36 ^ NEW THEORY OK THE ORIGIN OF THE EARTH. 



How is this theory of formation from cold matter reconciled 

 with the known facts in respect to the internal heat of the glohe? 



The answer is that the earth's internal heat is due en- 

 tirely to pressure, to the gravitation of the mass towards its 

 centre. 



The nebular hypothesis is that the embryo earth, when it was in 

 the first stages of solidification, was surrounded by hot gases and 

 vapor that had existed from the beginning of the earth's progress 

 from chaos to a place aniong the spheres, and that these gases and 

 vapors cooled and gave place to the earth's atmosphere. 



How does the new hypothesis account for our w^ater and atmos- 

 phere? It supposes that the gases from which the atmosphere, 

 the ocean and the rivers were formed were contained in the 

 particles of matter that united to form the planet, — just as the 

 oak is contained in the acorn and the fruit in the seed — that, in 

 fact, air and water were produced from the earth's solid substance 

 by the internal heat caused b}' the pressure of gravitation. 

 Nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, helium, argon, and the 

 other elements of which the atmosphere is composed, were brought 

 from the fiery chemical laboratory of the earth's interior to the 

 surface by volcanic action. It is claimed as a fact that radium has 

 the quality of dissipating itself into a gas, helium, and it is be- 

 lieved that other solids have the same quality, especially when 

 subjected to the necessary amount of beat and pressure. 



The gases that were, in this way, squeezed out of the bowels of 

 the earth, did not at first l)egin to unite to form an atmosphere. 

 They were too volatile to stay on the earth's surface. The earth 

 was not large enough — its attraction was not strong enough — to 

 retain them, and the\ passed out into space. But when the earth 

 had grown, by the gathering in "of wandering meteorites and 

 planetary dust, somewhat larger than the moon is now, it began 

 to retain at least a portion of these gases, and they united, and 

 formed water and our atmosphere. The ocean and the atmos- 

 phere are merely such portions of the gaseous outbursts from the 

 great internal laboratorv of the earth as the earth's attraction has 



