Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1906-07-13
TROUBLE WITH THE SUN

that there are fierce convulSionS in the
great luminary. To the plain person
this brilliant orb seems the size of
sitter, and shining as if at white heat.
The men who study this huge solar
sphere can furnish interesting informa-
tion. 1t is known the sun is the center
of system of planets. They go
around it in circle, their Orbits as
if the sun was the big tent pole in the
middle of-the "ring,' and the stars
were the horses dashing round and
round. The sun and the set of
worlds" that spin around him are a
considerable distance from the balance
of the stars
The sun is many times larger than
all the planets united that circle around
it. AS for our earth, if it were flung
into the sun, it would be like buck
shot dropped into mill-pond. Hotl
We know nothing about "caloric units, F"
till we turn our attention to the roaring
furnace over our heads at midday The
electric smelter at Niagara making
flints fluid, is comfortable heat if set
over against this glowing mass in the
sky. The earth, with its mountain
masonry of quartz, and its vast oceans
would vanish at the touch of the sun as
quickly as the down of a duck in the
furnace of furious fires surging on the
electric hearth of the smelling works.
The scientific apparatus reports on this
excessive temperature. If all the coal
dug up in year from all the mines,
namely, two hundred and eighty million
of tons, were burned on the surface of
the sun, this vast fire would keep up
the usual heat of the sun-how long?
A year? A month? Hear the answer.
'It would suffice to keep up the solar
radiation only one forty millionth of a
second" If the earth was a solid lump
of coal and turned over to the firemen
of the sun, it would last only th!rty-six
hours! Now mark you, that round
black mass would be eight thousand
miles through and twenty-five thousand
miles around! Or to put it in another
form. Suppose you had an ample sup
ply of ice, each block of this frozen
water mile every way-a cubic mile
of ice. You might hurl 2S7 billion
cubic miles of ice every second into the
sun without reducing its heat particle!
When 2s7, 200, 600, 600 such chunks
were flung into that flame there would
signs of decrease of temperature.
Hot! Somewhat warm, indeed.
| Only fraction of the story is limited
at Our sun is small affair-a tallow
candle. Bear in mind, we are dealing
with the certainty of mathematics, not
Munchausen. Our luminary is as pea
compared to Sirius, thirty-six times
larger, or to Vego, equal to one hun
dred of our sun, or Arturus, 1000 suns,
or Spica, 1000 suns, or Rigel, 10000,
or Canopus, 20,000l Our sun, though
nearly million of miles through it,
from side to side, is runt star in the
ranks of stellar torches. What would
be the fate of our home planet if il
should fall into the vast cauldron OF
kindled hydrogen of Canopus! Our
ball of seas, continents, rocky ranges,
would flash into thin SCOT like the ash
of a snip of tissue paper tossed in the
crater of yesuvius. And what of the
huge Himalayas of light that people
with sparkling planets the wide prairie
of space never scanned by optic glass;
Sirius, Vego, and their fellows seem tc
sight diamonds drops of dew on the
mighty plain, the glittering helmet
; that crowns the clasp, closing the folds
robing in darkness the sleeping sky.
We are the children of the sun. Hs
is the great almonor. Life is warmth
Death is chill. Animal and vegetable
life depend upon the solar emanations
Tell the rural miller that the sun run:
his overshot wheel and he mocks you
1t is true the stream turns the buckets
The sun pumped the water from tn,
sea and loaded it on the winds to carry
to the hills. In its return home to tn,
sandy shores, the mist that rose from
the surface of the ocean wrought wei
on the route. The sun supplies tn,
clouds with the genial showers and tn,
soil with the heat that nurses vegeta
tion. The sun in the ages agone stored
up in the coal measures, light an,
labor of 217 triiion horses. Our worl
e rushes through temperature of 20
degrees below zero. The sun sends hi
warm beams and we travel in con
servators tempered to our comfort
while in perpetual winter. We have
roof of air that treasures the heat
Flowers bloom, grain ripens, the al
y purified by the chemistry of light. /
1t a surprise that nations adored tn
a grand orb of day?
The Psalmist, the shepherd lad, un
der the clear sky above the Judean hill
saw the Architect of these wonders
David was shut in by limited informs
y ton Of stellar spaces. With the ler
that summons stars beyond the ken q
the unaided eye, into vision, out of di
tant depths never dreamed of by tn