Why the Earth is Going to Dry Up.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 10 July 1914, Page 8

Why the Earth is Going to Dry Up.

Scientists have long declared that the earth will dry up and become as barren and dismal as the moon. But there is no occasion to worry about this, since it will not accur for more millions of years, probably, than we can count. In regard to the present dried-up condition of the moon, it used to be believed that the moon at one time ' had a plentiful simply of water, but that the great heat developed on either side as the moon was turned to the sun on alternate sides fourteen days at a stretch gradually evaporated the water. This vapour of evaporation did not fall back to the moon's surface, it was claimed, because the moon's gravity was not .sullicient to hold it, and so the vapour constantly thrown ofT by centrifugal motion gradually left the moon barren and dry. But the new theory, now held by the great scientists, is also held to be applicable to- the earth and that what really. happened to the moon will happen to this planet in the course of time—an almost unthinkable amount of Lime. This theory is that a crystal of any sort, a lump of rock salt or quartz or limestone or granite, contains a great proportion of water. If these things are heated in a retort the water is recovered and the crystal becomes a powder. Now if this powder is placed near water it will absorb, while cooling, quite a lot of it. The interior of the moon being at one time extremely hot, so hot that it was a lnolien mass, a, cooling process v. us started then, and in cooling the natural demand was for water in order for the.m to form their crystals. The water percoJated down through the crust of the moon and finally it was in that manner all used up. This is the manner in which this theory is applied to the earth. Our great oceans bring a powerful pressure to bear upon the earth's crust, and because of subterranean volcanoes in various parts of the Pacific Ocean we know water is gradually making it* way into Die heated interior of the earth. The earth continues to lose its heat by radiation and this brings about a shrinkage and cracking of the old crust, as demonstrated now and then by great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This, in turn, makes a communication between the water of the earth's crust an.l the cooli ig mass inside, these tilings being aHii-.ities. And so it is claimed all the earth's water must gradually leak into the interior and go to the formation of crystals. Kven then it is claimed there will not. I.c siillicieni. water i<. cool and crystallise all the molten mass inside.