AT PRESENT SCIENCE IS IN A DUBIOUS AND CHAOTIC CONDITION
The last few years have been remarkable for the diligence with which
scientists have scrutinized every phenomena of nature, and the abundance
of new facts which have rewarded their researches.
They have also been remarkable for the changes in scientific opinions,
which usually are so gradual as to be imperceptible, but which have
recently taken on the speed of the earth's solar revolution in their
transition from the old to new theories.
The vast body of scientists are seldom a unit in the acceptance of any
theory, even of the most fundamental nature. And where there is such
diversity of belief each student of nature is entitled to form his own
opinions and beliefs.
But the most pitiable and unfortunate of the one-sided scientists are
those who would banish logic from the realms of physics, and who regard
a deduction or a theory as an enemy of science; who heap scorn on
analytic reason--the highest gift of Deity to man--and who deem the
tabulation of dry facts without causes the only purpose of science. Who
want science fenced in with a stone wall and separated from religion and
philosophy, and the earth cut up into sections and labelled astronomy,
chemistry, geology, and so on ad infinitum; as if nature knew anything
about astronomy, chemistry or geology, or ever considered anything but
the unity and harmony of the whole universe, which includes science,
religion and philosophy, one and inseparable, as God and nature are
inseparable.
Mr. Cope Whitehouse, a New York scientist, says of present science: "The
only fact established beyond doubt regarding suns and planets is their
revolution on their axes, and this is all that is needed to generate
light and heat. They are arc dynamos, and each in turn transmits what it
receives to its neighbor on the circuit." This is well stated and shows
that nine-tenths of the accepted facts and theories of science are mere
guesswork, founded upon conjectures of some eminent scientist who was
accepted as authority a hundred years ago. And the standard scientific
works have propagated them as scientific facts.
It is a fact apparent to all well informed students that astronomy,
physics and chemistry at present are in a chaotic condition--that nearly
all the scientific facts and theories established for two hundred years
are now in a state of uncertainty and are virtually overthrown by recent
discoveries.
The recent discovery of radium seems to overturn the rock-ribbed
scientific theory of the conservation of energy, and raises many new
questions in regard to the nature of light and heat.
Lord Kelvin, recognized as the highest authority, says: "It threatens to
overthrow the doctrine of the correlation of forces." If the scientists
would accept the electric theory of creation, its explanation would not
be so difficult, for radium seems to be a bundle of electric ions or
corpuscles which have the power of drawing electricity from the
atmosphere, like a miniature dynamo or a galvanic battery, and thus
continually renewing itself, so that there is no loss of power and no
shrinkage in size or bulk. The scientists may soon be forced by radium
and other natural phenomena to accept the electric theory--that
electricity and not gravity is the one and only fundamental force in
nature.
The recent discovery of the three lines in the spectrum of hydrogen,
discovered by Prof. Pickering, of Harvard, may upset the whole theory of
the seventy-three elements set forth in our books of chemistry and said
to constitute all the elements of the universe. It may prove they are
not elements, or at least not primary elements at all, and finally drive
the scientists to my theory that there are only three primary elements
in the universe, and they are spirit, electricity and matter. That the
so-called seventy-three elements are only different combinations of two
of the original and primary elements--matter and electricity--and are
what Herschell said they looked to be--"manufactured articles."
Prof. Pickering was the first to analyze lightning with the spectroscope
and show that hydrogen is a compound substance made up of lines
belonging to at least three chemical elements. This recent discovery was
a great surprise to scientific men. And it was confirmed and doubly
proven by the spectrum in the new star, in the constellation of Perseus,
known as Nova Persei, which also shows in the hydrogen there the same
lines consisting of at least three chemical elements.
This is new proof by high authority that oxygen, hydrogen and all the
so-called elements are--as I have contended for many years--only
compound substances, and justifies Prof. Serviss' statement in the New
York Journal, that these facts "may revolutionize science and
reconstruct chemistry."
