The ancients believed that light and heat were emanations which were given off from the bodies that yielded them substantially as odours are given forth by many substances. Since the days of Newton inquiry has forced us to the conviction that these effects of temperature are produced by vibrations having the general character of waves, which are sent through the s.p.a.ces with great celerity. When a ray of light departs from the sun or other luminous body, it does not convey any part of the ma.s.s; it transmits only motion. A conception of the action can perhaps best be formed by suspending a number of b.a.l.l.s of ivory, stone, or other hard substance each by a cord, the series so arranged that they touch each other. Then striking a blow against one end of the line, we observe that the ball at the farther end of the line is set in motion, swinging a little away from the place it occupied before. The movement of the intermediate b.a.l.l.s may be so slight as to escape attention. We thus perceive that energy can be transmitted from one to another of these little spheres. Close observation shows us that under the impulse which the blow gives each separate body is made to sway within itself much in the manner of a bell when it is rung, and that the movement is transmitted to the object with which it is in contact. In pa.s.sing from the sun to the earth, the light and heat traverse a s.p.a.ce which we know to be substantially dest.i.tute of any such materials as make up the ma.s.s of the earth or the sun. Judged by the standards which we can apply, this s.p.a.ce must be essentially empty. Yet because motions go through it, we have to believe that it is occupied by something which has certain of the properties of matter. It has, indeed, one of the most important properties of all substances, in that it can vibrate. This practically unknown thing is called ether.
The first important observational work done by the ancients led them to perceive that there was a very characteristic difference between the planets and the fixed stars. They noted the fact that the planets wandered in a ceaseless way across the heavens, while the fixed stars showed little trace of changing position in relation to one another.
For a long time it was believed that these, as well as the remoter fixed stars, revolved about the earth. This error, though great, is perfectly comprehensible, for the evident appearance of the movement is substantially what would be brought about if they really coursed around our sphere. It was only when the true nature of the earth and its relations to the sun were understood that men could correct this first view. It was not, indeed, until relatively modern times that the solar system came to be perceived as something independent and widely detached from the fixed stars system; that the s.p.a.ces which separate the members of our own solar family, inconceivably great as they are, are but trifling as compared with the intervals which part us from the nearer fixed stars. At this stage of our knowledge men came to the n.o.ble suggestion that each of the fixed stars was itself a sun, each of the myriad probably attended by planetary bodies such as exist about our own luminary.
It will be well for the student to take an imaginary journey from the sun forth into s.p.a.ce, along the plane in which extends that vast aggregation of stars which we term the Milky Way. Let him suppose that his journey could be made with something like the speed of light, or, say, at the rate of about two hundred thousand miles a second. It is fit that the imagination, which is free to go through all things, should essay such excursions. On the fancied outgoing, the observer would pa.s.s the interval between the sun and the earth in about eight minutes. It would require some hours before he attained to the outer limit of the solar system. On his direct way he would pa.s.s the orbits of the several planets. Some would have their courses on one side or the other of his path; we should say above or below, but for the fact that we leave these terms behind in the celestial realm. On the margin of the solar system the sun would appear shrunken to the state where it was hardly greater than the more brilliant of the other fixed stars. The onward path would then lead through a void which it would require years to traverse. Gradually the sun which happened to lie most directly in his path would grow larger; with nearer approach, it would disclose its planets. Supposing that the way led through this solar system, there would doubtless be revealed planets and satellites in their order somewhat resembling those of our own solar family, yet there would doubtless be many surprises in the view. Arriving near the first sun to be visited, though the heavens would have changed their shape, all the existing constellations having altered with the change in the point of view, there would still be one familiar element in that the new-found planets would be near by, and the nearest fixed stars far away in the firmament.
