Science in Short Chapters — The Origin of Comets

THE ORIGIN OF COMETS.

We read in story-books of uncomfortable people who have cherished a guilty secret in their bosoms, that it has “gnawed their vitals,” until at last they have carried it to the grave.

I have such a secret that does the gnawing business whenever I write or speak of comets, concerning the origin of which I am guilty of an hypothesis that has hitherto been cherished as aforesaid from the very shame of adding another to an already exaggerated heap of speculations on celestial physics.

It assumes, in the first place, that all the other suns which we see as stars are constituted like our own sun; that they eject great eruptions similar to the prominences above described, and even of vastly greater magnitude, as in the case of the flashing stars that have excited so much wonderment among astronomers, but which I regard simply as suns like ours, subject, like ours, to periodic maximum and minimum activities, but of greater magnitude.

If such is the case, some of the prominence matter or vaporous constituents of these suns must be ejected with much greater proportional violence than are those from our sun.

But those from our sun have been proved to rush out on some occasions with a velocity so great that the solar gravitation cannot bring them back.

If such is ever the case with the explosions of our sun, it must be of frequent occurrence with the greater explosions of certain stars, and therefore vast quantities of meteoric matter are continually ejected into space, and traveling there until they come within the gravitation domain of some other sun like ours, when they will necessarily be bent into such orbits as those of comets.

But what will be the nature of this meteoric matter?

If from our sun, it would be a multitude of metallic hailstones, due to the condensation of the metallic vapor by cooling as it leaves the sun, and such meteoric hail would correspond to the meteoric stones that fall upon our earth, and which, for reasons stated in “The Fuel of the Sun,” I believe to be of solar origin.

Besides these, there would be ice-hail, such as Schevedorf claims to be meteoric.

A star mainly composed of hydrogen and carbon, or densely enveloped in these gases (as the spectroscope indicates to be the case in some of these flashing stars), would eject hydrocarbon vapors, condensible by cooling into solids similar to those we obtain by the condensation of terrestrial hydrocarbon vapors (paraffin, camphor, turpentine, and all the essential oils, for example), and thus we should have the meteoric systems composed of these particles circulating about their own common centre of mass as above stated, and displaying the spectrum which Dr. Huggins has found common to comets.

If this is correct, the present comet comes from a sun that contains metallic sodium in addition to the hydrocarbons, as the spectrum of this metal was seen when this comet was near enough to the sun to render its vapor incandescent.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Up to the present date (1882) nobody, as far as I know, has questioned my figures or defended those of Wollaston.

Sir William Grove has written to me, pointing out his own anticipations of my conclusions respecting the universality of atmospheric matter.

Sir Charles Lyell, before his death, expressed very strong approval of my conclusions, and many other men of scientific eminence have done the same.

To expect any immediate, unreserved adoption of such bold speculations would be unreasonable.

[2] Since the above was written these analogies have been generally accepted.

[3] Since the publication of “The Fuel of the Sun,” Mr. Norman Lockyer has adopted this view of solar dissociation, and has gone so far as to suppose that it splits metals and other substances regarded by modern chemists as simple elements into more elementary and simple constituents.

He assumes that the temperature of the solar atmosphere, growing higher at increasing depths, becomes somewhere capable of doing far greater dissociation work than that which separates the hydrogen of the prominences revealed by the spectroscope.

In putting forth this “working hypothesis” he seems to have lost sight of the fact clearly proved by Deville’s experiments, that the temperature of dissociation rises with the pressure to which the compound is subjected, and thus that within the bowels of the sun the metals will be far less dissociable than they are on the surface of our earth.

[4] Still more recently (1882) the magnificent photographs of Jannsen have displayed further evidence of the flame-tongue character of the mottling.

[5] Subsequent observations (1882) by Secchi, Young, and others have demonstrated velocities far exceeding this; quite sufficient to project the solid matter clearly beyond the sphere of solar attraction.

