THE TIDES AND THE EARTH: A STARTLING ASSERTION.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2971, 23 August 1878, Page 3

THE TIDES AND THE EARTH: A STARTLING ASSERTION.

As we hare endeavoured to show, the tides are caused mainly by the moon, as it were, catching hold of the water as the earth revolves round on its axis. This must cause friction on the earth as it revolves, and friction, as every one knows, causes loss of powor. Suppose a wheel with hair round its rim, like a circular brush sunn as is used for hair-brush-i ing by machinery; if this brush be revolving rapidly, and we hold our hand ever so tightly on the hair, so that it is slightly rubbed backwards as the wheel revolves, we can understand that the speed of the wheel will be gradually diminished, until at last it will be brought to a standstill, provided there is no additional power communicated to the wheel by machinery or hand beyond what was given to set it spinning round. Now this is spmewhat analogous to what is happening to the earth in its rotation. There is reason to suppose that the action of the tides is slowly but surely lessening the speed of the earth's rotation, and consequently increasing the length of the day, and that this action will continue until the earth revolves on its own axis in the same time that the moon takes to revolve round the esrth. Then the day, instead of being twenty four hours as now, will be about twenty-eight days, and the earth will be exposed to the full blaze of the sun for about fourteen days at a time. The change this will bring about on the face of the earth can hardly be exaggerated. All life, both animal and vegetable, will be destroyed ; all water will be evaporated; the solid rocks will be scorched and cracked, and the whole world reduced to a dreary and barren wilderness. It is supposed by some that the moon has already passed through all this, hense its shattered and barelooking surface.'. That the earth being so much larger, has more quickly acted upon the oceans which once were upon the moon's surface, and stopped almost entirely its revolution round its own axis, thus causing it to have a day equal t© twenty-eight of our days, and the heat of the sun has already done to it what in future ages it will do to the earth. From " Science for All" for June.