With the speed of light a stellar voyage could be taken along the path of the Milky Way, which would endure for thousands of years. Through all the course the journeyer would perceive the same vast girdle of stars, faint because they were far away, which gives the dim light of our galaxy. At no point is it probable that he would find the separate suns much more aggregated or greatly farther apart than they are in that part of the Milky Way which our sun now occupies. Looking forth on either side of the "galactic plane," there would be the same scattering of stars which we now behold when we gaze at right angles to the way we are supposing the spirit to traverse.
As the form of the Milky Way is irregular, the ma.s.s, indeed, having certain curious divisions and branches, it well might be that the supposed path would occasionally pa.s.s on one or the other side of the vast star layer. In such positions the eye would look forth into an empty firmament, except that there might be in the far away, tens of thousands of years perhaps at the rate that light travels away from the observer, other galaxies or Milky Ways essentially like that which he was traversing. At some point the journeyer would attain the margin of our star stratum, whence again he would look forth into the unpeopled heavens, though even there he might discern other remote star groups separated from his own by great void intervals.
The revelations of the telescope show us certain features in the const.i.tution and movements of the fixed stars which now demand our attention. In the first place, it is plain that not all of these bodies are in the same physical condition. Though the greater part of these distant luminous ma.s.ses are evidently in the state of aggregation displayed by our own sun, many of them retain more or less of that vaporous, it may be dustlike, character which we suppose to have been the ancient state of all the matter in the universe. Some of these ma.s.ses appear as faint, almost indistinguishable clouds, which even to the greatest telescope and the best-trained vision show no distinct features of structure. In other cases the nebulous appearance is hardly more than a mist about a tolerably distinct central star. Yet again, and most beautifully in the great nebula of the constellation of Orion, the cloudy ma.s.s, though hardly visible to the naked eye, shows a division into many separate parts, the whole appearing as if in process of concentration about many distinct centres.
The nebulas are reasonably believed by many astronomers to be examples of the ancient condition of the physical universe, ma.s.ses of matter which for some reason as yet unknown have not progressed in their consolidation to the point where they have taken on the characteristics of suns and their attendant planets.
Many of the fixed stars, the incomplete list of which now amounts to several hundred, are curiously variable in the amount of light which they send out to the earth. Sometimes these variations are apparently irregular, but in the greater number of cases they have fixed periods, the star waxing and waning at intervals varying from a few months to a few years. Although some of the sudden flashings forth of stars from apparent small size to near the greatest brilliancy may be due to catastrophes such as might be brought about by the sudden falling in of ma.s.ses of matter upon the luminous spheres, it is more likely that the changes which we observe are due to the fact that two suns revolving around a common centre are in different stages of extinction. It may well be that one of these orbs, presumably the smaller, has so far lost temperature that it has ceased to glow. If in its revolution it regularly comes between the earth and its luminous companion, the effect would be to give about such a change in the amount of light as we observe.
The supposition that a bright sun and a relatively dark sun might revolve around a common centre of gravity may at first sight seem improbable. The fact is, however, that imperfect as our observations on the stars really are, we know many instances in which this kind of revolution of one star about another takes place. In some cases these stars are of the same brilliancy, but in others one of the lights is much brighter than the other. From this condition to the state where one of the stars is so nearly dark as to be invisible, the transition is but slight. In a word, the evidence goes to show that while we see only the luminous...o...b.. of s.p.a.ce, the dark bodies which people the heavens are perhaps as numerous as those which send us light, and therefore appear as stars.
Besides the greater spheres of s.p.a.ce, there is a vast host of lesser bodies, the meteorites and comets, which appear to be in part members of our solar system, and perhaps of other similar systems, and in part wanderers in the vast realm which intervenes between the solar systems. Of these we will first consider the meteors, of which we know by far the most; though even of them, as we shall see, our knowledge is limited.
