NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



thing of metal our great steel buildings, bridges, 

 steamships would melt and run like wax; the 

 whole crust of the earth would shrivel, and in 

 part return to the atmosphere as heated gas. 

 Observers on another planet would behold a new 

 star flash in their skies, which would appear to 

 them more than double the present size of the 

 earth. 



It hardly need be said that at this temperature 

 practically every known compound would be de- 

 composed into its elemental atoms. There is, as 

 yet, no evidence that the atoms themselves can 

 be sundered in the arc. Of these primal atoms, 

 there are some eighty odd forms, the so - called 

 "elements" of the chemist; and these, variously 

 compounded, make up all earthly things, our 

 bodies, brains, and souls included. These element- 

 ary substances must have come into existence be- 

 fore the earth had ceased to be a fire-mist. 



But when we rise to the temperature of the sun, 

 6000 degrees centigrade, at least, and possibly far 

 higher, we should enter a far stranger world. 

 There, it seems likely, the atoms have been re- 

 duced to a few primitive varieties ; there, probably, 

 but one state of matter is known the gaseous. It 

 is not likely that even the colossal pressures in- 

 duced by the vast bulk of the sun are sufficient to 

 liquefy gases at such fierce heat. 



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