432 



• KNOVV^LEDGE 



[De 



1888. 



THE FUEL OF THE SUN. 



('■■• 



[(1.) Not knowing what Mr. Williams meant by "mean 

 graN-itation," 1 paid no spti ial attention to the word ; but, 

 of course, it was ob^^ous he meant what he says (tho\igh he 

 miscalculatod for ^■enus) : and that is just where lie is mis- 

 taken. If the mean gra\itation of Jujnter were lifty times 

 what it is, it could not cause the body of the sun to reel or 

 swav inside the profound fluid envelope. Only a dill'ercnce 

 of iiilluence on one and tlu' other could cause any dillerence 

 of motion, though not a hundred times tlie sun's own mass, 

 outside of him, could make his body reel in the lively way 

 Mr. Williams imagines, lie may say this is mere assertion ; 

 if so, it is assertion for assertion : but it is assertion based 

 on some knowledge of the conditions of the problem ; and 

 whenever Mr. WiJliams endeavours to maintain his propo- 

 sition he will find this counter assertion can be maintained 

 effectively. But I will venture to say that when he begins 

 to reason out the details of his assertion he will withdraw 

 iL 



(2.) Tlie total quantity of motion or force in the universe 

 is invarial'Ie for evermore. Certainly. But Mr. Williams 

 wants it to be ever increasing. The sun, according to his 

 theorj-, as originally propounded, was to go careering 

 through space, getting bombarded through its own motion 

 — or, more precisely communicating to billions of tons of 

 matter per second the motion it possessed itself — and yet 

 this motion was to remain unvarying. However, as sub- 

 sequent reflection has given a new form to this part of the 

 theory, we need not perhaps consider it further. 



(3.) Mr. Williams will find, in Fig. 74 of my "Sun,".spectro- 

 copic e\ndince of motions of recession and approach quite 

 as remarkable as that descrilx'd in the Greenwich Reports. 

 But these are movements of a cyclonic sort in the hydrogen 

 atmoEphen- after disturbance by the outrush of prominence 

 matter. Into the partial vacuum left after the passage of 

 the tjpcted matter, the surrounding gas rushes with con- 

 tinually increasing velocity, as shown by the Greenwich 

 obser\ation, wliich indicated continual inrush towards the 

 region of disturbance. So the rush of luminous matter 

 athwart the sun's surface in I8.'i9 gave no e^^dence of 

 lateral ejection such as Mr. Williams' theory requires. 

 Mere thwart motion arising at, or from below, the surface 

 would not (he now admits, though he did not originally) 

 do what is wanted. There roust be a rush of matter 

 from a i)oint high al>ove the surface in such a direc- 

 tion as to give the matter a free orbit round the 

 Huii — which orbit might be changed (Mr. Williams 

 thiiikfi, though as a matter of fact it could not be changed), 

 1 y jH-rturbationa, into an orbit like that of a planet But 

 Mr Williams speaks of explosions, as if the dissociattd 

 ■_■ 1 - -■ :it up from the sun's inti'rior, aft<--r passing through 

 t: iviing photosphere, and Iwing thus suddenly combined, 

 /, hundrr-ds of masses, liki- our own earth for size, 

 '■ Kjmi.iiiing their propulsive efTorts like the contiguous 

 grains of fHjwder in a gun." lAkf f Very like, if the 

 ino»t cfjiuplete contrast means resemblance. Tlie grains of 

 gun|^)wder an- suddenly convert<-d into many times their 

 own volume of gajWioUH matter ; the ga8r;ou8 matt'T in the 

 other caa^ as alio in the chM-rful sfiap-bubble experi- 

 ment 8u(;g>-stM) for my translation, are suddenly con- 

 v»frt'-<l into liquid mattz-r, occupying Ijut a minute 

 portion of their \olumc. If a glofie as large as this 

 cartli, of hydrogen and oxygen duly combined, were 

 iroddenly exploded, there would \x- an awful disturbance, 

 but very little rrpuliiion of matt<r, for the glolx; would be 

 ■addenJy chang)-d into much less than the thousandth 



part of its volume of wat«r. The enclosing shell ■would 

 be crushed in were there a surrounding atmosphere, not 

 scattered in fragments outwards. But even if tliero were 

 an outburst such as Mr. Williams imagines, is he not 

 aware that in the case of such an explosion high above the 

 sun's surface, the centre of gra\ ity of the exploding matter 

 would remairi absolutely unaftected by the explosion ; and 

 as much matter as might be sent in the direction of plane- 

 tary motion, just so much would be sent in the opposite 

 direction. Tliis would not be very easily reconciled with tlie 

 movements of the asteroidal family, if Mr. Williams' theory 

 of the origin of this family were correct. Now if a number 

 of loaded cannon of monstrous size were Hung from the 

 sun's surface in such sort as to be fired when several 

 hundred thousand miles from liim, expelling the ball always 

 in the direction of planetary motion, at a velocity of not 

 less than LTiO miles or so per second, we might get some- 

 thing like Mr. Williams's genesis of asteroid rings ; for 

 the cannons themselves, though driven backwards in such 

 sort that the motion of the centre of gravity of cannon and 

 ball would not be aflected at all by the explosion, would 

 not in this way have orbits clear of the sun's globe, while 

 the expelled ball looiild have such orbits. Thus the cannon- 

 balls would thenceforth circulate round the sun, while the 

 cannons would be gathered up again by him, — for future use, 

 perhaps, in the same way. In some such way might matter 

 be expelled from the sun, so as to form free planetary 

 attendants going the right way round. But tliougli this 

 explanation is " my own ownest," I am not so enamoured 

 of it as I suppose I ought to be. — Eicuard A. Proctor 



Life of a Ma.\im Lajip. — At the New York Post- 

 office it has been found that the average life of a Maxim 

 incandescent lamp (the ordinary 50 candle-power type) is 

 nearly 1,'JOO hours. About 25 per cent, of the lamps in 

 this office have burnt between 3,000 and 4,000 hours. 



Electric Intf.rcommunicatiox on Trains. — A good 

 illustration of the need of this mode of intercommunication 

 between passengers and guards was afforded on a German 

 railway the other day while travelling between Lottring- 

 hausen and Hcirde .stations, near Dortmund, in Westphalia. 

 A fire broke out in a carriage of the train, the fire increased 

 as the train progressed, and it was only by dint of much 

 shouting that the unfortunate passeng(!rs at length attracted 

 the attention of the guard, and were released from their 

 perilous position. 



BuRViNC-i'LACF, OF INDIANS NEAU Atures. — A strange 

 place of interment exists at Atures, in the neighbourhood 

 of San p-emando. New Granada, held in much veneration 

 by the Indians. In order to reach it, a lonely savanna has 

 to be traversed, then a river has to be crossed and an 

 island reached bearing the name of Cucurital. Behind a 

 thin curtain of trees and bushes is a natural grotto, formed 

 by the overhanging of an enormous rock. Underneath this 

 rock are hundreds of large eartlien pots, each [)0t contain- 

 ing the remains of an Indian, surmounted by the skull. 

 Some of the remains were simply wrapped in mats formed 

 from th<- leaves of the Guahibos palm. There is a sacred 

 burying-plaee in a cave high uj) the side of an almost pre- 

 cipitous wall of rock, to reach which requires a skilled 

 climber endowed with a powerful grip of foot and hand, 

 and with a head that will not be all'ected with vertigo. 

 Here are found the same class of coffins, if such a term is 

 pemiisHible, the ghastly skulls grinning at the profaning 

 intruder. 



