The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-02-03


The interesting letter of Professor Proctor.
already published in the HERALD, has doubt
less been read by many, and we venture to
ouer word or two touching his views of solar
science. Referring to what he calls the
HERALD's well written article on his theory of
the solar system, he combats its reasoning
with several strong statements, which will fall
somewhat heavily upon the intelligent Ameri-
can ear. We had merely thrown ont in the ar
ticie to which ne alludes the statement of
few facts well established by modern as
tronomy which bring up questions seemingly
unanswerable. if we accept his hypothesis.
We say hypothesis; for, until this Last inter-
ance of the distinguished popular science lee.
turer, We had not supposed he claimed that
his theory is demonstration. ssThere ara
periods" says Professor Tyndall, "when the
Judgment ought to remain in suspense the
data on which a decision might be based
being absent. I walked down Regent street
some time ago with man of great gifts and
requirements, who said to me. You surely
must have theory of the universe 4 have
not even theory of magnetism was my
reply"
While we confess our inability to see how
Professor Tyndal has consistently followed
his own rule, as here laid down. it is apparent
that Professor Proctor has disclaimed it.
taking our earth, " Professor Proctor writes,
1--WE know that millions of years have passed
since she began to be peopled, and much
longer time since she existed as an intensely
1, NIL OF, cd ha
speaks of his theory as demonstrating the
evolution of the solar system. When pressed
by the physical facts which involve such
hypothesis-for we must still regard
it as such-and asked to explain how the
meteor streams could have formed the solar
system when their tenuousness is SO marked,
he expands his theory little further, and
tells us that the process of meteoric exhaus-
ton had far progressed when the globes were
formed. 1t is difficult to deal with theorizer
when, the moment his theory is challenged,
he supports it by bringing forward another.
Professor Proctor assumes that our orb was
once intensely hot-an old assumption.
which, however popularity received, has never
been proved, nor has it to-day, among the
most profound physicists any decided advo-
cate while it is rejected by many; but when
the bold thinker declares that "We know that
millions of years have passed away since the
earth began to be peopled" we may
be pardoned for demanding something
like evidence. 1t is now but little
over century since the great traveller LIE
Gentil impaired an impulse to the study of
nebulm by his observations Of the constella-
tions of Andromeda and Orion. Toward the
close of the last century Sir William Herschel.
working with his colossal forty foot telescope,
completed in 1887. pushed forward the study,
and he was led to the belief of the nebular
theory of star formation through the con-
densation of cosmical dust Newton had
considered it possible that vapors from
the SUN, the stars and the tails of
comets, might blend with our terrestrial
atmosphere, and after HerscheIs views were
adopted astronomers inclined more or less
to push out boldly, with the assumption that
they were correct Still they all regarded
these views, as the great elaborator had done,
as mere hypothesis, and, to the present hour,
we believe, with the exception of Professor
Proctor, no astronomer has ever dared to call
them demonstrations or to assert ''We know
them to be true"
We all know that since these great investa-
gators ceased their labors the spectroscope has
added its wonderful revelations of the star
worlds, and that it enables us to analyze the
star dust and cometary matter almost as well
as if we had it in the laboratory. II, as
Professor Proctor claims, the solar system,
the earth, of course, included is made up of
this star dust, we should expect that spec
trum analysis would establish an identity
of matter between the earth and the
comets Far from it. Since the spectrum ana
lytic method has been applied the comet of 1864,
1866, 1867, 1868, and Encke's comet of 1871,
have been subjected to this crucial test The
result shows no affinity between the cometary
matter and our earth matter. The great as
tronomers, Higgins, Donati, Volt and
Secchi, observed with the spectroscope to
test this very point. They failed in every in
stance to detect any affinity. Even when Hug
gins and Secchi independently analysed
Brodsen's bright comet the brightest yet tried
with the spectroscope, they tell us that they
found no coincidence with the spectral lines
of any terrestrial substance. This is crush
ing fact for Professor Proctor's view; for If
our globe is an agglomeratlon of cometary
and cosmocal dust, the analysis would un-
questionably prove identity. The chips of
the block ought surely to be Of the same
material as the block itself.
Professor Proctor closes his letter with an
assertion that the Baconian method has never
achieved any noteworthy success. This will
be startling indeed to an age which has
always believed it owed all its great scientific
advances to the inductive method. Macaulay
tells us that while in the last quar-
ter of the seventeenth century Eng
lands lighter literature was national
offa fod n a