From time to time on any starry night, and particularly in certain periods of the year, we may behold, at the distance of fifty or more miles above the surface of the earth, what are commonly called "shooting stars." The most of these flashing meteors are evidently very small, probably not larger than tiny sand grains, possibly no greater than the fragments which would be termed dust. They enter the air at a speed of about thirty miles a second. They are so small that they burn to vapour in the very great heat arising from their friction on the air, and do not attain the surface of the earth. These are so numerous that, on the average, some hundreds of thousands probably strike the earth"s atmosphere each day. From time to time larger bodies fall--bodies which are of sufficient bulk not to be burned up in the air, but which descend to the ground. These may be from the smallest size which may be observed to ma.s.ses of many hundred pounds in weight. These are far less numerous than the dust meteorites; it is probable, however, that several hundred fragments each year attain the earth"s surface. They come from various directions of s.p.a.ce, and there is as yet no means of determining whether they were formed in some manner within our planetary system or whether they wander to us from remoter realms. We know that they are in part composed of metallic iron commingled with nickel and carbon (sometimes as very small diamonds) in a way rarely if ever found on the surface of our sphere, and having a structure substantially unknown in its deposits.
In part they are composed of materials which somewhat resemble certain lavas. It is possible that these fragments of iron and stone which const.i.tute the meteorites have been thrown into the planetary s.p.a.ces by the volcanic eruption of our own and other planets. If hurled forth with a sufficient energy, the fragments would escape from the control of the attraction of the sphere whence they came, and would become independent wanderers in s.p.a.ce, moving around the sun in varied orbits until they were again drawn in by some of the greater planets.
As they come to us these meteorites often break up in the atmosphere, the bits being scattered sometimes over a wide area of country. Thus, in the case of the c.o.c.ke County meteorite of Tennessee, one of the iron species, the fragments, perhaps thousands in number, which came from the explosion of the body were scattered over an area of some thousand square miles. When they reach the surface in their natural form, these meteors always have a curious wasted and indented appearance, which makes it seem likely that they have been subject to frequent collisions in their journeys after they were formed by some violent rending action.
In some apparent kinship with the meteorites may be cla.s.sed the comets. The peculiarity of these bodies is that they appear in most cases to be more or less completely vaporous. Rushing down from the depths of the heavens, these bodies commonly appear as faintly shining, cloudlike ma.s.ses. As they move in toward the sun long trails of vapour stream back from the somewhat consolidated head. Swinging around that centre, they journey again into the outer realm. As they retreat, their tail-like streamers appear to gather again upon their centres, and when they fade from view they are again consolidated. In some cases it has been suspected that a part at least of the cometary ma.s.s was solid. The evidence goes to show, however, that the matter is in a dustlike or vaporous condition, and that the weight of these bodies is relatively very small.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.--The Great Comet of 1811, one of the many varied forms of these bodies.]
Owing to their strange appearance, comets were to the ancients omens of calamity. Sometimes they were conceived as flaming swords; their forms, indeed, lend themselves to this imagining. They were thought to presage war, famine, and the death of kings. Again, in more modern times, when they were not regarded as portents of calamity, it was feared that these wanderers moving vagariously through our solar system might by chance come in contact with the earth with disastrous results. Such collisions are not impossible, for the reason that the planets would tend to draw these errant bodies toward them if they came near their spheres; yet the chance of such collisions happening to the earth is so small that they may be disregarded.
MOTIONS OF THE SPHERES.
Although little is known of the motions which occur among the celestial bodies beyond the sphere of our solar family, that which has been ascertained is of great importance, and serves to make it likely that all the suns in s.p.a.ce are upon swift journeys which in their speed equal, if they do not exceed, the rate of motion among the planetary spheres, which may, in general, be reckoned at about twenty miles a second. Our whole solar system is journeying away from certain stars, and in the direction of others which are situated in the opposite part of the heavens. The proof of this fact is found in the observations which show that on one side of us the stars are apparently coming closer together, while on the other side they are going farther apart. The phenomenon, in a word, is one of perspective, and may be made real to the understanding by noting what takes place when we travel down a street along which there are lights. We readily note that these lights appear to close in behind us, and widen their intervals in the direction in which we journey. By such evidence astronomers have become convinced that our sphere, along with the sun which controls it, is each second a score of miles away from the point where it was before.
