Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-28
POETRY WRECKED BY FACT.

4
respondents Application of Common
Sense
| To the Editor of The Dispatch:
About on level with his utterly i'm
practicable plan to communicate, by means
of q gaseous triangle of 50-nile sides, with
the supposititious Inhabitants on the planet
Mars, are NJ. Camille Flammarion's ILL
digested notions on the temporary death Of
the sun, and his conception of consequent
glacial action, which he bases on such q
hypothesis.
The word motions is employ ed with re-
gret, but it is the proper term to apply to
much of his fantastic and unscientihc
imagery, set forth in his article in The DIS
PATCH last week. One notes with regret in
the first few sentences of his otherwise
interesting paper, that he is scaling along
dangerous paths, that he is treading the
verge of yawning precipices and scarcely is
he started, when he turns from all analysis
and analogy and serenely walks away on
airy nothingness!
Hear the echoes of his mental footballs as
they come back from his exuberant imagi-
nation:
"Yes, our great and beautiful sun may be
extinguished and may be illuminated again.
In the space of a few weeks he may allow
death to invade the world. He may sit upon
his throne in darkened sky like weird
specter reigning over vast burial ground.
He may then rise anew from his ashes and
again support the life which had for the
moment disappeared and continue to main
tain it for months, years and ages"
This is the acme of condensed pathos 1t
will bear considerable dilution and still be
pathetic. 1t is as figuratiye as the produc-
tion of a sophomore, but it lacks, in that it
was born of neither analysis nor synthesfs-
1t is not potent enough in mental avoirdu-
pois to press on a foundation. Winnowed
by investigation, it goes out with the chaH.
In Entirely Too Big Hurry.
Let US examine some of these PROPOSE
tions and see what they possess.
"Our sun may be extinguished and may be
illuminated again."
Our sun has a diameter of over 900 900
miles, a luminous mass of the highest order
of incandescence. Now does anyone that
understands anything of the nature of a
fire in a common coal stove even,
imagine that an incandescent mass of
only one mile in diameter could be
"extinguished and be again illuminated" in
short order? Does the author of this idea
presume that the sun is running on ir-
responsible arbitrariness, on bap-hazard, on
no regard to natural law? Is it a hay-stack
confederation that he is discussing.
1t seems like sinful waste of time, paper
such fonndationless proposition. Again.
"In the space OF q few weeks, he may allow
death to invade the world"
That is, as M. Flammarion sees it, the
mighty mass of the sun, billions on billions of
cubic miles of fincandescent flame, may part
with his heat Gin q few weeksr-in about as
much time as it takes glass furnace to
cool-and he may then arise anew from his
ashes and continue business at the old
stand, issue circular letter to his old
customers, thanking them for past patron
age and hoping for a continuance Of
Then, "life, which had, for the moment dis
appeared" presumably in a moment bobs
up again in full-fedged development with
while the bones of Humboldt, Darwin,
Helmholtz, Haeckel ct al rattle in their
graves. And all this is predicated on the
variable light of certain stars and presum-
ably because it is easier to set up such cheap
hand -me-down hypothesis than by painstak-
ing, intellectual effort, reach out and grasp
wider range of celestial physics and thus
evolve at least theory that might worthily
find place in the catalogues of science.
Juggling With = World of Ice.
After this deliveranee one is prepared
for what he says relating to the glacial
epoch. Here again he shows himself mere
tyro in his conception of the consequences
that would ensue to the earth should the
sun go out leaving his planetary family to
''wander darkling in the eternal space"
"But the temperature dropped to such
point as not to leave a drop of water in the
liquid state. A dark sky hung over the
world. Nature stood still, ikea man about to
faint and fall, and life went out. =
This glacial epoch, visible traces of which
are still found everywhere by geolOgists, ex-
tended all over the globe. Was man already
in existence? Was he witness to this great
catastrophe? To protect himself and save
his budding race, did he find some shelter
ing volcano, some equatorial isle, a refuge
forgotten in the universal cataclysm?'
Here we are told that the temperature
nncongealed and then, following this condi-
tion, came universal cataclysmf' As q
cataclysm is an inundation, of continental
and probably of hemispherical proportions,
one has to take perch outside OF all physics
to get "cinch" on this exceedingly illogical
declaration
This all-ice and at the same time all-water
condition, "extended over the entire globe.'
This is something new and strange if true
But since there is just SO much and no more
water on the globe, and since the quantity is
liquid form, "the entire elobeh at one time,
how under the sun could this take place,
with the sun living or dead? Will Monsieur
kindly furnish diagrams to illuminate some
of his propositions?
Much Poetry and Little Law.
This deponent pleads guilty to men,
tai condition entirely too obtuse to go into
formation which this eminent French as
tronomer is endeavoring to fmpart. Did the |
sun die, did he in an instant cease to emit |
heat or light, no Adirondack rock forma-
tions would pack their grips for 10O0-mile |
Journeys, nor would they, from that cause, !
be found resting on the SUBMITS of the high |
hills of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Did the |
solar sphere go out in ashes, nothing of u |
character would ensue and |
were the SUMS fire once ''extinguished" it |
would not be SO readily illuminated" |
again, no more SO than when we have !
burned ton of coal we may again take up |
the ashes and go over the same process and |
obtain the same results.
1t is almost impossible to bear the suspi- |
cion that this eminent astronomer does not |
vet grasp the great underlying scientific
that every law of nature las an eter-
nal integrity and an unchanging consist
ency We can see what does happen when |
winter cold and, some of us have seen the
mercury from 200 to 400 below zero, we have
seen fair start of what would follow, with
a temperature of from 500 10 5000 below zero.
No gales could blow, Tor there would be no
inequality of atmosphere to seek equilib-
rum; no snow con. d tall, for no vapor could
rise and there would ensue simply silence |
and DEATH No hills would be planed of, no
valleys filed up, nothing would follow of
glacial character.
Camille Must Have an Object
But our scientist asks, ''Was man already
in existence?n Inasmuch as the tombstones
Of paleontology nowhere seem to have any
bearing on the creature known
,s man. we conclude that he was not present,
Dr.. that with the usual long-headed fore
sight of the equatorial human, he had sought
,he shelter of q volcano, "to save his bud
ling race" and there lay low until the sun