THE SUN 269 



larger than a buck-shot! In this estimate, be it noted, 

 we have omitted to take into consideration the oceans, 

 which, according to the teaching of our scientists, are 

 maintained above freezing point solely by the sun's 

 radiation. Were we to allow for this added achievement 

 on the part of the real sun, the miniature one need be 

 scarcely more than half as large as the buck-shot previ- 

 ously arrived at! I earnestly call upon the reader to 

 ponder these wonders seriously in order that he may 

 hereafter the better realize the necessity of discarding, 

 as inadmissible, all solar hypotheses based on the doc- 

 trine of conservation of energy, and in order, also, that 

 he may more keenly appreciate the heretofore overlooked 

 role that the ebullition of the sun plays in the intensifica- 

 tion of his radiation. 



Not less amazing, when we attempt to reconcile it 

 with the doctrine of conservation, is the reckless profli- 

 gacy of Nature. All the planets taken together do not 

 intercept more than ten times as much of the sun's radia- 

 tion as the earth does, yet the latter grasps only a paltry 

 1-2,000,000,000 of it; the rest being uselessly dissipated 

 in the depths of empty space, and to all appearance lost 

 forever. What human spendthrift ever so lax and 

 abandoned as to squander at the rate of $200,000,000 for 

 a single dollar's worth! Nor is the sun the only celestial 

 profligate, for the stars, one and all, vie with him in these 

 excesses. Compare with this state of facts what Sir 

 Robert Ball says (Story of the Heavens, p. 579) to the 

 effect that were the sun composed of the best of coal, and 

 this burned in pure oxygen, it would burn itself out in less 

 than 6,000 years; and that passage from Doctor New- 

 comb, previously quoted, in which he says, that were the 

 sun merely losing energy like an ordinary hot body cool- 

 ing off, it would be so cooled off in the course of 3,000 or 

 4,000 years as no longer to radiate much heat ! 



There is every reason to believe, from spectrosopy 

 as well as analogy, that the sun is composed of the same 

 materials as the earth, and much in the same proportion ; 

 but, strange to relate, the former's density is only one- 



