Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-07
CONCERNING THE END
Will the Last Man Freeze or
Will He Frizzle?
SCIEN TIFIC OPINION
HOW DETERMINATION OF MAN
KIND BY FIRE MAY OCCUR.
Old "Sol" is Headed Toward Another
Sun, but Will Not Reach It for
Three Billion Years.
Copyright, 1905, by John Elfreth watkins)

| Copyright, 1905, by John Elfreth Watkns.)
That the last human inhabitant of our
| planet will be frozen to death I find to be
the consensus of scientific opinion. One as
tronomer, widely known, made for me a
carefully computed estimate that eight
ninths of the suns energy have already been
expended; that at least three millions of
years must elapse before the remaining
ninth will burn out. The entire solar sys-
tenn will then be bathed in perpetual night,
but will continue to move through space.
All life, animal as well as vegetable, will
have been exterminated before the last
glmmer of the dying sun has been seen.
Man Will have learned to manufacture arti-
| fetal daylight milleniums before the cur
tain of perpetual night has been drawn. He
will have learned, too, to make sun heat,
artificially, on wholesale scale; but he will
be unable to cope with his frigid surround
ings after the great central star now warm
ing him shall have lost its last spark
This cooling and darkenng of the earth
will be very gradual, the astronomer went
on to specify. Eventually the great oceans
will freeze over. Later their moisture will
be utterly absorbed by the land and they
Will be dry abysses. Later still, our atmos-
phere will have entirely ceased to be vapor
and will lie like snow upon the crust Of the
earth. Earth will thus become like the
moon. Even the snow will eventually van
ish. All moisture and vegetation being gone
there will be nothing left to keep our plan
cts crust dark. 1t will become white and
parched like the sands of our desert as it
dries. There will be no electricity; no thun-
der storms.
The French astronomer Flammarion pic
lures the last great focus of civilization as
f1ourishing in the center of equatorial Africa
London, Paris and New York having been
buried beneath ice a hundred thousand years
before. Smaller remnants Of the human
race will struggle almost as long In South
America, at the mouth of the Amazon river
and on the Island of Ceylon. But the last
of his race will die in the great Sahara, his
habitation being buried deep in overpower-
ing snow.
Earth will revolve more and more slowly
upon her axis; the days will grow longer,
the moon more distant, the air dryer, ac-
cording to this picture. The sun, once blush
white. will become golden, then reddish at
midday in the hottest weather These
changes will be perceived long before the
last day of mans reign.
May Be Frizzled Up.
Next in likelihood, we will be burned to
determination. This was the favored the
DRY of the ancients. who saw much Biblical
basis for the fear But there is no scientific
foundation for any theory that our planet
will simply frizzle up arbitrarily, so to
speak. The heat must come from the sum-
made hotter by some other glowing body
fallen into it, or must be generated by our
own collision with one of the denizens of
ether.
The sun is darling through space at the
terrific speed Of $1,000 miles per hour, or
about LOCO times as fast as our express
trains 1t Is carrying earth and her sister
planets along with 1t. Imagine the sun to
be great cannon ball, darling straight for
some mark in the heavens, carrying vol
ley of buckshot and fine bird shot along
| with it. The buckshot, representing the
lv,1ov, ,ot ny,1xy a
cannon ball, but SPIN each on its own axis.
The pieces of birdshot, representing the
moons, revolve about some of the buckshot.
This means that the earth, whizzing spiral
ly like a rifle ball, is covering the same
space. 1t might be compared with bee
buzzing about moving cannon ball. OLD
Sol must hit some thing, some day, 1t would
seem. There are more stars in the heaV-
ems than there are grains of sand on the
seashore," one astronomer told me- These
scientists have been carefully figuring on
the direction of the suns flight TO further
verify their calculation, D. o. Mills, mil
lionaire New York banker, lately donated
generous sum.
Old Sol Headed for Another Sun.
We are headed for the stars forming that
constellation called the Tyre" or Harp"
Such is indicated by the measurements so
far made. The Tyre Is one of the great
star groups of the northern heavens. 1t Is
formed of five distant suns, four of them
marking the corners of an oblong, and the
fifth. brightest of all-above and to the left
lis known as Vega Vega Is the particular
star toward which we are aimed, SO III
seems In early winter 1t has fallen below
the horizon before the sun sets, but In late
summer we may see il above our heads.
brilliant and blue. brighter than what as
tronomers term ''the first magnitude
1t would require nearly three bilions OF
years to reach Vega on one of our mile-a-
minute express trains, travelling at even
7 tv.fa
great bulls eye of our stellar target is SO
distant that a quarter century is required
for each of its light waves to reach US.
Thus Vega might drop out of the heavens
tonight but be visible to us until 1870.
Were one of Its surrounding planets In
| habited by people equipped with telescopes
powerful enough to bring you Into view
| they would see you today as you were
twenty-five years ago. Focusing their
lenses upon New York they would see
Brooklyn bridge in the course Of construc-
ton. Bringing the White House into view,
they might see President Hayes passing
in and out.
Will Be No Men Then.
Earth will reach Vega in about four
millions OF years IL aimed straight at her.
This Is. of course, mere approximation.
The most learned astronomers are unable
to calculate with any approach to .accu-
racy the distances Of the stars SO many
millions Of times further away than the
planets OF our aygteu1, Twelve million
generations Will pass before the catastro-
phe II due, and Is We accept the hypothe-