Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-08
END OF THE WORLD
Various Ways in Which Our Earth
May Cease to Exist
By CAMILLE ARION

slide first as a bubbling spring, then as a limpid
r1ver, and finally raging stream; otherwise it
ndS entry into the soil by all the assures of the lat
ter. quantity of water apparently insignificant
put really important, account of its action that
IS continued for centuries, is enabled by this latter
means to penetrate the depths of the porous soil
Should 1t descend far enough reach sufficiently
high temperature, 1t is transformed into vapor such
tact being most recently the cause of volcanic erup-
tons and OF earthquakes Generally it enters into
chemical combination with the earth and rocks
forming hydrates. Such water is of course lost
from the general circulation.
This deprivation of moisture seems to have been
the late already OF some portions of our solar sys
TEN: Our nelghbor the moon, whose dimensions
are interior to those of the EARTH cooled much more
rapidly and passed much more quickly through the
phases of planetary life Its former seas whereon
the traces OF the action of the waters are recoqn-
Fable, are at present dried up, and kind of evap-
grafton, no cloud, is discernble thereon On the
planet Mars which is also smaller than the earth
and certainly IN more advanced period of plan
etary life, without being so aged as the moon we
observe seas reduced to narrow inland straits; the
great oceans have Disappeared rain is rare and the
sky is nearly always clear
Doubtless the future reserves for us DESTINY
hrst similar to that of the present state of Mars
then, similar to that of Our satellite the moon
While to every two hundred molecules of oxygen
and OF nitrogen there is found only one of water
VaPor, this latter possesses, nevertheless, eighty
times energy and efficacy than the other
two hundred. These minute transparent drops
suspended in the atmosphere act like heat condensers
to concentrate the rays of the sun and to retain
will happen when this protecting veil shall have
disappeared? The temperature of the soil will be-
come glacial and will render the globe uninhab-
table. From the summit of the mountains the
mantle of the will be spread over the valleys
driving before it both life and civilization. At the
completion of this epoch planet will have reached
a temperature approximating two hundred and sew
enty-three degrees below zero.
End of the Sun
RUT will Our globe live long enough to reach this
~ distant age? and will it finally sleep in this mortal
cold! Could not terrestrial life suffer different
and more rapid death? Would it not be possible
for the ocean to recover its supremacy over the
continents and to spread anew as at the dawn of
terrestrial life, its liquid mantle over each part of
the earth2
Everywhere about us we observe the leve1ing
processes OF nature in widely variant forms and to
this levellng process man lends willing hands It
is easy to comprehend the completion of the process
and thus there two different modes of death
two diametrically opposed ends the one resulting
from the disappearance of the water the other
from its invasion, the processes being carried on
henceforth with different degrees of intensity
Which Of the two will conquer the other? This
cannot yet be calculated.
The study of the universe shows us a third fate
equally probable. Our is the potent governor
OF all that exists here and it is not lvu1ner-
able to the ravageS of time; the day must come
when it will lose heat light and will finally be ex-
tngu1shed. The heat radiation of:our sun is indeed
one OF imaginary magnitude; and the amount of heat
that the planets intercept their passage through
space is insignificant representing hardly the two