Avell estimate the meteoric matter for the sun to be furnished in much larger pro- portions in the polar regions than near the plane of the ecliptic, as is the case with comets. Now it is well known that the amount of nourishment for the sun drawn from the direction of the plane of the ecliptic is very small, and that at that rate the entire amount furnished from all directions would be clearly inadequate. Fifty times as much, which there may be r poured in from the polar regions upon the broad zones around the axis of the sun would proba- bly not be an extravagant amount. Thus we may gather important information from the source of supplies of comets in support of a reasona- ble basis for a belief that the sun's radiant en- ergy has long been sustained by meteoric sup- plies showered down from the same polar re- gions of its district. With the acceptance of the belief that the dis- trict in space pertaining to the solar system is elongated in the direction of the sun's path Why District is Elongated. 101 through space will soon appear the reasons why it should be so accepted. Apparent reasons may be given as follows: (a) Elongated to supply material for a pro- longed life of the sun. (b) Limited in the direction of the shortest diameter, that the middle portion of the district, the planetary section, might be first exhausted of its cosmical dust. ( vegetable and animal life would give an intima- tion, not only of the intervals and the aggre- gate of the periods they have occupied, but of the possibility of life having filled all the long: eras claimed for it by geological authors. Though the rate of the cooling the earth in> the successive periods can never be known, yet there is advantage in giving some estimates for the purpose of outlining the order of events as they occurred, for the advantage of recognizing: the two systems of stratification, and the order of their occurrence, as well as the succession! of the introduction of vegetable and animal life. Beyond the knowledge to be gained, there i benefit to be derived from attempting to con- ceive and estimate those periods to retrospect- ively fill in the mighty jachievements as they were accomplished, for with the expansion of the mind in repeated efforts, ever onward and upward, to span the incomprehensible eras, it may acquire a sublime sense of the deep sig- 204 Elevations. nificance of the greatest of all' intervals, from everlasting to everlasting. Man, subservient to his Master's will, humbly trains his intellectual powers to grasp the mys- teries of the universe. Reason honors herself in her efforts to scale the dizzy heights of her empyrean province, and even the loftier realms of genius, rejoicing in her supremacy. Man prides not in his success, but is rather humbled by a consciousness of his comparative littleness. As his Master may expect of him, with assid- uous effort he discovers, though tardily, what has been accomplished for him in the begin- ning and along down through the mysterious ages. As the supposed earliest elevations of land of Canada, Labrador, and other places consist of parallel strata in which no trace of organic life is found, it may be presumed that all irregular stratifications having such trace are of later date, and that all organic life has had only a subsequent existence, covering, as has been esti- mated, at least sixteen millions of years. Has it not been clearly shown that no organic life could ever have existed in those parallel strata Investigation of Errors. 205 because they were formed while their tempera- ture was above two hundred degrees far too great to render any life possible? The unbroken globe rock hypothesis, universally accepted, has gained a hold so tenacious from long possession that repeated efforts and sturdy blows may be required to overcome its errors. They must not be withheld though they, may involve many repetitions for the benefits to be derived from various connections. By the theory that has prevailed, all that forty thousand feet of parallel strata must have been previously produced, and by erosions only from hard rock. It may be repeated that probably no per- sistent effort was ever put forth to estimate the time that would be required for producing strata of that depth. Waiving the estimate of the time required, let us inquire if such accu- mulations were possible. While the globe was an unbroken rock, water could not penetrate under any portion of the surface to cause an uplift of it by the power of steam. The only elevations of surface above the ocean would -be narrow ridges caused by 206 Elevations. the contraction of the srlobe. But even those o ridges would not appear above the ocean till long after a hard crust of considerable thick- ness was formed under the water, an item to be carefully noted and retained, which occur- rence would only follow a reduction of the surface temperature to a degree too low for the generation, near the surface, of power suf- ficient to elevate islands or continents. The un- broken globe having no porous shell to confine its heat, its surface could only cool as the tem- perature of its mass was uniformly lowered, and that to a low degree before the crust would begin to throw up ridges through and above the water, and they, when elevated, could be only single ridges. There could be no elevations of wide. extent, for there would be no cavities below wherein to form an uplifting power. The only surfaces that would ever be exposed to erosion would be the elevated narrow ridges. It will readily be seen that merely the summits of a few nar- row ridges could not, in the life of our sun, furnish material for the stratified crust of our Some Studious Speculations. 207 globe, nor for the building up of wide conti- nents. In many millions of years less time than we have estimated for the beginning^ of the failure of slow erosion to prepare a world for the in- troduction of organic life, behold the entire earth prepared with a porous crust of stratified rock, about thirteen miles in thickness, adapted to the support of vegetable and animal life, and supplied with abundant deposits of metals for the benefit of mankind, that the system of slow erosion would never have furnished. The relations that the mysteries of our globe bear to our subject may justify some studious speculations in regard to the powers by which mighty changes are effected. We observe the mysterious phenomena in great variety, the most wonderful in their operation, as well as the most stupendous in their effects of all activities connected with- our globe. We know that islands and continents are elevated by means of some force applied beneath the surface, the examina- tion of which may have some bearing upon our discussion of land elevations. We have for our guidance the nature of the materials moved, the 208 Elevations. manner of their moving, and the effects pro- duced. Something is known of the forces by which the moving Js effected, and of the laws that govern them. It remains to be seen whether nature furnishes brain power to in- terpret and explain their action. The porous crust of the earth has become so firm and unyielding, and its mass so united by contortions of strata that the contraction of the interior unstratified body, in cooling, would tend to leave a space under the solid outer, resting unconformably upon the unbroken plastic inner crust, a separation in which steam was ever present to interpose its power in rendering the space permanent. In the earliest stages of separation, the interior body being chiefly molten; as it settled slowly away, affected to unsteadiness by the influences of the tides, would come in contact with the concave inner surface of the stratified crust, the effect of which would be a semi-daily dripping of the cavernous space, resulting in vast accumulations of stalactites, which would be so connected in some directions that partitions would be formed, the joining of which would form apartments or Cavern Power. 209 cells, which would be of all forms and sizes, varying in extent from a few, or & few hun- dred, yards to many thousand square miles. Water percolating through the lipper crust, might reach a large cell, and being vaporized, the steam from it would so press upon the plastic and molten mass below as to cause it to rise in and fill all surrounding vaporless cells. Were the pressure of steam to be increased, there might be a flow of matter from the molten mass through volcanoes, or fissures, to any outlet that might be open, to a place of deposit between strata, or to the outer surface, forming an eruption possibly at- taining to vast proportions. If no vents were opened, the increase of pressure might cause an elevation of the stratified crust over the cell, producing an island, or increasing the altitude of a former elevation. The crust of the earth may long since have become so rigid as to be- come self-supporting, so that upon the farther contraction of the interior mass, the cells have increased in depth and capacity. Now suppose the steam pressure in a cell or cavern to be such as to elevate the earth above U 210 Elevations. it a few feet, or even a few inches, higher. The bursting of a wall of the cell would cause an instant collapse and quaking of the earth above it, more or less severe, possibly to the destruction of a city, or the submergence of a coast by overwhelming ocean waves. Light shocks of earthquake may be ' caused by escapes 'of steam without the breaking of walls, and where they occur daily there may be in- termittent causes. The application ctf steam power in infinite variety, and frequent change of form and combination of cells might be made to account for every kind of earthquake. This one floor of cells, or caverns, or power rooms is supposed to envelop the earth between the stratified crust and that of the unbroken mass, the interior body of the globe. The division has been mentioned as being at least twelve miles below the surface. Hereafter, in this treatise, for brevity, the distance below the surface, including the ocean, will be said to be thirteen miles, which is supposed to be about the estimate made by geologists, of the average depth of the stratified crust of the earth. Its depth below the surface was probably nearly S/OTF Erosion Process Defective. 211 uniform as, at the time of its location, when the crust was broken up by the descent of the water upon it, there would have been no pre- vious local or limited disturbances to render the surface uneven, or more than slightly un- dulating. By the hypothesis denominated the slow ero- sion process to distinguish it from the transmu- tation process herein described, there is no ap- parent possibility of forming extended chambers beneath the surface by means of which portions of it of wide extent could be elevated above the sea. The first sedimentary deposits would be light and narrow. Long before any could be formed of sufficient volume and firmness for the purpose, the supply of materials for forming them would have been exhausted ; the temperature would have been too low to develop the necessary power, and if it were developed, it could only be used success- fully at greater depth than immediately under any ocean deposits of sediment. More minute explanations of the supposed power rooms or caverns, their formation, tern- 212 Elevations. perature, and various uses will be given in the following pages. Involved in the slow erosion hypothesis are some features yet unnoticed that will be found not only difficult of explanation, but even sus- ceptible of disproof. The inquiry has already been made, whence came the materials compos- ing the earliest known elevations of land on the globe? They are described as being nearly the whole of Canada and Labrador and other exten sive regions at least forty thousand feet (nearly eight miles) in thickness of Laurentian strata, of which strata it is also said that they probably underlie all other stratified rocks, and comprise more than one half of the stratified rocks on the globe. An examination of the supposed condition of the globe under that erosion hypothesis, having its surface unbroken under its ocean of water will render it doubtful, not only that so large a portion, but more than doubtful that any stratified portion of it could possibly have been elevated by that process. Only as the entire globe cooled, being un- broken, could its surface become cooler. There- Former Hypothesis. 213 fore many millions of years must pass, during which all the rock composing its crust would remain in a plastic condition till its temperature was reduced to about fourteen hundred degrees F. , the temperature at which plastic rocks begin to harden in cooling. Water acting on the sur- face of the inviolable rock would solidify it a few inches in depth, and gradually deeper as the heat of the globe diminished. Upon the contraction of the body from the loss of heat, the crust, while thin, would become finely wrinkled, in appearance like withered fruit, but upon attaining the thickness of a few thousand feet, the wrinkles would be fewer, as at the present time, and gradually higher till they would reach the surface of the water. At the height of eight thousand feet their summits would be little, if any, above the water. The long intervals of time have an important bearing upon our estimates of the condition of the globe while it was in preparation for the advent of organic life upon it, and they require our attentive consideration. Though our estimates of the mysterious oc- currences of those unhistorical eras must be 214 Elevations. largely speculative, the periods were on a scale of so inconceivable immensity that whatever lim- its of time are suggested, wide margins re- main, limits might have been vastly extended, or reduced. To omit the estimates would be to neglect the occurrences, a mere mention of which would fail to procure attentive consid- eration. A million of years may reasonably be allowed for one thousand feet of elevation of ridges arising from the cooling of the body of the globe, ^eight millions of years for elevation of them eight thousand feet through the water to its surface, then an additional period of eight millions of years for an elevation of eight thousand feet above the level of the sea which may be the average maximum height of mountain ranges. There would be no mountain peaks above the ridges, as there would be no internal forces to uplift them. There would be only single narrow ridges for erosion. The globe being a solid rock, unbroken except by the narrow ridges on the cooled surface, could contain no uplifting agent. The sediment produced from the ridges, were they ground down to the level Old Hypothesis Passes Away. 215 of the sea, would form only narrow strata at the base of the ridges, mainly under water, there to remain, for what force could elevate them ? No uplifting power coulcj be applied. It could not be confined between the strata and the ocean floor. It is confinable under thirteen miles depth of stratified rocks, where, with in- conceivable power, the purpose of its confine- ment is effected, be it the elevation of a con- tinent, the eruption of a . volcano, the explosion of a mountain, or the devastations of an earth- quake. In case of an elevation, it may be made per- manent by the injection of molten matter, of which an abundance is ever procurable at that depth below the earth's surface. But strata raised from that primitive ocean bed, if it were possible, would leave nothing else above the solid rock floor but water ; nothing would be procurable to give it support and permanency, and it could only settle again to its bed in the ocean, there to remain. Water being only on the surface, and the nearest essential degree of heat for generating the force requisite for an uplift being several miles below, not one sedi- 216 Elevations. mentary stratum could be raised from the ocean bed. Hence there could be no denudations, nor any restratifications, such as are now known. Having failed to bear the light of a studious O o examination of conditions, materials, and forces, thus vanishes the hitherto prevalent hypothesis that the present stratified condition of the earth's crust has resulted mainly from gradual erosions of original rock surfaces together with erup- tions from within the globe. There could have been no eruptions from an unbroken globe crust. There has seemed to be an unwritten law, in- born and reverential, that any suggestion of the rocky surface of our globe having been vio- lently broken up and destroyed at the begin- ning of its existence would be sacrilegious in- deed not to be entertained even in thought. The error of the slow erosion hypothesis be- ing evident, it may be permissible to indulge in an imaginary appearance of the result of an actual working out of that process on our globe. The failure to bring any strata to view leaves nothing visible but the stumps of eroded ridges, the tops having been converged into sedimen- tary deposits in the oceans. Viewed from another Mars. 217 planet, the ridges might appear as the lines on the planet Mars have been said to appear to our astronomers, who have spoken of them as possibly being canals. In view of> this explan- ation, it may be suggested that the planet Mars has been developed by the slow erosion process, and that the lines visible are the remains of ridges caused by shrinkage of the planet. But under like conditions, Mars could no more es- cape the transmutation process than could the earth. Its surface rock, however, might be so pliable, and of so loose texture as not to be liable to breakage when suddenly cooled by con- tact with water. Or, its supply of water might be so small that it could be held aloft till the planet was so cool that its surface would not be broken by the accumulation of water upon it. In the latter case the sediment from the ridges might so fill shallow water as to cause extensive marshes without any uplifting of deposits. In either case the planet would present a very even surface, unvaried by any mountainous heights. The prevalent error of the hypothesis of the slow erosion process being exposed and removed, 218 Elevations. what remains but to accept the hypothesis that the intensely heated rock was broken by the water falling upon it, when the heat of the globe could no longer repel it, and that the bur- den of the ocean-laden clouds descended upon it in overwhelming torrents ? By no other hypoth- esis can the occurrences attending and following the stratification of the earth's crust be so fully and satisfactorily explained. Assuming that readers are ready to acknowl- edge the failure of the popular, and the verity of the hitherto unpopular, or unknown, hypothe- sis, there follows the opportunity of becoming better acquainted, by discussion, with the inner construction, and the operating forces, of the earth's crust. The recognition of thirteen miles in depth of reconstructed crust, and an unknown thickness of an unbroken interior crust, is a starting point. The thickness of the former is assumed ; that of the latter is a subject of investigation in regard to which there is great difference of opinion. It has been estimated and widely published that, owing to certain counter influences of the Thickness of the Earth's Crust. sun and moon, the earth could not, with a shell so thin as has been ascribed to it, endure the strain to which it is subject, and that it must have the firmness that a crtist at least eight hundred miles in thickness would give it, It may be replied to that estimate that if the globe was once molten, it has passed safely through every degree of thinness of its shell up to that of the present, and has