St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-12-11
A DRY TIME
When the Earth drinks up Her.
OrsnuN

Prof. Cookley, of New York. saws: Most
OF the planets have probably cooled down by
radiation 10 a solid uudercrust ike the earth.
The sun owing 10 its greater mass is still a
hery globe not yet cooled down so as 10 have
solid crust4 But our moon being a body
OF small mass only about one-eightieth Of the
earth's mass, is supposed 10 have time 10
cool down 10 a solid globe all the way from
its surface to its center. Its internal heat Is
supposed 10 have been all radiated away into
the surrounding cold space Now the bot
interior mass OF earth can, Of course. contain
no water and little or none OF the free gases
that constitute an atmosphere. They would
be boiled of, expanded and driven 10 the
surface where are found now the great bulk
Of our oceans and our atmosphere, but when
the earth shall have parted with 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 absorbing
water or air, on account OF the present high
temperature, will begin 10 drink up the water
and air just as the psrched soil after a sum-
mers drought drinks up the rain, and the
ground is dry few minutes after the sbo-er
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 ex-
anime this more closely.
While the interior of the earth remains as
bot as IL is at present II is no more possible
for the water and air Of our globe TO pene-
trate TO these fiery regions than II Is for a
drop OF water 10 remain on a hot stone
But the earth is losing its heat day by day
and year by year, radiating il out into the
surrounding cold space. | know IL has been
computed that the earth receives from the
sun annually just as much heat as it loses in
a year by radiation into the surrounding
space. Grant that it be so for the present
and for many thousands OF years 10 come
But the trouble is the sun himself is cooling
OF, and, therefore, win not be always able to
send Us as much heatas be does at present
The time viii, therefore, surely come whsu
We shall lose more heat BY radiation into
space than the sun will be able to return 70 Us.
Then it will be only question OF time for
the earth gradually 10 cool down, as the
moon has already done from surface TO cen
ter. When that time comes viii not the dry
but solid and porOns core Of our globe drink
up the oceans and atmosphere, causing them
to disappear, not into large caveruous peck
cts. but into the minute pores Of its sub
stancei
The proposition appears to be established
by strict calculation. that the Interior of the
earth when cold viii be able to absorb more
than four times, possibly more than
thirty times, the amount Of water now
on its surface Nov, it seems certain that
in the manner first explained the earth will
con tinue 10 lose both its superficial water
and its atmosphere. The earth. the other
planets and even the sun himself, are re-
garded as doomed at some future day to the
same fate. Melancholy fate! some win say.
But why complain Of the general law Of ma
turel Everything in nature has It's morning
Of life, its high meridian Of glory and
strength, its evening decline and It's mid
night Of blackness and death. In the case
OF a worlds that toe last term Of a seriesl
Hesr He Lost HfF Farm.
''Tm no tramp num-" said the indivfd-
ual, who looked like the breaking-uD-of-a-