THE TIDES 183 



remains obviously intact in spite of these stupendous 

 drains ? Can Sir Eobert be right in likening the earth to 

 a fly-wheel detached from its engines? Did you ever see 

 a "fly-wheel detached from its engine, but still connected 

 with the machinery " fail to betray signs of slowing up 

 almost immediately, and shortly come to a dead stop? 

 Furthermore, what sort of an engine was it to which the 

 terrestrial fly-wheel we call the earth was once attached, 

 and how did it become detached, and where is it now? 



Tide or no tide, equatorial ring or none, it is not true 

 that a great ball like ours, even were it the only one in ex- 

 istence, could, once started, continue to rotate forever 

 6 i because there would be nothing to stop it. ' ' There is 

 such a something gravity. It has been estimated that 

 the earth would have to rotate 17 times as fast as it does 

 before a loose rock, say, on its surface "would lose all its 

 weight and fly off to become a self-sustaining satellite." 

 Now, it seems quite plain that if the earth as a whole is to 

 keep on turning itself round and round forever, every 

 particle of it must be capable of doing its own carrying 

 and not depend for levitation or propulsion on its neigh- 

 bors, who have equal need of like help themselves. Ac- 

 cording to Newtonians, the rotation of the earth lightens 

 any given object at the equator by only 1-289 of its 

 weight, so that a mountain weighing, say, 289,000 tons 

 may be provisionally construed to be self -sustaining by 

 virtue of its " persistent " momentum to the extent of 

 1000 of its tons, but as to the remaining 288,000 tons it 

 must be regarded as a burden imposed upon some carry- 

 ing agency underneath it. The bed of rock on which the 

 mountain reposes is, in turn, along with its load, a still 

 weightier burden on the next stratum beneath, and so on 

 down to the center of the earth. But the earth's center 

 is only a mathematical point! Nowhere do we come 

 across any sign of a motive power. There are only two 

 ways of dealing with this mystery. One is by appealing 

 to the miraculous, alias "celestial mechanics," as the 

 Newtonians do ; the other by placing the finger on the 

 substantial cause. That cause, I hope to convince the 

 reader is none other than the tides themselves. 



