Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1889-02-08
A CURIOUS THEORY.

G,r. Silversmith's Novel Conception as Il
the Formation of the Universe and this
Movement of the Planetary Bodies.
Julius Siyersmith, NJ. A., editor OF
the JeWish Occident and author of a
volume entitled, THE System and
History of Nature" recently delivered
an illustrated lecture on "a Practical
and Comprehensive Theory of Our
Universe, in which some novel ideas
are advanced. The following is ex-
tracted from q synopsis of the lecture
as given in an exchange
The speaker showed by a diagram
the Copernican, Kepler, Newton and
Calico solar systems; how the plan
cts moved in concentric and closed
ellipses around the sun. AT this
juncture the speaker showed most con-
clusively the falsely conceived notions,
despite the great strides made in as
tronomy, physics and dynamics, that
no planet could revolve in a closed
ellipsis If the sun was moving onward
in her orbit; that the revolution as
signed to our earth would cause every
object on Der surface to fly off, if the
motion of her revolution around her.
self of three and a-half miles per sec
ond were true. The speaker intro
duced the most practical conception
of the heavenly planets and our solar
system. The diagram exhibited the
movement of the three heavenly bodies
the sun, the earth and the moon.
He pointed to the motion of the sun as
being in an undulatory line from west
to east, proving it by certain dark pro-
tuberances near his periphery, first
on the under side, then successfully
every twenty-seven days near his up
per edge. He next exhibited the
earth's zigzag motion, moving along
with the sun, but in a spiral move
ment, which would produce the same
effect for the seasons.
For lack of time he could not explain
in detail the physical effect that caused
day and night, but said the motion of
the earth could best be conceived by
the rising and setting of the sun, if
the zigzag movement is correct. He
WIN w ptpoh Jul IL ODoGlNdU
magnates who were great in elucidat-
ing with mathematical formulas, but
gave the world no clear conception
OF how the planets and our solar sys-
tenn moved; that they weighed, meas
ured and allowed kicking attraction
demon to play his antics; that they
employed the differential and integral
calculus Ga sort of roundabout way to
account for their exact prophecies of
ecllpses and con- unctions), when
simple periodical arithmetic cal
culation could accomplish the same
solution with an understanding of
this new system; that the motion of
the moon (being much more aerial or
less dense than our earth) was in like
spiral form in more digressionary
orbit, as shown by diagram in which
his peculiar faces were plainly to be
seen, and which no modern astron-
omer had yet been able or willing, if
he understood it, to illustrate. The
speaker also gave the prevalent or ac-
cepted theory of the coming in exist
ence of the heavenly planets, as
taught by the famous French philoso-
pher La Place, who teaches that
primarily the armament contained a
nebular mass, which, when it becomes
disintegrated, allows the smaller parts
or fragments to revolve around the
larger suns; that millions of such
solars are now roaming through the
measureless armament, and that La
voiseur, more recent French philoso-
pher, corroborated this fact.
The lecturer argued that (as shown
in diagram) the solar system was
traversing an orbit which requires,
periodically speaking, two and one
half million years, and that it had
times without number performed the
same journeys; when it reached the
aphelion in its orbit. or lowest point,
that our earth tended to cooling or
collapsing process, a sort of inplosion
This was termed by him the glacial
era, in which the late Prof. Agassiz
had demonstrated that all life would
tend to destruction and death, until the
solar system would again reach on her
ascending node the warm matter
spheres, and the germs in all species
would be again enlivened by that
electromagnetic force which is al
ways present and developed in the in
visible matter spheres surrounding,
our globe. These cycles he designated
as the great summer and great winter
seasons, or rather periods.