Cheyenne transporter. [volume] (Darlington, Indian Terr.) 1879-1886, 1883-12-13
, York Home Journal.

| Il wv from The sun, the great source of
heat, is approximately measurable.
The portion radiated upon our globe is
enormous, but that is only u minute
fraction less, indeed, than the two
thousand-m millionth part OF the total
torrent which pours from the sun. Sir
John Herschel gave an elegant illus
tration of the splendid extravaean ance
of the suns daily expenditure. Sup
pose, he said, that q cylindrical glacier
of ice, forty-five miIos in diameter,
were to be necessarily darted into the
sun with the velocity of light, about
one hundred and eighty thou sand miles
in second, the entire body of this ice
would be continuously liquified by the
daily radiation of heat.
We know that this enormous expen.
diture of heat cannot be carried on
without affecting the bulk o. The suns
mass. Every wave of heat means so
much shrilkage of the fiery atmos-
phere. This reduction is but very
small compared with the size of the
sun. At the present moment the sun
has q diameter of eight hundred and
sixty thousand miles. Each year this
diameter decreases by about two hun
dred and twenty feet; this decrease is
always taking place, the process is
never reversed, 1t is not periodic like
SO many other phenomena of nature, in
time the result must become of over
whelming Importance. The suns
career as a source of light and heat is
ultimately doomed to extinction. 1t
has been calculated that the sun cannot
| a dior 20 ,toi 70
the earth for period of ten million
years more.
One hundred years ago the diameter
of the sun was four miles greater than
it is at present. One thousand years
ago the diameter of the sun was forty
miles greater than it is at present.
Ten thousand years ago the diameter
of the sun was four hundred miles
greater than it is now. Tie advent of
man upon the earth took place no
doubt a long time ago, but in the histo-
ry of the earth the advent of man is a
comparatively recent phenomenon.
Yet it seems certain that when man
first trod our planet, the diameter of
the sun must have been many hundreds,
perhaps many thousands, of miles
greater than it is at present. We must
not, however, over estimate the signiti-
cameo of this statement. The diameter
of the sun is at present eight hundred
and sixty thousand miles, so that q
diminution of ten thousand miles
would be little more than the hundredth
part of its diameter. If the diameter
of the sun were to shrink tomorrow to
the extent of ten thousand miles, the
change would not be appreaciable to
common observation, though even a
much smaller change would not elude
delicate astronomical measurement.
The world on which the primitive man
trod was certainly Illuminated by q
larger sun than that which now shines
upon US. And so larger as we go DacK
through the long ages of the geologists,
and back again still further to the
earliest epochs, when life first began to
dawn on the earth. There was time
when the sun must have been twice as
large as it is at present; it must once
have been three times as large; it must
once have been ten times as large.
And, looking back earlier still, there
was time when the sun was once
swollen TO such an extent that the
mighty orbit of Neptune itself would
be merely a girdle around the stupen-
dous globe. At that time the sun must
have been gaseous mass of almost
inconceivable tenuity. We are not tC
suppose that the earth and the other
planets were solid bodies deeply buried
in the vast bulk of the sun. 1t seems
evident that the planets were gaseous
masses in those ancient days and
undistinguishable from the sun, which
gave them birth.