Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-12-11
A DRY TIME.
The Day is Coming When the Earth Will
Drink Up All the Sea.

DFinA Up All the Sch
Most of the planets have probably
cooled down by radiation to a solid I'M
der crust like the earth. The sun, owing
to his greater mass, is still fiery globe
not yet cooled down so as to have &
solid crust. But our moon being q
body of small mass, only about one.
eightieth of the earth's mass, is sup.
posed to have had time to cool down to
solid globe all the way from it's sur.
face to its center. Its internal heat is
supposed to have been all radiated
away into the surrounding cold space.
Now the hot interior mass of the earth
can, of course, contain no water, and
little or none of the free gases that con-
stitute an atmosphere They would be
boiled off, expanded and driven to the
surface where are found now the great
bulk of our oceans and our atmosphere.
But when the earth shall have parted
with all its internal heat, having thrown
it into the surrounding cold space as
the moon has done. then the cold,
solid but porous mass within its present
crust, which is now incapable of alb
sorbing water or air, on account of the
present high temperature, will begin to
drink up the water and air just as the
parched soil after summers drought
drinks up the rain, and the ground is
dry in few minutes after the shower.
But you may well ask, could the solid
porous mass within the present crust of
the earth thus drink up the whole of
the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans and cause all the waters of our
globe to disappear? Let us examine
this more closely.
While the interior of the earth re-
mains as hot as it is at present it is no
more possible for the water and air of
our globe to penetrate to these fiery
regions than it is for drop of water to
remain on a hot stone. But the earth
is losing it's heat day by day and year
by year, radiating it out into the sur
rounding cold space. l know it has
been computed that the earth receives
from the sun annually just as much
heat as it loses in year by radiation
into the surrounding space. Grant
that it be so for the present and for
many thousands of years to come. But
the trouble is that the sun himself is
cooling off, and, therefore, will not be
always able to send us as much heat as
he does at present. The time will,
therefore, surely come when we shall
lose more heat by radiation into space
than the sun will be able to return to
us. Then it will be only question of
time for the earth gradually to cool
down, as the moon has already done,
from surface to the center. When that
time comes will not the dry but solid
and porous core of our globe drink up
the oceans and atmosphere, causing
them to disappear, not into large cav
ernous pockets, but into the minute
pores of its substance?
The proposition appears to be estab-
lished by strict calculation that the in
terror of the earth when cold will be
able to absorb more than four times,
possibly more than thirty times, the
amount of water now on its surface.
Now, it seems certain that in the man.
ner first explained the earth will con-
tinue to lose both its superficial water
and its atmosphere. The earth, the
other planets, and even the sun him
self, are regarded as doomed at some
future day to the same fate. Melan-
choly fate! some will say. But why
complain of the general law of nature?
Everything in nature has its morning
of life, its high meridian of glory and
strength, its evening decline and its
midnight of blackness and death. Is
the case of worlds that the last
term of a seriesf- Prof Cooley.