ETHER AND PONDERABLE MATTER 



mated to be equivalent to two hundred and seventy- 

 three degrees Centigrade below the freezing-point of 

 water, or ordinary zero. 



A temperature (or absence of temperature) closely 

 approximating this is believed to obtain in the ethereal 

 ocean of interplanetary and interstellar space, which 

 transmits, but is thought not to absorb, radiant en- 

 ergy. We here on the earth's surface are protected 

 from exposure to this cold, which would deprive every 

 organic thing of life almost instantaneously, solely by 

 the thin blanket of atmosphere with which the globe is 

 coated. It would seem as if this atmosphere, exposed 

 to such a temperature at its surface, must there be in- 

 cessantly liquefied, and thus fall back like rain to be 

 dissolved into gas again while it still is many miles 

 above the earth's surface. This may be the reason why 

 its scurrying molecules have not long ago wandered 

 off into space and left the world without protection. 



But whether or not such liquefaction of the air now 

 occurs in our outer atmosphere, there can be no ques- 

 tion as to what must occur in its entire depth were we 

 permanently shut off from the heating influence of the 

 sun, as the astronomers threaten that we may be in a 

 future age. Each molecule, not alone of the atmos- 

 phere, but of the entire earth's substance, is kept 

 aquiverby the energy which it receives, or has received, 

 tly or indirectly, from the sun. Left to itself, each 

 molecule would wear out its energy and fritter it off 

 into the space about it, ultimately running completely 

 down, as surely as any human-made machine whose 

 power is not from time to lime restored. If, then, it 

 shall come to pass in some future age that the sun's 



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