Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1878-02-20
Judge Xsaige's Lecture.

Judge raige's Lecture.
AT the NJ. L. Church last evening,
Judge 4. X. Paige, the eminent Scientist
and Naturalist, delivered his first lecture
upon the 'Crehtion'' to Il full house. The
subject Of the lecture being upon Science,
one would mutually Conclude ,hatsi. must
necessarily be Il dry and uninteresting
statement of facts and figures, bu, the in
tensely interested audience last night
would render III entirely different verdict.
He is an eloquent and fuent speaker, and
has a wonderful faculty of presenting
scientific facts in an attractive aud inter
esting form.
In opening he said in substance: IF we
discover the Inle that controls one of
the millions OF atom in a drop of water
or prain Of saUd, we know the law that
governs the world, aud planets Of our
solar SYSTEM the couatIess millions Of sun
with their families of worlds, each in its
appo.ntcd sphere ia the universe.
In nature there is il" great, 10 small, no
near, no distant, no time, 40 space
i~hfinity l;mits all.
If We turn a grindstoae with water
upon it, q rule known as the law of cen-
tripctal force attracts the water toward
the center Of the stone and prevents any
from flying off ihto space. II the speed
of revolution is Increased Il new rule is
evolved, known as the law OF centrifugal
force which repels matter from the center
Of revolving bodies. The water is lifted
above the ~peripheral line o. cifcunfgreLce
and is thrown off into space, where 1t
obeys the law again Of centiipetal attrac-
ton, and like the dew drop on the blade
of grass, or Ike the teardrop falling from
the eye, it assumes the globular form
Our snn is believed 10 be composed of
q mass Of boiling, seethicg molten miner
ais, surrounded by a philosopher Of nlneral
substance, over a million times larger than
the earth, whiriiug on its own axes from
west to cast, aud with its vast family Of
woilds, p~Iauets, planetoids aud asteroids,
of eur own system, together with its
countless million, Of worlds, performing
a sidertal revolution around Il great
years.
As | said before, heat expands ali
matter, even to yapory atoms,
The sun WAS once much hotter than at
present. Tine was, when It's now boil ny
mineral core was expanded into nebulouS
vapor, and its present diameter S20,000
niles was snuicu to six biilioas Of miles
Neptune, the fist bora Of our fan ~,
sweeping arrund the sua in a radius OF
two billions, seven hunired and City
millions OF mites. describes the suns
periplleral circumference at the date Of
its birth. AS the rings Of Saturn now
exist, so WAS Neptune lifted off from oile
whirllng surface of the SUI and thrown
| of, y pebuious mass, the size of its OWN
| moon's oIbit.
The next planet born was Uranus the
next Saturn, then Jupiter and Mars next
our earth, then Venus and Mercury,
the orbit of each planet marking the size
| of the suu at the date of its birth, and
the moons of each planet the offspring of
their own bodies brought into being in
the same manner the parent was born.
Each marked the size Of its parent at the
| time it's birth. When our moon came
into existence our earth was half Il million
miles in diameter.
In the sun, in the earth, in all the solar
system the forces of nature are dying
out.
Heat is motion. The sun the earth,
and all the planets are cooling and shrink,
ing, and have been since the dry of their
birth. When the earth had SO far cooled
and contracted as IT, create In its center a
nucleus of molten matter. then commenced
tHe itiiiiutaOh III tue tiust, by ID iotCt
exhibited in the heat, great quantities OF
melted mineral was being constaatly
thrown to great distance out into the
cold atmosphere, where it. condensed
forming sheets of solid matter that fell
back on the liquid mass only to be agar
melted and riven and scattered by til,
force it sought to %conine.
But nature, with time at her command
in numbered millions of years, conquer.
all. Even giant force with all Its attri-
bntes could not Withstand the ravages o
the great leveler-1'me. Slowly, We
surely, her powers. weakened and waned
till ut last, exhausted with the conflict
yielding to uneasy rest, the grave close,
over her, the crust As formed, the moitel
mass was imprisoned.
Helmboltz. of Germany, experimenting
with cooling rocks, has calculated tina
the time occupied by the earth's crust il
cooling from the melting point of Dolly
rite down to the boiling point of water
was three hundred millions of years.
The Judge goes to Vermillion, iron
here where he will lecture Thursday al,
Friday nights of this week. We cal
say to our Vcrmillion friends that the,
cannot invest their money to bette
, advantage and more profit to themselve
Ayc,, 81 ,A.r,l.naS %;cl ~ n g., xka.c lnat.,.