The evening times., 1898-10-27
COMFORT FOR MILLIONS.
The Worlds Formation Does No
Suggest Early Destruction.

Suggest Early Destruction.
To the Editor OF The Times:
The Laplace hypothesis OF cooling
worlds. so generally accepted by scien-
lists. Is, in my judgment, untenable.
More than twenty years ago / discarded
1t and gave reasons therefor in the New
York Sun and other papers. And now
after reading in The Times of October "a
about costly experiments being made by
Prof. AgassiZ and others in the deep
mines TO ascertain the exact ratio of the
increase of internal heat downward, with
! view of determining the age of the earth
and its rate of cooling from a presupposed
fiery state, beg leave TO repeat some rea-
sons for rejecting the nebuIar hypothesis.
1t is, l believe. conceded that less than
one-sixteenth Of a degree of heat from
within reaches the earths surface Was
there ever any more? Probably not.
Down ten miles deep are there not fossils
| of animals and plants. which, when alive,
| could not have endured temperature
| much above 100 degrees Fahrenheit? But
are not those fossils heated up now 10
! leo degrees? How, then. about your
| cooling earth?
The accretion theory of world formation
| is simple enough, but | have yet 20 see
geological text book that more than hints
| at II. 1t solves the problem of Internal
heat. The prodigious force OF gravity is
an all sufficient cause. Pressure produces
| heat. Pile up suddenly fifty feet of per
| pendicular rock and see II the substance
| at It's base is not raised in temperature
| one degree. Exposed TO air it would soon
| radiate. but how much can ii radate fifty
| feet below the surface? And the deeper
| down you go the more Is the heat re-
| tained.
Furthermore, the earth is slowly grow
| ing in size from meteoric accretion. In
| vast period of time the enlargement be-
| comes apparent. and thereby the internal
/ heat is augmented.
What has been the period of animal and
| plant life on earth? Any less than a hun
| dred million years2 / believe il is nearer
| one thousand million, but will accept u
| 1.-THE thereof or even much less for ar
! gument's sake Now what does sstrononf-
| cal science say, based on the nebUar
| hypothesis? In the last few pages of
| Prof. Newcomb's Popular Astronomy are
statements to this effect: Our sun must
| necessarily contract in order 10 keep up
| the present supply of heat. The rate Of
| contraction is such that in five million
| years the sun will be reduced to one-haif
/
| improbable that life on earth can con-
tinue ten million years more.
So much for thed ismal future; now
for the past. | quote from page 5lT:
1T is thus found that if the sun had,
! in the beginning. filed all space. the
amount of heat generated by his con-
| traction to his present volume would have
| been sufficient TO last eighteen millicn
| years at his present rate of radiation
We can say with entire certainty that the
| sun cannot have been radiating heat NJ
the present rate for more than this period
unless he has, in the mean time. re-
| ceived a miraculous accession OF energy
! from some outside source"
Let me here remark that the Lapiace
| theory postulates a miracle az the he-
| ginning which the accretion theory does
not. Science repudates miracles.
And now. as a further refutatiOn of the
| nebular hypothesis. IL is a demOnstrable.
! if not a conceded. fact that our sun does
not radiate heat through interstellar
! space Consequently there is no neces-
sarv contraction of it's volume Only an
| iufuftesiral quantity of heat from its
ravs Is REQUIRED for its satellites. and this
triaing loss is made up a million times
or more by meteOriC accretion.
Our earth has existed countless mil
lions of years, and is yet in its infancy
". H BURR