The marvelous increase in brilliancy of the star Nova Persei last year,
and its sudden shrinkage, all within a few days, and the same being
observable almost instantaneously upon the earth, when that star is
3,400 light years distance from the earth according to the accepted
speed of light, which is 186,000 miles a second, unsettles the whole
question as to the speed of light. It tends to prove that light is
instantaneous, as Prof. Wright says gravitation is.
No less an authority than Prof. Simon Newcomb calls the scientific
world's attention to this phenomena, and shows it throws doubt on the
long-accepted theory as to the speed with which light travels. In his
address before the Astronomical Society, December 29th, 1902, he says:
"There is an inadequacy in the speed of light to explain the phenomena.
We are forced to the conclusion that there exists in the universe a
cause susceptible of transmission with a speed many times that of
light."
What cause exceeds the speed of light, which is deemed the swiftest
thing in the universe? We know of none. What was it surprised the
scientists and came to us with many times the supposed speed of light?
It was light, only light. Then this "inadequacy in the speed of light"
came on double-quick time, and proves that light can travel many times
faster than the scientists for two hundred years have declared it
could. And this eminent scientist, with cautious diplomacy, does not
directly attack the accepted speed of light, but says "there exists a
cause" that produces a greater speed than light. But as only light came,
did the "cause" bring it or did it come with its own velocity? If a
"cause" or unknown force brought it, then we have a new force in nature
which the scientists must reckon with. So they must accept the
alternative and either change the speed of light or deal with a new and
unknown force.
In addition to the above complications, Prof. J. J. Thomson, discovered
(1901), the electric ions or corpuscles which is considered a new form
of matter and force.
The discovery of these electric ions or corpuscles a thousand times
smaller than atoms has produced utter confusion in the scientific world,
and outside of the electric theory of creation they can make no possible
explanation of them.
The fact is, the scientists are on an island of doubt, in a sea of
uncertainty, scanning with telescope, microscope and spectroscope the
ocean of foggy knowledge and dubious assumed facts to find a port of
safety.
Their attempts to fix the specific gravity of the sun, and the sun's
burning up and shrinkage as its source of heat, and the heat as the life
of the planets; their treatment of heat as an entity and substance, when
it is merely a sensation; their reliance on the spectroscope to indicate
heat in distant suns, and their accepting gravity without a cause or an
explanation, show the blind for centuries have led the blind in
extravagant guessing.
But since they have seen an electric battery and an arc light, they
should be ashamed to ever declare "the sun is hotter than any
terrestrial furnace," or that it is hot at all. The arc and incandescent
lights are object lessons they ought to study, for they will see almost
an exact representation of how all light, heat and vital force are
created on suns and planets.
They will see two wires, one positive and the other negative, brought
together or so near together that in order to complete their electric
circuit they must pass through a little space of resisting air, which is
a non-conductor, and then they burst into light and moderate heat. In
the same manner the positive and negative currents of electricity of the
sun and earth, without wires, come together in our atmosphere, which is
near the earth's surface a dense resisting non-conductor, and in order
to complete the circuit they burst into light, heat and vital force and
give life and energy to all animal and vegetable organisms. But the heat
must be and is generally moderate, as no vegetable or animal life can
exist in excessive heat. And as excessive heat means ruin and decay,
therefore no burning sun can furnish light or give life and growth to
any planet.
Prof. Simon Newcomb, the learned astronomer, says: "The sun is not a
solid body, but must be liquid or gaseous, at least at its surface." He
gives this singular reason, therefore, that "the sun's rotation at the
equator is completed in less time than at a distance on each side of the
equator."
I question both the fact and the sufficiency of his reasoning on this
point. According to his own statement, the sun revolves at its equator
4,000 miles an hour, or over a mile a second, while it revolves very
slowly near its poles and virtually is not in motion at all at its
poles.
This rapid motion at the equator and slowness of motion near the centre
of the sun is calculated to deceive the eye and make it think it
completes its rotation at its equator in less time than at a distance
from it, looking down along the slope of the sun's vast circumference.