endured the strain. To say that it cannot, at the present time, with any thinness of crust ascribed to it, endure the strains that it must have passed safely through to attain the great firmness now said to be essential to its safety, is to give greater credit to a plausible array of figures based on human estimates than to an unques- tionable fact of the globe's endurance. Numerous faults are recorded where portions- of the solid crust have been raised and shoved by adjacent portions from which they were separated only by a seam, in some instances hundreds of miles in length, and forty thousand feet in thickness brought to view, and the earth has survived all those violent wrenchings. The o depth of those faults may have been the full 220 Elevations. thickness of the earth's crust. They are more explicable under a thirteen-miles-thickness of crust than in a solid crust eight hundred miles in depth, or in a solid globe, molten only in a few scattered seas. The laws that control rates of temperature .are much better known than the influences of precession and nutation. Where the various opinions, based on the influences of both agents, .seem to b'e in conflict, it is safer to follow the best known guide. The estimates of the condition of the earth's interior, based on rates of temperature, are made on the assumption that the temperature increases from the surface downward. The rate varies greatly in different localities. The aver- age may be said to be not far from one de- gree for every fifty feet. Up to about forty- five hundred degrees the crust of the globe would have become either solid or plastic rock. Above that degree, taking no account of pressure, which might somewhat change the re- sult without affecting the argument, the interior would be liquid. In making an estimate of the thickness of Ratios of Heat. 221 the crust, regard must be had to some well known laws, as well as to certain physical features. The increase of the temperature in proportion to depth is a starting '^Doint, but only that, for measurements have extended downward only about eleven hundred yards, one-twentieth of the thickness of the stratified crust. However, we have to assume some rate, and allowing one degree for every fifty feet will give an approximate result. Including fifty de- grees surface temperature, that rate would give fourteen hundred and twenty-three degrees a& the temperature thirteen miles below the sur- face, at the division between the porous, and the unbroken crusts. But the heat would be greater in the proximity of the interior un- broken crust, and may be estimated at about fifteen hundred degrees. Below that depth an- other rate of increase of heat should be recog- nized. The interior of the globe may be assumed to be extremely dense, with an increase of den- sity to the center, that transmits heat rapidly. There is no central source of heat, from which 222 Elevations. it flows out, maintaining a rate of increase uni- form from center to circumference of the cen- tral mass, but rather a tendency to uniformity or balancing of heat throughout, a continuous flow of the pristine heat of the globe outward. But it receives a check in the porous crust, which serves to intercept it and prevent its es- cape. Therefore having been many millions of years closely bottled, in a mass so dense as to permit of rapid transmission of it throughout its volume, it would have continually so tended to unformity of temperature that the center, measured by a radius of one thousand miles would have nearly uniform heat. In the volume of the next one thousand miles radius the degree of heat would be a little lower, with an increasingly lower rate to the outward limit, its contact with the porous crust, a variation of one thousand degrees more or less from the center outward. The greatest average variation, near its outward limit, might be estimated at one degree for three hundred feet, which is about seventeen degrees in a mile, and would give about sixty- seven miles as the average thickness of the interior unbroken Thickness of the Earth's Crust. 223 crust of the globe. To that add thirteen miles of porous crust, and the estimate of the en- tire thickness of the earth's crust is placed at about eighty miles. Of the outer portion of the porous crust that is reduced in temperature to fourteen hundred or less degrees, thus attaining to brittle hard- ness, the average thickness may be about seven miles. Probably a greater thickness has at- tained to such hardness in some regions. In others the phenomenal pushing of new volcanos through the crust indicates that such places are plastic nearly or quite to the surface. The nearly seventy miles in thickness of the plastic part, of various degrees of consistency, from that of paste to that of pliable rock, as a sup- port for the solid shell, adds greatly to the strength of the crust. It may bear the effect of violent counter influences better than it would if it were altogether solid. This estimate" of the thickness of the earth's crust is not less than it was formerly supposed to be till the confidence of men in it was shaken by the announcement, in effect, that it could not, with a crust less than eight hundred 224 Elevations. miles in thickness safely withstand the conflicting influences of the sun and moon. A number of geologists concurred in the opinion. Then having begun to ignore the laws of tem- perature and its rate of increase, it was easy for them to conclude by adopting the hypothesis ' < that there is no actual central fire, but only internal seas of red hot molten matter scattered about in various parts of the inside of our planet, situated not far from the surface of the earth, and separated from one another by masses of solid strata."* Red hot molten matter, known to be hot enough to melt through the sides of volcanoes of great thickness when thrust up into their craters, is represented by them as composing seas a few miles beneath the surface, "sepa- rated from one another by masses of solid strata." Strata confining and confined with mol- ten seas of the same substances are in pasty condition, and can hardly be supposed to with- stand, within the globe without melting, a con- tact with molten matter that melts large masses of cold mountain rocks above the surface. *From "The Earth." Reclus, p. 31. Crust Wrenching Beneficial. 225 Internal seas of red hot molten matter, and masses of solid strata that separate them within and far from the surface of the oarth would have the same temperature. Is not the suppo- sition that they exist together thousands of years in such form and connection as represented, unwarranted .by any natural analogies? The hypothesis of a solid globe, or of an eight hundred mile thickness of crust that depends on that supposition has a weakness that renders it untenable. If it is undeniable that there may be wrench- ings of the earth's crust, more or less serious, arising from the conflicting influences of pre- cession and nutation, they may be found to be beneficial rather than dangerous. The processes of elevations and subsidences are probably aided thereby. The uplift of a forty thousand feet depth of a fault may have thus been effected gradually and without violence, the interior lift- ing force being facilitated by the writhing con- tortions due to the outward disturbing influences. Were the earth's crust otherwise immobile, movements of it by unrestrainable interior forces might more frequently be abrupt and violent. 15 22(5 Elevations. Wrenchings of the crust by distracting influ- ences, being distributed among innumerable joints, seams, and strata beds, and thus rendered imperceptible, may assist in relieving the great strains produced by inward pressure and con- duce to its stability rather than to its derange- ment. As the transmutation process, which may have been so long unrecognized because of the vio- lent rending to which the earth's crust was subjected in it, has proved of the greatest value to it, so the jostling to which it is regularly subjected by the influences of precession and nutation which has been laboriously estimated to be destructive in its tendency, may prove to be a regular system of movements, wonderfully arranged, wisely adapted to immunity from catastrophes, and conducive to steadiness of its surface. After the earth, in its transmutation, had be- come a second time nearly all fluid, it settled again, by the laws of gravitation and rotation, into its present form, and if, by violent wrench- ing, its surface could again be disastrously disar- ranged, it would certainly, under the same laws, Earth's Form Unchangeable. 227 again resume the same form. The persistence with which it holds that form gives assurance that it is not to be shaken out of it. There will be no danger of it so long as precession and nutation continue their steadying influences. The extremely numerous joints, fractures, and seams that render the writhings of the crust harmless have doubtless been vastly increased by the wrenching process, and the labor of quarrying rocks has thereby been greatly dimin- ished. Estimates of the temperature of the earth's interior at various depths are, and must ever remain, largely speculative. Probably no two scientific investigators, working separately, would give very nearly the same estimates. It is de- sirable to give an approximation that will fairly represent the main features of the construction of the two kinds of crust, and of the floor of power caverns between/ them. The estimates in this treatise are offered as relating to the suc- cession of occurrences and the resulting condi- tion of the earth's crust, rather than for a scien- tific guide to temperature, to extents, or to intervals of time. 228 Elevations. It may be assumed that within eighty miles thickness of crust, as estimated, may be found the source of the power by which the continents were constructed, and the forms of the oceans defined. It would not be found within the solid stratified crust, for no sufficient rooms for the confinement of the tremendous forces em- ployed can be supposed to exist there ; nor within the unbroken crust below, for water cannot be supposed to have found entrance within it. But between the stratified and the unstratified crusts is a natural division or sepa- ration already described. It is hypothetically the lowest limit to which steam has access, and from the time of its first contact Avith the mol- ten mass when the rocky crust was entirely broken up, steam has not ceased to be a power there. It still has control, varying the inward depth of the caverns, and often their form otherwise. The roof of a cavern is much strengthened by its formation of the metamorphosed and con- torted lower strata, the contortions binding them together suitably for coherence* and permanence. The strata bed beneath it is the limit of the Cavern Forms. 229 passage of steam downward. The seam between presents naturally a division in which a com- partment may be readily opened for the con- finement of steam to be used as a power. Being divided by the union of supporting col- umns into rooms, or caverns, an elevation of the surface of the earth above would, in ex- tent, be coterminous with the power room, or connected group of rooms below. The cavern floor may be entirely within the plastic portion of the earth's crust the un- broken crust beneath and a contiguous portion of the stratified crust above being within the region in which the temperature is above the degree at which the plasticity of rocks is changed to brittle hardness. The continual presence of steam, however, may have the effect to glaze and harden, in some degree, the upper surface of the rooms, and especially the stalactitic columns constantly enveloped in the steam. Those columns, upon the mighty strength of which the permanence of the power rooms in a measure depends, may well be deemed to be of massive proportions in conformity with the magnitude and solidity of 230 Elevations. their environments. The partitions between the rooms, composed of stalactites joined together,, would especially be massive and of great strength. A catastrophe that befell Cutch, in India, affords an illustration of the existence of those connected columns. A very large tract of level land sunk a few feet, becoming marshy. A bank several miles in length, and one hundred and sixty- four feet in width remained across the mouth of the river Indus, nine feet in height, indicating the form of a column, or of a close room in the cavern below that pre- vented the settling of that bank with the sur- rounding tract. The phenomenal subsidence of a large tract of country, the occurrence of which was em- phasized by the remaining well defined ridge within the tract, nine feet in height, that failed to settle, or sunk so much less than the sur- rounding surface, proves not only the existence of a support sustaining the ridge, but aptly the existence of a cavern underneath the large tract, and coextensive with it, the collapse of which caused the subsidence of the land surface. The evidence that such a cavern had existed Power Caverns Incontrovertible. 231 in one instance tends to justify a theory that the innumerable elevations on the surface of the globe have been produced everywhere by means of such caverns. Is it not evident beyond question that were there a single fur long of the earth's surface o o under which a cavern did not extend, it would never be elevated ? There being logically, then, no longer an uncertainty of the existence of caverns enveloping the earth, it remains only to contemplate the processes by which the eleva- tions have been effected and made permanent. It has been stated that of necessity for the required power, such caverns must be at a greater depth than nine miles. The one ad- ditional proof of their existence justifies the repetition of the hypothesis of the proba- ble location of them at the base of the earth's stratified crust at a depth of about thirteen miles below the ocean surface. If the supposition is accepted that eleva- tions are made permanent by intrusions of lava from the unbroken mass beneath the stratified crust, the question must arise whether in a succession of elevations and subsidences 232 Elevations. the . inflated caverns are located above the intruded strata, or underneath them. Such elevations and depressions are known to have succeeded each other more than seventy times in Nova Scotia during the Carboniferous period, and it is possible that all great elevations have been produced gradually by such alternations and successive intrusions of lava that became solidified in the caverns. Thus great elevations would be supported by a mass composed of numerous intruded strata. The process by which lava flow r s upward into a cavern may not be described with much con- fidence. The immense internal pressure by which any portion of the earth's surface several miles in thickness may be uplifted would seem suffi- cient to prevent the upward flow of lava into a cavern thus formed. In some cases of subsidence, and also of dust eruptions, circumstances give evidence of a long continued existence of caverns in which the in- ternal pressure had prevented the intrusion of lava. It is possible that the equilibrium of pressure is so nicely adjusted that in consequence of the Elevations Made Permanent. 233 rigidity of the superincumbent mass and the support of the roof by stalactitic columns within the cavern, a slight diminution of internal pressure may be followed more readily by an inflow of lava than by a downward movement of the crust, thus forming intrusive strata which, by repeated inflations of a cavern accu- mulate and give permanence to very consider - ble elevations of portions of the earth's surface. In aid of that movement, or independently of it, the upward flow of lava into caverns may be effected by successive throbs and thrusts caused by wrenchings of the earth's crust under the influence of nutation and precession. Indeed the wrenchings of the crust may be the means by which lava is gradually and systematically forced up into the caverns. All rapid sinking of parts of the earth's sur- face must proceed from the collapse of caverns underneath them. In the instance of the catastrophe that befel Cutch, the land sank from a position in which it had long been inhabited, to one in which it became marshy. Such occurrences indicate that the inflation of a cavern may be maintained in 234 Elevations. full during a long period, and give support to the earth above it till a collapse occurs. The question may arise why was there not the process above described of the collapse of the cavern being attended by an intrusion of lava, thus making the elevation permanent? Possibly the inflated cavern itself had been maintained on the surface of the intruded strata and elevated repeatedly with the superincumbent mass till numerous intruded strata had formed beneath it to a thickness that prevented the usual ready inflow of lava from the central mass of the globe. Elevations caused by the inflation of caverns located upon the surface of the central mass, without any intervening strata, would be most readily made permanent by intrusions of lava from below. The subsidence of the surface in Cutch may be otherwise explained by suggesting a collapse of the cavern more rapid than could be entirely arrested by the inflow of lava. The vertical motion that has been observed in earthquakes doubtless results from an instantaneous collapse of a cavern, or from a number in succession, Heat in the Earth's Crust. 235 accompanied by abrupt falls of the earth's crust. The various effects of heat throughout the earth's crust present some complications not easily explained. While in some * places the puncturing of the crust recently by new vol- canoes indicates such plasticity nearly to the surface that the strata yield to eruptions, yet in the power rooms thirteen miles below, in a. temperature of fourteen hundred to fifteen hun- dred degrees great firmness is indicated by the confinement of steam which could not otherwise have given rise to the most stupendous phe- nomena that the world has ever known, some particulars of which will be related farther on. Doubtless the firmness of the power rooms is chiefly due to the solidity of several miles in thickness of the globe's crust. Only where that is punctured, or weak, do the power rooms make way for the pressure upward of, the force confined within them. Lateral pressure is in the direction of adjoining cells, from which they are separated by partitions that often give way ? resulting sometimes in earthquakes, some of which are very severe. Many slight shocks are felt in various part of the world, all of which 28(5 Elevations. may be attributed to the same cause, the break- ing of cell partitions. That all parts of the known world are subject to these earth tremors indicates strongly the existence of power caverns under all parts of the earth's surface. Inquirers may be desirous to know why power rooms, as such, are described as being located thirteen miles below the surface. It is not only indicated by geologists as about the depth of the stratified rocks, the separation of which from the mass below forms a natural location for confining steam force, but that the temper- ature and pressure combined that are required for generating the force necessary are not found at much less depth. A quotation from a library of knowledge in a volume aptly discusses the matter : * "According to calculations which are based, it is true, on various hypothetical data, it would be at a point more than nine miles below the surface of the ground that the expansive force of the water would attain sufficient energy to balance the weight of the superincumbent liquid masses, and to be suddenly converted into steam at a tem- perature of eight hundred or nine hundred degrees Fahr. These gaseous masses would then have *From " The Earth." Keclus. p. 436. Depth to Power Caverns. 