There is yet other and most curious evidence which serves to show that certain of the stars are journeying toward our part of the heavens at great speed, while others are moving away from us by their own proper motion. These indications are derived from the study of the lines in the light which the spectrum reveals to us when critically examined.
The position of these cross lines is, as we know, affected by the motion of the body whence the light comes, and by close a.n.a.lysis of the facts it has been pretty well determined that the distortion in their positions is due to very swift motions of the several stars. It is not yet certain whether these movements of our sun and of other solar bodies are in straight lines or in great circles.
It should be noted that, although the evidence from the spectroscope serves to show that the matter in the stars is akin to that of our own earth, there is reason to believe that those great spheres differ much from each other in magnitude.
We have now set forth some of the important facts exhibited by the stellar universe. The body of details concerning that realm is vast, and the conclusions drawn from it important; only a part, however, of the matter with which it deals is of a nature to be apprehended by the student who does not approach it in a somewhat professional way. We shall therefore now turn to a description of the portion of the starry world which is found in the limits of our solar system. There the influences of the several spheres upon our planet are matters of vital importance; they in a way affect, if they do not control, all the operations which go on upon the surface of the earth.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
We have seen that the matter in the visible universe everywhere tends to gather into vast a.s.sociations which appear to us as stars, and that these orbs are engaged in ceaseless motion in journeys through s.p.a.ce.
In only one of these aggregations--that which makes our own solar system--are the bodies sufficiently near to our eyes for us, even with the resources of our telescopes and other instruments, to divine something of the details which they exhibit. In studying what we may concerning the family of the sun, the planets, and their satellites, we may reasonably be a.s.sured that we are tracing a history which with many differences is in general repeated in the development of each star in the firmament. Therefore the inquiry is one of vast range and import.
Following, as we may reasonably do, the nebular hypothesis--a view which, though not wholly proved, is eminently probable--we may regard our solar system as having begun when the matter of which it is composed, then in a finely divided, cloudy state, was separated from the similar material which went to make the neighbouring fixed stars.
The period when our solar system began its individual life was remote beyond the possibility of conception. Naturalists are pretty well agreed that living beings began to exist upon the earth at least a hundred million years ago; but the beginnings of our solar system must be placed at a date very many times as remote from the present day.[1]
[Footnote 1: Some astronomers, particularly the distinguished Professor Newcomb, hold that the sun can not have been supplying heat as at present for more than about ten million years, and that all geological time must be thus limited. The geologist believes that this reckoning is far too short.]
According to the nebular theory, the original vapour of the solar system began to fall in toward its centre and to whirl about that point at a time long before the ma.s.s had shrunk to the present limits of the solar system as defined by the path of the outermost planets.
At successive stages of the concentration, rings after the manner of those of Saturn separated from the disklike ma.s.s, each breaking up and consolidating into a body of nebulous matter which followed in the same path, generally forming rings which became by the same process the moons or satellites of the sphere. In this way the sun produced eight planets which are known, and possibly others of small size on the outer verge of the system which have eluded discovery. According to this view, the planetary ma.s.ses were born in succession, the farthest away being the oldest. It is, however, held by an able authority that the ma.s.s of the solar system would first form a rather flat disk, the several rings forming and breaking into planets at about the same time. The conditions in Saturn, where the inner ring remains parted, favours the view just stated.
