The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-08-29
THE END OF THE WORLD.
SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION CON-
CORNING A REMOTE MATTER.
The Last Man May Give Up the Ghost
in About Three Million Years in Cold
and Darkness No Need to Borrow
In Vef
The end Of the human race!

The end Of the human race!
How and when will it ultimately
come about? This startling question
have lately put to eminent men of SCI
ence.
That man has but three million more
years to live is the opinion given by DR..
T, J. j. See, the well-known astrono-
mer of the Naval observatory. At the
end of that time the sun, which has al
ready expended eight-ninths of its en-
ergy, will have exhausted it's other
ninth and will have burned out. The
whole solar system will then be bathed
in perpetual night. The earth and it's
sister planets will continue, however to
travel on their orbits about the dark
ened sun. The latter will still be the
center of the solar system.
Man might continue to live in dark
ness IL absence Of his daylight supply
were the only effect of the suns burn
ing out. Within three hundred years,
not to mention three million, man Will
have learned to manufacture artificial
daylight, but when the suns light goes
out its heat will go with 1T. The exter-
mnation Of all earthly life such as now
exists, will. in DR.. Sees opinion, result
from cold At the present time he
thinks the sun is growing hotter. 1t
will probably become twice as hot as 1t
is now before beginning to COOL but this
does not mean that it will give the
earth twice as much heat as 1t does now
or that in summer thermometers will
eventually go UP to two hundred de-
grees in our zone. With the sun twice
as hot the earth might be even cooler
than now After doubling its own heat
the sun will begin to lose 1t. The cool
ing and darkening of the earth will then
be gradual There will be no sudden
catastrophe marking the determination
of mankind and of other forms of life,
the astronomer says. The great oceans
will slowly freeze over. They will be-
come absorbed by the land. Later our
atmosphere will cease to be vapor and
will lie like snow upon the earth's crust.
But why should we worry? Assume
that the last earthly mortal freezes to
death in the year 100000 A. D. What
relation will he be to his ancestors of
to-day? Next, presume that the aver
age generation will continue during
these thirty thousand centuries to
take a slip of paper mile and a half
long and write upon it the word great
99,9sS times, side by side At the end
write grandson. Thus you pave this
last mans approximate relationship to
his present ancestors.
"But is not a comet likely to hit us
some time before these three million
years shall have passed." I asked DR..
See
Suppose 1t did. 1t might knock
down a skyscraper or two. Nothing
worse would happen replied he.
Are we not liable some time to col
Tide with another planet?'
1--WE find that the entire solar system
Is continually Fastening in the direc-
tion of the constellation of Lyra. That
distant group of panets you can now
see almost directly overhead. When we
ultimately reach them we shall proba
bly, pass through without damage.
There is one chance in million that
we will strike one OF their number. or
course, If we collide with a body rela-
lively great In extent 1t may sweep us
entirely away from the sun. But it
will take ages and ages before We will |
ever reach this constellation. We are
quietly moving through space and if |
any disturbing element appears direct
ly in our path astronomers will give the |
signal many centuries in advance of our /
reaching It."
Lord Kelvin thinks that there is only !
enough oxygen in our atmosphere to |
last mankind some three hundred years.
How about that?"
PLANT life will continue to convert |
our carbonic acid gas back to oxygen,