Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1913-11-29

tent Factor In Bringing Our World
to Its Prophesied Fiery End.
No man expects TO see the end of the
world arrive in his day any more than
be expects il he is in good health to
die tomorrow. Yet there is wide
spread and perhaps universal belief
that the earth is no more immortal
than man, only its term Of existence is
almost infinitely long compared with
his.
Science gives unquestionable support
to this view, and every new discovery
seems to make more certain the con
clusiOn that our world cannot last for
ever.
But there are two opposite theories
as to the manner in which the earth as
! the abode o. life will come to an end.
/ One assumes that its destruction will
be by heat and the other that it will be
/ by cold, The discovery Of the mysteri-
GUS substance radium, which possesses
/ the property of continually giving off
heat, has impaired renewed impetus to
the first OF these theories. which, 1t
may be remarked, as matter of curl
osity, is in accord with the Bible proph-
ecies.
The heavens snail roll up rs a scroll,
and the earth shall dissolve with fer
vent heat"
y most ominouS account of the part
that radium may play in the ultimate
destruction of the earth is given in
book by Professor j. Jolly, entitled
'Radioactivity and Geology"
The argument on which the assump-
tion that radium or it's mother ele-
ment" uranium, may finally bring the
world to fiery end is based on the
fact that a particle of radium keeps
itself continually by some inner proc
ess at temperature nearly degrees
| above that of its surrounds lgs In an
hhour the radium emits enough heat TO
raise its own weight of water from the
freezing to the boiling point And this
! store of heat is so vast that a single
/ atom of radium will continue to give it
| forth at an unvarying rate for about
$500 years!
/ If there We're only a certain quantity
of radium in the earth which could not
/ be renewed. then we might assume that
at the end of two or three thousand
/ years this source Of heat would be ex-
/ hausted
But radium itself appears to be con
tinually produced from uranium, which
is an incomparably more abundant sub
stance SO we conclude that the earth
may have been heated internally by
renewed supplies Of radium for untold
millions OF years and will continue TO
be thus heated for millions Of years to
come.
Now, following a line of reasoning
/ which would be too long to enter upon
here, Professor Jolly shows that If at
the present time the nucleus Of the
earth contains as much as one five
hundred-thousand miliouth Of gram
of radium for every gram of ordinary
matter then its temperature must be
rising at such a rate that in about
100OO0,0UO years the earth will be en-.
tirely melted inside.
We do not know whether there IS so
much radum as that inside the earth.
but from what we observe on its sur
face we conclude that there very well
may be- If there IS more then the
melting will be accomplished sooner.
If there is less # will take longer But
the quantity would have to be very
much less than 1t probably is In order
that the heat produced could continue
to be radiated away without a disas
trous rise in the temperature Of the
globe
The same reasoning carried further
leads 10 the conclusion that the earth
may have been alternately melted and
cooled off several times in the past
When II is In q molten state the free
radiation from the surface produces a
crust, which thickens to a certain
point. ana then the inner accumulation
of heat brings about another melting
from the interior outward
The phenomenon Of new stars is ap-
pealed TO as lending support 10 this
view Again and again astronomers
have seen a new star burst forth at
. some point in the sky Generally II has
been assumed that they are due to col
lisions in the heavens, but It is perhaps
equally probable that they arise from
the accumulation Of heat in some dark
+ celestial body. causing It 70 fame oct
INTO incandescence. Otbcr stars are
known to have disappeared. and their
disappearance may have been caused
by the cooling off Of their surfaces
Evidently We are only just beginning
10 understand the meaning Of life and
death IN the universe But we may be
sure that what happens elsewhere hap
pens here and that If the stars are not
eternal the earth is no more Solar
rett r. Seryiss in New York Journal