237 force to lift a column of water of the weight of fifteen hundred atmospheres ; if, ' however, from any cause, they cannot escape as quickly as they are formed, they exercise their pressure in every direction and ultimately find their way from fissure to fissure until they reach the fused rocks which exist in the depths. u To this incessantly increasing pressure we must, therefore, attribute the ascent of the lava into vent-holes of volcanoes, the occurrences of earth- quakes, the fusion and the rupture of the terres- trial crust, and, finally, the violent eruptions of the imprisoned fluids. But why should the vapor thus pervade the subterranean strata, and upheave them into volcanic cones, when by the natural effect of its overcoming the volumes of water which press it down, it ought simply to rise toward the bed of the sea from which it descended? In the present state of science, this is a question to which it seems absolutely impossible to give a satisfactory answer and geologists must at least have the merit of can- didly acknowledging their ignorance on this point. ' ' Doubtless the vapors do ascend toward the surface whenever the direction of the fissures favor their escape, which they do not always, and consequently they are often pressed down- ward through any fissures that may lead in that direction, to the lowest strata bed. Were the floor caverns only nine miles beneath the surface, the forces would be too feeble to- 238 Elevations. produce the phenomena attending earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but when they proceed from power rooms located thirteen miles below the surface having a temperature of about fif- teen hundred degrees and a pressure of more than twenty-two hundred atmospheres, the expla- nation will be less difficult. The far greater expansive force of vaporized water produced by & temperature of fifteen hundred degrees is re- quired to elevate continental areas above the surface of the ocean, and even that might be a failure were there a less pressure than twenty- two hundred and fourteen atmospheres to confine the steam. Estimating the location of the power cavern floor at thirteen miles below the surface of the ocean indicates eight miles as the minimum thickness of the stratified crust under the deep- est ocean, and eighteen miles as the maximum thickness, to lofty mountain tops. The water sur- face has an average thickness of nearly two miles. A few particulars of some of the most re- markable volcanic eruptions will best illustrate the forces of the power caverns. Remarkable Volcanic Eruptions. 239 In A. D. seventy-nine, a side of the top of Mt. Vesuvius was blown off bodily by an ex- plosion. Some of the effects are still visible. In that instance, it might be represented that the explosion originated in the mountain, the volcano having been long inactive, and the former vent so firmly closed that it was more difficult to open it than to blow off the side of a mountain. But in 1638 the summit of the peak Timor, which might be seen like a lighthouse a diS- cl? O tance of two hundred and seventy miles, was blown up bodily into the air, and a lake of water w r as formed in the enormous void caused by the explosion. In that instance, it is evident that the explosion originated, not in the moun- tain, but in the crust of the earth far below. The volcano was already in active eruption by force generated in a power room, when proba- bly the partition of an adjoining room in which tHere was a tremendous steam pressure, suddenly gave way, and the force of steam released, in addition to that already active, was in such excess of the capacity of the vent of the volcano, and of the resistance of the tremendous weight of 240 Volcanoes. the mountain top that it was violently hurled from its position, and dashed to pieces. The resistance of the partition that gave way be- tween the two power rooms may have been overcome by the lava brought against it in the room first connected with the volcano, by which the stalactitic wall was softened till it could no longer resist the pressure of the confined steam, and a large section of it gave way at once. The presence of lava in the room connected with the volcanic vent is explained by the pressure of the confined steam in the adjoining room, upon a large surface of the plastic mass underneath, pressing it downward and thus for- cing lava from the interior mass of it up through into a cavern connected with the volcanic vent, w'hich had less steam pressure. Such a phenomenon may occur in the case of a single large cell, of an extent not too great to be quickly exhausted, from which the exit of the steam is through a very large vent, having the effect of an explosion. In another class of phenomena the force is exerted continuously during several days, or weeks. It may be explained by supposing a Dust Eruption. 241 power cavern extending thousands of miles, or several such caverns connected together and charged with a high pressure of steam that finds vent through a volcano a vent with a o capacity for only a gradual escape of steam that continues through several days, or weeks,, discharging vast amounts of steam, or sweeping up and expelling with greater than .hurricane force immense quantities of dust, ashes, and scoria that had gathered on the cavern floor. An illustration of the extent and capacity of power caverns may be found in an attentive consideration of the eruption, in 1835, of the volcano Conseguina, a hill five hundred feet in height, in Nicaragua. The ac- counts given of it refer chiefly to the vast amount of dust violently expelled from it, which was estimated to have spread over one and one-half millions square miles, and the mass of matter blown out to have been not less than sixty-five thousand five hundred* millions cubic yards, which is more than twelve cubic miles. The hill was not blown away, but the dust was driven violently from its place of deposit *From "The Earth." Reclus, p. 471. 16 242 Volcanoes. within the earth. It is incredible that there could have been a deposit of so much dust in a body underneath the hill, but that it should have been accumulating through an immense in- terval on the floor of a vast division of that subterranean cavern enveloping the earth, to be swept up and hurled out through the vent of a volcano with the terrific force that the press- ure which more than a hundred thousand square miles of the earth's crust could exert upon the roof of a power cavern is not unreason- able. Air from the most distant parts of the cavern would not move with such vio- lence, hence the dust would be driven chiefly from the portions of it less distant from the outlet. Yet the estimated volume swept out, if it were spread out over one and a half mill- ions square miles of cavern floor, allowing one- fifth of the space for supporting columns, would be more than seven inches in depth. It is stated of the violence of the eruption that the uproar of it was heard more than one thou- sand miles distant. It has been said that "slags and stones may be thrown out when the mountain is comparatively quiet, but dust Volcanic Eruptions. 243 Is always expelled with violence." Dust de- posited in a body near the outlet would some- times be expelled without violence. That it is always expelled with violence favors the hypoth- esis that it is swept up from a floor of great extent. The duration of the eruption could not be known as the obscuration by the dust prevented observation, but probably the discharge continued nearly forty hours, as light began to appear after about forty-three hours. That would in- dicate an average rate of one cubic mile of dust expelled in three and one- third hours. It is very improbable that the eruption origin- ated in the same cavern that one in the same volcano twenty-six years previously had, but from an adjoining one of large dimensions that had lain dormant, possibly, millions of years. It may have been almost wholly under the Pacific office, a locality suggested by the nearness to the ocean, of the volcano, and the immensity of the dust deposit, so evident from its effects. It may have been, on that occasion, opened for the first time in its existence. The volcano Timboro, in the island of Sumbawa, had, in 244 Volcanoes. 1815, given another instance of the violent ex- pulsion of dust, but more overwhelming, caus- ing the destruction of forty thousand inhabi- tants. Two kingdoms were destroyed, and the dust was overwhelming many hundreds of miles distant. In 1783, Skaptar Jokal, in Iceland, ejected so much fine dust that the atmosphere of all Iceland was loaded with it for months afterward. It fell in such quantities over Caithness, six hundred miles distant, as to destroy the crops. All three of those volcanoes were near large o oceans, under which caverns of immense extent may have been generating those supplies' of dust during the whole of their existence, and, possi- bly, for the first time, were swept of their pro- ducts, or their only product, dust. The question may arise, how is the dry ness of the dust ac- counted for, if it was expelled by steam force ? The answer is that steam escaping from a very distant exploded cavern, sweeping through many hundred miles of dry apartments, may drive the dust before it toward the vent, though its force may be exhausted before reaching it. The dust is of a form denoting its floating Cavern Forces. 245 character, such as is not to be evolved out of sedimentary strata. Having been deposited from its former floating in the caverns, it is farther pulverized by the violent expulsion of it through the maze of columns, and in large volumes floats readily upon the air hundreds of miles. Thus the form of the earth's floor of power rooms, so well adapted to the elevation of land sur- faces, in level form as well as mountainous, may well be deemed the source also of the most violent volcanic explosions. Explosions re suit from failures to elevate, by the dissipation of the elevating force in the escape of the steam. There is a constant normal pressure, probably, upon the full extent of the cavern floor encom- passing the earth. Under opsn volcanic vents it would be equivalent to the pressure of about twenty-two hundred and fourteen atmospheres. When the steam force in adjacent rooms far ex- ceeds that amount, the pressure in them upon the interior molten mass forces lava up through the plastic unbroken crust into the cavern con- nected with the vent, proportionate to the force in the adjoining rooms. It may be done quietly, or without explosive force, and the force may 246 Volcanoes. be sufficient to cause eruptions of lava through volcanoes. There can be no discharge from a cavern hav- ing no more than a normal pressure. But if it were possible to condense the closely confined steam in one, it would probably cause a collapse, and a subsidence of the earth's crust above it. Whatever violence may occur is the effect of steam power exerted within the caverns. It is evident from observations of the dikes and fissures formed in the stratified crust while it was plastic throughout, that lava was readily forced through it, and it is doubtless as easily forced through the unstratified crust into the power caverns, and through them into volcanic vents. It has -been estimated that in a hundred days the volcano ^Etna threw up vapor sufficient to make two hundred millions barrels of water. A cavern measuring one and a half millions square miles would be only about one-hundredth part of the cavernous floor space within the earth's crust. A cavern of that extent, or greater, might be required to furnish the force expended in a volcanic eruption of one hundred days' dura- Continuity of Power Caverns. 247 tion, though steam may have been enormously generated in a smaller cavern. It is difficult to imagine caverns of such capacity in the interior of the earth of the bubble forms that steam or any gaseous force would give them, under the unbroken crust theory, capable of supplying the immense amount of steam, or dust and ashes that have some- times been ejected from volcanoes. Such cells are so inconceivable, both of size and location, that speculations for their existence are not put forth with any minuteness of description. It is incredible that water should have found chan- nels down through the unbroken rock to the depth of many miles to regions having the high degree of heat essential to generating the im- mense steam power so prominent in volcanic eruptions. Such action would, under that theory, have occurred early in the earth's existence, and would have been unaccountable. If unconnected bubble forms were used for generating power for elevations of lands, the result would be mountainous surfaces. It is apparent that when the plains of the Dominion of Canada were elevated, large portions of it 248 Volcanoes. were uplifted together, for a remarkable even- ness of surface was preserved, indicating a uni- formity of the uplifting power under every portion, and the effect was such as no discon- nected applications of power under small areas could have produced. There was evidently no part of the uplifted surface under which the power rooms did not extend. Similar uniformity is observable on portions of all continents. Extensive plateaux in the oceans indicate conti- nuity of the power room floor under them. It is possible that under the deepest oceans are the only power rooms in which steam has not been engendered for the exertion of its force. o There are some extreme ocean depths that seem to require explanation. Their beds are apparently two or three miles below the origi- nal level of the surface of the earth, as if they had been excavated. They may have been elevated and submerged again after having had one or two miles thickness eroded off. Or they may have continued to settle undisturbed, with the contraction of the globe, while in the pressure upward of lava from the central mass to sustain elevations permanently, the filling in has Deep Ocean Depressions. 249 been carried to the extent of raising all the other parts of the surface till the extreme ocean depths seem to have been increased by excava- tion. Lava supplied to fill in and give perma- nency to two miles in thickness under all the dry land, and one and one-half miles in aver- age thickness under an equal area* of elevated ocean bed, would cause a shrinkage under the deepest ocean to the depth two or three miles, which would fully account for the extreme depth of it. Subaqueous depressions in the earth's surface constituting deep lakes may have been caused by the existence, during some part of a series of elevations, of caverns beneath them from which the lifting force was excluded and their level was unchanged, while the surface of the surrounding country was elevated. Especially would the explanation seem to apply to lakes the shores of which are, to great depths, per- pendicular. Reference to the immensity of subterranean caverns for extensive elevations, accentuates ex- planation by comparison, of the tremendous force exerted by .them by means of which the 250 Volcanoes. top of a volcano is blown off, or several cubic miles of dust and ashes are 'violently expelled from them. An ideal explanation of the process by which the peak of Timor was blown off and dashed to pieces may assist the mind to grasp the immensities 'of cavern forces. The volcano being in moderate active eruption, through a vent in the lofty summit, by the steam force of an ample power cavern ; upon the sudden re- lease of steam under extreme pressure from an adjoining cavern of immense extent by a burst- ing of the wall between, the stratified crust above the latter, several miles in thickness forming its cover, being relieved of the upward pressure of steam by its escape, began to settle. The rapid escape of steam into the cavern connected with the volcano produced an equilibrium of pressure in the two caverns. But the massive stratified roof of the exploded cavern, still settling, however little, had acquired a momen- tum that gave an irresistible force to the equalized pressure of steam in the two caverns, far beyond the capacity of the open vent of the volcano to relieve, and beyond the weight Effects of Cavern forces. 251 of the mountain top to restrain, or resist. When the momentum of the descent of thousands of miles of the full thickness of the earth's strat- ified crust is opposed or resisted by the summit of a volcanic peak, which must yield ? The elevation of a large portion of the earth's stratified crust slightly, as here supposed, is but a trifle compared with an elevation thousands of yards in height. In all the phenomena pertaining to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, the steam being al- lowed to escape, the force displayed in them is far less than that employed in raising extensive tracts above the ocean, in which movement the steam is retained till the work is accomplished. It has been observed that volcanoes which are very close to one another show no coincidence in the times of their eruptions. That they are operated independently of one another is ex- plained by the independent existence of the floor caverns underneath them whence comes the power that causes their eruptions. Two vol- canoes within a hundred miles of each other might each give vent to a million of square miles of single floor connected caverns lying in 252 Volcanoes. different directions, and separated by walls, or cells, or groups of them. The dissimilarity of lavas and gases from dif- ferent volcanoes may have arisen from the sort- ing of minerals and elements according to their affinities during the time that the broken crust of the earth was in agitation and all were be- ing evolved from their lithic settings. The floor, which subsequently became the floor of the caverns was the receptacle of the various met- als, minerals, and other affiliated deposits, from which various gases were evolved and expelled with the steam. Doubtless some affinities may be working in the central mass that would ex- plain some of the differences in various fields of lava, while the mingling of the varieties of dust and rocks from different caverns would also change the character of the lavas. The depths also from which lava is abstracted may affect its character. It would be thrust out from the surface of the .molten central mass, above which the thickness of the earth's crust may vary several miles in different localities. The average depth to the great molten sea may approximate to eighty miles. It may be Variable Thickness of Earth's Crust. 