AGE OF EARTH

ZETETIC COSMOGONY:
OR
Conclusive Evidence
THAT THE WORLD IS NOT A
ROTATING—REVOLVING—GLOBE,
BUT
A STATIONARY PLANE CIRCLE.
By Thomas Winship
1899

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(Post 2/47)

AGE OF EARTH.

This is a subject which has been much speculated upon. I shall quote a few of the more prominent assumptions. Sir Robert Ball, in his "Story of the Heavens," pages 169 and 170, tells us that:

"We cannot pretend to know how many thousands of millions of years ago this epoch was, but we may be sure that earlier still the earth was even hotter, until at length we seem to see the temperature increase to a red heat, from a red heat we look back to a still earlier age when the earth was white hot, back again till we find the surface of our now solid globe was ACTUALLY MOLTEN."

But imagination goes still further than this. In "Our place among Infinities," by R. A. Proctor, pages 9 and 10, we find the following:

"Let it suffice that we recognise as one of the earliest stages of our earth's history, her condition as a rotating MASS OF GLOWING VAPOUR, capturing then as now, but far more actively then than now, masses of matter which approached near enough, and growing by these continual indraughts from without."

How we are to "recognise" that the earth was once a rotating mass of vapour, we are not told. On what evidence the recognition rests, is not stated. Perhaps it is not too much to assume that this is like most other assumptions of the astronomical schools, without the slightest vestige of possibility, to say nothing of probability. Sir R. Ball tells us that "we may be sure" that the earth was once "actually molten;" but on what provable data the "surety" of this "actuality" rests we are left to the foggy mazes of imagination to discover. But imagination, assisted by assumption, will account for anything, and so we are told that it "took 350,000,000 years for the earth to cool down from a temperature of 2,000 centigrade to 200." Proctor says that Bischof has shown this, and so we ought to be sure enough. Were similar ridiculous statements made in relation to any other science than Astronomy or Geology, I believe the general reader would dismiss them at sight. But because they are made in a "domain of science" where the general reader, in most cases, cannot follow, they are allowed to pass as the genuine product of learning and investigation; whereas they are at best but wild and utterly impossible theories. In "Modern Science and Modern Thought," page 44, we are informed that:

"It is right, however, to state that ALL MATHEMATICAL CALCULATIONS OF TIME BASED ON THE ASSUMED RATE AT WHICH COSMIC MATTER COOLS INTO SUNS AND PLANETS, AND THESE INTO SOLID AND HABITABLE GLOBES, ARE IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE UNCERTAIN."

Thus, after all the labour to establish a theory, allied with much skill in setting it forth, in its best dress, we are calmly assured that all these tall figures and imaginations are based on premises which are in the highest degree uncertain! If evidence for rejecting these fanciful hypotheses summarily and in toto were wanting, surely it is now furnished to satisfaction.

Not only are these "mathematical calculations" of assumed premises, "in the highest degree uncertain," but they are to be classed with the tomfooleries of the age, and reckoned among the many and impossible absurdities of the present day.

One of the chief of recent speculations regarding the earth, is that it is a body like the planets, because, it has been shown that the sun and the stars are of the same constituent parts as the earth. Iron, Salt, &c., are said to be elements of the sun's composition, and as the earth contains these and other minerals, it is a globe or planet like the other heavenly bodies which contain the same metals. What is known as SPECTRUM ANALYSIS is relied upon as proving this. A prism is placed in position so as to intercept the sun's rays, and the colours seen through this instrument, red, orange, yellow, blue, are said to be the result of the various metals contained in the sun in a state of fusion, emitting their several colours in the combined sunlight, which total light is decomposed into its component colours by the prism.

With the object of testing the conclusions arrived at by the learned relative to spectrum analysis, several experiments were made by the writer. The light of the sun on a clear day, about noon, seen through the prism disclosed the various colours that can be seen through this instrument. On a hazy day before sunset the colours seen were the same but very faint. Light from a lighthouse and a star seen through the prism, showed the colours to be the same, the colour from the light of the star being much less brilliant than that from the lighthouse. Light from a paraffin street lamp gave the same result as light from a star or the sun, only much fainter. Then the electric light was tried. A large street lamp of great power and several others of less power gave the same result as the sun, star, lighthouse, and street lamp, but in various degrees of brilliancy according to the power of the light. Even a candle gave a very faint yellow-blue tinge, so slight that it had to be looked at for some time before anything but blue was apparent.

If, therefore, it be argued that spectrum analysis proves that the sun is made of the same metals as we find in the earth, and that, therefore, the earth is a product of evolution then it is equally clear that the electric light and the glass shade of the lamp which encases it are really composed of iron and various other metals in a state of fusion, constituting indeed, a globe of glowing vapour, and not glass, carbon, &c., at all. It is also as reasonable to conclude that the paraffin lamp and the candle are composed of metals in a state of fusion and that there is in reality no paraffin, no glass, no tallow, and no wick. That is to say, known facts must be thrown aside, common-sense stultified, and reason dethroned in order to bolster up the unprovable assumptions of modern science relative to the doctrine of evolution as applied to the earth and the heavenly bodies.

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GRANITE CANNOT BE FORMED BY SLOW COOLING FROM A MOLTEN STATE
[UNIVERSITY LECTURE]