[6] My first memorandum on this subject is dated April 23, 1840, in a _Register of Ideas_, then commenced in very early student days.

[7] Any reader of “The Fuel of the Sun” will perceive that the vaporous envelope which I have described as “an effectual jacket for limiting the amount of radiation,” is a complete theoretical anticipation and explanation of the “solar crust” of Respighi and the “Trennungschicht” of Zöllner.

We agree perfectly in our conclusions, though arriving at them by such very different paths, and so independently of each other.

[8] What did he smell?

Was it an emanation from the soles of my feet?

If so, how did this aura get through the soles of my boots, which were thick?

It could scarcely have been the odor of the boot soles themselves that he followed, as he recognized me afterwards at some distance.

This suggests an interesting experiment, that anybody owning one of these dogs may easily try.

Make a similar track to mine, but when on the way, take off the boots you wore on starting and change them for some one else’s boots, or a new pair, and watch the result from the window.

[9] “The Fuel of the Sun,” Chapters iv.

to x. [10] Since this was written some such modifications have been made with equivocal results.

[11] _Nature_, vol. xiv.

p. 429. [12] See Chapter on “The Origin of Lunar Volcanoes.

” [13] The burnt card, burnt bamboo, and other flimsy incandescent threads now (1882) in vogue, merely represent Starr’s preliminary failures prior to his adoption of the hard adamantine stick of retort-carbon, which I suppose will be duly re-invented, patented again, and form the basis of new Limited Companies, when the present have collapsed.

[14] Hull, “On the Coal-fields of Great Britain.

” [15] “The Great Ice Age, and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man.

” By James Geikie, F. R.

S.

, etc. Second edition, revised, 1877. Daldy and Isbister.

[16] The terminal moraine at the Oxfjord station, which I have already mentioned as the only ancient example of an ordinary moraine that I have seen in Arctic Norway, was, of course, a special object of interest to me.

Further observation showed that it does not merely consist of the heap of stones I noticed in 1856, which appears like a disturbed talus cut through and heaped up at its lower part, but that there is another moraine adjoining it, or in continuation with it, which is covered with vegetation, and stretches quite across the mouth of the valley.

The Duke of Roxburgh, who is well acquainted with this neighborhood, having spent sixteen summers in Arctic Norway, was one of our fellow-passengers, and told me that this moraine forms a barrier that dams up the waters of a considerable lake, abounding with remarkably fine char.

I learned this just as the packet was starting, too late to go on shore even for a few minutes, and obtain a view of this lake and the valley beyond.

This I regret, as it might have revealed some explanation of the exceptional nature of this moraine.

It would be interesting to learn whether it belongs to the greater ice age, or to that period of minor glaciation that fashioned the farm patches already described.

The formation of the lake is easily understood in the latter case.

It is only required that such a minor reglaciated valley as one of these should be of larger magnitude and of very gentle inclination at its lower part, so that the secondary glacier should die out before reaching the present seashore.

It would then deposit its moraine across the mouth of the valley, and this moraine would dam up the waters which such a valley must necessarily receive from the drainage of its hilly sides.

Llyn Idwal, in North Wales, is a lake thus formed.

[17] See “Through Norway with a Knapsack,” chapters xi.

and xii.

, for further descriptions of these.

[18] Lyell, “Elements of Geology,” p. 159. [19] The celebrated “Maelström” is one of the currents that flow down the submarine incline between these islands when the tide is falling.

Although I have ridiculed some of the accounts of this now innocent stream, I am not prepared to assert that it was always as mild as at present.

If the ancient glaciers were stopped suddenly, as they may well have been, by the rocky barrier of Mosken, between Vaerö and Moskenesö, and they then suddenly concluded their deposition of till, a precipice must have been formed between this and the deep sea outside the islands, down which the sea would pitch when the tide was falling, and thus form some dangerous eddies.

This cascade would gradually obliterate itself by wearing down the precipitous wall to an inclined plane such as at present exists, and down which the existing current flows.

