The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-04-04
UNFINISHED WORLDS.
Sir Robert Balls Ideas Concerning thu
Cooling of the Earth.

Cooling of the Earth.
By the term 'sworld" we mean, usu-
ally speaking, this globe on which we
stand, but the merest glance at the sky
through telescope show us that our
world is only one of many worlds. Fur
ther reflection and study of other parts
of the universe will convince US that
among these other worlds there are
many in different stages, so to speak, of
their development. We may represent
our earth, for instance. as a world in the
maturity of its being, but there are
others which exhibit different phases of
the progress. Some will appear as
worlds which are to be regarded in ex-
IRENE old age, while others again seem
to be in an imperfect or immature con-
dition. 1t is of these latter worlds that
we are especially going to speak in this
paper.
If, in a blacksmith's forge, you incau-
tiously placed your hand upon a piece of
iron and it burned your fingers, and if
the blacksmith told you that the iron
had lain there for half an hour, you do
not doubt that it must have been much
hotter when the blacksmith drew it
from the fire than you have now found
it to be. Probably it was even red hot
at the time it was laid aside.
We must apply this argument to that
immense globe, 5000 miles in diameter,
on which we are standing. It has an
exterior crust of rocks and stones, and
contains good deal of iron inside.
This great ball is undoubted ly very
hot in its interior. We have many rea-
sons for knowing this to be the case.
The eruptions of volcanoes afford the
simplest proof. The smoke, the ashes
and the molten lava that volcanoes pour
forth show us that the earth is any thing
but cool in the lower regions. Other
terrestrial phenomena bear similar testi-
mony. Hot springs, for instance, evince
the heated condition of the deep-seated
rocks. Any miner will tell you that the
deeper his mine the hotter he finds his
work to be. The gain in heat arises
from the fact that the deeper the mine
the nearer it lies to the central incan-
descence.
During all these ages the earth must
and therefore at the beginning it must
have been much hotter than it is to-day.
AS we look back earlier and still earlier,
the earth ever seems hotter and hotter
through the ages. At least the argu-
ment points to a time when the earth
must have been hot even to it's surface,
so hot that you could not stand on it,
then earlier still it was red hot, white
hot and molten. Even here the argu-
ment does not fall; we find the heat
must have been even greater and great
er the further we look back, until at last
we come to time when the now solid
materials of our earth must have been
in widely different form. For we know
that the most infusible materials, like
steel or flint, can, if they be heated suf-
fciently high, not only be transformed
into liquid, but even be driven off into
vapor. Thus we learn that there was a
time when our earth was merely mass
of glowing gas.
A great deal of light is thrown upon
this subject by looking at other worlds,
some of which are to be seen in quite
an unfinished state, even at the present
moment They are unfinished in the
sense that the gaseous material has not
Yet condensed down sufficiently to form
solid globe. There are thousands Of
bodies with which astronomers are &C.
quainted which will in one way or an
other illustrate these phases of our
earth's past history. shall only mem
ton one or two. The first that l may
refer to is especially famous. It is the
great nebula of Orion. We find in this
constellation an object which is, practi-
cally speaking, invisible to the naked
eye; it has only the effect of producing
slight haziness in the stars which
form the sword handle of Orion in the
quaint fashion in which the constella-
ton used formerly to be represented.
When viewed through a telescope of
sufficient power most marvellous spec
tacle is disclosed. There are wisps and
patches of glowing cloud-like material,
which shine not like our clouds do by
rejecting to us the sunlight. This
celestial cloud is self-luminous; it is, in
fact, composed of vapors so intensely
| heated that they glow with fervor as |
/ WflCo l. nave LOru hOSS0S elaborate
/ drawing of this nebula before me, and on
the margin of this stupendous object the
nebula fades away so tenderly that it is
almost impossible to say where the OBJ
/ ject terminates. Probably this nebula
will in some remote age gradually con-
! dense down into more solid substances.
| 1t contains no doubt, enough material
to make many globes as big as our earth.
| Before, however, it settles down into
dark bodies like the earth, it will have
to pass through stages in which it's con-
4 densing materials form bright sunlike
bodies. 1t seems as if this process of con-
densation might almost be witnessed at
the present time in some parts of the
great object.
| There are also some very striking
nebule which are often spoken of as
planetary. They are literally balls of
blush colored gas or vapor, apparently
more dense than that which forms the
nebula in Orion. Such globes are doubt
/ less undergoing condensation, and may
4 be regarded as unfinished worlds. Al
bany IN. W Argus.
A FINANCIAL WRECK.