The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1904-12-17
.RADIUN AND SOLAR HEAT.
DISCOVERY THROWS NEW LIGHT
UPON EARTH'S AGE.
Combustion Cannot Accoun: for the
Output Of the Heat From the Sun
Radiatlve Processes Afford a Bet
ter Explanation.

l
ter Explanation.
The discovery or radio activity
makes it necessary to reconsider oul
estimates Of the time during which
the earth can have been fitted tcl
abode of living beings
Consider first the suns heat. We
know that the sun Is incandescent-
that it is a glowing white hot body
n 1t has been giving off heat for count
less ages. Now, how can this heat
supply be kept up? Why does the
sun not cool down, owing to the loss
Of its primeval heat?
The most obvious answer would be
that this does not happen, but that
We cooling Of so large a body is too
I slow to be noticeable even in very
kng periods of time. That might
seem at first sight to be a plausible
( pluton enough. But calculation con.
elusiyely proves that it is insufficient.
The heat which is stored up in the
white hot body would very soon be
exhausted if it gave out heat az any
thing like the rate the sun does.
- The same reason prevents our sup
posing that combustion can account
fcr the output of solar heat.
Until lately the theory advanced by
Won Helmholtz has held the field.
! He showed that if the sun was as
sumed to be steadily contracting to
smaller dimensions, if, in fact, the
outer parts were assumed to be fall
Ing down On the inner ones, enough
heat would be generated in the process
to account for the observed output for
q considerable period. The contrac-
ton which it would be necessary to
postulate is too small to be detected
even by the most careful observations
On the suns diameter which can be
made.
It will readily be understood that
calculations of this kind are affected
By considerable sources CT uncertain
", but when due allowances have
been made for these it seems impos-
sible to admit that this source of heat
can keep up the supply for more than
Ny, fifty million years. Indeed, very
high authority puts it lower than that.
Fifty million years is long time,
tudged by human STANDARDS. But
there are strong reasons for regard
Ing it as an insufficient allowance.
These are partly geological, partly
biological.
The earth's surface is composed, in
the main, of stratified rocks, that is,
W layers Of consolidated mud, depos-
He'd one on top of the other. These
layers extend to an enormous thick
ness, as we are able to see when We
examine cases where some of the low
est ones have been brought to the
Yurface by upheaval. We can fern
some idea of the gigantic period
which the deposition of these layers
sWeuld take if we examine case where
ne process is now in operation. The
9fevalent opinion is that fifty million
years is quite an insufficient allow
ence OF time. Albut the very lowest
~ the stratified rocks (and perhaps
even the very lowest) contain fossils.
mus 1t is certain that the earth's sur
ace was fitted for the abode of ami
nai life at the time they were de-
postted. In other words, its tempera-
lure cannot have been widely differ
lf from what it now is, and the sun
lust have been shining then with
much the same brillancy that it does
soW, else that geological evidence |
seems to require much older age |
20 the suns heat than it has been |
ycssible to account for.
zoology points in the same direc-
ROn. Consider the extraordinary
pmplexity of structure of the bodies
the higher animals, and especially
the human body; consider further
sc fact that not the slightest essen
~ alteration of development of that
1Nucture has been observed to take
s'sce during historical periods, and
VIII be admitted that no small al
vance of time is required for the
Il .l'IWinian process of natural selec-
on Dy which the most complicated
Npes OF life are believed to have
IN developed from the simplest.
NOW that the development of heat
= radioactive change has been re-
'osnized it is possible to understand
low the suns heat can have continu-
3 ncr much longer periods than were
merly intelligible, for the present
.sput OF solar heat would be tolera-
~ we'll accounted for if the sun con-
1ned as much radium as pitchblende
The radium present at any mo-
nt would, it is true, have only .
ited life; it is necessary to as
me the constant evolution of ra-
Aem, or of some other radio
I'VE element unknown to us, as in
cnblende and other similar miner
A thousand million years heat
without improbability be thus ac-
united for.
me hypothesis that radioactive pro-
are at work in the sun is not
.npgether without confirmation,
en we have no direct proof of it,
3 nellum is abundant in the sun;
Is neiium is, so far as we know, es.
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