[20] The largest of the Norwegian lakes, the Mjosen, is 1550 feet deep, and its surface 385 feet above the sea-level.

Its bottom is about 1000 feet lower than the sea outside, or 500 to 800 feet below the bottom of the Christiana Fjord.

The fjords, generally speaking, are very much shallower near their mouths than further inland, as though their depth had been determined by the thickness of the glaciers flowing down them, and the consequent limits of flotation and deposition.

[21] This has been recently overcome to a great extent by using glycerine instead of water.

[22] Since the above was written I have made some experiments with a solution of shellac in borax (obtained by long boiling), and hereby claim the invention of its application to this purpose, in order to prevent anybody from patenting it.

I shall not do so myself.

[23] Written during the coal famine of 1872–73. [24] From 1870 to 1880 the amount has risen from 110,431,192 to 146,818,622 tons per annum, an average increase of 3,638,743 tons per annum.

[25] At the present time (1882) we are receiving the excessive supplies consequent upon the opening of new pits that, under the stimulus of high prices, were in the course of sinking when the above was written.

Hence the present low prices.

Presently the annual increase of consumption will overtake this increased supply, and another “coal famine” like that then existing will follow.

This is not far distant.

[26] “The Coal Fields of Great Britain,” pp. 447, 448. [27] In a paper on the Comstock mines, read at the Pittsburg meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in 1879, by Mr. John A. Church, the hot mine waters are described as reaching 158° Fahr.

(so hot that men have been scalded to death by falling into them).

The highest recorded _air temperature_ there is 128°.

These are silver mines, and vigorously worked in spite of this temperature and great humidity.

A much higher temperature is endurable in _dry air_.

[28] The scientific pedant of the Middle Ages displayed his profundity by continually quoting Aristotle and other “ancients.

” His modern successor does the like by decorating his pages with displays of algebraical formulæ.

In order to secure the proper respect of _my_ readers I here repeat the equation that I enunciated many years ago, “_c_ = _s_/_p_” where _c_ stands for civilization, _s_ for the quantity of soap consumed per annum, and _p_ the population of a given community.

[29] Geologists who may be interested in seeing the results of this experiment, will find on the Edgbaston Vestry Hall, in Enville Road, near the Five Ways, Birmingham, some columns, massive window pieces, doorways, and ornamental steps cast from the fused Rowley Rag and slowly cooled.

[30] In each of my three visits to America 1 lost about thirty pounds in weight, which I recovered within a few months of my return to the “home country” (of English-speaking nations).

—RICHARD A.

PROCTOR.

[31] Since the above was written, a correspondent in Paris tells me that a caricature exists, representing a Frenchman enjoying an open fire by standing on his head in the middle of the room.

[32] See foot-note, page 365. [33] I tried the seeds given to me by Messrs. Carter, and find them to produce the same plant as my own, which I still cultivate very successfully.

I now sow it in the spring as a kitchen garden border.

[34] Subsequent experiments induce me not to recommend this economy, on account of the bagging which results from excessive width between the frames; 3 feet should not be exceeded.

[35] I have followed up Mr. Trewby’s hint, and find that more than one quality of scrim is made.

The best, made entirely of flax, costs rather more than the 2¼_d.

_ stated in the estimate, but it is the cheapest practically.

The best I have seen is that used in the Houses of Parliament.

[36] Watt’s own figure for the latent heat of steam at 212° was 950°, but I adopt that which is now generally accepted.

Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

The original text contained many typographical errors.

The simple ones were corrected without comment here; others are noted below.

Unbalanced quotation marks were corrected, as proper placement always could be determined.

Some typographical errors probably remain undetected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

Text uses both “Acadamy” and “Academy”; both retained here.

Page 336: “The disagreeable sensation experienced by Dr. Siemens in the stove-heated railway cars, etc. , were probably due to this” was printed that way.

Either “sensation” should be “sensations” or “were” should be “was”.

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