Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-01
HEAr-1rs ORIGIN.
A Correspondent With Some Odd Ideas
Reply.

A Reply.
EDS RECORD UNION: In your issue of
July 10Th you call the attention of the pub
lie 10 new "philosophic teacher" and his
theories. At the close of your remarks
you say something must have got out of
order recently in this arrangement, for just
now most men in the valleys of California
are willing to swear that the sun is not
further away than was Sheridan from Win
chester town."
From this statement, made in jest,
gather the fact that you have not rubbed
| the dust of q common fallacy from your
| "book of memory" You would have the
people believe that heat comes from the
sun. Such an idea is misleading. 1t is IRA
tional, and has been proven absolutely
| false. The sun is not the source of our
common heat. There is no guidance to
| be found by which to prove that an atom
| of heat comes from the sun to the earth.
| Our astronomers do not know, nor can
we find them agreeing on a theory what
the sun is; they do not agree whether it
is hot or cold. All the later writers are
teaching that the sun is not hot body. 1t
makes no difference whether We are on a
convex or concaye surface. nor whether
the sun is 20, 4,000 or 90, 900, 900 of miles
distant. it is an undisputed fact that no heat
reaches the earth from the sun.
! All the astronomers who have presented
us with calculations reach the conclusion
| that the higher atmospheres are absolutely
cold. All observation and experience prove
| that the higher we go the colder it gets,
and at four miles high there is perpetual
ice and snow. 1t is not sensible and ra-
tional to say that heat can come through
millions of miles of absolute cold and still
| be heat. If we take double convex lens
of ice, and let the light of the sun pass
through it, at the focal point of the lens
paper will burn. No one void of cranky
tradition would say that heat can 60
through ice and still be heat. 1t will do
your readers much good to be enlightened
on this point of the generation of heat.
| Fire leaden ball against steel plate.
The result of the collision generates heat.
There is no heat in the lead, but after it
strikes the steel plate it is hot. 1t is surely
more rational to say the heat was generated
| by the force of the stop, than to say it was
| in the ball as heat. So forces from the sun,
such as electric, magnetic, gravic, photoic,
etc, pour down in streams on the earth.
As a result of the contact or stoppage of
the down flow of these forces, heat is gen.
Grated and radiates upward. In fact, there
FORE heat is generated on the surface of the
earth and radiates upward.
| The higher we 60 the coloer it gets. This
is in obedience to all experience. The
farther we get from the source of heat, the
| less heat we find. While, if the idea in
your editorial is true, the farther we get
from the sun the hotter it gets My posi-
ton concerning the origin of surface heat
is one that is enjoyed by all deep, critical
thinkers, while the surface thinker in and
out of our schools clings to tradition
that is senseless, because he will not think
or because he is an intellectual coward.
| AS to the hollow globe theory, all critical
investigators will find some facts and fig
ures" that will astonish them. In conclu-
sion, therefore, let me say it is hot enough
| here at this season of the year, regardless
| twenty miles to Winchester, or our prox-
| unity to the fires that are not quenched.' y
r. o. SPEAR.
Sacramento, July Both.
Mr.. Spear is unfortunate in the itola.
| ton of his position. 1t is possible that
Davy, and Rumford, and Liebig, and Mel
| loni, DeCandolle, Bache, Houke, Leslie,
Cauchy, Tyndall, Mayer, Waterson, Pouil-
let, and host of other investigators were
all wrong and that Mr.. Spear alone is
right. 1t is possible that the spectroscope
is fiction and that the analysis of the
sun s rays is a deceit. OF course heat is a
product of living animal organization, of
| friction, of slow combustion forever 60
ing on within us" of compress
sion, of motion, of repulsion, of
Lob, TOOL of init nf an,ic1 inn htr
| luminous bodies of the glowing central
mass of the globe, and certainly of the sun,
| that store-house of radiant neat" as main
/ tanned by Helmpaltz, Thompson and 9TH
ers and demonstrated by the thermal
! measurements of Langley and others, and
| by the experiments of Zullner, Young,
| Pepper, Secchi and their compeers 1t may
compose our correspondents mind and clear
away the fog of misapprehension from his
understanding relative to the GOODNESS of
media through which the heat of the sun
passes by suggesting to him simple ex-
| pertinent described by Pepper. If he will
| place red hot ball in the focus of con-
cave metallic speculum, there will be such
reflection of heat from the mirror as to be
collected in the focus of another spectrum,
and cause the combustion of bit of phos-
phorus And if he blows the air from a
| pair of stout bellows across the rays of heat
as they are being concentrated upon the
phosphorus, he will find that he cannot
disturb the rays of heat nor move them
| from their course, no more, says Pepper,
| with the dry humor of the polytechnic ex-
| perlmenter, than one can blow away SUM-
| beam darting through an aperture in a
cloud on a stormy day. So that the heat OF
| the sun is independent, in its passage, OF
| the air medium through which it courses. [