Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1888-11-16
"WORLD- MAKING"
A Flight Through Space to the
Planets and an Excursion
Through the Center Of
the Earth.

The second of series of lectures
under the auspices of the Chautauqua
Circle was delivered at the Methodist
Church last Monday night by Hon
Samuel Phelps Leland, of Chicago
to large and appreciative audience
Mr.. Leland's lecture, "World-Mak-
ing" has been delivered in most of the
cities and larger towns of Kentucky,
and the comments of the press are all
of most complimentary nature.
After a song by Col. Will S. Hays,
Mr.. Leland began his lecture and
consumed about two hours in its de-
livery, yet no one seemed 10 become
at all tired. Nothing short of its
repetition could give any one not
present an idea as to what it was
To the lover of popular science and
the student of astronomy the lecture
was particularly interesting, while
the less informed did not fail to ac-
company the speaker on his trip
through the center of the earth his
voyage around it, and witnessed the
turning of tho leaves of the earth
which tells to the gcologist of what
II is composed aud the time required !;
how by the process of "digestion,"
chalk, limestone, granite, coal, ETC.,
are formed his flight through space
from our world to the sun and moon /;
flying visits to Mars, Venus, Jupiter,
Saturn, Neptune, and his theory of
how those and other planets came
into existence, claimed the closest at.
tention of his hearers. In hearing
him one could lot fail 10 think of
Byron's Cain. Mr.. Leland's descrip
ton ofthe recent eruption of Vesuvius
of which he was an eyewitness, was
the grandest piece of word-painting
we have ever heard. 1t seemed TO
the listener that he was almost trans
ported to the mountain side and he
could see the sheperdesses watching
their flocks, and at the same time
busily plying the needle, with chill
dren playing on the green grass, the
lambs gambolng here and there-but
bark listen TO that ominous sound
proceeding from the bowels of the
earth the earth trembles the wa
ters of the bay just now so clear that
you could see the pebbles at the bot
tom are in instant murky and boil
ing; the waves begin to roll upon its
placid surface; the mountain sides
expand and contract; everything an
innate has fled to place of supposed
safety; the mountain expands again,
and like a giant clearing his throat,
Vesuvius throws into the air hun
dreds of feet high stones weighing
several hundred pounds. A pencil
can do nothing in the way of describ
ing it-words only can do it, words
spoken by such man as Mr.. Leland,
one only who has witnessed that
great convulsion of nature can paint
the true picture. The only unpleas-
ant part of the lecture was when Mr.
Leland informed his audience that
our world can not stand as it is more
than about thirteen hundred years
then ii is going TO freeze into lump
of solid ice, (there'll be no use for ice
faclories) and finally we will go into
the sun and warm up again. His hear
ers did not mind that or their own &C
but many of them were I'M
easy about their posterity. The
speaker believes the scriptural proph-
ecy, "The earth shall melt with fer
vent heat" to mean that our planet
will, after passing into its frozen state,
fall into the sun and become liquid,
and after many millions of years, be
thrown from the sun and a new
world formed by the union of the
particles This is his theory of how
all worlds are made. He said that
back of this process of matchmaking
Is the power of God, who knows no
limit of time, with whom one day
is as thousand years and thou
sand years as one day. The lecture
throughout was interesting and
showed the deepest study and COM
prehensive research of the speaker.
AT the conclusion Col. Hays ex-
cused himself for not favoring the
audience with another song on &C.
count of throat trouble. However
he read "Keep your hand upon the
throttle and your eye upon the track"
his own composition, which only
partly satisfied them, as they were
anxious to hear another song.