25& greater under deep oceans, or under regions where the strata eight hundred feet in thick- ness are permanently frozen. It is doubtless less where the occasional flow of lava has heated and softened the crust, as exemplified where it has melted the sides of volcanoes and opened vents through them ; and it is probably less also where the globe crust has been inex- plicably found or made plastic to the surface,, as in the instance of the volcano Jorullo, in Mexico, which, in 1759, rose like a bubble, from a plain which w^as itself twenty-eight hun- dred and ninety feet above the level of the sea. Under such conditions the body of the globe might be molten forty or fifty miles be- low the outer surface. It will readily be seen that while the floor of caverns would be at a uniform depth, about thirteen miles below the sea level, the full thickness of the crust must be estimated to be extremely variable, being subject to a great variety of influences, or forces. The- considerations that have led to the adop- tion of the theory of the power caverns as de- scribed, may well be reviewed here. The find- ing a possible means of elevating portions of 254 Volcanoes. the earth's crust hundreds or thousands of miles in extent by a uniformity of uplifting power that preserves evenness of surface, is most de- sirable to satisfy the cravings of the intellect for knowledge relating to the most stupendous phenomena known in the history of our globe phenomena displaying the greatest power, and of universal occurrence, yet of the deepest mystery. It was apparent that the means used to effect those extensive elevations must exert a uniform- ity of pressure under every rood of their sur- face. In what other form, or by what other means could force be so applied than by con- tinuous caverns beneath whatever extent of sur- face was to be elevated? It is not probable that ever a mountain was raised bodily but by means of force applied in a cavern beneath it. The elevation of a continent required but one more extensive. The discovery of the transmutation of the earth's crust in full volume to its greatest known depths, together with the processes of its stratification, has led the way easily to de- termining upon the probable location of the incon- Location of Floor of Caverns. 255 testable caverns. The breaking up of the globe's crust, upon the descent of all the earth's water upon it, down to a certain level, the best level for the development of power, at the lowest depth to which water can penetrate, indicates a possible location of a floor of caverns encom- passing the earth between the stratified and the unstratified crusts, where the tremendous power may be generated and exerted for the produc- tion of the phenomena that have ever been so grand and so mysterious. It has been shown that only at a greater depth than nine miles can heat and pressure be found sufficient to produce the required power. From that depth down to the unbroken central mass the contorted foldings of the strata are doubtless so continuous that no other location can be found for the application of uplifting power under surfaces of great extent, than the separation between the stratified and the unstrat- ified portions of the earth's crust. Therefore in that strata bed would seem to be located the caverns that evidently exist by means of which nearly all portions of the surface of the globe, subterranean and subaqueous, have at various 256 Volcanoes. times been elevated. While no formula can be given for dividing the floor into sections, or caverns, or determining their sizes, nor for a precise description of the various marvellous phenomena ; it is so conceivable that the caverns may be formed that the most stupendous power may be generated in them, and that all the phenomena occurring by means of power ex- erted beneath the earth's surface may reasonably be attributed to them, and, indeed, must be, that the mystery of the phenomena is mainly removed, or overcome, and the desire for a basis of investigations is gratified. The crav- ings for knowledge find satisfaction in the mate- rial advance made, and encouragement in the vistas of hope opened up for progress in the future. That an uplifting power existed under the earth's surface by which large districts were elevated evenly together, must have been ever obvious ; but so long as no conceivable location was found for it, nor any apparent application of it possible, an assertion of its existence would be too indefinable to satisfy either re- later or hearer. A location having now been Cavern Power. 257 found for it, and means possible and definable formulated for its application, the theory of the power caverns must rank as no mer.e specula- tion, but a reality too obvious to be denied. Precision of description of the locality, and of the details of formation, are subject to modifi- cation, but the existence of the caverns will be found very entertaining history. A glimmer of the existence of the power ex- erted in the caverns is seen in the following quotation : "Whole districts have been suddenly upheaved a few inches, or even several feet. If the facts are certain (and there seems but little doubt about them), they would go to prove that earth- quakes, from which the upheavals result, are caused by the pressure of confined vapor." And sometimes a sudden release of the pres- sure, might have been added. But science was not then in touch with the sources of power by which the phenomena were produced. There was a reaching out and longing for a disclosure of those hidden mysteries that seemed forever beyond the reach of human acquaintance. Will it be presumptuous to assert that many *"The Earth," Reclus. p. 521. IT 258 Volcanoes. items of knowledge have been gained, errors corrected, and mysterious phenomena explained as results of the discovery of the transmutation process by which the surface of the earth was broken up and transformed? It can no longer be held that the waters that had been suspended over the molten globe ever fell and rested upon an unbroken rock surface, nor that the present stratifications resulted mainly from erosions of solid rocks of the original surface of the earth. The alternative necessarily follows, that the solid crust of the earth was broken up at the time of the descent of the waters upon it ; parallel stratification followed to completion during the period in which the ocean was agi- tated by heat rising from its depths, and after a long interval, elevations of land surfaces above the ocean began to occur, followed by another transformation in the irregular stratifications that have continued to form to the present time. There follows also in due order a discernment and recognition of extensive floor caverns far below, and parallel with the average earth's surface, by means of which large districts of it have been elevated from time to time over Discoveries Encounter Prejudice. 259 nearly the entire surface of the globe. The existence of caverns being recognized, together with the forces confined in them b$ which all the elevations have been effected, there follows also the attributing to the application of those cavernous forces the phenomena of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The transformation of the entire earth's crust, together with the means of elevating the con- tinents and other dry lands, the discovery of which is described in this treatise, were move- ments so stupendous as to appear incredible for their overwhelming immensity. A person long accustomed to former hypoth- eses, instinctively fortifies himself against the adoption of the monstrous proposition to aban- don all long cherished and generally accepted ideas of the preparation of the earth for the abode of man. Only the most incontestable evi- dence, plainly stated and forcibly presented, will overcome his prejudice, and convince him of the verity of the accounts of the alleged phe- nomenal forces and earth movements. A brief restatement of evidences may be made here, proceeding from effect to cause. 260 Volcanoes. A continuous floor of power rooms or cav- erns enveloping the earth has been shown to be possible, and not only possible, but an indis- pensable means of elevations of land surfaces above the ocean, whereby the earth has been rendered habitable. Quite as indispensable are the means by which the floor of power rooms was formed the rending of the crust encom- passing the earth to a uniform depth simul- taneously throughout its extent. No other means are conceivable of achieving the rending but the contest between the waters of the globe and the heat in the rock. That movement car- ries the statement back to the state of the globe in which the hypotheses, the old and the new, agree ; namely, that the waters which had been held aloft by the heat of the globe had finally settled upon it. When these propositions take rank as items of knowledge, it will be the beginning of geo- logical history that has heretofore been left blank, which will link the mysteries of the primitive stages of the earth's development with the discoveries and achievements of modern science, the beginning of geological history in Responsibilities of Masters of Science. 261 which the intellectualities of the world become the consciousness of not only modern existence, but also of all the eras comprising the past life of our planet and solar system. They may even aspire to become the throbbing consciousness of the world's future existence and destiny, as they alone surely will be after all else shall have passed away. The masters of science upon whom the re- sponsibility devolves of investigating the proposi- tions contained in this treatise, relating to the earth and solar system will discern in the work a claim of conscious science for the privilege of asserting and redeeming the honor which is its obligation to the Creator of the world, and its recompense from mankind for its intellectual achievements. After being so long subject to investigation by the combined intellectual enterprise of the world, the tardiness, with which the discoveries of movements so simple and so evident are made, present no apposite occasion for pride, but rather for apologies for having so long failed .to honor them with due recognition. Even now that the attention of the world is 262 Volcanoes. called to them, with much modest explanation and persistent argument, it remains to be seen if, as in times past, a recognition of the im- portant discoveries must await the consent of a following generation ; or whether haply we have fallen upon a more enlightened age in which the merit of the work will be promptly recog- nized and acknowledged. While endeavoring to become the conscious- ness of the physical world, will it not be wise to enlist in it the sympathy of Him whose is the bestowal of the gift of all consciousness, thus making a harmonious whole of the con- sciousness of Creator, created intelligences, and physical creation ? CHAPTER VI. GENERATIONS OF STARS. "Speaks He the word? a thousand worlds are born: A thousand worlds? There's space for millions more. To enter upon the subject here presented is to despise the trepidation the venturesome effort excites, and to welcome the animadversions that may possibly be provoked by presumptuously delving into mysteries that have hitherto been deemed too obscure for the ken of fallible minds. However clear, through much thought, a solu- tion of a mystery may become to one's own mind, there is often difficulty in making it as clear to the minds of others to whom the matter is newly presented. Especially is this so when the case relates to phenomena that re- quire, through much reflection, to be made 264 Generations of Stars. familiar to the mind before deciding between approval and non-approval of conclusions. Readers are admonished to forbear criticism pending long and patient inspection of the phenomena presented for consideration. A last- ing benefit may be found in the process, if no other good results. Every effort at expansion of thought upon a worthy theme invigorates the mind, and increases its capacity for farther effort and progress. Hills on hills arise, but the highest summit , among them is reached at last. Not so with mental summits. Climb as you will, steep after steep, there may always be found an infinite beyond. Only those can soar aloft that dare to venture betimes upon new and venturesome flights. However one may soar, there is always room at the top. An investigator's forward step may lead to great discoveries by others. If we may hope to grasp infinities in another world, why may not we manifest and cherish an interest in them by seeking an acquaintance with them in this world? In such inspiring mood we may turn mr eye s to the worlds of the universe with Inferences by Analogies. 265 the purpose of inquiring into some of their mysteries. Many years ago the number of stars in our home cluster, the Milky Way, was said to be about six millions. A few years later the esti- mate had grown to twenty millions. Later still the estimates have been greatly increased. All be- yond our own solar system are said to be suns, the centers of systems of worlds, as our sun is the center of its system. We can but draw all our inferences relative to the mysteries pertaining to those distant worlds from analogies between our own and them. The laws that govern our own world and system or supposed to be applicable to them. It appears to be the office and purpose, of ex- istence of our sun to give light and heat to the planets attending it. Hence a sun having no attending planets would seem to have no purpose of existence, no office, would seem to have been made in vain. The little influence of such an orb, as only a star among others, would not be accounted a sufficient reason for the ex- istence of a world of so great magnitude. Hence we may say doubtless every fixed star 266 Generations of Stars. is a sun having > planets attending it ; unless worlds be the result of the "promise and potency of matter," independent of a Supreme Intelligence, in which case freaks and monstros- ities would be very common among them. In such case serpents or baboons might be the in- telligent race, and brutish man be in subjection to them ; or, all those orders might be endowed with reasoning faculties, be engaged in a racial strife for the ascendency, and in legislation against amalgamation, where potent matter is indiscriminately supreme. A sun with its system of worlds of which not one is to be occupied during some period of its existence by beings destined for immor- tality, would seem to have been made in vain, would display an immensity of labor, skill, and care, without adequate compensating result, would leave no record beyond the term of its physical existence. We cannot suppose those mighty globes, the fixed stars, to have been created for the entertainment of the inhabitants of the earth. Large numbers of them are doubtless many times larger than our sun, but their influence upon the earth is represented by Peopled Worm^S^^S^ 267 mere points in the sky on dark nights a very insignificant benefit for so vast an expenditure of creative skill and power. We >cannot pre- sume those fixed stars to be placed in the heavens without some better reason than the small amount of light they yield as stars for the benefit of surrounding stars. Farther, sup- posing them to be surrounded by planets, sys- tems like our own solar system, we are led thereby to the suggestion . that there are on 'those planets during some period of their exist- ence, rational beings capable of taking cognizance of the power, wisdom and benevolence of the Creator. Such attributes would be displayed in vain., were there no intellectual beings to observe them. It may be said, so abundantly is our solar system supplied with intelligent observers on this one planet, we have no reason to be- lieve that any other system is destitute of them- " Seest thou those orbs that numerous roll above ? Those lamps that nightly greet thy visual powers Are each a bright capacious sun like ours? The telescopic tube will still descry Myriads behind that 'scape the naked eye, 2(>8 Generations of Stars. And further on a new discovery trace Through the deep regions of encompassed space. If each bright star so many suns are found With planetary systems circled round. What vast infinitude of worlds may grace, What beings people the stupendous space? Whatever race possess the etherial plane, What orbs they people, or what ranks maintain? Though the deep secret heaven conceal below, One truth of universal scope we know : Our nobler part, the same etherial mind, Relates our earth to all their reasoning kind, One deity, one sole creating cause, Our active cares and joint devotion draws." Following our analogies, among other things of such size that differences are observable, we see no two things alike, so we may infer that there are no two worlds alike, probably no two in which the inhabitants are alike. They may be alike immortal, yet dissimilar in form, in intellect, and in habit, in body and soul. In the place where some from all worlds will meet, there will be unity in purpose and spirit, but a charming diversity in many things. Doubtless among the things of unceasing in- terest will be that of meeting an endless variety of forms, from the simplicity of the erect Duration of Stars. 269 biped, to the wonderful forms of tHe seraphim as seen by the prophet Ezekiel by the river Chebar. From generations of worlds,^ what end- less achievements and accomplishments ; what charming varieties of faculties ; what edify- ing and captivating eloquence ! New scenes, new histories, and new lines of thought all from an endless variety of worlds, and millions of them. An interesting inquiry may be made in re- gard to the duration of the stars. Are the stars now seen those that were from the begin- o ning of the creation of worlds? Nothing that any man observes in them in his life-time denotes any change in them. No comparison of their present condition with any past records of them gives any reliable evidence of change in them, with a few exceptions. As a rule, perhaps one hundred thousand years would not effect a change observable from the earth in any large number of them. The effect upon our own globe, of the passage of one hundred, or even one thousand years is not such as to give us- any evidence of change in its condition. But we do find, in the testimony of the rocks, the 270 Generations of Stars. strongest evidence that from the first of its existence in its present form, the earth has been losing its heat. We believe, on that evi- dence, that it must continue to grow colder, and at some future time, to sink to the cold- ness of death to become, like- its own moon, A dead world. As part of the same line of evidence, we be- lieve the sun also is losing its heat. We have the evidence of our senses, and science also tes- tifies that the sun is rapidly expending its en- ergies. However large the body, its store of heat must suffer loss must sometime be ex- pended. Then the sun also will be a dead world. The planets, for whose benefit the 'sun was prepared to give light and vivifying warmth ; having fulfilled their destinies, and become life- less ; the office and purpose terminate for which the sun was created, and the farther continu- ance of its energies would be but the prolonga- tion of a vain existence. Herein do we find a key to the solution of the mystery of the duration of the stars ; for, in like manner every star globe, having its heat dissipated in the coldness of outer space, must A Generation of Stars. 