Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.) 185?-current, 1889-07-20
A SECOND SATELLITE.
Prof. Wiggins is Confident That
the Earth Has One.
he Declares the Sun Has no Heat But is
Simply a stupendous Electric
Light-Some Interesting
Theories.

/ have for many years been convinced
that the earth possesses a second satel-
lite. Since the conviction, recently be-
come general, that the sun, instead of
being a highly-heated body. is really
nothing more nor less than an electric
light by which the planets of the solar
system are illuminated, it is very evil
dent that the old theory that "the
nearer a planet is to the sun the high
er is its temperature" must be aban-
doned.
The fact is-and l appear to have
been the first to announce it-that
GOODNESS, in the meteorological sense, is
a condition due to compression caused
by planetary attraction, for it has been
observed in all ages that at the time of
the lunar conjunction, that is at new
and full moon, especially when she is
in perigee, when both tho moon and
sun unite their attractive power upon
the earth, springs of water overflow
and the temperature falls, SO that it
would appear that the nearer a planet
is to the center of the solar system,
that is TO the center of attraction, the
lower its temperature and the denser
the fluids upon its surface, exactly the
opposite of the belief hitherto enter
tanned by astronomers. Venus, there
fore, is much colder than the earth,
and Mercury colder than Venus, while
Jupiter and Saturn enjoy temperature
considerably higher than that of our
own sphere.
1t must be observed, however, that
temperature is no doubt due to other
conditions as the density of a planets
atmosphere and the number of its satel-
lites, which tend to increase the density
and, therefore. to lower the tempera-
ture of their primary.
Hence the earth, granting that it has
always revolvod in the same orbit that
it does now, must have enjoyed high
er temperature before the advent of our
visible and first moon than since its
first appearance as satellite to the
earth. Then there is another result to
be considered, for if the moon on its
first appearance increased our planet s
density, it must have, to a very great
degree, contracted its magnitude, and
hence, the surface, having suddenly be-
come too large for the now contracted
body, it must have broken up into i'm
mense ridges of rock, which we still
witness in the shape of the Andes, the
great Rocky mountain chain, the Ural,
and others of both hemispheres.
This advent of our moon must in
fact, have demoralized the whole sur
face of the earth, and know Of no age
in our geological history which can be
pointed to with more apparent certain
ty than that of the lower silurian as the
period when our moon first shone as a
satellite in the heavens. Let any one
take the trouble to visit the maritime
provinces, especially New Brunswick,
notably where the city of st. John now
stands, and he will witness evidences
of the most wonderful cataclysm that
ever took place on the surface Of our
globe. There he will see the rocks, OF
rather strata, originally deposited in
the horizontal position, all turned uT
upon their edge, varying from an angle
of few degrees to the vertical, and all
as neatly arranged and packed together
us if deposited by design and with
hammer and trowel No such wonder.
full phenomenon is TO be found any
where else in the rocky evidence of this
post, and nothing short of an electric
battery as large as the moon and
brought within a few leagues OF oul
planets surface could ever have pro
duced such gigantic crushing up ant
Encouragement Of the strata as tha
which took place at the silurian age o
our earliest history, when life was only
beginning to dawn and when every ami
NAL organism upon the landed surface
must have been extinguished in mo
ment of time.
Great continents which had up tx
that period formed large part Of ths
earth's surface, probably the greater
part of 1t, now sank beneath the sur
face, for our planet contracting by th,
increased power of the moon. thl
water naturally lyrose and overwhelmed
the hitherto vast domain of solid sur
face. the temperature probably falling
from the equator to the poles 40 degree
OF Fahrenheit, causing in all probability
the drst snow fakes to fall near tn