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movements and ''changes by reference to the law of 

 cosmic gravitation and attraction, though they clearly 

 set out the spaces separating the heavenly bodies in fi- 

 gures so overwhelming that separate planets can only 

 figure in the scheme of the Universe as points, as which 

 they must necessarily be lost in the mass of similar 

 points, and only fall under human observation thanks 

 to a fortunate cosmic coincidence. 



By the calculation of astronomers, light from the very 

 nearest of the stars reaches our earth in not less than 

 3 years. Keeping in mind that light travels 200,000 

 versts a second, and multiplying this distance by the 

 number of seconds in three years, we obtain in result 

 a total distance of 18,921,600,000,000 versts. 



If we reduce our earth to the eighth part of a vershok, 

 that is to say to the size of a pea, we shall find its 

 diameter equal to 2,307,000,000 such parts, and dividing 

 the first distance in versts by the second in eigths of a 

 vershok, we shall see that if two planets, the size of our 

 earth, should be reduced to the size of a pea; they 

 would lie in cosmic space at a distance of 8212 versts 

 from one another ; while if we take for example two 

 planets as large as the sun, i. e. having a diameter 

 114 times greater, reducing the scale on a correspon- 

 ding principle, these two pea suns would be separated 

 by 72 versts. Is any special force of gravitation concei- 

 vable between such peas, divided from one another in 

 space by 8212 and 72 versts respectively? 



Let us turn again to the Bible. The hook of Genesis 

 which describes the creation of the world, was written 

 by Moses, and written as theology affirms, under the 

 inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Nevertheless Moses as a 

 man even inspired could not convey to mankind infor- 

 mation which he himself did not posses. 



We will put on one side, for the time, the spiritual 

 side of the teaching concerning the earths origin con- 

 tained in Genesis, and regard the author of that book 

 as a man. We know from the Bible itself that Moses 