271 sink into the condition of a dead world. There can be no exception. All of the many millions of stars that beautify the heavens, though mighty suns are they, and resplendent in glory, are destined to run their span of life, and die. They have succeeded others, which, in turn, were themselves successors in a long line, even from the beginning. It is not essential, for our present purpose, to know the terms of duration of stars. Doubt- less it is relatively somewhat in proportion to their size. In that particular they differ vastly. While our solar system might run its course in three hundred millions of years, another, like that of the giant sun Sirius, might endure two or three times as long. But its limit of time will come. Eternity is long. "From everlast- ing to everlasting" there has been, and will be space for many such enduring periods. A limit may be assumed, however, for farther illustration of our subject. An average duration of all the stars, say a generation of them, may be placed at one thou- sand millions of years. Then accordingly, within that time, the glory of those now to be s*een 272 Generations of Stars. in the heavens will have passed away, and a new generation, or succession, will have ap- peared ; not in the places of the old worlds, which, though dead, may still be in their orbits. And so, all of a past generation, and we know not how many more still older gen- erations of worlds, may still be moving in the heavens, though none are visible to human eyes but those that are still self illu- minating. What becomes of the dead worlds? To men- tion only those of one generation past ; if none of them have been removed, there are about as many dead, as life-supporting worlds moving in the heavens. The spaces in the Milky Way, and the cleft in it, may be filled with them. The middle of the annular cluster in Lyra may be as well filled with them as the encircling ring is with worlds in their glory. If none have been removed, destroyed, or dissolved, there must be many generations of them, far more invisible than visible stars. It may be asked, what interest have we in the destinies of those distant stars whose changes are reckoned by millions of years, and whose Generations in Succession. 273 existence is measured by hundreds, or thou- sands of millions of years ? It is indeed of great interest to know that the* changes do occur, that the stars have limited terms of existence, however long, that they have begin- ning and end. As surely as there are generations of human beings, so there are generations of stars. We have met only brief allusions to them, enough for a basis of reasoning for minds that are in the habit of tracing things from effect to cause; but few will take the time and trouble to in- vestigate mysteries so studiously. General read- ers need to have such subjects fully presented, and points of interest relating to them expressed in full. Many years hence, in the light of new dis- coveries, the subject may be revived by minds deeply interested in it. A general recognition of a long continued succession of generations of worlds may help men to beget a better under- standing and treatment of our own. Our own world, when under discussion of its destinies, will be treated, in connection with others of the solar system, not as if it were 18 274 Generations of Stars. the only world or system in existence, having been formed in the beginning of all things, and might be renewed, or there might be a general crash of the sun and planets, and an end of all temporal things ; but as one among millions having a similar destiny, even as every human being is one of a generation that serves his time, and is succeeded by others in turn in their generations. We cannot suppose that all the worlds in the universe were formed in one generation. As the generations of the human race have increased in numbers from a few individuals in the be- ginning to many millions at the present time, so the numbers in the generations of worlds may be presumed to have increased by gradual additions from a small number to the present innumerable host of them. This is not, to many minds, a familiar subject. Some enlargement upon it may be of assistance in apprehending the suggestions of inconceivable phenomena pre- sented for consideration. An intimation that all of the stars visible and known to exist in the universe were created during one interval for a beginning of creations, A Study of Generations. 275 would be at variance with all analogies of natu- ral increase. It would not be reasonable to imagine the great Creator existing; 1 down through eternity without the creature company for which He has an infinite love, and without any interest in world construction, to a comparatively recent era, and for a beginning, springing an immense uni- verse into being, comprising an inconceivable number and variety of worlds, with all their wonders of matter, and organic life, and with all the precision of operation of existing natural laws. Rather suppose Him to have created one hundred generations in succession, and ask, how- ever the thought may carry us back, could such a creature-loving God as ours have been without worlds and their peoples through all eternity previous to those generations? Extend the inquiry another hundred generations back and ask, could He be supposed to have been without His creature company through all eter- nity before that interval? We are unable to answer the questions, but the consideration of them may prepare us to admit the possibility of the passage of so many generations, and 276 Generations of Stars. down through them the gradual increase of the number of worlds of the universe. But a few years since, men thought but little of the habitability of planetary worlds belonging to the fixed stars. Now astronomers generally accept the belief, but it has not grown to such an influence as to enter into questions of the destiny of the earth and its inhabitants. If one habitable world accompanies every fixed star r many of which are growing old, while others are now forming, then they may all be treated as passing, like the people of this, our world, in generations ; our own as one in a generation, moving on to its destiny, a change in which it will give- place to others, which in their turn will be succeeded by others. Though we may not witness any of the changes, if we would not confine our thoughts too closely to the pres- ent time and this little world ; if we would have a comprehensive understanding of the star worlds of the universe, we shall recognize their generations, and cherish an interest in them. While the human mind can form no conception of the length of time of a generation of worlds, it is no more difficult to conceive of the num- Terms of Existence of Stars. 277 bers of their succession than of the numbers of human generations. The discussion of them will serve to expand our views of creation, and of the universe of worlds. Having, in our investigation, arrived at the conclusion that there are successive generations of worlds, the recognition of each recurring phe- nomenon follows, they pass through the various stages of existence, - youth, maturity, old age or decrepitude, and death. Unlike human beings, however, they all, doubtless, arrive at a good old age: We may yet be able to learn, by their complexion, of some stages of their ex- istence. It is observable that intensely heated rocks, while gradually cooling, pass through various shades of color, always to a dark color at the last stage of luminosity. Colors and shades vary in rocks of different kinds, but that there is pro- cession from the light color of intense heat to the dark color of the cold rock, is undeniable. At a temperature of fifty-five hundred degrees and upward we would expect to see a brilliant light complexion, but a very marked change to a dark color at a much lower temperature. In 278 Generations of Stars. like manner, stars unquestionably pass through various shades in cooling, light colored at first, O ' O * and always gradually darker toward the last. In the full vigor of their new life all dark o colors are concealed by the flaming intensity of their heat, and their color must be light, of shades varying but little from white to ruddy. This is assumed as a general rule to which there may be exceptions, but they do not dis- prove the assumption in regard to a change of complexion with the occurrence of old age. As the stars pass from the extreme brilliancy of youth to early maturity, those shades, if there are such, may give way to white, which is said to be the color of our sun at the pres- ent time. Planets are so much smaller than the suns around which' they revolve that they cool much faster. After attaining a temperature that ren- ders them habitable, a slight cooling of a few degrees renders them again uninhabitable. The period during which a world can be occupied by human beings is so brief in the life of a sun that no change is observable in its color during the period. Complexions of Stars. 279 Any cooling of the sun that would affect a change of its color to a darker shade would involve such a diminished supply "of heat to the earth that life could no longer be supported upon it. Then the earth, and doubtless all the planets, would be dead worlds. The sun also, for -all heating purposes, would be exhausted, a dying, or dead sun. Yet it would appear among the stars, a brilliant gradually darken- ing star, such, during millions of years, as are many in the heavens, which, from this analogy, may be regarded as dead suns, moving with their skeleton systems in silent desolation to their inevitable destiny cold oblivion. Stars that were formerly of the first magni- tude, and many millions of years past were heating and lighting glorious systems of worlds, now faded to a condition of obscurity, may be moving and staying among a new and rising generation, like some aged persons, their day of alert energy past, and waiting the time of their dissolution. It is by thus studying the conditions of light and heat as indications of life or death in our solar system, that we may be able to interpret the condition of_ worlds in 280 Generations of Stars. other systems by the complexion of their suns. In a faithful study of star life, it may be presumed that all stars of dark colors have sur- vived their usefulness as heaters, and have be- come dead suns, surrounded by dead planets, everything dead excepting comets and their re- sulting streams of meteoroids, which, hafing withstood without injury the extreme heat of their suns, may not be affected by the diminu- tion of their heat. If the multitudes of the stars of the universe may be compared to the generations of man- kind, being in both cases of all ages, youth, maturity, and old age ; then in both cases com- plexions furnish some criterions of the vari- ous ages. There may be those who, by failure to grasp the significance of the phenomena pertaining to star life, and the sequences of the various changes in them, think that great mysteries are herein treated too familiarly, and that too in- timate knowledge of them is claimed. We only claim the privilege of using, to the best of our ability, the faculty of discernment in observing the phenomena of nature, and of following the Exploration of Stardom. 281 -effect of the application of well known natural laws in the interpretation of changes occurring in the starry universe. To do less, when engaged in the work, is to make scant use of our faculties and privileges, and to do little honor to the author and giver of them. A discussion may be opened in which others may join to a profitable issue, sooner or later. Every new field of exploration of the heavens every extension of a field in them brings to view new wonders, and farther display of the power and glory of Him who is the Creator and Upholder of all things from everlasting to everlasting. It ought not to be an unconsidered mystery that the fixed stars have their limited span of usefulness in heating and illuminating their plan- ets, and that they survive that span, and become dead suns. Whatever knowledge of the conditions, or stages of usefulness of the stars may be gained through their various colors, is proper subject of inquiry by aspirants after knowledge. As wonders of creation, those orbs are unsurpassed, 282 Generations of Stars. and every item of information to be gained from them, or relating to them, deepens our interest in them. Thus may men do honor to them- selves as intellectual beings. CHAPTER VII. DISSOLUTION OF WOKLDS. "All forms that perish, other forms supply." We have seen that old worlds have been ac- cumulating, unless they were removed, or were disposed of otherwise. If no disposition of the worlds of the past generations has been made, the dead worlds still moving far exceed in num- ber those that are yet in their span of useful- ness, and they are still accumulating. If no disposition has been made of them, their num- bers may be sufficient to fill all the interstices in the Milky Way, and in all other clusters, perhaps also to form older clusters. Many gen- erations of them, though of inconceivable length 7 must have run their course. The heavens are strewn with their remains, innumerable dead 284 Dissolution of Worlds. suns with their "systems, dark, desolate, and useless. So they must remain while gravitation holds uninterrupted sway. There may have been scores, or hundreds of generations. It would not seem to accord with natural methods to continue supplying new matter for universes of worlds while the sub- stance of them could be used repeatedly, those vast accumulations of dead worlds meanwhile re- maining to be guided in their courses, or left to fly at random. It is a privilege with which the reasoning powers are endowed, to inquire into the mys- teries of the universe of worlds, and to investi- gate carefully all matters of interest connected with them. There are no sure records of the removal, or dissolution and dispersion of them by collisions or otherwise. But the natural pro- cess of the dissolution of all organic substances is well known to be by gasification and atomic dispersion, or in other words, by transformation of substance whereby the power of repulsion overcomes that of gravitation, with the result of a dispersion of substances in the form or Dissolution of Worlds Discussed. 285 similitude of primordial matter. All this result is well known to be by natural process. Is it not possible that by similar^ means, at the proper time, the inorganic substances of worlds will become subject to a similar process, and power of repulsion, thus effecting their dis- solution and dispersion throughout the regions of space? Thus, by analogy, the probable process of the dissolution of worlds is explainable. The only difficulty apparent is in the transformation of inorganic matter. That may be effected when all the gaseous, cometic, and other substances that may have been eliminated in the beginning from the remainder for its preservation shall be reunited with it, subjecting it to the disintegra- ting power of an unknown menstruum. Or other- wise, it is well known that very destructive compounds may be formed by a union of a few simple elements in which there may appear no vitiating tendencies. So unknown means for a very rapid disintegration of a globe may be developed under possible natural conditions. As organic forms remain intact till they have served the purpose for which they are designed, and, with their substances, are 286 Dissolution of Worlds. invariably afterward dissolved, so, following the analogy, it may be presumed, that inorganic forms and substances also must end in dissolu- tion after having served the purpose for which they were assembled. As the term of service of the latter continues while populations remain, mankind cannot witness their dissolution, but it should not therefore be presumed that it will not occur when the worlds shall have served the purpose for which they were designed. As everything in the vegetable and animal king- doms end in dissolution, so doubtless also will the substances of the mineral kingdom in their natural course. All other parts of the process of dissolution being theoretically provided, it is possible that at some stage of their existence there will be developed vitiating elements in connection with them that will effect their disintegration, and O ' the dispersion of their substance. In the disintegration of worlds the particles are, presumably, quietly disseminated through- out the district from which they had been gathered up, and repulsion holds them there. There are two forces acting alternately Some Inscrutable Mysteries. 287 under natural law. Worlds are formed very gradually and quietly by accumulations of atoms under the law of gravitation. They may be dis- solved as gradually and quietly by dispersion of atoms under the law of repulsion. While gravita- tion is in force between organic bodies and the earth, repulsion and diffusion of matter goes on in the dissolution of the bodies. So while grav- itation holds between worlds, repulsion and dis- persion of matter may be expected to go on at the proper time for their dissolution. It is evident that the two forces do work locally together, though actually in opposition to each other. The explanation of the anomaly is in the form of matter. When solid it is under gravitation. When gaseous it is under repulsion, though some gases are not so affected. While nothing certain can be known of the destiny of worlds, it appears, in the discussion of the subject, that where so slight a change stands between the necessary dissolution of worlds, and a useless, overwhelming accumulation of them, there can be no doubt of their dis- integration. All accounting for the processes of the gen- 288 Dissolution of Worlds. esis and dissolution of worlds may be done by the instrumentality of natural laws. It is grat- ifying to be able to say it is not difficult to conceive a possibility of a development within a world of the means for its disintegration, and diffusion of its substance throughout the regions of space. It would be equally gratify- ing to be able to conceive the possibility of a naturally occurring development in the regions of space whereby the primordial matter held there under the power of repulsion should be brought under the law of gravitation, but no analogies appear to be available for solving the mystery of the transformation. Philosophy may fail to discover, and science to prove some parts of the process of the evo- lution of worlds from primordial matter, and of the reverse process of the dissolution of worlds and diffusion of primordial matter in the districts of space. Conspicuous failures in some important particulars may be more essen- tial to the highest interests of mankind than the achievement of success in the search after knowledge. Men are so prone to conceit, and pride of achievement, that success in accounting An Ignoble Pedigree Claimed. 289 for every phenomenon by natural laAvs would so far exempt them in their judgment, and by their inclination, from a sense of dependence upon the Supreme Ruler of the 'universe that they would fail to recognize His agency in any occurrence, or operation of its laws. Then would follow a failure to recognize Him in any capacity. Under a proud satisfaction of their own sufficiency, the hearts of men would be lifted up to disown their Maker. The vota- ries of science would ignore and abjure their Supreme Master of all science. A knowledge of their own- allotment in the* universe is of far more value to them than that of any laws of matter. Even now crea- tures of His bounty are found who prefer to profess themselves the descendants of monkeys rather than to confess their origin direct from the Almighty Creator, and they labor assidu- ously to prove it. There may be many miss- ing links in their chain of evidence, and they confess it, yet they are so intent upon proving their pedigree that they fondly trust to having their evidence made complete, and meanwhile they venture to assume the correctness of their -19 290 Dissolution of Worlds. aspirations. The motive of their ambition, doubtless, is to be free, from subjection to a higher power under whom their wills and passions might be subject to unwelcome restraints. The question obtrudes itself upon our atten- tion, can rnankind ever be entrusted with the degree of knowledge of natural laws whereby all astronomical phenomena can be scientifically explained ? Though the Supreme Master of science might grant such explanations, the high- est interests of His aspiring students may re- quire that a portion of the knowledge of mys- teries be withheld from them. A recognition of the occurrence of successive generations of worlds will give a new interest to many astronomical matters. An account of successive generations as they may be revealed in a future existence will constitute but a con- tinuous history. The appearance of new, and the disappearance of old stars, will have a new significance. The prevalence of stability and order through many generations will be ac- knowledged, and . all fear of the machinery of the heavens running down, of dark worlds rnov- Stability in the Universe. 