The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1880-01-15
PROF EssOR PRoCTOR's LAST LEc-
TURE.
The Life and Death Of World PORTRAYED to
the Teachers of this City.

the heAcneEb OR Lhlb Oiys
Professor Richard A. Proctor made
what was announced as--his final sp'
pesrance in this city yesterday after
noon at Steinway Hall in lecture be-
fore the "TeaChers' Association" Mr..
Jacob t. Boyle presided. There were
no reserved seats and the hall was well
filed. His subject was "The Life and
the Death ofa World" He began by
giving skeleton outline Of LaplaCe's
theory, according to which planetary
bodies are formed by a consolidation OF
a gaseous self luminous mass floating in
space. This vaporous mist, or gaseous
mass, was set in a circular motion by
some power of force, and would at first
throw off ring upon the outside rim,
and this ring would break in fragments,
and finally the fragments would unite
and form a world. This world 30 formed
would be at first soft and plastic, and
only after millions and millions OF
wears would it sufficiently cool and con,
dense 30 as to become hard and solid
and fit for animal life. After the fret
ring had been thrown of from this neb-
ulo1s mass another ring would form,
and likewise become world, and then
another and another in succession, until
finally the central mass would form the
sun. about which all the worlds OF his
system would revolve. This circular
movement gave direction to the whole
system of planets thus formed, so that In
our own solar system the planets all re-
volye around the sun in the same dlrec'
ton and on the same plane, and this 10
the case in all systems in space. =.
An actual photograph Of nebul@ dis
covered by Lord Rosse in his six fort re-
Aector was put upon the screen, wherein
was shown this circular whirling IN
snace of a large mass of nebuI@ in a spi-
raj form, which had the general appear.
ance of a whirlpool. From the birth OF
a planet, as thus indicated, it proceeds
by very slow processes to grow more and
more 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 mill
lions of years, although with the
Almighty one day is ss thousand years
and a thousand years as one day. The
planet. then, after its birth and growth,
has it's period of decay and death, as our
moon is now dead world. The falling
stars that we see are but fragments OF
this,nebula. They generally follow in the
trail of comets, the bits or fragments Of
the great mass broken off and sent
whiriing into space,and when they come
within the vicinity of our earth they are
drawn down through our atmosphere.
And here we have a remarkable illustra-
ton of the sheltering arm Of nature. The
atmosphere which surrounds the earth ls
in reality shield which protects ns
from the danger to animal life that
would occur without the air that sur
rounds the earth. This air has the ef'
feet to turn them into gas as they ap'
proach the earth's surface. Occasionally
and at rare intervals, one will descend
of large volume and preserves It's hard
and stony state. One large meteor
bowlder was thus shown now in the
Paris museum. The earth is constantly
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 it's sur
face it showed the wrinkles of old age,
as the skin of a man will shrivel and
shrink at old age. He also placed on the
screen an old mans hand by the side OF
the moon to show the similarity. He
then placed an apple Oh the screen that
had been shriveled up; that cracked on
its surface in the same general direction
as the moon. He closed his lecture
with beautiful poem by Blanco White,
an obscure poet, which he thought
might have been written by the pen Of
a Milton.-N. Y. World, Jan, 6,