PREDICTED DESTRUCTION OF THE EARTH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 523, 26 April 1872, Page 1 (Supplement)

PREDICTED DESTRUCTION OF THE EARTH.

A belt pf fire round the equator, so for the remainder of the history of the human race, Australia will be as unknown to England as ifit were removed to some distant planet. This is the experience to which, according to the theory of Mr. Hercules Ellis, of Dublin, we are drifting. The earth is becoming appreciably warmer : a few more degrees of heat at the equator, and animal and vegetable life will perish, leaving a zone of intense heat. We commend this consideration to investors in colonial securities. It is time that we should explain that this theory of the future of the earth is advanced by Mr. Ellis in prospect of the total eclipse ofthe sunin December, 1872, and he begs that his conception, which he calls “the planetary year,’ may be borne in mind by all who are privileged to see the corona at the time ofthe eclipse. Mr. Ellis’s speculations, as set forth in a pamphlet just issued. andamountjWthis:— The'sunis'a'planet, moving round a centre. The sun, earth moon—all planets—are passing through a change of seasons. The sun is now in its summer or cremation period. It is fast melting into heated gases, which extend to three diameters of the still remaining solid portion. By-and-bye this will cool down, and there will be winter in the sun. The great luminary propogates the fire of cremation throughout the solar system. Mercurv appears at present also in a state of cremation. Mars, passing from red to white, indicates increased heat. The earth, happily, is cnioying its spring—the time of vegetation and life will be burnt out, and the earth become a sun. Then the moon, now a region of ice, will get vivifying rays from our globe, and it will enjoy its season of life t ill earth begins to cool. But the sun will again enter upon its period of spring, and so the planetary years will roll round, the earth, of which we have traces ofthe last of the seasons of life, fire and frost, will once move as now. This is the theory put forward by Mr. Ellis. As Darwin says, there is no harm in. speculations put forward as speculations, because if they are wrong it will only summon those who can to refute them. The cooling down process, as we may imagine, will be very slow in the case of the sun, but that transformation scene we shall know nothing about, for long before then the source of outfight and life will scorch us up, and melt the earth’s crust to a “gasopheie.” The conception of a planetary year is something to talk about. —Overland Mail,