Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-09-22

singing of the first line:
.,Thus far the Lord hath led me oo.''
-Hwper's Weekly.
The Extinction OF Worlds.
THE progress of science enables us to
trace, with probability almost amount
ing to certainty, the career of q star from
its birth from the most diffused condition
of its parent nebula; through the stage of
primary agglomeration when it shines as
our sun; through the process of cooling
into dim and cloudy spheroid, such as
Jupiter or our earth until cold rules su-
preme, and the once glowing orb rolls
on, barren as our moon.
But when we have reached this stage
we have by no means done with the star.
1t must continue on its course, and,
though in obscurity, it must retain its
momentum and its attractive force. Our
sun will thus one day travel in darkness,
attended by cohort of funeral planets,
and perpetual night win reign over the
solar system This result appears to be
but question of time, and we are, there
fore, led to the consideration that many
systems must, I'M all probability, be already
extinct, and wandering unnoticed. But
as extinction is q gradual process, there
will be multitudes of stars in various
stages of dimness, and the brilliancy Of
any orb, its magnitude" in fact, will
therefore depend on its age, quite as much
as on Its size or distance. On this view,
Sir w. Herscheps method of "star gaug-
ing" cannot be relied on for correct de-
termination Of the actual shape of the
CHESTER called the "Miiky- Way" as, in
stead of taking the average of brightness
only as an indication of the average Of
distance, we have to superadd the average
of age. Now, the smaller the star the
more quickly will its light die out, and,
therefore, the necessary extent OF our
galaxy is immensely reduced; in other
words, IL appears that while the space
separating us from the nearer stars, for
which parallax has been obtained,
puted distances of those hitherto con-
sidered to be farthest of will be much
lessened, az there appears to be no reason
for concluding that telescope stars are
necessarily more distant than bright ones
for which we cannot obtain parallax, but
simply that they are older, or smaller, or
both, and therefore DINNER.
1t will be readily allowed that, if the
light of the stars be fading away, vast
number may have already become extinct,
and that it is indeed possible that the orbs
now visible may be but small surviving
remnant of far greater multitudes which
once illumined the heavens. If our clus-
ter then be much reduced in extent, and
its constituents be largely increased in
number, it would follow that the chances
against collision would be much reduced.
Let US suppose that collisions are possible,
and that their frequency is merely ques-
ton of chances. What would be the
consequences of such an event? It is
possible that they would depend chiefly
on the relative mOmenta of the colliding
bodies; that if one were much larger
than the other, and the velocities high,
the temperature would be raised suf6-
GENTLY to dissipate the smaller into gas,
while merely heating or, possibly, iquefy-
ing the larger. If the bodies were nearly
of size, and their momenta were great,
possibly both would be reduced to gas
eous condition ; in either case their ten
dency would be to form ultimately body
equal in weight to the sum of its two con-
stituents. Either the larger body would
annex the smaller, or, if both became
nebulous, the fervid gases would radiate
their heat and contract anew into sys-
tenn possibly containing sun and plan
cts.
Again, supposing that two bodies ap-
proach each other in such manner as to
avoid collision, that is, so that their mu-
tual gravity causes them to leave their
paths and revolve round each other, we
should have the explanation of the exist
ence of double, treble, multiple stars we
should also understand how it happens
that some stars (Sirius, for instance) are
accompanied by non luminous orbs. Also,
1t would seem that if extinct stars are
really far more numerous than Is general
ly supposed, the theory which regards the
revolution Of attendant dark bodies as
one cause of the variability OF certain
stars receives fresh support.
Thus, in the course of time, nebulH
would form suns, suns would grow cold,
or, while yet glowing, would come into
contact with other suns, till gradually
space would be peopled with suns, larger
and larger, but less and less thickly
strewn. Pursuing the idea, we arrive at
a period when all the stars of each galaxy
snail become agglomerated into one
mighty globe-nay, when all these vast
galactic suns shall come together and
form one solitary orb, in which all the
matter once scattered through space shall
be collected, accomplishing its successive
fates as q sun without q system-a world
without sun-a cold and naked ball
Hzrpsr's Weekly. .ft @