Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-23
How the Earth WiuPerisb.
New York T1ibune's Report of Prof. Proctor's Ls,
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[New York T1ibunes Report of Prof Proctor's Lee
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 The planet Venus has an atmosphere, and it is said to be at the very least as dense as that of our own earth. Then we learn also that oceans are on her surface, because it has been shown by the spectrum. It appears also that 1t closely resembles our earth in condition, and that it is the one planet fit to be the abode of living creatures like those which exist on the earth. In Mars we begin to recognize the effects of planetary old age These greenish patches we must regard as seas, and we find that they are much smaller in comparison to the rest of the area than in our earth On our own planet 72.OO is covered with water, and on this only about 5OOO The older planet has the smallest water surface, and the idea is suggested that in old age of planet the waters gradually diminish in extent.
 We pass to the moon to answer that ques- ton, and here we certainly find no traces of water. Also, we trace no atmosphere of appre- ciable density, and everything tends to show that she had water on her surface but that it has disappeared. Does this seemingly dead and cold world appear to have passed through the same stages as our own earth ? I think we cannot doubt this when we look at her volcan- ic craetrs. think, too, there must have been there such life as exists on our own planet. There were oceans on her surface, which for merly occupied these spots, which, the waters being withdrawn, present the finely granulat- ed appearance from it's action. This seems to be natural explanation. As the planet be- comes old the oceans become soaked into the planets interior, the crust of the surface as the planet cools being formed into large cavi- ties such as exist in porous substances, and in- to these the water is withdrawn. Dr. Frank lin of England has shown that four times as much water as now finds place on the earth's surface could be found room for in the interi- or of the earth, when the process of cooling hos 1Y1fS aio far k-, the atmosphere, there is certainly no trace on the moon, but we have picture here showing that the volcanic action of the moon was at one time no less than in our own earth. The moon probably represents the future of our earth at distance of time of twenty five mil lions of years. When the old age of the earth will come it will cease as the abode of life.
 Let us pause to consider some of the stars in this regard. Many of them are too old and many too young to sustain lives on their sur faces, but that they were formed for some pur- pose beyond that of being useful to this par ticular planet there is no doubt. A study of the heavens seems to tell us that all life should occupy all space and all time, and not be crowded into one portion of time or one DOT ton of space. I think we may look at the heavens, with the thousands of stars to be seen with the naked eye, and hold this thought. There you have 5000 suns, each a brother of our own sun, though many belong to higher orders, and we may believe that they have thousands of orbs circling around them which are the abodes of life. And if each one has but single word in it's system as the abode of life, we have them thousands of inhabited worlds, similar, perhaps, to our own.
 In the one single polar map here shown there are 324, 900 stars, all to be seen with small telescope, and by one of Herschers tel escapes 10000, 900 stars would have been brought into view in the same section of the Armament. But, after all, there still remains the thought that each planet is tending to- ward death, and, though the periods of time are so vast that they seem like eternity, the dying out of the larger of these suns appears to us like the death of the universe itself. But take such an orb as Sirius, which is thou sand times larger than the sun, and after his death all the smaller orbs will have died; but can we escape the thought that there will still remain others to take their places It seems to me we cannot, if we remember how thor oughly we have been deceived in the past. We thought the earth the centre of the uni verse; then the solar system was everything; then that system became but one in galaxy of stars, and in turn the galaxy of stars is lost in the infnitude of stars.