Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/510

494 At the end the day and the month will be again equal, but they will each be 1,400 hours. The moon will then go round the earth in 1,400 hours, while the earth will rotate on its axis in the same time. In other words, the day is destined in the very remote future to become as long as fifty-seven of our days. This epoch will assuredly come if the universe lasts long enough. When it has come it will endure for countless ages. It would endure for ever if the earth and the moon could be isolated from all external interference.

We heard a great deal a few years ago about the necessity of shortening the hours of labor. I wish to point out that the social reformers who are striving to shorten the hours of labor are pulling one way, while the moon is pulling the other. The moon is increasing the length of the day. The change will be very gradual, but none the less is it inevitable. Where will the nine-hours' movement be when the day has increased to 1,400 hours? This will be a very serious matter, and there is only one way by which it can be avoided. The question is one rather for engineers than for astronomers; but I can not help throwing out a suggestion. My advice is: Anchor the moon, and keep it from going out. If you can do this, and if you can also provide a brake by which the speed of the moon can be controlled, then you will be able for ever to revel in the enjoyment of a twenty-four-hour day.

Should this engineering feat never be accomplished, then we have only the 1,400-hour day to look forward to. Nor is there anything untoward in the prospect, when we take natural selection, as our comforter. By natural selection man has become exactly harmonized with his present environment. No doubt natural selection moves at a dignified pace, but so in all truth does tidal evolution. Natural selection and tidal evolution have advanced pari passu through all the past millions of geological time. They will advance pari passu through all the ages yet to come. As the day lengthens, so will man's nature gradually change too, without any hardship or inconvenience. All that is necessary is plenty of time. Should we think it a hardship that our children should have a day of twenty-four hours and one second instead of twenty-four hours? That the day enjoyed by our grandchildren should be a second longer than the day of our children? That the day of our great-grandchildren should be a second longer still, and so on continually? This would be no inconvenience whatever. No one except the astronomers would be able to detect the change, and daily life would be unaltered. Yet, carry on this process for only 150,000,000 years, and we shall find that the whole change of the day from twenty-four hours to 1,400 hours has been accomplished. The actual rate of change is indeed much less than this, and is at present so small that astronomers can hardly even detect it.

Our remote posterity will have a night 700 hours long, and when the sun rises in the morning 700 hours more will elapse before he can