The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-27
A STRANGE CLAIM.

ouc VI lIlS ldfOIll6 lltoIiSS ol opOSo- lative scientists is that other worlds than the earth are inhabited. Many and in- gepuous have been the arguments ad- vahced to prove that the great work of creation never contemplated that all the mighty planets which we see in the heavens should have no other or better use than to be gazed at. The plea is made that some of these worlds are vast ly larger than our earth, that they are adapted to animal life, and that the Gre when he had provided inhabitants for one small portion of His creation. From various causes the planet Mars has been the favorite In all these speculations, and many and varied evidences. so-called have been given to prove the theory and to show what manner of people the Mar tians are. True, it has never been dem onstrated that there is life on Mars or any other planet, but that doesn't lessen the enthusiasm of some of the claimants. But leaving all that out of the present. We find the following somewhat start ling special in a contemporary:
 Alexander Young If J.aporte, an as- tronomer, today announced that from observations made by him he is confl- dent that the sun Is inhabited: that with his instruments he has seen on the sun surface mountain sides with great and precipitous rocks whtsh glow with prs matic cclors, mingled with the greenness of a perennial vegetation and with a floral radiance more beautiful than on at ha yG he saw valleys and plains where people live.
 Ttat soes beyond anything yet advanc- ed by the most enthusiastic star-gazer From the day, probably, when man first saw the sun that luminary has been look ed on as a vast world of heat Poets philosophers, wise Glen and prophets, all allude to the great orb of day as the primary source of all natural warmth They have spoken of 1t as great globe of fire, or a mass of molten metal and in various other terms impress upon us the belief that our sun Is the very es- sence of all heat and the poets, when they speak of the end of time, always have something to say about the sun growing cold or forbearing to give out light and heat to a freezing and darkened world.
 If Young's theory Is correct, 1t upsets everything and we've got to learn our astronomy over and form different starting point. The annoying feature of any claim of this kind is that we can't disprove 1t. Proving a negative is a diff fcult matter Young says the sun has inhabitants, and if We say it hasn't he has the advantage of the argument. He says he has seen them and to say that we have not seen them proves nothing. We have not seen the Akkoond of Swat but others have, and their evidence would stand in court against ours.
 There will naturally be much more to hear about this matter. The short par agraph we have quoted is all We have seen and it may be a fake. If it is genu- inc, and the claimant isn't a moon-struck -or sun-struck-lunatic, there will be other and further investigations to es- tabIish the truth of falsity of the claim | If there Is nothing to 1t there's an end of the matter but if 1t Is true 1t is up to somebody to explain where all the hot ness comes from. We can't imagine an- imal life in or on a fiery mass of matter, unless the old fable of the salamander is true. Reasoning from what we know of conditions on earth We must hold that the temperature of the sun is something like ours, 1e people liye there, and if that is the case of course all our ideas about the suns heat are wrong and We must find some other way to account for it. Young must get on and tell us a great deal more.