The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1885-02-14
WHOLE No. 1892

whose light was in part inherent, we have
evidence of a disturbance altogether ir.
compatible with the idea that life can ex-
Isl on the giant planet. For six years Of
our time that tremendous disturbance
lasted, and, indeed, the spot, first seen
in 1876, has not altogether disappeared
yet, though it has lost it's characteristic
lustre. Who can imagine that there is
life where planet still retains such fiery
heat that its cloud envelope is disturbed?
Saturn has in like manner been show
to be unfit for life. Apart from the shad-
ow cast by its ring system, for years in
succession, on all places in such Saturn
ian ATTITUDES as Americans occupy on this
Earth, he, like Jupiter, is enwrapped by
deep cloud masses. His atmosphere is
continually disturbed by movements such
rs only intense internal heat could pre-
duce.
THE EARTH LIKE THE PLANETS.
Then the thought presented itself to
nae that the analogies in which l had
trusted were more than doubtful. Right
ly considered they pointed the reverse
way from that in which had been look
ing Our Earth is the abode of life, in
deed; but she has not always been so;
| for we find evidence in her crust of
| time when she was too full of fiery heat
| to be inhabited. She will not always be
the abode of life, for we tiud processes
taking place which will hereafter leave
her arid and waste, desolate and dead.
Why should we imagine that another
planet taken at random must necessarily
be in the same stage of planetary life as
the Earth? Why should not one planet
be in the earlier stages, which precede
the time of fitness for life, another planet
in state of old age and decrepitude, yet
another planet actually dead? This
would only correspond with what we find
on the smaller scale on the earth itself,
where there coexist the young, the adult,
the aged, while millions yet unborn and
millions long since dead belong yet to
eAAS nv A''oOiJ Vi Jul "OIlu
And then l began to recognize GER
tain graduation in the planets in regard
to age, corresponding in some degree
with their relative dimensions. Speak
ing generally, the larger planets show
the signs of youth, while the smaller
planets show the sign of old age. And
this is what we might expect when we
consider that the stages of planets life
are stages of cooling. When first formed
planet is too hot to be the abode of life.
As time passes, the period is reached
when the surface is cool enough to be in
habited. But, with the further progress
of time, the surface must become too
| cold, the planet must lose the power of
adapting itself by changes of surface
contour to the requirements of its inhab-
itants-since these changes result from
internal heat, and the internal heat must
eventually pass away by radiation into
spacs. A planets life being life of
cooling, the larger planets must have the
longer-lasting stages of life. If all the
| planets began their career at the same
epoch, SO that all were equally old in
years, the giant planets would be much
the younger, the smaller planets much
the older. If, as is altogether more prob
| able, vast intervals of time separated the
! beginnings of the times of the various
planets, still those distances would be
more than "ounterbalanced generally BY
the effects of the disparity In the du~a.
ton of the stages of the planetary life.
THE PLANETS IN THEIR FIERY YOUTH.
All this corresponds closely with what
we actually find. Jupiter and Saturn,
which are much larger than the Earth,
present all the characteristics of planet
airy youth. They are manifestly in the
stages of preparation. Mars, which is
much less than the earth, presents the
characteristics of old age, while the Moon,
which is much less even than Mars, ap-
pears to be, to all intents and purposes,
dead world.
Yet, even in thus rejecting many orbs
from the category of life supporting
worlds, we find our belief strengthened
that the great end of natures workings,
or rather the chief recognizable end, is
the support of life. For Jupiter and Sa-
turn, like the Sun, are the centres or
systems of worlds. Small though their
satellites may seem, even in the power
full telescopes, they are really enormous
globes. The least of the moons of Ju-
piter has surface four times as great as
that of the United States. II the Sun
nourishes life on the Earth and Venus,
Mars and Mercury, why may not the
present work of Jupiter and Saturn be to
help in nourishing life on the worlds
which circle round them?
And even if the recognition of the
present unftness of Jupiter and Saturn
to support life, and of the long past death
of the Moon, seem as first to narrow our
ideas of life in other worlds it will be
found, when rightly understood, to widen
them. When all planets in our own sys-
tenn and the systems attending on other
suns were supposed to support life at one
and the same time, we could not but re-
cognize an ininity of life.essness before
life began on these worlds, an in6nity
of death when life should come to all
end on them. But now we find all
time as well as all space occupied by life.
Before the worlds now the abode of
life were inhabited, millions of orbs ex-
listed which now like the Noon, are all
dead but were then during millions of
years crowded with living creatures; and
for amounted myriads of years in the
future, worlds which are as yet in their
fiery youth will become in their turn the
scene of busy life. End can we see
none to the universe of God; so, also, we
see no beginning. '-RICHARD A. Proc.
TOR, IN PHILADELPHIA Sunday Times.
The Hog At~ the Dynamite.
From the Madison { Wis.) Democrat
sb"Talk about dynamite, l can tell you
true story of what nitro -glycerine once
did in our state. 1t was out near Prairie