This is no evidence, for we see only the moving clouds of light on the
outer rim of the sun's atmosphere, ten to twenty thousand miles or more
from its surface, and they seem to and do complete their rotation a
short time sooner. This they naturally should do. How frail and
uncertain is the argument based on such doubtful and assumed facts?
Thus these wise astronomers claim from this slim, unreliable evidence
and the assumed excessive heat of the sun, that the sun is not a solid
body at its surface. Yet the same author rejects this same
evidence--that Jupiter is not a solid body--in the following language:
"The difference in the time of Jupiter's rotation at the equator and in
middle latitudes is, so far as we yet know, about five minutes. That is
to say, the equatorial regions rotate in nine hours and fifty minutes
and those in middle latitudes in nine hours and fifty-five minutes, a
difference amounting to 200 miles an hour, a seemingly impossible
difference were the surface liquid. We cannot assume this to be the case
without more observations than are yet recorded, as no well defined law
of rotation in different latitudes has yet been made out." Thus this
learned astronomer will not assume for Jupiter what he assumed for the
sun, and weakens and destroys in Jupiter the very same arguments he used
to prove the sun was not a solid body at its surface.
This same learned astronomer--and I mention him because he is high
authority and has written the most recent work on astronomy--says that,
"under the enormous pressure of the earth, continually increasing to the
center, the matter composing the inner portion of the earth is
compressed to the density of a metal. If the earth were composed of a
fluid or even of a substance which would bend no more than the hardest
steel, such a motion as that of the earth upon its axis would be
impossible."
I accept this as a very reasonable conclusion, and hold the same rule
applies to the sun, and that the sun's "enormous pressure, increasing to
its center," would compress its inner portion to the density of a metal;
and that the sun could not revolve upon its axis and retain its rigidity
as it does unless its inner or central portion was as rigid as steel.
And this necessarily means that its surface is about as solid as that of
our earth.
Therefore the sun cannot be molten or liquid at its surface, as the
scientific guessers have prognosticated. As they have guessed wrong
about nine-tenths of the time, this is one of the nine hundred bad
guesses.
Lord Kelvin, our wisest scientist, a few years ago estimated that our
earth, only fifty miles below its surface, was a molten mass of fiery
metal. Now, Simon Newcomb says it has the density of metal, and is as
hard as steel, and I think Lord Kelvin has changed his opinion and will
agree with him.
Thus the hoary-headed superstition that the center of our earth was a
molten mass is passing away, and it will be the same as to the heat, and
molten condition of the sun--it will be relegated to the plutonian
shades of ignorance and superstition.
Because there were numerous volcanoes, geysers and hot springs scattered
over the crust of the earth and in some deep mines there were hot
sections, the scientists jumped at the conclusion that the inner
portions of the earth were a molten, fiery mass. This was to accord with
their false theory of a red-hot molten sun, and their assertion that the
earth had its inception as a fire mist, and rolling ball of white-heated
gases. But the scientists have changed their theories rapidly in recent
years. They are just beginning to discover that there are zones of heat
and cold beneath the earth's surface just as there are above its
surface. That there are electric currents of heat in volcanic regions
and mineral and mining sections, and none in others, and even in the
same mines there are warm and cold sections.
Take the Cornstalk mines in Nevada. A section 2,300 feet below the
surface is very warm, while another section 1,200 deeper--being 3,500
feet below the surface--is very cool. Surely Lord Kelvin would now laugh
at himself to think he made such a calculation of the heat of the earth
and said it was a molten mass of fire fifty miles below its surface. And
he even said it was so hot seven miles down in the earth that water
could only remain or exist in a state of vapor.
Ye gods! When so great a prophet makes such mistakes, surely the little
prophets that walk in his footsteps ought to "go 'way back and sit
down," and cease talking about the heat of the sun.
They should quit telling us the Beneficent Creator is burning up
18,000,000 of his most magnificent and beautiful worlds to heat his
little, insignificant planets. They estimate our sun burns up thirty
quintillion cubic feet of itself annually, and 18,000,000 of suns are
doing the same, making the equivalent of a world destroyed every year
and a sun every decade.
