The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1885-01-30
A Dry Period is Coming.
WHEN OLD MOTHER EARTH DRINKS UP
HER OCEANS.

Prof. Cookley, of New York, says
Most of the planets have probably cool
ed down by radiation to a solid under
crust like the earth. The sun owing
to his greater mass is still fiery mass
not yet cooled down so as to have q
solid crust. But our moon being a
body of small mass about one eigieth
of the earth's mass is supposed to have
had time to cool down to solid globe
all the way from its surface to its GEN.
ter Its internal heat is supposed to
have been radiated away into the sur.
rounding cold space. Now the hot in
terror mass of the earth can, of course,
contain no water, and little or none of
the free gases that constitute an atmos-
phere. 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 absorbing 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 sum
mer's 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 At
lantic aud Pacific Oceans and cause all
the waters of our globe to disappear I?
Let us examine this more close
ly.
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 re
gions than it is for drop of water to
remain on a hot stove. But the earth
is losing its heat day by day and year
by year, radiating 1t out into the sur
rounding cold space. / know it has
heen 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 to come. But the
trouble is 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 sur
face to center. When that time comes
will not the dry but solid and porous
core of our globe drink up our oceans
and atmosphere, causing them to dis
appear, not into large cavernous pockets,
but into the minute pores Of its SUBJ
stancei
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,
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 cf naturel
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.