The Oakes times. [volume] (Oakes, N.D.) 1906-current, 1910-05-26
.HALLEY'S COMET DROPS
A Line IN PASSING

After a voyage through space, last
ing seventy-five years, l am back again.
As l seldom come in actual contact
with your little earth, / take advantage
of this exceptional opportunity by leav-
ing you this message which may partly
satisfy the curiosity with which you. re-
gard me: =
This letter contains a synopsis of my
history and my history will give you an
inkling of the history of the whole So
lar system, for I, as well as all of my
sister comets, are part of the solar
system. Contrary to the beliefs of
some of your astronomers, every comet
that man has ever seen belongs to the
solar system and every one OF them
will, sooner or later, return to the sun.
This may be hard for some of you to
believe.
know that some Of you think that
musthave been far out among the stars
since l was here before. How little
you realize what that Since l
was here before I have been out three
billion two hundred million miles from
your earth. In order for you to realize
this distance we will draw it out to
scale. AS the earth is 81, 900, 600 miles
from the sun we will use the scale of
SO, ,000, 900 to the inch. Now get
large piece of drawing paper. The
width is not important but it must be
five hundred and forty-fve inches long.
Make a little dot at one end to repre-
sent the sun. One inch from this
make another dot for the earth, then
545 miles from the, first dot [mind you
measure from the first dot] make an
other dot. This represents the end of
my orbit.
Do you suppose that distance would
take me out among the stars? Not by
a long ways! It would be necessary
for me to travel over six thousand
times as l do before l reached the
nearest star! Your sheet of paper
would have to be over three million
miles long to get the nearest star on at
the above scale. We will change the
scale to three billion two hundred mil
lion miles to the inch. This places the
! end of my orbit one inch from the sun,
and the earth and sun would be so close
together that they would appear on
one little dot. But the nearest star
would be more than thirty rods away.
The star Rigle would dSsabver ten miles
away. Ny path does not lead towards
the nearest star. and / would have te
trayel over Is, 600 times as far as l dc
to reach a star in the directionI travel.
So endless isspace, so vast the distance
Of the stars, that in travelling my full
journey of 8. 200, 900, 900 miles I can sac
no difference whatever in the size,
shape. or relative positions of the stars
Now, for my history, I have made
this trip about two million times
One hundred fifty million years ago
first attained what may call my in
dividuality. Prior to that time I had
been part Of the huge mass of gases
from which the whole solar system was
formed. This mass of nebula was ro
tating on its axis in direction YOU
people would call from west to east.
This whirling motion caused it to flatter
out like large plate and while it was
only few million miles in thickness it.
diameter the other way was very
great, being over thirty billion miles.
This whole mass was intensely hot. The
lighter gases had tendency to come
to the surface but as it was in constant
} turmoil the light gases were mingled
with the heavy ones to q certain ex'
: tent. Heavy gases would settle TOWARD
the center and as the heat increased
as they got farther in they would ex.
pand and rise to the surface again.
Everything was in confusion but final.
ly noticed that gases seemed to be
collecting in separate masses; in fact
!. it turned out that the sun and planets
were just being formed. j was com
posed Of very hight gases and wat
several hundred million miles farthe,
out than the planet. There was 8
great conflict between these bodies al
times in obtaining the gases from which
they were formed. ! happened to bt
located in q position that had peculiar
effect upon my own history. Ofcours'
you know that all of the planets re
volve around the sun in the some di
rection had always travelled until tn,
planets began to form. Far away t,
the east and hundreds Of millions O
q miles nearer;to the sun was Saturl
Y sending out her attractive forces Il
induce me to join her and this had ,
tendency to increase my speed to tn,
east. But something was happening
behind me. a force greater than Sat
urn's and my momentum combined wa,