Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-01-24
PROF. PROCTOR'S LECTURE.


dreadful, and yet large audience Of
our most intelligent citizens assembled
at the Seventh-Street Christian church
to greet the distinguished English as
tronomer who is making a course Of
lectures in this city.
The lecturer, Professor r. A. Proc
tor, is well-known by reputation to
many of our people, not only as a valu-
able worker in the grand science which
he represents. but as one Of its most
popular expositors. He has written
number Of books, all tending to bring
the high truths Of science within the easy
range Of ordinary unscientitic people;
and he has also won almost unprece-
dented success as lecturer in making
plain and simple--nay, even attractive
and fascinating--some Of the profound
est and most far-reaching results Of
modern investigation.
Gracefully introduced last night in a
few words by DIR. Curry, he at once
announced his subject The Life Of
a World and with few preliminaries
proceeded to discuss it.
The leading thought Of the speaker
was, of course, that world grors--
evolves if you please; in other words,
it passes successfully through various
stages that may fairly correspond to in
fancy. youth, middle age, old age, and
death.
He skilfully parried the objection
that such an idea applied to world or
to a system OF worlds seems almost in
conceivable to us by an apt comparison
of man-little man, dwelling on this
little earth-tO some tiny insect whose
home was in some giant tree. who
might be shocked at the notion that the
twig. so Teat to him, on which he
lived. or the great oak itself had groTa
from a little plant--had once, in fact.
been an insignificant acorn. We see
nothing inconceiyable i'll this, so far as
the tree is concerned. Would not the
growth of world, system, uni
verse, be equally conceivable and natu-
raj to the eye of the All-Secing one:
The lecturer then laid down the indi-
cations by which we might judge of the
age, so to speak, of world. ASsum-
ING that all worlds have their beginning
in heat, and that life with them is a
cooling-oif process merely, the first
stage would be, of course. the highly
heated stage. when the whole was in a
state Of vapor. We would expect to
see the worlds that are yet in this stage
not only giving of Hght of their own,
but exhibiting great motion, energy and
disturbance of surface. Applying this
test, we find the sun snow actually in
this first stage. utterly unfit for the
abode of life.
What would indicate the second
stage, when, after perhaps millions of
years, some cooling, dependent OF
course on the size of the body. had
gone on, and the yet hot body had be-
come liquid or solid? Why, of course,
the presence of cloudy masses surround
ing the body. such as might be produced
by water poured on hot lava. He
showed then. and illustrated by many
excellent lantern slides. that the I" Grant
planets" Jupiter and Saturn, are now
in this second stage, unfit for life them
selves. yet helping possibly to make
habitable the moons that accompany
them as the planets do our sun.
Similarly he showed that the earth, a
much smaller body, had cooled faster,
and had come to be in the third stage,
or fit to sustain life and that Mars,
smaller still, was. by the evidence of
its scanty water supply, fast on the way
to the fourth stage, or the stage of de-
cay.
Next came a full description Of the
moon, illustrated by some admirable
photographs. the finest we have ever
seen and it was shown to be fully in
the fifth stage, that of death and dreary
desolation.
Now, the interest for us in all this is
the fact that in these planets We can
read the history past and the history to
come of our own earth. Especially did
he try to show that the waters of earth
and the air of earth must ultimately,
perhaps in millions Of years, disappear,
as the water and air of the moon have
done. and leave all silent, dreary
waste.
1t is impossible to follow the elo-
quent lecturer in his extension of these
views to the universe of suns-suns num-
bered by the hundreds of millions,
which even mans poor telescopes can
reveal. The lecture was full Of most
suggestive thought. simply but forcibly
expressed; and, with the admirable
lantern illustrations, was thoroughly
enjoyed by a most appreciatiye audi
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