186 FKOM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



up so much excess heat that after several hundred mil- 

 lions of years the four major planets are still in a molten 

 state, and the earth's interior so hot as to melt granite 

 and every instant to threaten her cataclysmic disruption ! 

 Assuming that the earth was actually formed in this man- 

 ner, that the process took the moderate period of five 

 million years (which is much less than scientists ordi- 

 narily allot), and that the accretions were gradual and 

 uniform, figures will show that the average daily sprinkle 

 in the earth ? s case could not have exceeded one-fourth of 

 an inch! When, in addition, we take into account that 

 the flakes and the planet itself were continually exposed 

 to a far colder than arctic temperature, and that the sun 

 had his own future to look after the while, one begins to 

 feel, does he not, that the effects of this cosmic snow- 

 storm have been somewhat Munchausenized ? 



But here I may be accused of unfairness in choosing 

 the simile of a snow-storm, as no doubt the substance 

 of the nebula was more compact than that, say in the form 

 of meteors. To this I answer, first, that Laplace speci- 

 fied gaseous matter, which is still lighter, and second, 

 that, even so, the larger the particles the fewer the im- 

 pacts and the farther between, hence the arithmetical ag- 

 gregate would be just the same ; but, fortunately, there is 

 a second answer, which may fairly be held' to be experi- 

 mental in character ; and in weighing it let it be remem- 

 bered that the earth is now at its maximum of attractive 

 power. I quote verbatim from Professor Percival Low- 

 ell's book, The Evolution of Worlds (p. 41). He says: 



Most meteorites are stones, but one or two per cent are 

 nearly pure iron mixed with nickel. When picked up they are 

 usually covered with a glossy thin black crust. This overcoat 

 they have put on in coming through our air. Air-begotten, too, 

 are the holes with which many of them are pitted. For, entering 

 our atmosphere with their speed in space is equivalent to im- 

 mersing them suddenly in a blowpipe flame of several thousand 

 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus their surface is burnt and fused to a 

 cinder. Yet in spite of being warm to the touch their hearts are 

 still cosmically cold. The Dhurmsala meteorite falling into moist 

 earth was found an hour afterwards coated with frost. Agassiz 

 likened it to the Chinese culinary chef d'oeuvre, "fried ice". It 