These statements are so unreasonable and appalling they refute
themselves. I mean no disrespect for these learned but misguided
scientists who have for two hundred years built all their theories on
heat, which Langley now says truthfully is nothing but a sensation. Thus
they built the universe on a sensation, and to sustain the old
traditions they want to keep it there. They said the earth began in
heat, that it was a ball of fire a few miles below its surface, and the
suns were great flaming furnaces burning up with quenchless fire. They
made the Great Creator a fire demon and world destroyer.
If Prof. Parker's testimony is to be relied on, nine-tenths of them
waste their time on useless calculations and data. They have a wonderful
faculty of putting the horse before the cart. For example, Prof. Huston
of Princeton, says. "Electricity is being constantly produced during the
phenomena of every day life. It is produced by chemical action,
differences of temperature, the motion of conductors and magnets and the
various physical and chemical processes that occur during the life and
growth of plants and animals." Now, this is misleading, because it
states facts backward. It is not true that electricity is being
produced in the sense he uses it by these phenomena. These phenomena are
being produced by electricity. They are the manifestations of
electricity. Electricity is the cause; they are the sequence or results,
and he should say electricity is manifested by these things. The same
author says: "The earth is to be considered as one huge magnet." This is
very true, and as a great magnet does not need to be hot to generate
electric life-giving energy, no astronomer ought to look at an electric
light or an electric battery without blushing that he ever called the
sun hot.
Electricity can be generated without burning coal or wood or the use of
a furnace. The turbine wheels that are turned by the waters of Niagara
Falls, without heat or furnace, can generate a hundred thousand horse
power.
The placing of two or three pieces of metal one above another with a
moist substance between them will create a voltaic battery. And mines of
two or three kinds of metals or ores, when clay or any soft substance
between them become moist, will create a battery that will tear up the
earth for miles and produce a geyser or an earthquake.
Prof. Proctor agrees with Langley in rejecting the nebular hypothesis,
when he says: "Under the continual rain of meteoric matter the earth,
sun and planets are growing. And the formation of the solar system
resulted from the aggregations of vast meteoric and cometic systems
rotating through space has greater support from what is now going on,
and is far more satisfactory than the nebular hypothesis of La Place.
The nebular hypothesis affords no explanation of the strange variety of
size in the planetary system, variations of inclination among the
planets, or the retrograde and almost perpendicular motion of the
satellites of Uranus and Neptune. A general explanation of all these
matters is at once suggested by their origin from aggregations of
meteoric systems." This agrees with the electric theory of creation.
All the Newton-La Place theories of gravitation and the nebular
hypothesis are now called in question by our wisest astronomers. And one
of them has pointed out two hundred instances in which gravitation is
set aside and ignored in the motion of the heavenly bodies. Such
instances as the runaway stars, the retrograde motion of satellites, the
repulsion of comets from the sun, and so on ad infinitum. And as to the
outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn, being older than the
inner planets and being thrown off first from the vast whirling sun
nebula of La Place's imagination, all modern astronomers either call it
in question or reject it, as a fallacy disproved by more recent facts
and discoveries. It is reasonable to suppose that there are zones of
electric energy in space in each solar system which may help to hold and
keep each planet in its orbit, just as there are belts and currents of
electricity in the atmosphere and outer crusts of earth and planets. And
the sun may send a different kind of electricity to each planet and
receive a different kind from each planet.
Abbé Moreau, the noted French astronomer, in supporting Col. du
Ligondes, who opposes the La Place theory of the formation of the solar
system, in a recent article, April, 1902, undertakes to show that Mars
is not older than the earth, as held by the La Place nebular theory,
but on the contrary is much younger. His arguments entirely demolish the
nebular theory that the outer planets were thrown off in successive
rings of nebula from the sun, and therefore the outer planets are the
older. In addition, Flammarion seems to take the same position, for he
says: "In Mars two moons revolve rapidly in the heavens in opposite
directions, which seems to refute the nebular hypothesis." These all
tend to support my electrical theories, and relegate the Newton-La Place
theories to the shades of obsolete fancy and mistaken conjecture.
