The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1881-06-29
COMETS AND THE SUMS ENERGY.

.
The Director Of the Naval Observatory at
Washington, ina recent interview, remarked
that 'the sun was constantly contracting
and eventually we might be frozen out. The
suns energy is probably kept up by the con-
slant violent impact of erratic heavenly
bodies upon its surface, and as long as this
absorption by the sun continues we need not
have any fear Of the return of the glacial
period. If these strange visitors were to en-
tirely desert our system the sun would
eventually lose its energy and the earth
would be frozen solid to the core. So you
see comets may seem to be an evil to the
earth, but they are a necessity to the sun,
and what benefit the sun benefits our globe.
You can understand, then, why 1 am so lit
tie disturbed by the appearance of the
heavenly strangers. If q great comet like
the one which has just arrived should enter
our atmosphere and penetrate TO the earth
we might all be consumed by the great heat
or suffocated by gas" 1t is posi-
bic that the Director of the Naval
Observatory has solved the great problem
with regard to the suns heat, but the world
is not quite ready to accept the theory that
the heat of the sun is maintained by the
consumption of comets. 1t is held by some
sun their special study, that its heat sis due,
not to combustion as in our ordinary fires,
but to the vivid incandescence of each
particle brought about by the original col
traction of the vaporous globe, or by causes
even more remote, or unknown" The sun
is of such vast extent that astronomers are
not able to master the phenomena which it
creates. The sun has q diameter of $4,000
miles and a circumference off, 764, 600 miles,
and its surface contains 2,432, 500, O0o, 900
square miles, and If it be a furnace which
has TO be supplied with comets for fuel, the
consumption must be large, and our limited
knowledge of comets, the material of which
they are made, ETC., is so vague that it is not
best to indulge in guess work and palm it
off for the conclusions of scientific research.
An effort has been made to associate famine
with the appearance of dark spots upon the
pose nave been conducted through a series of
years in various parts of the earth, but, after
all. conclusions are unsatisfactory, and the
whole matter rests Just about where it was
when the investigations began. There is no
satisfactory evidence that the suns energy
has abated in the least degree. The sun
being something less than 100000 900 miles
distant from the earth, and being 1,350,OOO
times larger than the earth, it is a little too
large and vastly too far away to handle con-
veniently. tits, therefore, better not to indulge
in guess-work with regard to the duration
of the present order of things; but to go for
ward, plant and SOW and reap, build rail
roads and factories, explore the bowels of
the earth, dig out the gold and silver and
iron. extend the outposts of commerce, kill
or convert savages, and do such other things
as increase the sum total of human happi-
ness. The sun, moon and stars will cum
tinue to obey the avs of their creator, and
if it has been discovered that comets are sun
fuel there can be no objection to the arrange
ment, since it has never been found out that
they can be put to a better use, or placed
where they can do more good.