THE END OF THE WORLD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 809, 8 February 1910, Page 4

THE END OF THE WORLD.

HOW IT WIBL HAPPEN. Some time since it was prognosticated by Professor Bangley that we were nearing the end of the world through the cessation of the sun to radiate heat. He now foretells an equally gloomy prospect before the world from another cause which is in slow operation.

The length of the earth’s day is slowly increasing through the retarding influence of the tides produced by the moon. To be sure, this effect is so slight that it has not been directly perceptible since accurate methods of measuring the time of the earth’s revolution on its axis have been observed. But that it must he taking place is as sure as that friction will stop a railway train when the steam is turned off.

The tides raised by the moon’s attraction are distributed by the continents so as to present many anomalies, but when considered in themselves they act the same as a wave three feet high constantly running iu an opposite direction to the revolution of the earth, and so by friction retarding its motion. Astronomers are agreed that similar tides produced on the moon have reduced her revolution on her axis to a period of 28 days. K vent nail y revolution of the earth will lie reduced so that our day will be several times longer than now. When that time comes the nights will be so cold that nothing can stand it, and if they could the days will be so hot that' what is left by the cold will be destroyed by the heat. But that time, also, is so far iu the future that the present generation may put it out of their minds. This catastrophe will not arrive lor may million years yet. Indeed, before that time arrives, the sun, as Professor Bangley has already told us, will have become so far cooled off that we shall be indifferent to anything else that happens. Another limit to the future of the habitable portion of the earth is brought to light by the rapid progress of erosion that is going on all over the land surface of the world. Wallace estimates that one foot of the earth’s surface is, on the average, washed away by the streams every 3,000 years and deposited at the bottom of the ocean. This amounts to more than 300 ft. in a million years. As the main elevation of Europe is 671 ft., it follows that by the operation of present forces Europe will be washed into the sea in 2,000,000 years, and America in 3,000,000 years. What providence has iu store for us after all, no man knows. If the sunken portion shall rise at the end of that period, as it did at the end of the coal period, there will be dry land to live on, but it is doubtful if it has such stores of iron and coal as have blessed the present race of human beings. The world, however, is concerned with impending catastrophes nearer at hand. The prosperity of the present time is largely due to the rapidity with which we are using up the reserve stores of nature upon or near the surface of the earth. Thus geology, while it opens up to mankind the stores of good things that arebuiied for safe keeping iu the depths of the earth, points to their limited quantity, and calls upon men to use them economically, and leave as much as possible for future generations.