The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-08-21

Main Contention About Volcanoes.
EDITOR STAR:-Yom contributor
'Cacoethes SCribendi," exhibits not on
y fertility of thought, but a familiarity
With chemical termmology winch IL
much sperior to my own. Like him, ]
am Ony "A "layman." &C s. atso
,hows fine eloquence in describing the
,ustling chaos of Colliding meteorites
] cannot presume on using your space
o discuss minor points at issue between
is, although &C. s." appears to me to
nisconceive the physical facts, as we'll
g to misconstrue my own meaning. /
viii only stop to fOrtify my contention
hat Carbonic acid gas in soda water is
actually in the liquid state, by ad4uc-
ng the case of air absorbed by water.
chat air seems To be liquefied, and is
| Entirely quiescent. But If the water
-reezes, the air contained refuses to So
idfy, and resumes its gaseous condi-
ion, appearing in minute bubbles in
he Ice. &c. s." objects that the mole
Jules of the carbon dioxide in the water
are too far apart for it to be a liquid
But he would be the last one to place
he difference between the liuuid and
gaseous states of matter in the distance
of the molecules, especially when their
separation is caused by the interposi-
| ton of molecules of another substance.
l. As to whether gases can either liuue-
~ or solidify under the extreme condi-
tons of heat and pressure existing in
he earth's Interior. il is impossible to
do more than conjecture, because those
conditions cannot be reproduced on the
surface for actual experimentation. I
wrote of them as whether liqui1 or So
i'd" In order to preclude the idea of
their being less compact than the sub
stances with which they were assocat-
ii hot l.
want to my main contention, which is
that all the gaseous elements of matter
are Intimately distributed throughout
| The interiors, of all planetary and solar
| bodies, whatever their temperature may
| be. 1t does not matter in the least
whether the condition of those elements
under the extremes of pressure involy-
ed is gaseous, or liquid. or solid. nor
IN what form Of combination they are
with the heavier elements which they
preNade and interpenetrate. The essen
tial point of my contention is that those
gases are necessarily present through
out the earth's interior.
They must be there. If they are not
what became of them after the meteor
ties in which they were originally in
cluded because vaporized by the i'm
pact of their collision? Those gases had
no opportunity to escape from the in
terror in which they first expanded I'M
aiine two vast cosmic streams of me-
teorites gliding in opposite directions at
~ miles in a second, and suddenly
clashing against each other. Conceive
of those streams as many billions of
miles in breadth, and hundreds of bill
lions in length, being composed of a thin
INST of rocky nodules hundre of feet
apart. AS they collide, the force of
their impact instantly vaporizes every
nodule. As the process goes on, an orb
&c
| Grated many billions of miles in dia-
| meter. That orb is composed of the vol
atlized Accommodations Of all the mete-
orltes which FLASHED together 1t is de-
scrihed from earth as a new star"
In few months the glowing surface
of this new orb cOols by radiation and
becomes dim. But as the cons sue
coed, condensation an graVitation con-
vert the vast orb into sun, which has
shed off from its whirling PERIPHERY
great masses of its vaporous bulk to
consolidate into planets, and has recov-
cred solar brilliancy by it's condensa-
tlon. The process thus imagined sub
stantially represents the latest conclu
sions of stellar science.
NOW II was manifestly impossible for
the gaseous elements contained in the
original meteoriteS to escape out of the
immense orb in which they were VIOLA
tilted together From portions near
]
for example, might enable it to rise to
the other surface. But through the
many million miles Of interior vapor
there could be no escape. The hydro
gen and other gases would abide help
less'y bound within the interior of the
globe. There thus seems to be no posi-
putty of evading the conclusion that the
greater part of all the gaseous elements
originally associated with the consttut-
Ing meteorltes is still in the interior of
our globe. 1t matters not whether they
are in solid, liquid or gaseous state.
Ihey are there present and that is
enough to know. Whenever, from any
cause, the superintendent pressure is
relieved, those gases expand with vol
canic efferVescence. There is an "erup-
ton"
l need not discuss how &C. S." seems
most strangely to impute to me the alb
surdtty of supposing that the mateori-
ties became embodied in the nebulous
orb In continued frozen state.
S. +. BISHOP.
Honolulu, August q. 1899.