Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-07-04

ninety millions of miles from that fixed star
something else has died-the ife of the
earth. Polar cold spins itself around the
globe The last power of blossomins by
the help Of light vanishes In the last plant
cell.
Helplessly dance the Northern Lights.
helplessly the light of phOsphofescent crea-
lures Eliminates the sea for the last time.
The oceans freeze solid. Wa'e- and life.
the inseparable allies, die together. With
the last drop of H2O. the great sunaoWer OF
Is this to be the final catastrophe? The
threads do. indeed. weave themselves very
closely together here.
The planet-spheres are preserved only by
their monstrOus speed in their race around
the sun from falling headlons into its 5pen
fire-sea. They are lost in that Instant IN
which any cause arises to hem their des-
perate flight. 1t may be a very tiny cause
1t may develop very very slowly through
millions of years. What are millions OF
years compared with eternity? If the cause
is there at all. the hour of reckoning will
come and no power of heaven or earth can
stop it.
And the cause exists.
The space through which the planet darts
is not absolutely empty.
Dust. meteoric dust the finest of meteoric
mass. the thinnest of comet stuff, drifts
ceaselessly against the planets in their
path.
Well. then a lightning express train
whizzes along Swarms Of gnats strike it
erpillar or bug gets on the rail and is
smashed into nothing. How could they
check the train?
But let the lightning express whiz thus
for millions. billions. trillions of years. Time
is terrible. memorable accountant. 1t has
built sky-piercing mountains out of micro
scopic kernels of sand: 1t has burst those
mountains again with the falling drops of
water. sent downward year after year
through thousands Of years.
The endless limitless swarms Of gnats
will bring the lightning express to a stop
as If with an emergency brake when its
hour has come.
Sky-Dust May Stop the Earth.
The meteoric dust, perhaps in still
longer period even the ether of light itself,
will gradually so check the course of the
planet. Long before that course has been
stopped entirely the planet will have fallen
into the sun and have disappeared as
Pickering metallic fame. For as soon as it's
race has slowed down. even little, gravity
pounces on it with vulture's talons and
tears 1t toward the sun. Its path becomes
a spiral. until at last Ikarus it dives itself
only colossal falling star, into this
that has already drunk up SO many little
meteoric swarms with it's flaming kiss
Now a second possibility.
l throw piece of white hot iron into
the snow of winter The snow Kisses,
melts. vanishes in steam in a big circle
frosty night rules undisturbed. At first the
hot iron has conquered the cold in a few
seconds. as in play. Now the frost settles
or the iron. hour after hour. days, weeks.
is cold to it's heart like the snow.
The sun is such piece of iron
Ioday 1t throws It's flaming rays out with
such might that the deserts of earth nine
" millions of miles away Scorch the naked
foot. A little shift of the earth's axis
that will bring the Ice of the pole under
equatorial sun and all the ice would flow
in melted water like the snow around our
hot lump of iron.
But over this gigantic metallic lump of
our planetary system there rests the re-
moreless frost-night, everlasting. Let us
assume that the space of universe has q
temperature of only 30 degrees below zero
Its cold certainly is not less than that. In
that unchanging ice bath the sun must in
evitably burn out some day and become
cold to its very heart, like our lump of
iron
The day will come" which will be no
day but the end of the Sundays. Baldur's
reign will be DONE
These astronomical reasonings about the
suns dying have something that dfferen-
tiates them decisively from other concep-
tons of the end of the world. They lack
the element of suddenness, unexpected
ness. the accidental We see an end that
approaches slowly in the course only of
inconceivably many millions of years.
And in this slow. logical. orderly pro-
we a great indication-that this
coming end is not to be called an end but
is, in truth. only great. wonderful step
in the course of evolution!
Can There Be an End?
From the primal cell to the primordial
plant from the plant to the first animal.
from animal to animal 1t all follows like
the rings In the tree that show it's sue
cessive years. And at last man fights
himself upward from 1t all. Our ancestors
of the glacial period. who hunted the man.
moth. stood barely as high in culture
developed from them, I'VE in the electric
CLOVIS of our twentieth century. with
poetry and ethics-the Eskimo who has
become Shakespeare and Goethe.
The natural philosopher deduces the I'M