The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-07-04
The Fate OF the Earth.

1t sconsoling, while we perspire as patiently
as we may beneath the torrid rays OF July
sun, to be told by the astronomers that it is
no unusual circumstance, nowadays, for
worlds, quite as large and, as far as we can
learn, quite as solid and respectable as our
own, to take fire and burn up. By the use
of that wonderful instrument, the spectre
scope, these phenomena can be watched
during their progress BY scientific men, and
the results recorded with absolute accuracy.
A star in the Northern Crown was seen, in
May, 1866, to blaze forth with sudden lustre,
and subsequently to be plunged in compare
tive darkness. Mr.. Higgins examined the
spectrum of the star, and was able to decide
that hydrogen was present in state OF COM
bustion. The star, it seemed quite certain,
had become surrounded with flames, and in
the course OF twelve days it declined from
the second to the eighth magnitude. Other
stars have been observed to pass through
the same terrible changes Every new and
careful discovery which is made by means OF
spectrum analysis tends to utterly disperse
the popular idea that the sun is 'hxed
''srar" of unvarying brilliancy. 1t is quite
evident that it must vary to prodigious ex-
tent. Every one Of the great disturbances
which have taken place in previous years, has
left its traces upon the earth. listen and
half years ago-ths ordinary cycle OF the sun.
spot periods since Mr. Hodgson, at Oxford,
and Mr.. Darlington, at London, happened
to be looking at the same moment at a clus-
ter OF suu-spots. In moment two intense
ly bright patches Of light covered the spots,
80 that the astronomers thought the colored
glasses of their telescopes had been broken.
Al this same instant, as was afterward found,
great magnetic and electric storm occur
red all over the world. The most intimate
relation evidently exists between these solar
commissions and the condition of our world
'.Directly," wrote MIR. Proctor last year.
zone Of these changes takes place, upward
i'of ninety millions Of miles away, the cleo
''tric condition of our planet is changed in
t.some mysterious way, Of which our instru-
isments and even the condition Of our sky,
.'bear record" These great changes take
place in the course of every eleven years,
and in 1859 it was foretold that the next
vast disturbance of the sun would occur in
1870. The New York Times, in specializing
upon the meaning of these portentous events,
declares that there is no longer now for any
rational man to doubt that forces are in eS-
istence all around US which are able to de-
stroy the world at any moment. Every liv-
ing creature might perish in a vast confla-
grafton, and yet the earth itself remain to
be inhabited at some future-it may be
very distant-time by a different class OF
beings. 1t is believed by astronomers that
several Of the planets are at this moment
the scene of preparations sucn as must once
have gone on upon this earth Of ours, ages
before man inhabitedit. Geologists can tell
US of numerous signs that once already the
earth must have melted with fervent heat.
And the heat of the last eight days, if it has
any significance at all, might we fancy, ad-
monish the men of science to watch with re-
doubled zeal the behavior OF that flaming
solar mass, which would seem to be, under
Providence, the mighty arbiter of our fate.