THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS 51 



several thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Thus 

 their surface is burnt and fused to a cinder. \ 

 Yet in spite of being wnrm to the touch their 

 hearts are still cosmic-wily cold. The Dhurm- 

 sala meteorite falling into moist earth ivas 

 found an hour afterwards coated with frost. 

 Agassis: likened it to the Chinese culinary chef 

 d'oeuvre "fried ice/ 7 It is the cold of space 

 200 or more Centigrade below zero, that they 

 bear within^ proof of their cosmic habitat." 

 (The italics are mine.) 



I ask, How many such meteroitic impacts as this of 

 Dhurmsala at 200 below zero would be required to 

 make up a sun as hot as ours? or how many million 

 years would be required for them to cool up to the 

 molten condition of the major planets? 



This theory was held by discriminating science for 

 some years, until Hehnholtz, the great physicist, shrewd- 

 ly suspecting a deficit, came to the front with the sug- 

 gestion that the sun is falling together, and that the 

 heat caused by its contraction is responsible for the 

 daily output. According to his calculation, a sacrifice 

 of 600 feet per annum in the sun's girth would be suf- 

 ficient. Although this is now the orthodox view, I find 

 myself opposed to it for a variety of reasons : 



To begin with, Helmholtz's hypothesis has absolute- 

 ly nothing to support it except pure supposition; there 

 are no measurements, of course, possible. 



Second. By spectroscopic and telescopic examin- 

 ation we can see enough of the sun's physical state to 

 show that he is in constant ebullition, great jets of hy- 

 drogen and other gases spouting geyser-like to a height 

 of many thousand miles, and this all over his surface. 

 Boiling and contracting cannot be concomitant states. 



