The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-22

almost exclusively the elements that con- stitute the sea and the air-oNygen. nitro gen, carbon, hydrogen. sodium, potassium, phosphorus sulphur. calcium. magnesium, ilon and silicon. And not only so for the clements that constitute sea water and the substances of our own bodies are the first born clements of the hottest stars.
 Otherwise put, more and more do we see that we human beings are the last re- suit of a series of changes that run back without any sudden break to a uihe when the stars were young The eNoiu- ton of plants and animals is the las' stage of the evolution of the stars and we are all indeed star children. We De gan too long ago to think.
 Sir Norman Lockyer who has worked out the whole idea in marvellous and TO- mantle way has built up a diagram showing that tine hottest stars have temperature of 5000o degrees centrigrade The temperature descends in a long me to the coolest stars, at about l0,WO and 5000 degrees, Thence the temperature sinks to the average temperature or the earth And then comes the evolution or living beings This entire evolution is represented in the scale somewhere be- tween the temperature at which water boils and ice melts, a mere point in the entire line representing the whole sweep of evolution Yet this mere point was measure by many millions of years,
 When we reach the evolution of living beings have we reach the end? "ls the universe a clock wound up by the maker and left to run itself down? Or. after it has reached the farthest point in evolution, does it start back again and begin all over againY'
 Among the million of stars that stud the skies Sir Norman Lockyer has found that while some represent a scale of de- creasing temperature others represent a scale of increasing temperature. Some stars are cooling off; others are warming up. This is one of the most marvellous discoveries of our modern men. While some of the stars are growing cooler and more complex, while they are evolving, others are growing hotter and less com plex and are developing.
 Sir Norman has constructed table of 10 grades of evolving stars, beginning with the hottest and simplest and end ing with the coolest and most complex. He also has found himself able to pre- pare like table of the devolvng stars, which begins with the coolest and most complex stars and ends with the hottest and simplest. The bottom of one table is the top of the other.
 The course of a stars history is in a curve. It begins with a nebula. A nebula is a vast swarm of meteorltes col Hiding together. The meteorites are cold humps of matter containing the chemical elements as We know them on the earth. These meteorites are drawn to the center of the swarm by the force of gravity they cannot but collide. and from the col- lisions comes heat. So the temperature gradually rises They lombard and col Hide until the elements dssoeiate and finally pass away and dissolve into gases, incandescent gas at the highest attain able degree of heat.
 This happens when all the meteorites in the swarm have been used up. If there were more meteorites in the swarm the bombardment might go on and the mass get hotter and simpler still in temperature and in it's composition. The hottest stars known have three gases-hydrogen, helium and asterium, the last gas unknown on the earth.
 When the meteorites have been ex- hausted the mass begins to cool off Step by step it grows colder and more com plex until at last it reaches the state of our sun, containing all the elements we find on earth. Then eventually it be- comes u dark star. extinct and dead, like our own earth itself. And the whole mass IS like a big meteorite.