Flammarion also says: "The earth in its orbit describes a spiral, and
since its creation has never passed twice through the same point in
space." This also supports my electrical theory of globular spheres and
spiral motion in space to accord with the laws of electro-magnetic
energy. This spiral shape of the earth's orbit, I contend, and not the
tilting of its poles, creates the changes of seasons. Its poles seem to
tilt or change because the earth passes above and below the line of the
ecliptic, and in its spiral circuit has the sun above the earth part of
the year, when it is summer in the north temperate zone, and below it
part of the year when it is summer in the south temperate. And the
elliptical shape of the earth's orbit is, I contend, caused by the sun
being in motion, which lengthens the circle of the orbit in the
direction the sun is traveling and causes the earth to be four million
miles nearer it when it turns in front of it, and the same distance
farther from it when it turns in the same direction the sun is
traveling. It seems strange that no astronomers have thought of these
things.
Sir Robert Ball said recently: "The most important advance in astronomy
was Prof. Keeler's discovery of nebulae in such enormous numbers, and
the fact that most of them were in a spiral shape." This spiral shape
accords with the law of electro-magnetism and sustains the theory of
electrical creation of suns and planets. Matter could not be gathered
under any other law.
In addition to the contradictions and complications of science already
mentioned, scarcely a fundamental principle or concept remains. One of
the eternal indisputable postulates of science was that "two bodies
cannot occupy the same space at the same time." But that is exploded,
and we know they do and we have proof of it every day. There are
numerous instances; I will mention only one: Twenty-eight electric
currents can pass over the same wire at the same time, fourteen one way
and fourteen the other, and occupy the same space and do not interfere
with one another.
Scientists used to put great stress on solid matter, and their primary
division of matter was into solid, liquid and gaseous. They have
recently discovered there is no such thing as solid matter. What they
termed solid matter is but the outer and visible shell of invisible
forces. That not a single atom of matter touches another atom of matter;
but there is a space between them, and the atoms revolve around each
other in very much the same way as the earth revolves around the sun,
thus showing that the laws of electro-magnetism are the same in atoms as
in worlds.
The scientists only discovered the non-solidity of matter since the use
of the X-rays, and the Crookes tube, and they have been puzzled ever
since to know what holds the atoms or molecules together in organized
form. They undertake to say it is gravity, but gravity is weight, and
atoms have no weight, and they are forced to look to electricity and
magnetism to solve the question. And the electric theory gives the only
rational explanation, which is, that all things are held together by
magnetic attraction or cohesion under the laws of organic affinity. The
molecules of iron, stone and marble do not touch each other, but their
magnetic attraction is stronger than that of wood or hay; that is why
they have more solidity, strength and endurance. Science said we could
not look through a grindstone or any solid matter, but we can. We can
look through men, grindstones, iron and brick walls, and if we could
turn on sufficient electric power we could look through the earth and
take photographs of Chinamen on the other side of the globe.
Prof. Serviss, in the New York Journal of October 1st, 1902, calls
attention to "the remarkable growth of speculation concerning electric
or electro-magnetic influences exercised over the earth by the sun and
planets," and says: "They have been seized upon by astrological
soothsayers to bolster up their pretended science."
As I have never taken any interest in astrology, but have taken great
interest in the electro-magnetic power of the sun, I am surprised at the
obtuseness that would undertake to blend them together when they have no
scientific relation.
Astrology undertakes to reveal the future by the position and influence
of the stars, and is entirely different from any electrical theory of
the sun or planets.
He says, "The subject of the sun's electric influence is of absorbing
interest, but there is no solid scientific basis for a genuine theory."
From the lack of knowledge he displays of the well-known laws of
electricity I am not surprised at his statement. He says and illustrates
it by a diagram: "If we grant the sun does act as a stupendous source of
electro-magnetic waves, as the planets circle about the sun in nearly a
common plane, and sometimes lie practically in the common plane in a
straight line, in such a contingency there may be a stream of electric
energy linking them all together." He seems to think this would produce
confusion and settle the whole question.