291 ing at random, and of the crash of worlds into a lifeless mass in the end will be dismissed. Writers will discuss occurrences with refer- ence to a belief in a long continued succession of generations, rather than in a beginning of all things with the present universe, such as a tacit acquiescence in the drift of popular belief has indicated. A purely speculative matter, for which few analogies may be found, has relation to the order in which dissolving worlds might disap- pear. Solid globes would be supposed to dis- solve slowly, while gaseous bodies would be rapidly dispersed. All small planets would prob- ably be solid throughout, as also large por- tions, or all, of the great planets ; and being strongly cohesive, might dissolve slowly, while a sun being mainly gaseous, and incohesive if not cooled to solidity, might be rapidly dis- persed. Bodies of all sizes, aerolites as well as planets, and even scarcely ponderable meteoroids are supposed to move continuously in orbits ; so dissolving planets would continue to revolve in their orbits, as they diminish in size, till they are totally dispersed. 292 Dissolution of Worlds. If the suggested process of the dissolution of worlds is one step 'among many in the routine of evolution of worlds more in conformity with observed natural methods than any others that may be suggested, it awaits the consent of pop- ular approval. Repulsion is in force all around us. It is observed in smoke, in steam, in per- fumes, in many gases. For purposes of dissolu- tion it is only necessary to extend its force to other substances of worlds. Is not this . hypothesis a natural outgrowth of a scrutiny of nature's necessity ? And is it not well founded in reason upon nature's quiet methods ? There is the necessity that the worlds be removed to prevent an accumulation of them. There is the method of doing it, quiet, like the apparent natural method of forming worlds. There is no disturbance between systems. The same matter is retained and disseminated through- out the system districts, the ^sarne weight, pre- serving balance with contiguous systems through all the evolution and dissolution of worlds, the same rotary motion of the districts con- tinued, all in readiness for the next creation. The suggestion that space is being filled w r ith No Fear of Collisions of. Worlds. 293 the accumulations of generations of dead worlds, said by some eminent writers to,, be possibly moving at random, might unfortunately give rise to vague fears among uneducated classes, which would render them subject to wild ex- citement upon the publication of some unwise prognostication of approaching collisions. It may be prudent, therefore, to demonstrate that there is no occasion for such fears. Men appear to have found a method by which worlds are formed through the quiet nebular process. The- theory has grown slowly, but appears to be well founded. Now the ex- act counterpart is found in the dispersing pro- ess of repulsion, atom by atom. Mr. Herbert Spencer, * after discussing at great length the integration and disintegration of all things, with especial reference to worlds, continues: i ' In any case the conclusion to be drawn is, that the integration must continue until the conditions which bring about disintegration are reached ; and that there must ensue a diffusion that undoes the preceding concentration. This* indeed, is the conclusion which presents itself First Principles of a New System of Philosophy, p. 534. 294 Dissolution of Worlds. as a deduction from the persistence of force. If stars concentrating to a common center of gravity, eventually reach it, then the quantities of motion they have acquired must suffice to carry them away again to those remote regions whence they started. And since, by the condi- tions of the case they cannot return to those remote regions in the shape of concrete masses, they must return in the shape of diffused masse?. Action and reaction being opposite and equal, the momen'um producing dispersion must be as great as the momentum acquired by ag- gregation ; and being spread over the same quantity of matter, must cause an equivalent distribution through space, whatever be the form of the matter. One condition, however, essential to the literal fulfillment of this result must be specified ; namely, that the quantity of molecular motion radiated into space by each star in the course of its formation from diffused matter, shall either not escape from our siderial syste'n, or shall be compensated by an equal quantity of molecular motion radiated from other parts of space into our siderial system. Here, indeed, we arrive at a barrier to our reason- ings ; since we cannot know whether this con- dition is, or is not fulfilled." Reasoning from cause to effect, Mr. Spencer arrives at the conclusion that is found in this treatise by arguing from effect to cause. He holds that to preserve an equilibrium of matter, force, and motion the primordial matter from which worlds are evolved must, after having Process of Collisions Analyzed. 295 served a purpose in world-forms, return again to its primitive state ; and suggests that it may . do so as a result of worlds being precipitated together, and by collision converted into a gas- eous condition, in which form the substance of them will be diffused throughout the space it originally occupied. Let us examine that process of precipitation, and watch its progress. The first precipitation in order would be that of the planets, one by one, upon the sun. The earth, being one- three hundred and thirty thousandth of the mass of the sun, would be completely absorbed by it ; the diffusion of gases resulting not extending beyond the nebula around the sun, which would thereby be greatly enlarged temporarily, and from time to time such enlargement would be repeated as the planets with their satellites be- come successively absorbed. The sun would not be greatly enlarged by the addition of so many globes, being seven hundred and forty times larger than all of them. Similarly, the center of gravity of stars concentrating to such a center might, with great probability, be occupied by a giant sun, of a volume that could not be gasi- - 296 Dissolution of Worlds. fied and dispersed by collision with a star of medium size, but having capacity to absorb, at intervals, the surrounding stars, being hundreds, or thousands of times larger than they. Mr. A. Winchell, in discussing the subject of "the machinery of the heavens running down/' drew a conclusion from instances of retarding motion of worlds, thus: "Are we not compelled to recognize the fact that every sun in our firmament, as it journeys round and round in its circuit of millions of years, is slowly, but surely approach- ing the center of its orbit ? And in that most distant future, the contemplation .of which must paralyze our power of thought, is it not certain that all the suns must be piled together in a cold and lifeless mass? '' We are now brought to a consideration of a chaotic state, for in all the movements of worlds in the universe, the guidance of an all- wise I O Governor has been ignored, and everything is to be accounted for by the natural laws of motion, persistence of force, and matter. The catastrophe supposed to be impending could only result from dead worlds moving at random, and colliding as they reach the center of their orbits. In such case as the one suggested, of stars No Collisions of Worlds. 297 concentrating to a common point, the center of gravity might be unoccupied. The first star pre- cipitated to that center, encountering #10 resist- ance, would pass on in a flight of perhaps thousands of years, and meeting no resistance on its return, mio;ht continue to oscillate till a o score of stars should have joined in the hazard seeking strife without meeting, for the chance of colliding would not be one in a thousand flights. Of collisions occurring, few, if any, would be so direct, and of such velocity as to gasify colliding worlds. If they were gasified, it does not follow that the substance of them would be diffused through space and so disseminated as to be in the con- dition of original primordial matter. Indeed no colliding force could so disperse substances of worlds that they would fail, while subject to the law of gravitation, to settle again in a body of more or less consistency. One element would be wanting to disseminate the matter through space in its original form, and that element is the quality and force of repulsion that could be given it in a change of the form of substance from the solid form of cosmical ^ 298 Dissolution of Worlds. dust to the gaseous condition of primordial matter. When that change is given it, as it may be by some unknown natural process, there will be no occasion for collisions of worlds, re- pulsion will quietly effect the dispersion of sub- stances. As repulsion in gas causes it to fill the vessel containing it, so by repulsion the substances of worlds, when freed from the law of gravitation, may be dispersed through and made to fill the space from which it came. It will then be in position for another genesis of worlds. By no observed natural phenomena are we warranted in the belief that there ever has been, or the fancy that there ever will be a dissolu- tion of worlds or readjustment of them by means of destructive collisions between them. Only by a Supreme Director would such crashing of worlds be made effective, and He should be ex- pected to use processes more in accord with His quiet methods in the evolution of worlds, and more in accord with the processes of dissolu- tion of everything perishable in our world. Would the suggestion relating to chance col- lisions of worlds relegate such occurrences to a Will There Be Catastrophes, or Order? 299 time of accumulation of dead worlds in the iiiverse ? That time is as nearly the present as any other age. We are in the midsfr of gen- erations of worlds. Many such have strown the realms of space with their mighty globes, which, if flying at random, would be as likely to collide with peopled worlds and life- supporting suns as with any others. As new worlds are forming continually, so continual disposition has to be made of those of past generations. As no order can be preserved without the direction of an intelligent order preserving power, a question may be permissible in the following form : which is the more probable course of an order preserving power, a catas- trophe that will involve the crashing of the worlds into a lifeless mass, or a gradual disso- lution and reconstruction of them in such manner as to cause no confusion by collisions, to dis- turb no equipoise of worlds in their orbits by any bodily removals, but to preserve perfect order throughout systems, throughout constella- tions, throughout galaxies, throughout the uni- verse. A suggestion of the manner in which worlds- 300 Dissolution of Worlds. would collide which have been supposed to be drawing nearer together in their orbits, is pre- sented in the instance of a binary star, the orbital revolution of which is found to be four days. Probably the pair of suns composing it were much farther apart, and supporting each a system of worlds, but have been drawing nearer together till no space is observable be- tween them. Their orbital motion has been, and is still, sufficient to prevent any precipitation of one against the other. If their globes are gaseous, as our sun is supposed to be, they will probably settle to- gether almost as slowly as they have approached each other, the orbital becoming the axial mo- tion. The planetary planes of the two suns and their systems would nearly coincide, owing to the rotary motions of the contiguous districts in which they were formed. Consequently, as they gradually draw near each other, each sun would, at intervals, absorb the planets encir- cling the other. The independent axial motion of each star would be arrested as the two stars gradually settle together into one. This may be taken as a probable process, with Dark Stars Dead Suns. 301 some variations, of the collisions of stars that approach each other, or that approach centers of gravity in orbital circuits. It may be worthy of recognition in estimates of the value of col- lisions of stars for restoring an equilibrium of matter by dispersion, or for producing heat or motion. It is said of the pairs called double stars, the members of which are of different colors, that the smaller is, in all cases, the darker one. May it not be that the light of the dark star, being a waning sun, fails to truly represent its size? It may be as large, or larger than the light colored star. Doubtless in many instances, it is, but owing to the failure of its light in its old age, it appears to be the smaller star, and probably is a dead sun. If its dissolution by the power of repulsion follows, the matter being -retained in its vicinity, or district, though, perhaps, in the gaseous state for a 'considerable interval of time, yet having full weight, the same when dispersed throughout its district as when in form of solid globes, the equipoise of the pair is preserved, and their relative orbits 302 Dissolution of Worlds. are undisturbed, as also their influence on sur- rounding stars. The pair may be alternately dissolved, and reconstructed ; but the removal of one bodily from its orbit would greatly disturb the other, how disastrously, no one can say. Doubtless the removal of a single star would also disturb those contiguous to it, but upon its dissolution by atomic repulsion, the full weight of its mat- ter being retained in its district, their balance would be preserved. Record has been made of organisms of which eight millions may be comprised in the com- pass of a grain of mustard seed. Each one is composed of many atoms, and if ground finely to powder, will give an approximate idea of the minuteness of cosmical dust from which worlds are formed, and into which the mighty worlds are reduced in the process of repulsion and diffusion. Then let atoms be crowded con- tinually farther out through the etherial dis- trict spaces, and there will be, as nearly as we can understand it, what is implied by impalpa- ble matter of which worlds are formed. The atomic matter, while being dispersed, Order in Genesis of Worlds. 303 might be retained in nebulous form instead of being disseminated throughout the district. It would thus be ready for the next creation, but it would not be so well adapted to the forma- tion of a new world. It would be at a low temperature, or destitute of heat, and in the process of condensation, would fail to develop it in a proper amount. If the cosmical mat- ter of the district were all comprised in such condition in the great nebula, it w r ould be gath- ered and condensed at once into the globes of the system. There would be no reserve supply to be gradually gathered for the continual nour- ishment of the sun. We learn from our anal- ogy that it is far better, and indeed necessary for prolonging the life of the sun, that, follow- ing its formation, there should still be a' large supply of matter constantly gathering through- out the district, and nourishing it, replenishing its vigor, repairing its losses, and prolonging its serviceableness. Intervals of inconceivable length are required for cooling the planets, and preparing them for the abode and enjoyment of intellectual beings, intervals too long, it may be, for the con- 304 Dissolution of Worlds. tinuance of the sun in vigor through the time- of their need by any other method than that of being constantly nourished and recuperated till the period of its culmination is attained in the maturity of usefulness of its solar system. The renewal by fire would present the same difficulty. There would be no provision for the continual sustentation of the sun's energy. There seems to be an expectation on the part of some people, of a literal fulfillment of a prophecy of U A new heaven and a new earth. ' r They understand that the earth, the globe on which we dwell, is to be burned up, or purified by fire, and again fitted for the abode of man. Let us see what is implied in that refitting the earth. Being burned up does not necessa- rily imply a reduction of it to a molten con- dition, but it implies, at least, a combustion of the surface, and a destruction of all organic life. After being purified by fire, a very long time would be required for cooling, and prep- aration of it for a desirable place of residence. Whatever would be its condition as a place of residence, it could not be perpetual. Together with the sun it would need to be. refitted from Question of Refitting Worlds. 305 time to time. The length of .time required for refitting would exceed the time of occupancy* The refitting would include a period during which the temperature of the globe must be reduced, possibly, thousands of degrees. Then a farther reduction of less than twenty degrees would, probably, limit the period of occupancy, which would therefore be but a small fraction of the time required for refitting. If these estimates of intervals of refitting are not cor- o rect for all cases, they are sufficiently so for illustration of an unstable condition of the w r orld for occupancy. Perhaps with some other inter- pretation of the prophecy, a less transitory place of residence may be found. We have yet to learn of any process of natural law by which the earth could be purified by fire. It could be done only by a stupendous miracle, such as is not our province to discuss. Worlds may be classed with all other things that live, and die, one destiny awaits all, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This dis- cussion of the limited existence, and dissolution of the stars is presented as a matter of interest- ing import, though in part merely speculative. 