Before making a brief statement of the several planets, the asteroids, and the satellites, it will be well to consider in a general way the motions of these bodies about their centres and about the sun. The most characteristic and invariable of these movements is that by which each of the planetary spheres, as well as the satellites, describes an orbit around the gravitative centre which has the most influence upon it--the sun. To conceive the nature of this movement, it will be well to imagine a single planet revolving around the sun, each of these bodies being perfect spheres, and the two the only members of the solar system. In this condition the attraction of the two bodies would cause them to circle around a common centre of gravity, which, if the planet were not larger or the sun smaller than is the case in our solar system, would lie within the ma.s.s of the sun. In proportion as the two bodies might approach each other in size, the centre of gravity would come the nearer to the middle point in a line connecting the two spheres. In this condition of a sun with a single planet, whatever were the relative size of sun and planet, the orbits which they traverse would be circular. In this state of affairs it should be noted that each of the two bodies would have its plane of rotation permanently in the same position. Even if the spheres were more or less flattened about the poles of their axes, as is the case with all the planets which we have been able carefully to measure, as well as with the sun, provided the axes of rotation were precisely parallel to each other, the mutual attraction of the ma.s.ses would cause no disturbance of the spheres. The same would be the case if the polar axis of one sphere stood precisely at right angles to that of the other. If, however, the spheres were somewhat flattened at the poles, and the axes inclined to each other, then the pull of one ma.s.s on the other would cause the polar axes to keep up a constant movement which is called nutation, or nodding.
The reason why this nodding movement of the polar axes would occur when these lines were inclined to each other is not difficult to see if we remember that the attraction of ma.s.ses upon each other is inversely as the square of the distance; each sphere, pulling on the equatorial bulging of the other, pulls most effectively on the part of it which is nearest, and tends to draw it down toward its centre. The result is that the axes of the attracted spheres are given a wobbling movement, such as we may note in the spinning top, though in the toy the cause of the motion is not that which we are considering.
If, now, in that excellent field for the experiment we are essaying, the mind"s eye, we add a second planet outside of the single sphere which we have so far supposed to journey about the sun, or rather about the common centre of gravity, we perceive at once that we have introduced an element which leads to a complication of much importance. The new sphere would, of course, pull upon the others in the measure of its gravitative value--i.e., its weight. The centre of gravity of the system would now be determined not by two distinct bodies, but by three. If we conceive the second planet to journey around the sun at such a rate that a straight line always connected the centres of the three orbs, then the only effect on their gravitative centre would be to draw the first-mentioned planet a little farther away from the centre of the sun; but in our own solar system, and probably in all others, this supposition is inadmissible, because the planets have longer journeys to go and also move slower, the farther they are from the sun. Thus Mercury completes the circle of its year in eighty-eight of our days, while the outermost planet requires sixty thousand days (more than one hundred and sixty-four years) for the same task. The result is not only that the centre of gravity of the system is somewhat displaced--itself a matter of no great account--but also that the orbit of the original planet ceases to be circled and becomes elliptical, and this for the evident reason that the sphere will be drawn somewhat away from the sun when the second planet happens to lie in the part of its...o...b..t immediately outside of its position, in which case the pull is away from the solar centre; while, on the other hand, when the new planet was on the other side of the sun, its pull would serve to intensify the attraction which drew the first sphere toward the centre of gravity. As the pulling action of the three bodies upon each other, as well as upon their equatorial protuberances, would vary with every change in their relative position, however slight, the variations in the form of their orbits, even if the spheres were but three in number, would be very important. The consequences of these perturbations will appear in the sequel.
In our solar system, though there are but eight great planets, the group of asteroids, and perhaps a score of satellites, the variety of orbital and axial movement which is developed taxes the computing genius of the ablest astronomer. The path which our earth follows around the sun, though it may in general and for convenience be described as a variable ellipse, is, in fact, a line of such complication that if we should essay a diagram of it on the scale of this page it would not be possible to represent any considerable part of its deviations. These, in fact, would elude depiction, even if the draughtsman had a sheet for his drawing as large as the orbit itself, for every particle of matter in s.p.a.ce, even if it be lodged beyond the limits of the farthest stars revealed to us by the telescope, exercises a certain attraction, which, however small, is effective on the ma.s.s of the earth. Science has to render its conclusions in general terms, and we can safely take them as such; but in this, as in other instances, it is well to qualify our acceptance of the statements by the memory that all things are infinitely more complicated than we can possibly conceive or represent them to be.
