THE END OF THE WORLD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9709, 3 February 1910, Page 3

THE END OF THE WORLD.

HOW IT WILL HAPPEN. Some time since it was prognosticated by Professor Langley 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 bean directly perceptible since accurate methods of measuring the time of the earth's revolution on its &xis have been observed. But that it must be taking place is as sure as that friction will stop a railway train when the stdam is turned off. The t.der. raised by the moon's attraction are distributed bv the continents so as to present many anom alies. but when considered in themselves they act the same as a wave three feet high constantly running in an opposite directiun to the revolution of the earth, and so by friction retarding its motion. Astronomers axe agreed that similar tides produced on the moor, have reduced her revolution on her axis to a period of 28 days.

Evetually revolution of the earth will be reduced so that our day will be several times lrmger 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 col d will be destroyed by the heat. But that time, also, is so far in the futture that the present generation my put it out of their minds. This catastrophe will not arrive for many million years yet. Indeed, nefore that time arrives the sun, as Professor Langley as already told us, will have become so far cooled off that we shall be indifferent to anything else that happens. THE EARTH BEIN'J WASHED AWAY.

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 that 300 ft in a million years. As the main elevation of Europe is 671 ft, and that of North America is 748 ft, it follows that by the operation of present forces Europe will be washed into the sea m 2,000,000 years, and America in 3,000,000 years. What' providence has in 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 un, 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 reserved stores of nature upon or near the surface of the earth. Thus geology, while it opens up to mankind the stores of good that are buried for safe keeping in the depths of the earth, points to their limited quantity, and calls unon men to use them economically, ar*d Kave as much as possible for future generations.'