On this Subject Our Planet Is as Secretive as a Woman, and Inquisitive
Scientists Can Do Nothing More Than Guess at It.
The earth is almost as secretive on the subject of its age as is a woman
who has passed the thirty mark. Several years ago Richard A. Proctor, the
celebrated astronomer, addressed himself to an investigation of the
subject, and then wrote as follows:
The age of the earth is placed by some at five hundred millions of years;
by others, one hundred million years; and still others, of later time,
among them the Duke of Argyll, place it at ten million years. None place
it lower than ten millions, knowing what processes have been gone through.
Other planets go through the same process. The reason that other planets
differ so much from the earth is that they are in so much earlier or later
stages of existence. The earth must become old. Newton surmised that it
would lose all its water and become perfectly dry. Since then other
scientists have confirmed his opinion.
As the earth keeps cooling, it will become porous, and great cavities will
be formed in the interior, which will take in the water. It is estimated
that this process is now in progress, so far that the water diminishes at
the rate of the thickness of a sheet of paper each year.
At this rate, in six million years the water will have sunk a mile, and in
fifteen million the water will have disappeared from the face of the
globe.
The nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere are also diminishing all the
time. It is in an inappreciable degree, but the time will come when the
air will be so thin that no creature we know could breathe it and live;
the time will come when the world cannot support life. That will be the
period of old age, and then will come death.