The Reason it Is Dark at Wight.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 24 April 1914, Page 2

The Reason it Is Dark at Wight.

It never is absolutely dark, of course, but on a moonless night; the star-shine is so faint that one is not far astray in saying that it is comparatively dark. But why ? Why is not the sky at night a blaze of light ? What has happened to

the light of these millions of stars that so little reaches us ? The problem of the reason why it is dark

at night is one of great difficulty. Reducing bn-e question to its simplest terms it must be stated that photographs have shown that there are galaxies of stars and myriads of hige nebulae. It is true that a point-source of light diminishes in brightness as the square •of its distance increases ; but in the case of nebulae, which cover an apparently large surface,\i he angular area diminishes in the same proportion, so that this faintness is equalised. The distance of the stars is not enough to a.ccount for the faintness of their light.

If distance is insufficient, it is clear that the ether must, in some way stop the iight. If it does so, the very fact of stopping uses the energy of the light and converts it into something else and makes the ether hold in suspension these particles. Here it is suggested, is the birth of matter. Creation, one authority has laid it down, is not the bringing forth of an infinite number of dead structureless particles, sent out as a set of miserable waifs .at some indefinitely remote epoch i and left to clash without guidance— without purpose. Creation, on the other hand, is perpetual. The origin of life is not discussed in this connection, but if the true origin of matter can be put in as simple as this, it is not such a far step to the discovery of the relation of the forces that move the world of living -things, in that strange billion-iniled region of space filled with that strange substance, ether, of the presence of which we are little aware save that it filters only a little of the starlight through and gives the dark for sleeping.