Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1901-01-03
OF THE sun
COMING SHORTLY
Two Norwegian Scientists say That
our Grandchildren will Perish of
lmmeasurable Cold.

socket and sure to Sputter out by the
third generation. Mathematician Mohn,
also of Norway, has carefully verified
Mr.. BarkendaIS calculations, We are
told, and finds them correct"
Now this announcement. If we are to
take it seriously, is like the sounding
OF the last trump so far as the earth
is concerned. For with the extinction
of the sun would come a chill which 1t
is a nightmare even to hin about.
Fires and furs would help our grand
children very little in such a situation.
They would burrow deep in the earth
and freeze there. The ocean would 500
become an arctic Sahara Of drifting ice
dust: at last the very air would mist
and faIl-and freeze. Then all would lie
still and dark, While the uninaaginabie
cold of outer space descended to earth's
centre, cracking its very marrow. The
frozen nlunnlnieS OF our race would OUT
last the balsaned Pharaohs; there
would be nothing to disturb their quiet
And each rigid shape would be it's own
a1abaster
To this, doubtless, it will come at last.
Astronomers maintain that the heavens
are full Of just such black ghosts of
suns and worlds. They fit through
space unseen. They outnumber the
stars.
To this it will come-but when? a
any mans figures convince us that UGH
is the inheritance of our children's chill
dren?
Figures sometimes lie: and sometimes,
also, figures disclose unwelcome truths.
It is useless to juggle here with mathe-
mates which only professional experts
can understand. Plain common sense is
often better than a slate. Let US glance
at a ftt.- e the established facts, to
which all theories must conform. They
may prove r~eassuring; anyhow, they
are extremely interesting.
The Iirst fact We meet, however, Is
the reverse of reassuring. The sun is
for the most part simply wasting his
heat-1inging away the golden rays
thai are the life Of the world with a
recl1lessness beside which all human
waste is mere parsimony. 1t is almost
beyond belief. Scarcely one sunbeam
in two thousand million alights upon
the earth; and for the whole
solar system, not more than one in a
hundred million ever hits anything, so
far as we can ascertain.
Ard here is Sir Robert Balls illustra-
ton Of the same amazing fact: Sup
pose a man with an income OF a million
dollars a year. He spends for useful
pun poses one cent and throws the rest
away. His wastefulness is no greater
tina that which this old prodigal the
sun has practised for untold ages.
IT, total amount Of heat which thus
leaFe away through the cracks in the
SKI cannot be expressed by figures. It
is C1fy by considering h it might do
that * c&a set as conception of it,
! This = probably the most striking illus
!: traffic ana is given by an eminent
! Suppose a solid shaft of ice two miles
! square 20 ne ext@nded like a bridge
! across he Sulf which separates the
| earth from the sun If a track We're
| laid on its surface an express i; ain run-
ming at full speed would require more
| than $50 years t. tEaVaGse it.. ! ct if the
| whole heat of the sun Wee tuned upon
| it for a single second it you'd be
/ melted. anG in a few seconds rrore all,
| even to Is "Iroad iron, would drift
But v ire source Of this heat
| that flows in11 SPACE as the Gulf Stream
| pours intu ii Atlantic, warning the
| earth AID otaet planets like little ISL
ands in It's coLrse? What keeps up the
supply?
If the srn Were rnerely a white-hot
ball graduaII, cooling, our grandchil-
dren would indeed get a chill. Dr. rath-
er, neither they nor we would ever
have seen the sun. The final frost would
have fallen long ago
Nor can the heat be maintained by
fire, as we understand the Word-such
fire as warns and now and then con-
sumeS our houses If it We're a globe of
flaming coal it would have lasted but a
few Thousand years; it WGnld have been
burned to ashes long before we were
born. All the coal on the earth would
hardly keep the sun going for one-tenth
of a second.
A falling meteor gives ont great heat
just as a bullet is heated when it
strikes the target. Some have conjec-
tured that a vast stream OF these little
hdIISloL1CS ILL oPSi - - S-1R1
it's fuel. But if the whole T.as5 of the
| moon We're put into a stone crlsheE.
broker UP and thrown against the SUN
it would barely furnish heat for a sim
gle yea. And no such weight could
possibly approach the sun without our
knowledge.
Yet in its own chosen way the sun
eallv has it's fires. With proper instru-
ments we may see the red 70 mes spout
! ing from it's edge, sometimes to q height
of 400, 900 miles-higher than the moon
. floats above the earth. To some Of
them our world would be no more than
a vater-drop falling from a fountain
To gain any idea of the almost mex
haustible reservoir from which the sun
] draws its heat we must first picture its
actual condition. Matter there is in a
1 state unlike anything ever seen upon
ea5 n. 1t is neither solid nor liquid nor
In any familiar sense gaseous. The sun
is q boiling, Seething, flaming mixture
of the gases or vapors of all the ele-
ments condensed by the tremendous
sqreeze of solar gravity until it is
TIMER than pitch, and 50 hot that its
va, led iron might be used for steam
po.yea if there were any boiler fit to
ho?t it. Il has no definite surface. but
sha des away from this i~ncandescent
pa~-e, through leaping flames Of blood
REQ hydrogen to the faint steamers OF
the @ as flmy as a comets tail.
This writhirS mass, heavier on the
70 age than water and yet as unstable
Il al, does rot even rotat@ ike other
G. rs, but sEri K a~0und its axis.
IN the ta-rifc aston of these gases
is atnte7 81 .1s gy Of - sun, AS
tk1l estG1ee IL @1S.2aS IF heat they do
no .oo}. hut slowly contract; it is quite
DC ~lbIe mat they even grow hotter as
thy thus settle downward and com
press themselves into a denser fluid
A total shrinkage of 220 feet a res
will account for the whole expenditure
and so small a change in the size of tls
disk could not be detected until it had
been watched for thousands of years
, EFh3C will cn on until tho S1IhStaTao ~
the sun ceases to be essentially case
GUS. Then will come the beginning o.
. the end, for from that time forth tn,
t actual temperature of the sEn will de
, cline.
! Then, while the sun slowly redden
and darkenS 0nr "a rth will die Affe