Litchfield enquirer., 1872-09-19
The Phyoloal Condition of fthe Rtan-
 Sss In Relation to their HabItabsi-

The Physloal Condition of the Plan.
 sss SSS in Relation to their HabltabIl-
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 s a .Speculations regarding theg possibiltiea
 Of planets other than the earth being the theatfes of0fganiSed existence;! hav6 been rife among astronomers almost aimee the
 inception and promulgation of the Copper
 nican views respecting the position of the
 earth m the solar system and it's relations
 thereto. Notably among those who have addressed their speculative views to the
 great mass of readers, are Whewell and
 Sir David Brewster; and now, Proctor,
 armed with the most approved and most
 recent weapons, throws himself into the
 arena of the conflict bringing to bear the
 latest revelations of improved telescopes
 and spectroscopes and their teachings,
 combined and compared with the best at-
 teated deductions of terrestrial physics.
 In the short lapse of time since Whewell
 wrote his charming ss Plurality of Worlds, {"
 and Brewster sent forth his ssMore Worlds
 than one,' in reply to it. thatyoung giant
 of research the espectrescope-has sprung
 into existence, and has made wonderful
 progress, not alone in the analysis of ter
 festiaI objects, but spanning the vast dis
 tances lbetween planet and planet and be-
 tween srn and sun, has pierced the mys-
 terles of their composition and structure
 with snreness and a celerity that places
 ita work among the grandest of modern
 discoveries. The details it has furnished
 and the impetus it has given to astronom-
 ical research, has put the successors of those distinguished writers in possession of facts which give new interest to the
 question: Are the other planets inhabited?
 new interest, because there exist greater
 probabilities of it's solution. ' h@ Es'5',l
 q Hence there was room for Proctor's
 "Other Worlds than 0ufs." His book is
 new discussion of an old subject
 which less than two decades since. we re- garded as sifted to it's utmost by the two eminent philosophers above named. It is a discussion with the favorable surround
 ings of the grand discoveries which the last score of years has witnessed. "Never." says Proctor himself, "sinee man first ex- plored the celestial depths, has series of more startling discoveries rewarded. the labors of astronomers and physicists than during the past few years. Unhoped-fo revelations have brought the distant orbs of Heaven into close relationship with our own earth, or with the central luminary, of the planetary scheme. And a lesson has been taught us which bears even more significantly on our views respecting the, existence of other worlds: we have learned to recognize within the solar sys- tenn, and within the wendf0us galaxy of which our sun is aconstituent orb. a va riety of structure and complexity of de- tail. of which but few years ago astron- olners had formed but the most inadeauate iloq ,ba9ds io.)ls syad Lna
 Would it be iust OF logical to infer from the single fact of the earth being the dwelling place of beings of various de. grees of organisation that those other planets which wheel around the sun were likewise inhabited? Snch fact can be of little significance in such direction: but the modes of distfibution Of life over the earth's surface is of importance in e dis cussion of our subject, From the frozen wastes of the polar regions to the intensest heat of the equatorial regions; in the snow of hypoboreai regions, and in the waters issuing from their melting iceberes. in the boiling springs of California and in the Geysers of Iceland; deep down in the: ocean where mans plummet has but late y reached, life in many forms fiourishes. : Amid intense cold and great heat vitality everywhere holds it's sway. The number forms of life are wide spread and abund- ant -so the microscope tells us and the loftier and more perfect forms, as we are won't to call them,g have wonderful adapt ability to marked changes of circumstan- Des. But even this prodigality Of life in our terrestrial space, and its no less lavish ness in time of which the Reologist tells us, are warrants that similar or allied forms are peopling our associated globes, The question is not whether such forms of which we are oognizant could be adapt- ed to circumstances SO widely differing from those of the earth. as ara those ob, taining in most of the other planets. but rather, what are the possibilities of fife in high or low, of species distinct from any upon our earth existing with in which any Ruise of ~ter-, restrial vitality would instantly perish. And the interest of such 6 question centres not so much on those planets closely re- lated to the earth, as, on those widely diff, fering, since we must divest ourselves of the view that in the discussion of the mat ter we deal not with kinds of life famil-, liar to .us, but rather with the possihili- ties of life in the abstract. Admittedly. Au earthly forms of existence would cease on most of the other planets; but what are the conditions of such in favor of.s or against life at all? q The spectroscopic researches on the composition of the sun have established the existence, in the solar ,atmospherea and in the photographers, of fourteen of. the nxty-four clements composing the earth and the forms peopling it. It is sig nifcant fact that the lines qeorresponding to our terrestially widely diffused and ali- important oxygen and nitrogen are want ing in the solar spectrum. Yet we must, m the formation of an opinion respecting the absence of these and other abundant clements, as carbon and silicon. remem- Der that there arc various circ1mstat1aces which might cause an element existin0 in the sun to afford no trases of its presence here: in utheR words. that the presence of certain lines in the solar spectrum prove the existence of correspohd- ing 4er1estxial clements inefhe. sun: the others, not yet detected may exist under conditions of pressure, temperature. etc. to produce not we'll -deined absorption lines. but <'only broad, faint lines, : which no optical means we possess can 5randef' sensible ah such. Hence, in. this way and under other conditions of existence5 < we may really overlook or obtain no svi- deuce of elemental forms of matter which undoubtedly do exist. either in fhs at mosphere or the sun. ,..a ,,ss xo,..,.
 Not very many years since the nebular was almost discarded as too fanciful for general and current reception. Nov the spectroseops and telescope5 have lifted t from the domain fof hypothesis into that of moro than theory. If the whole solar system, il1Cludin9 its central ruler-4th6 siln<-sis the prodnct of slae srs- migration sapd the eonsractioa Of the once widespread nebulous matter, it is inst to expect the saldS elements to be everywhete present. Ill go far asE speetfoscopiSGre- searches hsFe extended, theirxesnlts point towards the establishme9t of this, and therefore strikingly coniirm what was onee eimply an ahypothesis of the French as-