Other Suns Tlian Ours Richard A. Proctor. 



know thoro Is no real loss of force, there is a loss of 

 energy. 



LIMIT OF THE StTN'S ENERGY. 



We shall have another picture to show that thosp dis- 

 turbances, all these great .spot.-, sometimes rover even ;i 

 vast surface. We have to consider that there is tho sun 

 giving out his life to the worlds circling around him. 

 And thus coming to view the suu. as one having a defin- 

 ite period, we have to derive tho same argument that wo 

 derive from tho earth ; and as we judge from the com- 

 parative shortness of the time that tho earth is to be, tno 

 abode of lite, and that other worlds are not at present 

 passing through that short period of life, so we derive 

 from the suu the knowledge that the period is comp :ra- 

 livcly short. So when you take tho millions of .stars re- 

 vealed by the telescope, the chances are small that it 

 will always bo as it is now, and it is ouly tflo gro.it num- 

 ber of these suns that leads us to believe that they 

 are tho centers of schemes of worlds. We will now have 

 a picture of the sun as painted by himself. Tiie two 

 last were tho productions of an artist. Tins is one of 

 those wonderful photographs taken by your country- 

 man, Dr. Ratherfurd. The diameter of that orb is 

 840,000 miles. There is tho great central machine of tlie 

 solar system working with an energy so immense as to 

 force us to view the probability of exhaustion. 



It seems almost as if we could not consider those enor- 

 mous om flows, as it were, of light and heat, without 

 recognizing the possibility of existence; ami this re- 

 minds you of that strange thought of waste apparently 

 taking place in the universe, since we see that of those 

 immense supplies of heat from tho sun only one pare in 

 230,000,000 is employed by being received upon the 

 planets. Again, if we look upon our earth as the only 

 planet which is the abode of life, then see what a pro- 

 portion is waste. The heat falling upon Jupiter is waste, 

 and all on Saturn is waste, and only the heat received 

 by the earth sunservss a useful purpose; but after all 

 we cannot be. sure that the support of life is tho only 

 useful purpose in the pouring one of the solar rays. At 

 any rate we have that result, that ouly one part in these 

 many millions is poured upon the earth. Again anil 

 again when we study nature we find what appears to be 

 waste. 



Now we shall have another picture, painted by the 

 object itself, of the solar corona. There you recognize 

 signs of the intense activity of the central orb, and 

 those signs will be more clearly indicated in the next 

 picture, where the fainter parts are depicted, and where 

 the signs of tremendous energy exerted in tho sun are 

 well brought out. And now we know that the whole 

 mass of the suu is constituted of elements with which we 

 are familiar. 



CONSTITUENTS OF THE SUX. 



By analysis we can see the sun's lie-lit spread out into 

 a rainbow streak, crossed by a number of lines, which 

 indicates that the sun's great central mass consists of 

 liquid or solid matter glowiujr with intense heat, but 

 relatively cool vapors cut off a portion of the light. 

 The spectrum before you shows, the lines of Fraunhoi'er. 

 The pictures of the stars I am about to show you, were 

 not vised in my former lectures on the stars, but they 

 have been specially prepared. Multitudinous as these 

 lines appear before you they are but few of tho number 

 that reallv exist. The spectrum is covered by myriads 

 of those lines. In order that here, as in tho two former 

 cases, we mav have something to satisfy us that wo are 

 not merely dealing with tho work of the artist, we shall 

 have anotner picture brought on tho screen, in which 

 yoc will iind "what the sun has himself done in photo- 



graphing his spectrum. Tho upper part shows the 

 Picture as drawn by Kirehoft': but the other shows tie 

 lines photographed simply by their own action, and you 

 know it truly indicates tho nature of the solar spectrum. 



And now when we pass to the stars wo find there is a 

 resemblance generally in their character to the solaT 

 substance, and hero we are led to the thought of tho 

 wonderful variety in the system, tho lines indicating the 

 presence of tho eras hydrogen, existing with various de- 

 frees of density, seeming to imply various degrees of 

 size in the stars; because if \ve assume that one of these 

 suns is made of all these various elements familiar to 

 ourselves, in a quantity proportionate to its mass, then 

 those of less specific gravity will extend above the 

 others, and the larger stars will have tho lines of those 

 elements more strongly shown. Here is another picture 

 showing the characteristic differences. In the upper- 

 most picture you will see the lines of hy- 

 drogen strongly shown, and that spectrum belongs 

 to what I call tho kingly order of stars. 

 Here is Sulus, 5,000 times the size of onr sun, and proba- 

 bly having, therefore, the various elements in its sub- 

 stance in corresponding proportion. We cannot wonder, 

 '.hen, that that star and others show tho liu^s of hydro- 

 gen strongly marked, as they are here indicated. In tho 

 next spectrum are exhibited stars showing, apparently, 

 a resemblance to our sun in constitution. The third pic- 

 ture shows us stars probably resembling our sun in hav- 

 ing spots upon them, and spots so much larger that the 

 light of those suns would seem to vary greatly. Our 

 own sun, be it remembered, is a variable star. If ho 

 were watched from some distant point, he would be 

 found to vary in brightness during those 11 years that 

 tho spots seem to wax and wane over its surface. We 

 are forced to believe that certain suns are not sufficient 

 to supply light and heat steadily to worlds like ours. 

 UNFITNESS OF CERTAIN STABS TO SUSTAIN LIFE !>' 

 PLANETS. 



There before you is the star Betelgeux. and there is 

 that other and wonderful star which has received the 

 name of " Myra," in the Whale, which changes in bright- 

 ness. We can hardly conceive that life could exist In a 

 world circling around such a star. Imagine wliat it 

 would lie if onr sun varied constantly in brightness, and 

 sometimes only had a brightness one-hundredth part ol 

 that which it now has! We begin to find among the 

 stars signs that they are not at present and perhaps 

 some of them may never have been fit to be the central 

 luminaries of circling worlds. 



Here is another picture, showing how Dr. Huggins and 

 Miller studied tho constitution of the sun. There you 

 see llie lines of the solar spectrum, and the various 

 lines of the elements compared by Dr. Huggins with 

 those existing in tho atmosphere of ttiat star. Dr. 

 Huggins found in tho star Aldebaran, nine ol. 

 our familiar elements, with the probability that many 

 others existed. He found mercury, iron, sodium, calci- 

 um, antimony. &?., and here then we find that lesson^ 

 which seems to teach us that although any particular, 

 star may not have life in the worlds circling around it,. 

 yet wo seem to see tho purpose. Here it contains the 

 elements with which we are familiar. We know our suni 

 contains the same elements which tho earth does, and; 

 thus we infer that a world circling around a central 

 suu is constituted in tho same way. Looking at the star 

 Aldofaran. we infer that these elements exist in the 

 worlds circling around it. 



Alter all so long as we fail to believe that there are in 

 other worlds reasoning creatures, we find, as I conceive, 

 very little interest in the question of life at all. The 