He should know that the simplest law of electro-magnetism teaches that
the electric attraction of every planet is the measure of its power in
drawing the electric currents of the sun. Distance from or nearness to
the sun or planets or their being scattered or all on the same plane or
in a straight line has nothing to do with the supply of electric power
from the sun.
Each receives the positive electricity from the sun, which it draws by
reason of its negative polarity. He should know that twenty-eight
currents of electricity may pass over the same wire at the same time,
fourteen one way and fourteen the other way, and do not interfere with
one another, and each go to their separate destinations. The sun may
send a different electric current or vibration to each planet and
nothing in the universe could prevent it from reaching that planet. It
would pass through or go round any other planet or substance in its
way.
Wireless electricity is founded on the basic principle that an electric
current goes only to the opposite electric polarity and vibration which
draws and attracts it or is attuned to it.
Prof. Serviss says: "If I examined this subject with a show of interest,
it draws upon me sour and suspicious looks from my scientific friends."
He should remember that all great truths have had to struggle with "sour
and suspicious looks," ever since man began to investigate, and that we
must look not to authority for truth, but _to truth for authority_.
He said, in the summer of 1901, the sun was a furnace and the black
spots the open door of the furnace, and we would have four years of
torrid heat on account of those black spots; but he proved himself a
false prophet, like the rest. But he is not to blame; he only followed
the old traditions and scientific authority, and they proved to be a
broken reed on which he leaned. I mention him because he is an able and
recent writer on astronomy.
That science is at present unintelligible and almost chaotic to the
masses of fairly educated people is too true for superfluous argument.
The old farmer's definition of bacilli is a fair sample of the nebulous
condition of many minds on scientific subjects. He said they were
"little critters from the back cellar that floated in the air, called
germs in Germany, parasites in Paris, and microbes in Ireland." Many
intelligent people deplore the prolific use of useless technical terms
and dry statistics of most scientific works, and their use makes them
exclaim with Portia, "My little body is aweary of this great world."
I find a very sensible editorial in the New York American of April 18th,
1903, entitled "Science Needs Another Interpreter." It says: "Science is
moving too fast for the ordinary layman, who would like to keep pace
with its theories and discoveries.... Chemistry and physics needs a man
who will do for them what Huxley did for biology--a man who has not only
a scientific mind but a literary capacity.... Vaguely the layman knows
there have been all sorts of discoveries since the X-rays showed him
there was a way of seeing through a grindstone.
"But he had the idea of X-rays only partially digested when science came
on him with the cathode rays and crowned the confusion by discovering
radium. With a mind dazzled by light rays that are invisible, and
invisible rays that are not light, and bewildered by being told of a
substance that gives off terrific energy without loss of bulk or power,
he lays away the natural philosophy of his college days and reaches
blindly for what the new men have written of these things.
"He is then confronted with what reads like a catalogue of fossil
insects diversified by stepladder algebraic formulas, the mere
parenthesis of which are enough to make a school teacher shudder. The
wretched seeker after knowledge is confronted with measurements of light
waves until sunbeams are powerless to illuminate the day. Similarly he
gathers from the fugitive words he understands among the mass that has
no meaning for him, that Prof. Loeb has been putting salt on eggs and
creating sea-urchins, to the utter distraction of the rules of nature's
game as he has learned them.
"Somewhere there must exist the man whose skill with the pen and whose
appreciation of knowledge are equal to the task of acting as interpreter
between scientists and the world.... The world is hungrier for knowledge
than it is for amusement, and the sales of the books of the man who
succeeds in making science readable will make the returns of even the
most popular novelist small in comparison."
