Earths Past and Future Richard A. Proctor. 



89 



borhood of the spots there is that wonderful appearance 

 you there see. It is in some souse confirmatory of the 

 theory of Young, that there are. continual showers 

 taking place. You see the upiter part of the dense mat- 

 ter, and here you have side vi-ws of the, showers; and 

 owing to some great eruption possibly or gas from 

 the sun's interior you sco rho.su showers spread. 

 Nor need we be deterred from accepting that theory of 

 Young's from the fact that the Ions streaks of bright 

 lines assume a curved appsaranos, heeauso we know by 

 duvet telescopic observation that trrcat cyelouio dis- 

 turbances are constantly taking place there. I wish 

 you to remember all the time that wo are dealing with 

 the possible or probable past condition of our own earth. 

 The appearau.ee of the suu may probably have h;id its 

 analogue in the past history of this eartli on which we 

 live. 



Now that picture will be passed on and another brousru t 

 on showing the cyclonic action of which I have been 

 speaking. At the present time tlie sun is in this condition. 

 Gradually parting with its heat, forming these great 

 showers, and graduullv contracting, as we believe, the 

 sun will contract, the ho wera will attain a greater depth, 

 as it were, the crust of the shell becoming thicker, the 

 Bides of the shell becoming less, the whole contracting 

 towards the first condition 'of our earth, regarded as a 

 liquid or solid globe. When the time came that the 

 whole mass of the earth was liquid, what changes would 

 then have taken place 1 We are in the habit of judging 

 what would take place from the behavior of water when 

 it freezes. We know that ice forms on the surface of 

 frozen water and that below there is liquid. We are so 

 in the habit of dealing with analogy that we suppose the 

 earth must have formed a solid crust. ButI conceive that 

 Dr. T. S terry Hunt and those who follow him are right in 

 assuming that there would be a formation of solid mat- 

 ter in the interior of the earth in the first place, and the 

 heavier matter would all sink down, gathering toward 

 the center, and that for a long time the outer part of the 

 earth's crust would be liquid. Then, at last, there would 

 come another change. The center would become solid. 

 The liquid matter would become more and more dense, 

 more viscous, less plastic, and at last it would be so 

 dense that the solid matter so formed would no longer 

 sink, and then at last the crust would begin to bo 

 formed. It would ba separated from the gjeat solid 

 mass of the interior by a sort of internal shell of viscous 

 and partly liquid matter. And that, I conceive, was not 

 merely the state of the earth at the first formation of 

 the earth's crust, but is probably the present condition 

 f the earth. 



THE FORMATION OP THE EARTH'S CKTJST. 



We find that William Hopkins and, many others have 

 adopted that view. And there U one very strange 

 possible confirmation of the theory that the interior of 

 the earth is of this nature, a great solid mass, separated 

 from the solid crust by a viscous, plastic ocean. Ter- 

 restrial ruacnetism. carefully studied, shows such a 

 change m position of the magnetic poles of the earth as 

 can only be explained by the theory, advanced by certain 

 astronomers, that there is an interior solid globe rotating 

 under the outer shell, but not ac the s_.mo time with it. 

 Thus, there are four magnetic poles, two poles of the 

 interior globe and two poles of the outer shell, and the 

 continual change of the relative position of the great 

 internal solid or liquid mass, and the outer shell, pro- 

 duces a corresponding change in the position of what 

 way be regarded as the mean magnetic poles of the 

 earth. At auy rate, we find in this theory an explana- 

 tion of these irregularities upon the earth's surface. 



We should have the surface con'rnctlng, and it would 

 contract more rapidly than the liquid matter under- 

 neath, and the result of that would be that it would, 

 force out that liquid matter, and thus oceans would be 

 formed of glowing liquid matier, outsidn of the crust. 

 And wo find traces >o the best geologists tell us of 

 just such processes. We must cither lake that view, or 

 else we must take tbe view that was adopted as to the 

 nature of all the change by the German. Meyer, namely, 

 that in past ages there were such great downfalls of 

 meteors thar, when they fell, thov were conver'^d uito 

 liquid or gaseous matter* which spread itself orer the 

 earth, and thus produced thoso great extensive 

 regions which were originally in an igu.;ou.s llui 1 state. 



And hero I remark to show how one m;iy be led to a 

 theory and imagine it to be original with him when it is 

 not that the very theory which I advanced, and which 

 I supposed was a novel and startling one, viz., that our 

 moon's surface had been rent open bv great mcjteors and 

 that the signs of such violent contact could bo recog- 

 nized in the multitudinous craters of the moon, was the- 

 old theory of M.eyer as to the former condition of our 

 earth. 



We will now have a change made in the pictorial illus- 

 trations. One remaining feature of the sun is to be men- 

 tioned it.s colored prominences in order that I may re- 

 mind you of that epoch of the earth's surface when the 

 whole surface was surrounded by glowing flames. 

 Then after the first formation of the solid crust there 

 forced itself out from beneath, from time to time, the 

 liquid matter, not unaccompanied, we may be sure, with 

 great flame. So that at that time, if the inhabitants of 

 the moon had studied the earth, they would have found 

 existing all around the solid crust of the earth great 

 Manic* such as now exist around the surface of the sun. 



THE RAIN OF METEORS. 



You now have before you a picture representing the 

 meteoric downfall. We find much in the appearance of 

 the earth now which shows that that was taking place 

 all the time the mass of the earth was being formed, 

 changing from the gaseous to the liquid condition, 

 forming a solid interior and then subsequently forming 

 a crust. All that time there was a continual pouring 

 down on the whole surface of the earth of meteoric 

 matter. Tueu we have clear sigus that some of this 

 matter must have existed in large globo.s. Naj r , we may 

 go further. I speak of these globas as large, which they 

 were in reality, but they were very small in comparison 

 to tue earth. I have spoken to Dr. T. S terry Hunt upon 

 the subject and he feels satisfied that it is 

 the true theory that those meteors which fell upou 

 the earth, and which, when carefully examined, show 

 signs of the existence of certain forms of metals that wo 

 assoziate on the earth with vegetation, were once 

 covered with vegetation, that they were, so to speak, 

 first the orbs of real vegetable life, and then, that ani- 

 mal lite may have existed upon them. We know that 

 those meteors fell in such massss that there are whole 

 strata of earth that correspond iu structure with 

 meteoric masses. And the strange thought is suggested 

 that there has gone toward the formation of those strati* 

 myriads of former meteoric orbs once surrounded or 

 covered with vegetation. So that the startling thought 

 of Sir William Thompson which was deemed almost too 

 wild even to be seriously discussed the thought that 

 life upon our earth may have commenced from the 

 downfall of meteoric masses, is a thought that secutiS to 

 have a scientific basis. 



TUB EARTH WITH A GLOWING CRUST. 



We will have another picture brought on while I pro- 



