National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1885-01-20
A PLANETARY ROMANCE.
THE FIVE STAGES OF A WORLDS LIFE AS
TOLD by A STAR GAZER.
Professor Proctor's Revelations Concerning tho
Past, Present, and Future Of the Earth and
Its Near Ncighbors-The Availability Of the
Moons Of Jupiter Contended For


Moons Of Jupiter Contended For
A large audience, just as many people
as could crowd into Willard Hall, as
sembled last night to hear Prof II. A.
Proctor, the English astronomer, relate
the History Of the World" Few
audiences in Washington have ever
bravod tso much to listen to q lecture on
scientific subject. The hall was cold to
begin with, the seats were hard, the whole
floor had been reserved" tho gallery
was hard to find, and uncomfortable to
occupy whom reached, and, added
to all this, the absence Of storm
door or screen enabled cold blast
to enter and circulate in
n cheerful manner about the backs Of the
rear half of the audience. Coughing,
sneezing, nose-blowing, and wheeling
was the accompaniment to the lecturer,
or rather
AN OPPOSITION ENTERTAINMENT.
Yet not over four or five people failed to
remain during the two hours which the
lecture lasted. Among those who suf-
fered and enjoyed were Gen. w. b. Hazen,
Judge Cox, Senator Vance, Representa-
tives S. 5. Cox, J. III. Brewer, aud Van
Eaton, Con. John Eaton. Prof. Buckley,
Hon. +. NJ. Marble, Prof. u. Richards,
aud Rev. L. d. Huutloy.
No man can tell, said the lecturer tho
first stages Of our solar system. Our own
planet was once intensely hot, and its
lifetime is period of cooling; decay and
death coming at last As in q forest of
trees there are saplings and vigorous
trees and dead stumps so in the planet
ri mil
die aged worlds, old worlds, and dead
worlds. Where there is intense heat
there must be intense luster and great dis
turbance. The changes coming with the
cooling off of tho mass werehdescribed, the
appearance, from another sphere, of a
planet in the various stages being traced.
Tho earth tells us what the habitablc
stage Is like, the astronomer having to
go to the geologist to know what hc is
really doing How long will the forces
at work take to complete the cycle?
IT MUST HAVE BEEN MILLIONS OF YEARS
SINCE
the earth was tho abode of light. One
change, which Newton drew attention
to, is in the relative positions of water
and land. Formerly the water was all
suspended over the earth. Now it is
mostly on the surface, soaking aud being
WAS the process? The sea is sink
ing the thickness of sheet
of paper in year, an inch in hundred
years, and so on until the final change,
when the water will all have disappeared
and the surface will look like that of tho
moon. The air we breathe will by that
time become too thin to breathe, the
oxygen being Withdrawn, and
LIFE AS WE KNOW 1T WILL CEASE.
The great lens, three feet in diameter,
for the Lick telescope took two months to
cool when recently cast. The larger the
body of course the longer will 1t take to
radiate the heat. The world is u very
large body of matter. and the amount of
cooling in century would be imper-
ceptible, except, possibly, to scientific
tests.
The sun formed an exception to the
lecturers theory that all planetary bodies
either have been, are, or will DO habitable.
The source of our life and light aud heat,
though now in the glowing, vaporous
stage, common to the youth of all planets,
probably
WILL NEVER BE INHABITED.
A stereopticOn was then called into
requisition and the planets pictured upon
screen that founded tho back ground OF
sun printed by his own light was thrown on
this, forming disk over twenty feet in
diameter. The edge was seen to be OBJ
scured by the metallic vapors which are
rising from the seething substance of the
sphere, falling back in the form of a
radiant rain of drops Of incandescent
iron, copper, zinc, and other elements dis.
covered by the spectroscope. Picture;
( storms on the surface moving at the
rate of 100 miles in a second, of the bril-.
liant appearance of the surrounding solar
atmosphere revealed during an eclipse
and other wonderful results of that mar.
velous combination of the telescope and
camera were thrown on the screen and
described in commonplace terms.
Jupiter was next shown as n sample Of
planet in the second stage. Tho theory
was advanced and supported that he IL
now nourishing life in his four moons
which might indeed be
HABITABLE WORLDS.
Saturn with his rings and eight possible
satellite worlds was the next example Of
the planets still in the second or younger
stage through their greater bulk. Mer.
curry was also declared to be possibly in
the same condition.
Venus, with her atmosphere as dis
covered during her transit across the sun
or rather between him and the earth, wa
declared to be in every way probably the
sister planet 10 ours. Mars, with its tive
little moons, discovered in this city
probably not over twenty miles in di
ameter was cited as "a decaying or deaC
world. The moon was pictured as it prob
ably has never been here before, the blacl
shadows cast by its mountains from it
skyless sunlight, and the dark beds of it.
dried.up oceans being as significant a:
though the obituary Of the dead orb wa.
legiblo ON the summit of ono of its monu
mental craters.
The lecturer closed with n recital O.
"Richter's Dream" which was heartily
applauded. lie discOurses tonight on a
Journey to tho moon.