18 THE UNIVERSE 



It takes light over four years to reach us from 

 the star nearest our earth, so it is plain we do not 

 see these stars. 



As to the heat of the sun, there has been a vast 

 difference of opinion among scientists. Newton held 

 it to be 1,669,300 degrees hot; Erickson, 2,726,000 

 degrees hot; Sacchi, 2,000,000 to 6,000,000 degrees; 

 Waterson, 9,000,000 to 10,000,000, and Soret, 

 5,800,000 degrees hot. But since the discovery of 

 the law of the conservation of energy, which is only 

 about a hundred years old, the scientists have been 

 hedging and crawfishing with wonderful dexterity 

 and reducing it, until now 18,000 to 20,000 degrees 

 are accepted as possibly correct. 



As Newton was a great mathematician and the 

 scientists accept him on other scientific questions, 

 they ought to accept him on the sun's heat, and 

 .acknowledge a fact that ought to be apparent to 

 all that if heat comes to the earth from the sun, 

 in a column 93,000,000 miles long and 8,000 miles 

 in diameter through frigid ether 460 degrees colder 

 than ice, the sun must be millions of degrees hot. 

 Then, as nothing in the known universe can exist a 

 million or even twenty thousand degrees hot, they 

 should admit the sun is not hot, and no heat comes 

 from the sun to the earth. Only electric currents 

 come from the sun, which generate heat and light 

 in our own atmosphere. 



Then arises another question. All bodies lose 

 their magnetic power when heated to less than one 

 thousand degrees hot. Professor Fleming in his 

 book, "Magnets and Electric Currents" says : " Mag- 

 netic bodies become changed into feeble magnetic 

 ones by heating to a certain temperature. Iron at 