20 306 Dissolution of Worlds. There can be no question of the termination of usefulness, and limited existence, of all stars, of all worlds. All must become dead worlds. New worlds are constantly being formed. Are old worlds suffered to remain and accumu- late ? Are they removed ? Are they dissolved, and dispersed by atomic repulsion ? Can any other disposition be supposed for them ? The consideration of these questions may be found edifying, though they may remain unan- swered while man walks the earth. The limited existence of stars implies that the present generation has been preceded by others, as doubtless, they have by many others. At every step in exploring the universe of stars, we are met by apparent infinities, infin- ity^of distance, infinity of. numbers, now infinity of generations of them. Could we multiply the aggregate of each generation by the number of them, we would find the worlds that have existed to the present time would be as num- berless as the sands on the sea shore. CHAPTER VIII. INTELLIGENCES. THEIK INTERESTS^ND DESTINIES. " O nature, how in every charm supreme ! Whose votaries feed on raptures ever new ! O for the voice and fire of seraphim, To sing thy glories with devotion due!" Nearly all speculations in regard to the hab- itability of other planets than the earth, found in the literature of to-day, have regard to the present time only. Is 1 not any other period of time as opportune for them ? The heat of the sun may have been, at some time, a million of years past more or less, sufficient to give the planet Mars a temperature equal to that now enjoyed upon the earth. It may have been inhabited while in that condition, but owing to the diminishing heat of both the planet and the sun, it has, probably, long since become too 308 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. cold. It is more reasonable to suppose it may have been inhabited while in a condition anal- ogous to the present condition of the earth, than that a different combination of circum- stances adapt it to be inhabited contemporane- ously with the earth. Venus may now be in the full enjoyment of her carboniferous period preparatory to being inhabited a million 'of years hence, or when the present intensity of the heat and light of the sun on that planet shall 'have abated to the de- gree that the earth now enjoys. If Mars was inhabited long ago, it may not have been pre- maturely occupied, nor its inhabitants barbarous because of having so long preceded the present age ; so also the populations of Venus are not to be commiserated for appearing too late to enjoy the present superlative age. Is it not due to progress in enlightenment to enlarge our views of creative eras, to recog- nize in other ages, and other eras, the proba- bility of as much activity, as wonderful dis- plays, and as brilliant achievements as we claim for our own ? Broader views may spring from a wider recognition of a long succession of past Mighty Procession of Generations. 309 generations of worlds. Cannot we be as deeply interested in the ancient inhabitants of Mars, and the future inhabitants of Venus .as we would be to so strain their present conditions as to make their populations contemporaneous with our own? If there are one hundred thousand worlds pop- ulated at the present time, and as many in every age, then are all ages profoundly inter- esting to us. Can there be a thought or con- ception more attractively sublime than that there is constantly moving a procession, in every genial and soul quality and intellect ; so im- measurably grand, along the stream of time, and majestically forth upon the ocean of eternity ? What though the duration of a generation of stars is one thousand millions of years, and densely crowded with the grandly moving tide of worlds, rolling ever onward ? There has been space for a mighty procession of those genera- tions, extending down in marvellous number from the mysterious beginning. And behold, the entire procession is our inheritance for future enjoyment, as are also the genial life fruits with which the procession is freighted. 310 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. Is our interest in a star greater in the orb itself , or in the habitable worlds around it ? We cannot suppose that a sun is inhabitable, even if its degree of heat could be adapted to the comfort of its inhabitants, itself furnishing all the light, a constant glare, itself supplying the unvarying heat ; no change of seasons, no returning hour of repose. We must regard, the star suns as like our own, useful mainly as stores of heat and light, and as regulators of motion. If our interest is chiefly in the habitable worlds belonging to those stars, we may inquire the length of time that such planets may be occupied by intelligent be- ings. Our own world being analogous, for ex- ample, we will make an estimate of its period of being so occupied. We understand it was in process of creation and preparation at least fifty millions of years, probably twice as long, and has been occu- pied about six thousand to ten thousand years in round numbers. We do not find the occu- pancy a ten-thousandth part of the time of ex- istence of the system, relatively, so far. If in the winding up at the end, the period Comparative Occupancy of Worlds. 311 should be found one-thousandth part, the dispro- portion would still be overwhelmingly formidable. In the term of existence of the solar system, there is included a period equivalent to several millions of years for the formation of the great nebula out of cosniical dust ; a like period for the condensation of the nebula into solid globes, the sun and its attendant planets; many mill- ions of years for cooling an^L- preparation of planets, a few thousand years (brief time) for occupancy of the earth by the human race, and many millions of years continuance of the old worlds in their orbits till some disposition is made of them. The interval of possession by the human race is limited to the time of the reduction of the temperature of the globe only a few degrees. That the race could bear a re- duction of more than ten degrees may well be doubted. Hence it appears that the occupancy of a planet by a race of intelligent beings must be necessarily brief, probably less than one-thousandth part, compared with the interval required to make provision for such occupancy. If two or three planets are inhabited in suc- cession, the time of the last one expires while 312 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. the sun is yet in full luminous condition, prob- ably before its dark shades appear. We may ascribe similar process and progress to other stars ; therefore we may reasonably conclude that the serviceableness of all the dark stars, as suns, is past, and that they only wait their destiny either to be added to the accumulations of many past generations of worlds, or, to undergo dissolution which will it be ? o A most impressive lesson to be derived from the brief occupancy of a planet, relates to the value placed on human souls. Behold what vast preparations are made, gathering impalpable cos- mical dust from an inconceivably immense dis- trict, and by mighty displays of power, form- ing therewith a system of worlds, and with lavish expenditure of labor and skill during fifty millions to one hundred millions of years, adorning and endowing them, all that for a brief period of a few years individually, or col- lectively a few thousand years, some favored creatures, made in the Creator's own image, might find therein lovable homes, and every provision for comfort ; and crowning the whole with a free offer of unceasing enjoyment of A Free Offer. 313 the richest of all gifts to all that would accept the offer. Can it be believed that, after being so favored, while indebted to the gi^er for all things, few of those favored ones would accept the offer? It is not our design to make this work an advocate of religion, but the free offer of the Creator is so interwoven with His works, and His purpose of creation, that it-' should be re- garded as a business matter between Him and those favored ones, so infinitely is the accept- ance of the offer in all respects to their ad- vantage. Cultivation of a human nature by an essen- tial course of refinement that shall prepare it for an ideal and most desirable existence on a higher plane in a future life, so closely re- sembles the disciplinary requirements of the Christian religion that it is difficult to fully state the essentials of the former without ap- pearing to labor in the interests of the latter. A reader may appreciate the difficulty, and so discriminate between the interests of the two courses that the interests of the former may not suffer. Is it not as much a matter of 314 Intelligences, Inteivsts and Destinies. creative interest that the purpose for which all things were made should be accomplished, not only on the lower plane of inorganic matter, but on the higher plane of enduring soul life? Let us not shun the discussion of the full course of creation of body and spirit to the extent of our capacity. Those that acknowledge the Supreme Ruler will not fail to see the propriety, and even the necessity of harmonizing with Him in every- thing, because He is all-wise, His ways are always right, and He has' the final adjustment of all things in hand. Every one making the experiment discovers the necessity of accepting a constant course of discipline. A tendency to waywardness, a subjection to overpowering pas- sions, and a feebleness of resistance to evil are in frequent conflict with good resolutions to live in harmony with a perfect life. A fear of consequences that begets continual watchfulness and circumspection is found to be an essential safeguard aside from any religious bias or asso- ciation. Ancient heathen philosophers acknowl- edged and advocated the essential propriety of Authority in the Future State. 315 being under mach the same course of civilizing influences. Whether the giver of all good things is ac- knowledged, or rejected, He will yet have that unfailing interest in His every creature that r having graced His course from the beginning,, shines through the glory of the everlasting^ garnished with the ineffable radiancy of love that pervades and enriches all His wbrks. Will the future state of existence be higher or lower than the present ? Under whose au- thority ? Or will it be under none but the laws of matter and force ? Answer can only be expected according to belief. If no supreme ruler has control of all things in the present state of existence, it is presumable that none will have control in a future state. If dark worlds are left flying at random, and other disorder prevails in the material universe because of having no supreme ruling intelligence, may it not be said that there will be the same ab- sence of ruling and supervision in the future state of existence, and that beings not subject to the power of gravitation will be free to* move at will there, each and every one self .316 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. governing ? If there is to be no supreme ruler, there can be no social order except by mutual agreement, and the propensity of free will beings to disagree is well known. An infinite variety of habits, tastes, and propensities would forbid any hope of association for mutual ad- vantage, or enjoyment. Supreme, or other wise guidance with recognized authority being un- known, every one, on arriving in that myste- rious realm, would have only to choose a way, or to move in lonely aimlessness among strangers of all classes, worlds, and eras ; among immense multitudes meeting rarely a wandering friend, both wanderers too forlorn for enjoyable sym- pathy. We have yet to learn that there will be, in that future state, any pursuits to occupy the time, or any incentive to engage in enterprise for hope of benefit, matters that contribute very largely to the enjoyment of this present life. The want of such hopeful interests, and of means of entertainment could not fail to add .to the wretchedness of an aimless existence, ainder no better government than an irresponsible -organization, after the pattern of a voluntary , Future State Inquiries. 31 T club. Matter and human beings are not alike controllable by natural law. Matter has been alleged to be subject to laws inherent in it, but the same cannot be supposed, in all respects, of free moral or intellectual agents. They, if undisciplined, are impulsive, wayward, and per- verse. No assurance can be given, nor accepted, that life, in association with such beings in a fu- ture state, can be made desirable. ^A wandering, aimless life, without hope, would be too wretched in prospect, to be contemplated as man's des- tiny. In his inmost nature he will rebel against such a doom. Sweet as the present life is while in it, a refined person would not choose a similar endless one, with all its evils, especially if deprived of its resources and hopefulness. Enlightenment trains one for a loftier aim, for a desire of more of good, and less of evil, indeed even for a perfect life, if such an ex- istence is attainable. A full experience in this life begets in one- no confidence in the ability of human beings either to effect a basis for a perfect life, or to maintain one if it were once established^ 318 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies^ Man has never attained ability to keep himself alone perfect. Much less can he control others. In the fullness of their conscious strength many seem to ignore destiny, but when shorn of that strength, what creatures are more help- less? The work of establishing, in all its requisites, a perfect life in a perfect state of existence so manifestly requires unfailing wisdom and power, undeniably only an Infinite Intelli- gence can accomplish it, and only a Supreme Ruler can maintain it. Is not this declaration clearly evident to every candid mind? Is it not equally evident that preparation of beings for that perfect future life must be made before entering upon it ? Would that be a perfect social state in which tyros in virtue were being disciplined into fitness for it, often stumbling, sometimes falling, and occasionally going down to ruin ? No, clearly, only those can be per- mitted to enter that perfect state that are fully prepared for it. As clearly the preparation must be made in the present state of existence. And as clearly the wisdom required to main- tain a perfect state of existence is necessary also in the preparation of its members. In that dis- Progress Toward the Perfect Life. 319 ciplinary preparation, a knowledge of every deed, every word, and every thought is essential to the Supreme Director, and indeed also every desire, every propensity, and every surrounding influence. However men may imagine that the laws of matter, force,, and motion may be made to ac- count for all the phenomena of the material world, and for the evolution of^men from the enlivened nomad through the survival of the fittest, they must acknowledge the existence of an impassable gulf in the progress toward the attainment of that perfect state in which selec- tion is not known because only qualified perfec- tion enters there, perfection that comes not of the accidents of matter but through discipline, nurture, and cleansing of the impurities that have come through connection with the leavening properties of matter. Men have had their attention turned to the perfect life. They have been invited to enter it. They are looking anxiously for it, longing for it. Why should they not ? After such pro- fusion of creative skill as has been displayed through millions of centuries, and among in- 320 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. numerable worlds, it surely cannot be that the culmination is to be a partial, or total failure, happiness and sorrow hand in hand forever. While the theory of a future perfect life has not been established scientifically, a very plausi- ble concatenation of facts and observed tenden- cies may be brought in support of it. The obvious stability of the universe in its vastness, the perfection of movement and counterpoise of countless multitudes of celestial orbs, the per- fection of order and design in the multiplicity of operations of the physical laws of our own globe, all sublimely proclaim in a Supreme Ruler the power of fulfilling the promise and expectation of a perfect life, and of maintaining in it all that may be found in harmony with it. A failure to provide a perfect state of exist- ence for as many as may be prepared for it, would not accord with the observed tendencies to harmony in natural laws. Would it not be a violation of them, a jarring discord ? Is there not then a reliable basis for an assurance of a perfect future life ? If those having that assur- ance are to attain the fruition of it, only a Supreme Ruler can maintain them in it. It fol- Perfect Rule Only by Infinite Power. 321 lows, logically, that He has the* preparation of them for it. He has, and must have them con- stantly under His care and discipline. % Else they would not be properly disciplined, and could not be taken into a perfect life. Only a Supreme Governor can administer perfect discipline. This declaration of the existence, power, and prerogatives of a Supreme Ruler may be met with indifference and neglect, but not with dis- proof. It is as evident to our consciousness as it would be if it were scientifically demonstrat- able. There is constantly before us, in our ex- perience, proof of the incapacity of finite intel- ligence for any reliable degree of order and con- trol that could give assurance of perfect gov- ernment. The evidence forced upon us in our experience is equally positive to our conscious- ness that only by infinite power can such gov- ernment be established and maintained, either in this life, or in a future existence. It follows that if there is no power exercising dominion and discipline in our present state of existence, there neither will be, nor can be perfect gov- ernment, nor perfect life in a later existence. What can be expected then in the future state, 21 822 Intelligenees, Interests and Destinies. in that case, but unpreparedness and confusion, absence of friendly guidance and provident at- tentions each compelled to seek his own welfare in such company as may be found ( Thus, from the consideration of a perfect life in a future state of existence we progress, step by step, to the conclusion that the Supreme Ruler has the {population of the world under discipline, and . all that pertains to the welfare of the people under His control. The discipline requisite for the preparation of persons for a perfect life cannot be measured by examples of human experience in government. Effective discipline requires not only that candi- dates shall voluntarily be under the control of a Supreme Ruler in all the ordinary transac- tions of life, but that He shall be cognizant of ' o their every action, word, thought, desire, and affection even every secret motive and propen- sity ; else the seeds of vice may be taking root that will eventually work the ruin of a charac- ter, unfitting it for the associations of a perfect life. The temptations to which human beings are constantly exposed in their weakness and forget- ^472 Infinite Ruler Must Control 323 fulness renders a continually active discipline necessary, and in some cases, severe chastise- ments also. Not only must all life-seekers receive so careful attention personally, but so must also their environments, in order that events may be controlled whereby successes and failures may be encompassed, and joys and sorrows promoted. Then also entire populations must be invited, and warned, with careful observation of the in- clinations of each individual, that none may suffer from neglect or oversight, for everywhere people will, be seeking the benefit of the dis- cipline. It will also readily be seen that to accom- plish so much, the Ruler must have exclusive control of sunshine and rain, winds and storms, seed time and harvest, life and death. If no limit to His control can be found, it must in- clude control over all matter from the begin- ning. Who will define a limit? If none can be found, we seem to have reached a morally scientific demonstration that the future perfect life will be under a Supreme Ruler who controls all things connected with the present and future of this world. Conversely, if there 324 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. is no supreme ruler of this world and all within it, there can be no future perfect life, only a confused mixture of good and evil, well nigh anarchy ; or else, annihilation. The discussion of neither alternative is desirable here for writer, or reader. But the glimpse we get of a perfect life, under a Ruler who can bestow it, and maintain it forever after, is worthy of our best attention. Is the discipline distasteful and uninviting ? It works a change by which it becomes attrac- tive. Said one: ''I cannot afford to be careless of my destiny, for I must live with myself forever ; and I must see that my self is well prepared for that destiny." Every one is amenable for neglect of self, or indifference to self's destiny, and, by natural law the penalty for neglect follows. Choice of destiny, acceptance of discipline, and interest in the perfect life are philosophically in close connection. Necessarily involved in it is a be- lief in a probationary state here, and also in the universal control of a Supreme Ruler. Matter as a basis, with force, motion, and natural law, as His agents, all work His will Forms and L&\\s Under Supreme Control. 