Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/72

62 of the case, and to be a necessary consequence of the best knowledge we can obtain as to the genesis of our system and the constitution of the sun itself, it must, of course, be conceded that it does not yet admit of any observational verification. No measurements within our power can test it, so far as appears at present.

It may be admitted, too, that much can be said in favor of other theories; such as the one which attributes the solar heat to the impact of meteoric matter, and that other most interesting and ingenious theory of the late Sir William Siemens. As regards the former, however, I see no escape from the conclusion, that if it were exclusively true, the earth ought to be receiving, as was pointed out by the late Professor Peirce, as much heat from meteors as from the sun. This would require the fall of a quantity of meteoric matter—more than sixty million times as much as the best estimates make our present supply, and such as could not escape the most casual observation, since it would amount to more than a hundred and fifty tons a day on every square mile.

As regards the theory of Siemens, the matter has been, of late, so thoroughly discussed that we probably need spend no time upon it here. To say nothing as to the difficulties connected with the establishment of such a far-reaching vortex as it demands, nor of the fact that the temperature of the sun's surface appears to be above that of the dissociation-point of carbon compounds, and hence above the highest heat of their combustion, it seems certainly demonstrated that matter of the necessary density could not exist in interplanetary space without seriously affecting the planetary motions by its gravitating action as well as by its direct resistance; nor could the stellar radiations reach us, as they do, through a medium capable of taking up and utilizing the rays of the sun in the way this theory supposes.

And yet I imagine that there is a very general sympathy with the feeling that led to the proposal of the theory—an uncomfortable dissatisfaction with received theories, because they admit that the greater part of the sun's radiant energy is, speaking from a scientific point of view, simply wasted. Nothing like a millionth part of the sky, as seen from the sun, is occupied, so far as we can make out, by objects upon which its rays can fall: the rest is vacancy. If the sun sends out rays in all directions alike, not one of them in a million finds a target, or accomplishes any useful work, unless there is in space some medium to