We have next to consider the rotations of the planetary spheres upon their axes, together with the similar movement, or lack of it, in the case of their satellites. This rotation, according to the nebular hypothesis, may be explained by the movements which would set up in the share of matter which was at first a ring of the solar nebula, and which afterward gathered into the planetary aggregation. The way of it may be briefly set forth as follows: Such a ring doubtless had a diameter of some million miles; we readily perceive that the particles of matter in the outer part of the belt would have a swifter movement around the sun than those on the inside. When by some disturbance, as possibly by the pa.s.sage of a great meteoric body of a considerable gravitative power, this ring was broken in two, the particles composing it on either side would, because of their mutual attraction, tend to draw away from the breach, widening that gap until the matter of the broken ring was aggregated into a sphere of the star dust or vapour. When the nebulous matter originally in the ring became aggregated into a spherical form, it would, on account of the different rates at which the particles were moving when they came together, be the surer to fall in toward the centre, not in straight lines, but in curves--in other words, the ma.s.s would necessarily take on a movement of rotation essentially like that which we have described in setting forth the nebular hypothesis.
In the stages of concentration the planetary nebulae might well repeat those through which the greater solar ma.s.s proceeded. If the volume of the material were great, subordinate rings would be formed, which when they broke and concentrated would const.i.tute secondary planets or satellites, such as our moon. For some reason as yet unknown the outer planets--in fact, all those in the solar system except the two inner, Venus and Mercury and the asteroids--formed such attendants. All these satellite-forming rings have broken and concentrated except the inner of Saturn, which remains as an intellectual treasure of the solar system to show the history of its development.
To the student who is not seeking the fulness of knowledge which astronomy has to offer, but desires only to acquaint himself with the more critical and important of the heavenly phenomena which help to explain the earth, these features of planetary movement should prove especially interesting for the reason that they shape the history of the spheres. As we shall hereafter see, the machinery of the earth"s surface, all the life which it bears, its winds and rains--everything, indeed, save the actions which go on in the depths of the sphere--is determined by the heat and light which come from the sun. The conditions under which this vivifying tide is received have their origin in the planetary motion. If our earth"s path around the centre of the system was a perfect circle, and if its polar axis lay at right angles to the plane of its journey, the share of light and heat which would fall upon any one point on the sphere would be perfectly uniform. There would be no variations in the length of day or night; no changes in the seasons; the winds everywhere would blow with exceeding steadiness--in fact, the present atmospheric confusion would be reduced to something like order. From age to age, except so far as the sun itself might vary in the amount of energy which it radiated, or lands rose up into the air or sunk down toward the sea level, the climate of each region would be perfectly stable. In the existing conditions the influences bring about unending variety. First of all, the inclined position of the polar axis causes the sun apparently to move across the heavens, so that it comes in an overhead position once or twice in the year in quite half the area of the lands and seas.
This apparent swaying to and fro of the sun, due to the inclination of the axis of rotation, also affects the width of the climatal belts on either side of the equator, so that all parts of the earth receive a considerable share of the sun"s influence. If the axis of the earth"s rotation were at right angles to the plane of its...o...b..t, there would be a narrow belt of high temperature about the equator, north and south of which the heat would grade off until at about the parallels of fifty degrees we should find a cold so considerable and uniform that life would probably fade away; and from those parallels to the poles the conditions would be those of permanent frost, and of days which would darken into the enduring night or twilight in the realm of the far north and south. Thus the wide habitability of the earth is an effect arising from the inclination of its polar axis.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.--Inclination of Planetary Orbits (from Chambers).]
As the most valuable impression which the student can receive from his study of Nature is that sense of the order which has made possible all life, including his own, it will be well for him to imagine, as he may readily do, what would be the effect arising from changes in relations of earth and sun. Bringing the earth"s axis in imagination into a position at right angles to the plane of the orbit, he will see that the effect would be to intensify the equatorial heat, and to rob the high lat.i.tudes of the share which they now have. On moving the axis gradually to positions where it approaches the plane of the orbit, he will note that each stage of the change widens the tropic belt.