325 while He inscrutably directs them in the pre- paratory discipline which is to culminate in the joys of the perfect life. The assumption that for that purpose, matter and spirit, with their laws, must be under one supreme control is so evident as to require no argument. It is also equally evident that the control of inhabited worlds is inseparable from the control of matter in the formation of worlds. J This will appear more logical when the great fact is duly considered that all the mighty prep- aration of worlds, and of organic life upon them is preparatory to a future state of existence on a higher plane. If it is true that the universe is upheld and all the worlds controlled by a supreme power, does science well to ignore the fact? Is it not the province of science to record and announce the truth, whatever it may be ? or at least to recognize it when it is demon- strable to the consciousness of men, though possibly not to scientific scrutiny ? Where science leaves a vacancy, error, insidiously and persist- ently injected, is allowed to usurp the place of truth. Cannot science recognize the impossibility of 326 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. matter, in the form of worlds, sustaining itself in suspension in space throughout the universe, amid all the complications of motions, powers of attraction, and conflicting disturbances, through millions of centuries ? A question concerning the control of matter has given occasion for a great conflict in opin- ion. Can dead matter take upon itself life "{ Will not science unhesitatingly reply it is impos- sible ? Make the question less abrupt, thus : is there not in matter the promise and potency of all terrestrial life? The ampler verbiage does not bridge the chasm. The same answer is appropriate. Yet there seems to be in the form of the question an implication that a less abrupt reply might be expected. Hear another scientist beg the question. With the display of a vast store of information, most skillfully applied, he insinu- ates that a chemico-electric operation which would produce the nucleated vesicle is all that is wanting to effectually bridge over the space between the inorganic and the organic. Two or three renowned scientists join in the investi- gation with apparent approval, and numerous eager novelty seekers follow. In eager anticipa- Presumptuous Hypothesis Discussed. 327 tion, the point seems almost gained, but the mystery remains as great as ever almost equal to that of life itself. Still the credulous follow- ers of the delusion cling to it, trusting that some fortunate chemist will yet make the dis- covery that will bridge the chasm. The changes are . apparently so slight between varieties, and even between species, that evolution seems tracea- ble in very many instances. But to examine it briefly, si^pose an order to have been given, when the earth was ready for occupation, somewhat after the method now in use for large structures, with specifications, thus : There shall be supplied, as the fitness of the earth develops for the successive grades, thirty thousand species, and two hundred thou- sand varieties of infusoria and insects. There shall be formed twenty thousand species, and one hundred and fifty thousand varieties of higher orders of animals. Last of all, man, of a still higher order will be formed. Unavoid- . ably, in filling the order for so many species and varieties, there must be strong resemblances in the successive grades, so much so that with little effort they could be imagined to have 328 Intelligences, Interests mid Destinies. developed from one variety or species to another by evolution and natural selection. To suppose such evolution to be effected under intelligent guidance would not be deemed reckless. But to belittle and ignore supreme design and wisdom by assuming that matter alone is suffi- cient for this work, having the "potency of all terrestrial life,' 1 has, to say the least, little appearance of reverence, with no apparent appre- ciation of the infinite skill required for the infinitesimal changes, and delicate adaptations necessary for carrying out the design of infinite wisdom in world development and occupation. A man, or other animal, is seen to have not only the form, size, and proportions of his progenitor; but complexion, .mental powers, and even moral propensities are also transmitted through the embryo, which has been said to "resemble a mere speck of albumen, only a little grained," by men who would venture an "opinion that albumen might be endowed with a similar principle of. life, and their followers arc hoping to see it accomplished. A transmission of an entire natural character through an embryonic form is evidence of an The Worst Enemy of Self. 329 organization in that minute compass, too deli- cate, and too perfect to admit of even a sup- position that it could be accomplished by the potency of matter ; more especially as a moral nature is included in the transmission through the embryonic organization. It is inconceivable that any power less than infinite can perform such .wonders. What will not men do and believe to avoid a wholesome discipline? to beguile themselves of si serious consideration of their destiny? If there are spiritual enemies, is not that the worst one of all that neglects the proper dis- cipline of that self with which he must live forever ? Lives there a person, not quite depraved, who would prefer not to have an order preserving Supreme Ruler in a future state of existence ? or who would choose to have his lot cast among such beings forever as this world's population of all classes ; without government, or only such as might* be provided among those irre- sponsible beings ? If any prefer such a destiny, doubtless they will be indulged, outside of the realms of per- 330 Intelligences, Interests tmd Destinies. feet life, with those that make the same choice. The one thing of which human beings can be consciously certain is that whatever may befall their intellectual organizations and spiritual na- . tares, their mortal bodies will remain for a time on the earth. Their powers of mind and conscience will probably be in full activity, more - acute than in this life, therefore they should have full privilege and attention while here. The powers of reflection will not be ob- scured by any cum bran ce of mortal body, and will therefore be very keen. Most wisely may they be disciplined in this life to habits best for their destiny. Were the number of suns and their attendant planets limited, it might be found expedient to adapt intellectual beings, not only to the planets most desirable for their occupancy, but also to- others, even to some that are just suitable for a "stone age" civilization. But there seems to be an unlimited number of star suns, doubtless every one encircled by planets.. We can but wonder that so many should be required, even if only one in each system should be chosen for enlightened use. We may find a satisfactory One Best Plfinel in a System. 331 reason why there should be but one planet in- habited in each solar system. As there may be but one best planet in a system, an infinitely beneficent Creator will place His creatures pos- sibly on that one only. Rather than place any on a second best world, He easily provides another system, with another best world for them. The apparent innumerable supply of best worlds seems to afford ample opportunity for the dis- play of such beneficence. Is it not just that He, providing only the best, should require the best, and accept nothing less, in return ? If the society He provides in His perfect home is formed on that rule, providing: only the best, He can accept only the best material for the formation of the society. We must not pass too hastily over the crea- tion of the intellectual and spiritual world. It is the crowning achievement of creative skill and wisdom. It is the matured product for which all that precedes it in the material world is preparatory. The wonderful displays of creative skill and power in the construction and upholding of worlds, and of organic and inorganic existences .332 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. upon them may be taken as partial effects and achievements of the same infinite power and wisdom in the creation and endowment of in- telligent beings, and the crowning triumph in all those temporal worlds. To the intellectual beings was given dominion over the ' material things ( f the worlds, and also the option of the higher life that will be perpetuated and glorified when all matters of physical sense shall have fulfilled their destiny, "dust to dust." Innumerable as are habitable worlds, not less than one represented by every star sun from the beginning, doubtless at least a few persons preserved from every one of those worlds ; we wonder what an immensity heaven must be, to afford room for so many beings. It would really appear that but a few can be admitted from fruit of having made the better choice must be without limit. It will include in the home gathering of kindred spirits, not only those having highly cultivated minds of all generations from our own earth, bxit also the same class of minds, the refined, highly gifted, and congenial spirits from all peopled worlds, past, present, and future, all dwelling in harmony together, and with their indulgent Father, in one continual "feast of mind, and flow of soul," not as friends meet here, to part again, but in one continual fellowship, forever. Having in mind the creation and destinies of o intelligent beings, we must also retain a busi- ness view of the situation, as it vitally affects the eternal interests of not only the religiously trained and heavenward inclined pilgrims, but also a long line of devoted students of nature's D works, whose controlling inspiration so impels them continually to self sacrifice in their eager investigation of every natural phenomenon, that they forget that they are themselves the crown- 22 338 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. ing achievements and wonders of creation, com- pared with which all others are of minor importance. Could a description comprising their present and future existence, of those spirit wonders, those creations of a higher plane, " be presented in all their fullness, doubtless it would be a more surprising account of discoveries than any yet attempted in this treatise ; not of past events phenomena relating to inorganic matter ; but of living beings of the highest order, adapted to the fullest conscious enjoyment of perfect life, entering into and training for an eternal association with kindred spirits of all ages and from all worlds. But extraordinary gifts may not be enjoyed without great responsibility. It is expected and required of the recipients of the gifts, that in acknowledgement of, and return for them, they shall strive to conform them- selves to whatever discipline, culture, and refine- ment are essential to qualify them for associa- tion with perfect beings. Under natural law, such a course is as essential to the completion of the plan of creation -as that the surface Some False Impressions. 339 of the globe, after being formed, should undergo a process of transmutation in preparation for the abode of man. > Were the taking of measures, or the apprais- ing of values to be attempted of the importance of making a wise choice in the issues that con- trol our destinies, no figures could be found to declare the infinite result ; but ample intelli- gence is bestowed for the purpose, with respon- sibility for the exercise of it, and with warnings that leave no excuse for' failure to accept the benefits offered. Is it not due to the great Creator, as well as the privilege of the creature, while enjoying the study of His works to keep ever in mind His beneficent object and purpose in creating worlds ? Our business view discloses some false impres- sions under which more than a few intelligent minds have labored. The means used to induce people to accept the offer of eternal life are, in some cases, so solemnly and continually religious that many persons are unhappily mis- led by the impression that the future life is to be made up of a similar increasing course of 340 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies.] solemnities, a constant service, or series of ser- vices, and religious devotion. Unfortunately for some temperaments, that process of persuasion creates a dislike to the calling, so that niislod souls complain of having had a surfeit of it. How much more highly favored are those before whom are placed the attractive hope of an enlightened acquaintance with all worlds, and a delightful intercourse with their inhabitants. The perfect life will be in the highest degree enjoyable to every one, that attains to it. In- dividual preferences and tastes will be retained, and every facility and opportunity given for uninterrupted enjoyment of them. Philosophers will iind that boundless ocean of wonders for which they longed while gathering ' < here and there a pebble ' ' on earthly shores, and with others of kindred tastes from all worlds will have not only that ocean of won- ders spread out before them according to their desires, but also the marvelous phenomena and entrancing traditions of millions of other worlds with which to satisfy their thirst for knowledge, and their zest for historical phenomena. Astronomers will have special opportunities, Enjoyments in the Perfect Life. 341 and every facility ottered for gaining exact infor- mation in relation to all phenomena in which- they are interested. Their Supreme Ruler will not fail to gratify them with resplendent dis- plays of His glorious infinity of works, but will strengthen their understanding of them, and show them many great and mighty things which they know not. The enthusiast will find frequent opportunities for indulging in ecstasies of happiness. The contemplative soul will be rapturously absorbed in soulful occupation of mind, and social work- ers will be regaled with constant entertainment by delightfully genial company. There is still another attraction far transcend- ing all that have been mentioned. Those are of limited extent, and continued interest in them will consist largely in the continued succession and variety of them. But the greatest of all attractions, the unfathomable, and inexhaustible, is the great Creator and Upholder of the uni- verse. The infinity of His power and wisdom must forever continue to excite the wonder of His creatures, as evidence of it will be contin- ually brought to view in the apparently infinite 342 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. succession of worlds, and the variety of natural wonders in them. But that attribute which will be more than all else attractive will be seen in the constant manifestations of His incompre- hensible love as its warmth continually enlivens his rapturous adorers who will constantly delight to extol . "Him first, Him last, Him midst, and with- out end." They will be in rapturous enjoyment of all His infinite attributes of His divine eloquence which is the breath of majesty, sublimity, and love. His dwelling with them will be, not as one in unapproachable majesty on a distant throne, surrounded by a few favorites, but every- where present in their midst, easy of access, affable and warmly .sympathetic, a divinely per- fect model of friendship an unequalled model of sociability. As He has knowledge of every thought of every person in this life, each one, as if the only person existent, may, if it is desirable, have frequent intercourse with Him. Not seldom will a genial reply come laden with unexpected treasure from the gracious effusions of an in- School of Preparation. 843 Unite mind, speaking "as never men spake," not as among men- sallies of fleeting wit, ebulli- tions that come and go like sparkling sunbeams on the rippling wavelets of a babbling brook ; but of entrancing emotions that permanently fill a soul with unutterable joy, peace, and happi- ness. The enjoyment of frequent intercourse with Him is the more complete, in that, while having infinite powers of entertainment, He also, at His pleasure, graciously gives with His words the -power of understanding them. But if one would enjoy that sociability in the Perfect Life, it should be begun, be cherished, be loved, and be sought in the school of prep- aration that this probationary term of existence affords. As in the physical, so in the spiritual world, things and persons gravitate to their destinies to realms for which they are fitted, not inde- pendent of a righteous judgment, but in perfect harmony with it. These adorable qualities, to a greater degree than can be expressed, are to be inferred from the perfection of His attributes. They will be graciously applied to such intercourse with His 344 Intelligences, Interests and Destinies. people as is manifested by Him in His interest in their welfare. In that happy state of life, doubtless, at wel- come intervals there will be spontaneous out- bursts of jubilant praise so sublimely rendered that every one can truly say "it is good for us to be here. ' ' Remembering the benefits that happily accrued to mankind from the breaking up of the earth's rocky crust, thereby procuring its fer- tility, and the use of its valuable metals, we shall find the rending of the stony heart as essential for the development of its best quali- ties, for the refinement of its gold, and for rendering it accessible to the renovating influ- ences ' that shall qualify it for an endless en- joyment of the perfect life. , Happily for the human race, the destiny of the rocky crust of the earth was unalterably decreed. The stony heart has a choice of its course, it can choose to -be renewed, or, to continue in a sterile condition. The sterility of the unrenewed condition can produce nothing ennobling. Renewal, with refinement that comes of acceptance of the free offer, elevates from Fruits of Acceptance and Renewal. 345 the sea of debasing habits and influences, pre- senting favorable conditions for life -bear ing- fruits. Doubtless enough will choose the perfect life to represent every attractive grace, every engaging manner, and every delightful accom- plishment. Remembering the past generations of worlds, wherein we know not what most excites our wonder, the infinite generations and eras from the mysterious beginning, or the inconceivable numbers of peopled worlds in them, or the immeasurable distances between worlds, between systems, between mighty galaxies, from limit to limit of the universe ; we may even now join with living souls from all worlds, and with angels round about the throne, saying " Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our GOD forever and ever." THE END. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVfiNJiH,! DAY OVERDUE. *" LD 21-50m-8,'32 7