MR. RICHARD ANTHONY PROCTOR.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 4, Issue 170, 30 October 1880, Page 3

MR. RICHARD ANTHONY PROCTOR.

! TBB SUIT. I Tho seoond of Mr. Proctor's course of lectures on astronomy was delivered in the hall of the School of Arts on Weducsdny, j to n orowded and most attentive audience. I The lecture was.if pcwible.raoroiuteresting than the lecturer's previous discourse on the " Life and Death of a Planetary World," j and, moreover, was free from all tcohnical I details, which, iu'a discourse upon a scientific subject is a great, as well as a rather rare, merit The lecturer displays strong good sense in expressing graud > ideas iu choice, hut vory simple, language. Ho cominencod his discourse by showing that the sun was tho grandest body of J the system over which he ruled, but although he is great when compared with tho planets of his system, he is only of , secondary magnitude when compared with i other suns which stud the depths of space, j In his previous lecture, the lecturer regarded tho earth as a representative i planet, th j changes of which were \ analagous U> the changes which all planetary bodies undergo, so in the proscut lecture he would oonsider our suu as the representative of all other suns. The sun was the source whence all tho worlds that roll around him derive warmth and energy. Ho did not woudor that men of past days should worship the sun as a god, for were h.o a clergyman, he would be strongly disposed to regard the sun as the most striking typo or symbol of creative power. It is the sun's activity which csuses the sky to be overcast with clouds, and fertilising rains to fall on tho earth. He intended to dwell on the size, the might, the splendour, and finally the heat of the sun. Owing to the great distance of the sun from the earth it I looks no biggor than the moon does, but it is vwy much larger than it appears. Until recently its distance from the earth was computed to be 1)5,000,000 miles, but it is now considered by Professor Newcombo and others to be somewhere between 92,000,000 and 93,000,000 miles. Those present wore doubtless aware that great preparations wore made for observing the transit of Venus a few years back, in j which preparations Mr. Russell, l\\». As- ' Monomer Royal of New South Wales, j took pari., but tho work which these preparations wore, nioaut to expedite was not so successful as it ought to have been, owing, not to the fault of the astronomers, but to the behaviour of tho planet Vonus. Tho source of the mistake as to the sun's distance arose from an error in observation equal to the breadth of a hair seen at a distance of 100 yards. That almost imperceptible breadth indicated a distance of 2,000,000 milos. Suppose that an express train wore to travel at its customary spood, 40 miles an hour, it would take in round numbers \ about 260 years to roach the sun, that is, supposing the sun's distance from the \ earth to be 92,000,000 miles. A cannon , hall fired from an Armstrong gun, and continuing its progress with its initial velocity, would take about 13 years to , reach the sun, and were the sound of the gun's explosion to travel at the rate at which sound travels in our atmosphere, 13J years would be consumod before the souud would reaeh the sun. This fact . might show the absurdity of praying to the suu, as some of the ancients did, for . if it were possible for their prayers to i travel at the rate at which sound travels, they oould not be heard under V&\ years, i Sensation travelled along a human nerve . at about ono-tenth tho rate of souud, and i hence if a child were born with an arm . 92,000,000 miles long, and ho stretched ■ it towards tho sun and got burnt, he . would have to live for 132 years before , he could know that the tip of his ringer . had been burnt. Light, which travels at tho rate of 186,000 miles a second, lakes . nearly nine minutes to puss from the sun to the earth. But the sun is not more remarkable for its size 000 times greater than that of tho earth —than for its power. Its mass is 325,000 times greater than that of the earth. , If the moss of the earth were equal to I that of the sun, a half-ounce weight would , be equal to the weight of four or five tons I of matter, and the same quantity of matter falling through a -dnglc inch would acquire [ great velocity before it struck the earth. , Whon Newton discovered gravity it was . thought that all the mysteries of Nature would bo explained; but no sooner was the law of gravity discovered thau another [ mystery roso behind it, and that mystery , was expressed in the question, "How did I gravity oporate P" The operations, or I rathor the causo of gravity, was at , present a. profound mystery. Obviously [ a body cannot operate where it is not, yet tho sun operates instantaneously on I all the family of worlds that roll around him. How does he affect them ? Is there any intermediary substance or ' thing which conveys his action ? Tho ' difficulty is so great that many peoplo liavo attributed the movements of the \ planets to tho direct action of the Divine Will. He believed that the mystery would yet be solved, and that then some greator mystery would rise up behind it, [ and after that a still greater uvystory, and , noon ad infinitum. At present the mystery , of gravity as shown in the action of the | sun, is inexplicable. Tho sun is not only ■ groat as regards its size and strength, but it possesses what may poc* ically bo called benevolence. Tho lustre of the sun is ! 150 times greater than that of the i oxy-hydrogou lime light; so that if ■ that light wero held up between tho j sve t>nd tho suu it would appear on its II glowing disc as a black spot. Too lustro , of the sun is vastly greater thau that of "its fUetric light. Tho hcit which is

poured oat by the sua every day is enormous. . The sun gives out every second An amount of heat equal to the combustion of 11,700 millions of millions of tons of coal. The heat of the sun was supposed to result from the impact of meteoric masses, but that theory'has now been abandoned. Sir William Thompson hod supposed that the sun, by contracting, had produced its own heat, but on that theory it was difficult to account for the fact that the earth hud been operated on by solar heat for at least 105 millions of years. He got over the difficulty by' supposing that the solid body of the sun was much smaller than the sun appeared to be, and that the process of shrinking or contraction of his diameter may have yone on for a longer period than might bo supposed judging from the size of his envelope. The remainder of Mr. Proctor's lecture descrihed the phenomena of sun spots, sun storms, and cyclones, tho willow leaves, the corona, the solar prominences, the zodiacal light, all of which subjects ho handled with the skill of a master thinker, and all of which wcro copiously illustrated by photographs and drawings shown by the lime Jight on a screen. The general conclusion forced on tho minds of thoughtful listeners by tho facts narrated by tho lecturer was that tho sun is now in the condition in which our oartli and all the planets were formerly, that he is cortainly, however slowly, contracting his diameter by cooling, ami unless some change of which wo havo no knowledge, and cannot even conceive of, occurs in the solar system, tliorc must come a time when the sun will become cold and dark, and all life (as wo know it) in the syrtem will become extinct.—Town and Country Journal.