Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-09-28
HIGGINS, STORM THEORIES.
He Descants Upon Them Before a Bril-
liant Brooklyn Social Gathering.


liant Brooklyn Social Gathering.
During the evening, says the Brooklyn
Union, Prof. Virgins was the centre of
an interested group of listeners, in which
scientific and literary subjects were dis
cussed at considerable length.
Among the subjects touched upon in
the course of the conversation was the
one in connection with which Prof. Wig
gins has made himself most famous, and
tnnat is his theory as to storms and his
basis of prediction as to their recurrence.
In reply to direct question, the Pro-
fessor said that he had never yet made
his theory of storm prediction public,
and that he was not yet ready to do so.
He was, he said, perfectly sincere in all
he ever said or did in this direction, or
proposed to do in the future, and the only
object he had in view was to save the
lives Of seamen. He could have made an
independent fortune long ago, he said, by
making predictions other than storm pre-
dictions, but he would not stoOp to so low
a practice as that Of trading upon the
gullibility of those who had applied to
him time and time again to predict for
them what their fortunes in life would be.
1t was amazing, he said, how many super
stitious people there were, even in the
United States of America, thousands of
whom had written to him and asked to
sttell their fortunes" a business he was
by no means engaged in. Regarding pre-
dictions, he had, he said, discovered the
periodic time of the saxebY storm OF
October, 1869, and that 1t would return in
September, 1887, and that this would be
the greatest storm before the year 1900.
Before this six heavy storms would occur,
the first of which will be Sept. 20. This,
however, will not be as heavy as some of
the others. There will also be heavy
| storm in October.
Passing on to scientific subjects, Prof.
Virgins was asked his theory regarding
the reason why the magnetic needle
always pointed toward the north pole.
The Professor said he had been greatly
| interested in the explorations of Lieut..
| Greedy regarding this subject. He said
he believed it was caused by perpetual
current of electricity running over the
earth's surface from east to west, for it is
we'll known that needle swung freely
within a wire coil through which an
electric current is sent will invariably
place itself across the current. He
| illustrated this by showing that if a stick
of bismuth and one of anthony be
placed in the form of a letter A, and con-
nected at the base by wire, an electric
current is created when the top Of the let
ter thus formed is seized by the hand,
and the same result is attained by the
light and dark hemisphere of the earth.
This would be greater toward the equa-
| tor, where the earth's diameter is greatest,
! for in both Oblate and probate speroids
| electricity collects at the eXtremities of
the greatest diameter.
Regarding the theory that the earth's
interior is red-hot molten lava, as is gen.
orally supposed to be the case, Prof. Wig
| gins said that he did not believe it and
never had believed it. He admitted that
there were volcanic conditions in certain
localities, and that in places the tempera-
ture increased as one penetrated deeper
| into the bowels Of the earth, but he con-
tended that these conditions did not exist
! everywhere, and that the earth was not a
crust surrounding sea of boiling water
or molten mineral substances. Were
| this the case, the molten matter, being
| lighter than the solid particles, would be
| pressed upward and elected from its
| position. In his opinion the causes of
! earthquakes would have to be accounted
| for on some other theory than this.
When asked to explain to the company
his theory OF a second or dark moon to
the earth, Prof. Virgins said it was plain
that such satellite exists on account of
our visible moon moving in an orbit
whose plane is not in the plane of the
! elliptic, which could not happen except
| there was a disturbing force. He illus
trated by freely suspended pendulum,