Bringing the polar axis down to the plane of the orbit, one hemisphere would receive unbroken sunshine, the other remaining in perpetual darkness and cold. In this condition, in place of an equatorial line we should have an equatorial point at the pole nearest the sun; thence the temperatures would grade away to the present equator, beyond which half the earth would be in more refrigerating condition than are the poles at the present day. In considering the movements of our planet, we shall see that no great changes in the position of the polar axis can have taken place. On this account the suggested alterations of the axis should not be taken as other than imaginary changes.
It is easy to see that with a circular orbit and with an inclined axis winter and summer would normally come always at the same point in the orbit, and that these seasons would be of perfectly even length. But, as we have before noted, the earth"s path around the sun is in its form greatly affected by the attractions which are exercised by the neighbouring planets, princ.i.p.ally by those great spheres which lie in the realm without its...o...b..t, Jupiter and Saturn. When these attracting bodies, as is the case from time to time, though at long intervals, are brought together somewhere near to that part of the solar system in which the earth is moving around the sun, they draw our planet toward them, and so make its path very elliptical. When, however, they are so distributed that their pulling actions neutralize each other, the orbit returns more nearly to a circular form. The range in its eccentricity which can be brought about by these alterations is very great. When the path is most nearly circular, the difference in the major and minor axis may amount to as little as about five hundred thousand miles, or about one one hundred and eighty-sixth of its average diameter. When the variation is greatest the difference in these measurements may be as much as near thirteen million miles, or about one seventh of the mean width of the orbit.
The first and most evident effect arising from these changes of the orbit comes from the difference in the amount of heat which the earth may receive according as it is nearer or farther from the sun. As in the case of other fires, the nearer a body is to it the larger the share of light and heat which it will receive. In an orbit made elliptical by the planetary attraction the sun necessarily occupies one of the foci of the ellipse. The result is, of course, that the side of the earth which is toward the sun, while it is thus brought the nearer to the luminary, receives more energy in the form of light and heat than come to any part which is exposed when the spheres are farther away from each other in the other part of the orbit.
Computations clearly show that the total amount of heat and the attendant light which the earth receives in a year is not affected by these changes in the form of its path. While it is true that it receives heat more rapidly in the half of the ellipse which is nearest the source of the inundation, it obtains less while it is farther away, and these two variations just balance each other.
Although the alterations in the eccentricity of its...o...b..t do not vary the annual supply of heat which the earth receives, they are capable of changing the character of the seasons, and this in the way which we will now endeavour to set forth, though we must do it at the cost of considerable attention on the part of the reader, for the facts are somewhat complicated. In the first place, we must note that the ellipticity of the earth"s...o...b..t is not developed on fixed lines, but is endlessly varied, as we can readily imagine it would be for the reason that its form depends upon the wandering of the outer planetary spheres which pull the earth about. The longer axis of the ellipse is itself in constant motion in the direction in which the earth travels.
This movement is slow, and at an irregular rate. It is easy to see that the effect of this action, which is called the revolution of the apsides, or, as the word means, the movement of the poles of the ellipse, is to bring the earth, when a given hemisphere is turned toward the sun, sometimes in the part of the orbit which is nearest the source of light and heat, and sometimes farther away. It may thus well come about that at one time the summer season of a hemisphere arrives when it is nearest the sun, so that the season, though hot, will be very short, while at another time the same season will arrive when the earth is farthest from the sun, and receives much less heat, which would tend to make a long and relatively cool summer. The reason for the difference in length of the seasons is to be found in the relative swiftness of the earth"s revolution when it is nearest the sun, and the slowness when it is farther away.
