Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-10-21
MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

A reader of the MONITOR sends US
the following in reply to an article
which recently appeared in this paper
under the head of "Food for
Thought" which vas copied from
"Word and Works -
beg to ia &. exception to the cos
mogony Of my friend "W. K. Al, as
printed in the MONITOR of Sept. Both.
The processes by which he arrives at
the present state of the solar system
are exactly the reverse of those
| taught me. As to the principal
proposition Of "W. K. A." that the
rings and canopies which now sur
rouad Saturn and perhaps Jupiter
and which aeons ago probably sur
rounded the sun and the earth and
all OF the planets, were first thrown
off from these bodies by centrifugal
force and that finally the centrifugal
force in all except Saturn and Jupiter
died down and let the rings drop upon
the bodies underneath in "cataclys
mic downfalls", -this is quite the op
posite of the generally accepted
theory. 1t is generally believed that
these rings and canopies came from
far out in the heavens, and that they
never have fallen and probably never
will fall upon the sun and other
planets.
How did they come from out in
space? According to the nebular hy-
pothesis as generally accepted, all the
matter in the universe was at one
time mere cloud of dust and gases
pretty evenly distributed throughout
space. But in certain spots this
nebula was denser than the general
run Of it. Forced by the law of CRAWL
tation, the whole mass of nebula be-
gan collecting about these dense
spots. Our sun was one of these CEN
tres. AS the nebula came together
rotary motion sprang up. At the
equator the centrifugal force pro-
duced by the rotation counterfeit
ed the force Of gravitation. The
nebula there staid out in space in the
form Of rings, while the rest closed in
and formed a solid body. We then
had a sun with rings of nebula about
it, and all molten and revolving
rapidly.
What finally became of the rings?
They became the planets. The nebula
of the rings began collecting about
dense spots and the planets grew by
process similar to that Of the
making of the sun. A rotary motion
developed in each of them. The CEN
trifugal force kept some of the nebula
of the planets out in space and moons
were made out of it. Saturn and Ju-
piter are still in a middle stage. Each |
has moons and rings too. Some day
they will probably have more moons
and no rings. So instead of "return
ing to the earth from whence they |
came,'' we maintain that the rings
about the sun and planets always |
have been, and still are, of the heav-
ems and heavenly, and that just so
long as the moons and planets re-
one knows what will ever stop them,
Just so long Will they remain there.
AS to the statement that "water is
a product Of fire" to say that water |
is product of cold would be nearer
the truth. For if this world was once |
in an igneous condition, what is now
water must have then been steam,
and the present water must be re-
suit of the cooling and condensing of
that steam. Further, instead of the |
gold in Alaska having rained down
from the skies above, we would sub
nit as more plausible explanation
of it's existence there that it was
thrown up out of the earth beneath
in the eruptions of the volcanoes in
which that region once abounded.
The theories of "W. K. A." are
good "food for thought, but to me
they are unthinkable.-C.P P. Q.
NeaO York City.