Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1880-01-21
PROFESSOR PROCTOR'S LAST
LECTURE.
The Life and Death of a World Portray
ed to the Teachers of this City.
New York World, Jan. 81

New York World, Jan. 81
Professor Richard A.. Proctor made
what was announced as-his final
appearance in this city yesterday
afternoon at Steinway Hall in a lee
ture before the Teachers Associa-
ton" Mr.. Jacob 7. Boyle presided.
There were no reserved seats and the
hall was we'll filed. His subject was
1.-THE Life and the Death of World"
He began by giving a skeleton outline
of Laplaee's theory, according to
which planetary bodies are formed by
a consolidation Of a gaseous self
luminous mass floating in space. This
yaporOus mist, or gaseous mass, was
set in a circular motion by some
power of force, and would at first
throw off a ring upon the outside rim,
and this ring would break in frag-
ments, and finally the fragments would
unite and form a world. This world
so formed would De at first soft and
plastic, and only after millions and
millions of years would it sufi-
%ciently cool and condense so as
to become hard and solid and fit
for animal life. After the first
ring had been thrown off from this
nebulOus mass, another ring would
form, and likewise become a world,
and then another and another in sue.
c%ession, until finally the central mass
would form the sun, about which all
the worlds of his system would re-
yolye. This circular movement gave
directions to the whole system of
planets thus formed, so that in our
own solar system the planets all
revolve around the sun in the same
direction and on the same plane, and
this is the case in all systems in space.
An actual photograph of nebule
discovered by Lord Rose in his six
foot reflector was put upon the screen,
wherein was shown this circular whirl-
ing in space of a large mass of nebuls
IN a spiral form, which had the gene
raj appearance of a whirlpool. From
the birth of a planet, as thus indi-
Gated, it proceeds by very slow pro-
cesses to grow more and dense until it
becomes hard and water is finally
found on the surface of the planet,
then vegetation and animal life follow;
but this takes millions of millions of
years, although with the Almighty one
day is a thousand years and a thou
sand years as one day. The planet.
then, after Its birth and growth.
has its period of decay and death.
as our moor is now a dead world.
The falling stars that we see
are but fragments of this nebu-
lac. They generally follow in the
trail Of comets, the bits of fragments
OF the great mass broken and sent
whirllng into space, and when thew
come within the vicinity of u earth
they are drawn down through our at
m%osphere. And here we have a re-
markable illustration of the sheltering
arm Of nature. The atmosphere which
surrounds the earth is in reality a
shield which protects us from the
danger to animal life that would &C.
cur without the air that surrounds the
earth. This air has the effect to turn
them into gas as they approach the
earth's surface. Occasionally and at
rare intervals, one will descend of
a large volume, and preserves its hard
and stony state. One large meteor
bowlder was thus shown now in the
Paris museum. The earth is con-
stantly receiving accessiOns from these
meteOrs.
The speaker then considered the
death Of worlds, and showed the moon
as a cold, dead world, without water
and without animal life. In fact on
its surface it showed the wrinkles of
age. He also placed on the Greer an
old mans hand by the side of the
moon to show the similarity. He
then placed an apple on the screen
that had been shriveled up: that
cracked on its surface in the anne
general direction as the moon. He
closed his lecture with a beautiful
poem by Blanco White, an obscure
poet, which he thought might have
been written by the pen of a Milton.