There is a further complication arising from that curious phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, which has to be taken into account before we can sufficiently comprehend the effect of the varying eccentricity of the orbit on the earth"s seasons. To understand this feature of precession we should first note that it means that each year the change from the winter to the summer--or, as we phrase it, the pa.s.sage of the equinoctial line--occurs a little sooner than the year before. The cause of this is to be found in the attraction which the heavenly bodies, practically altogether the moon, exercises on the equatorial protuberance of the earth. We know that the diameter of our sphere at the equator is, on the average, something more than twenty-six miles greater than it is through the poles. We know, furthermore, that the position of the moon in relation to the earth is such that it causes the attraction on one half of this protuberance to be greater than it is upon the other. We readily perceive that this action will cause the polar axis to make a certain revolution, or, what comes to the same thing, that the plane of the equator will constantly be altering its position. Now, as the equinoctial points in the orbit depend for their position upon the att.i.tude of the equatorial plane, we can conceive that the effect is a change in position of the place in that orbit where summer and winter begin. The actual result is to bring the seasonal points backward, step by step, through the orbit in a regular measure until in twenty-two thousand five hundred years they return to the place where they were before. This cycle of change was of old called the Annus Magnus, or great year.
If the earth"s...o...b..t were an ellipse, the major axis of which remained in the same position, we could readily reckon all the effects which arise from the variations of the great year. But this ellipse is ever changing in form, and in the measure of its departure from a circle the effects on the seasons distributed over a great period of time are exceedingly irregular. Now and then, at intervals of hundreds of thousands or millions of years, the orbit becomes very elliptical; then again for long periods it may in form approach a circle. When in the state of extreme ellipticity, the precession of the equinoxes will cause the hemispheres in turn each to have their winter and summer alternately near and far from the sun. It is easily seen that when the summer season comes to a hemisphere in the part of the orbit which is then nearest the sun the period will be very hot. When the summer came farthest from the sun that part of the year would have the temperature mitigated by its removal to a greater distance from the source of heat. A corresponding effect would be produced in the winter season. As long as the orbit remained eccentric the tendency would be to give alternately intense seasons to each hemisphere through periods of about twelve thousand years, the other hemisphere having at the same time a relatively slight variation in the summer and winter.
At first sight it may seem to the reader that these studies we have just been making in matters concerning the shape of the orbit and the attendant circ.u.mstances which regulate the seasons were of no very great consequence; but, in the opinion of some students of climate, we are to look to these processes for an explanation of certain climatal changes on the earth, including the Glacial periods, accidents which have had the utmost importance in the history of man, as well as of all the other life of the planet.
It is now time to give some account as to what is known concerning the general conditions of the solar bodies--the planets and satellites of our own celestial group. For our purpose we need attend only to the general physical state of these orbs so far as it is known to us by the studies of astronomers. The nearest planet to the sun is Mercury.
This little sphere, less than half the diameter of our earth, is so close to the sun that even when most favourably placed for observation it is visible for but a few minutes before sunrise and after sunset.
Although it may without much difficulty be found by the ordinary eye, very few people have ever seen it. To the telescope when it is in the _full moon_ state it appears as a brilliant disk; it is held by most astronomers that the surface which we see is made up altogether of clouds, but this, as most else that has been stated concerning this planet, is doubtful. The sphere is so near to the sun that if it were possessed of water it would inevitably bear an atmosphere full of vapour. Under any conceivable conditions of a planet placed as Mercury is, provided it had an atmosphere to retain the heat, its temperature would necessarily be very high. Life as we know it could not well exist upon such a sphere.
Next beyond Mercury is Venus, a sphere only a little less in diameter than the earth. Of this sphere we know more than we do of Mercury, for the reason that it is farther from the sun and so appears in the darkened sky. Most astronomers hold that the surface of this planet apparently is almost completely and continually hidden from us by what appears to be a dense cloud envelope, through which from time to time certain spots appear of a dark colour. These, it is claimed, retain their place in a permanent way; it is, indeed, by observing them that the rotation period of the planet has, according to some observers, been determined. It therefore seems likely that these spots are the summits of mountains, which, like many of our own earth, rise above the cloud level.