This splendid editorial states facts graphically and truly, and portrays
the real condition of things. It shows a scientific chaos, which
portends a transition state, and a rapid evolution from the old
traditions to a new and more perfect science. Without meaning to be
egotistic or to assume any superior knowledge, or to have any of the
qualities suggested in the editorial, I am impelled to suggest that if
there are persons befogged scientifically, if they will read The Cities
of the Sun, I think their minds will be clarified on many points and
many of the old scientific traditions will fade into the nothingness
from which they came.
I am glad to welcome so able a champion of the electrical theory as Mr.
Cope Whitehouse, who achieved fame by discovering that the depression in
the Egyptian desert could be used for irrigation, and which the English
Government is now utilizing.
This New York scientist says, in an interview in the Kansas City Star of
Dec. 2d, 1902: "The English scientists have partially reduced our solar
system to a machine, and assigned to Deity little less than the duty of
squeezing heat from the sun or stoking it with aerolites. Such theories
are made for sale and not for science. When Newton suggested that
gravity might swing the moon as well as attract an apple to the ground,
he knew nothing of electricity. He might have observed however, that a
comet never enters the sun and therefore could not have been attracted
by it.
"A comet, as it closely approaches its supposed goal, changes its
direction and darts away, tail foremost, in a curved path due to a
resistance too feeble to obstruct its passage. No allowance is made for
the attraction of gravitation in wireless telegraphy, and the most
superficial observations in ozology, or the science of smell, show that
there is a force in odors which ignores gravitation.
"We have reason for supposing that gravitation is a purely local affair,
and heat and light do not emanate from the sun. Heat comes from the
earth, and the light from the atmosphere, precisely as the film in an
incandescent lamp is heated by the resistance it offers to the electric
current, and light is produced by the vibration of the motes in the
air."
"The only fact established beyond doubt regarding the sun and planets is
their revolution on their axes, and this is all that is needed to
generate light and heat. They are arc dynamos and each in turn transmits
what it receives to its neighbors on the circuit." This accords with my
theory published five years previously. He continues: "We do not see the
stars, nor even the sun.
"The astronomer who claims that his eye penetrates space billions,
trillions and decillions of miles stultifies himself in the next breath
by declaring that worlds and solar systems are being formed of cosmic
dust. Was the polestar ever obscured by the interposition of a world in
formation? Yet the film formed by the breath of the observer on the
eyepiece of a telescope would obscure Jupiter. Evidently, therefore, we
no more see a star than we see a distant power house that supplies
electricity to trolley lines. We only see the end of the stellar or
solar ray where it enters the bubble of which the earth is the center.
"It is strange that no astronomer has ever heretofore observed that the
magnifying power of a lens, two inches in diameter could have no
appreciable effect on an object as remote as Saturn. Yet the ring and
the satellites of this planet are thus made visible. In short, there is
a kind of screen which presents the image of stars, as on a sheet
between the observer and the magic lantern at an exhibition. The image
can be magnified but their distance is perhaps scarcely fifty inches."
In regard to the eruptions of Mont Pelée he says: "Within twenty miles
of the earth there is a cold as intense as liquid air. Differences of
temperature can be converted into an electric flash, as electricity can
be converted into heat. The so-called eruption of Mont Pelée was purely
electrical. The sympathetic eruption of La Soufrière was partly due to
an interrupted circuit and partly an induced current. There was no flow
of lava, but can any one imagine the crater discharging what was said to
have issued from it?... When there is an accurate statement of facts it
will be found that neither dust nor gas came from the volcano. Really,
only mud, hot water, smoke and stones were ejected. This material
descended as a thin covering of uniform thickness. And this blanket was
the dust precipitated by the electrical vibration still warm from
crystallization. Had it been otherwise there would have been about one
hundred million tons of frozen mud falling in the neighborhood.
"What Père Mary saw was the cloud of decomposed matter caused by the
electric discharges. It is as absurd to speak of all this coming out of
the volcano as it would be to say that the smoke and stifling gases in a
fire caused by an electric wire came from the power house. As a fuse
burned out in the circuit, Pelée simply sparked.
"It set fire to everything between its summit and the sea, and the
surface of the water itself was made warm. Now you see how mastodons are
found, with hair and flesh intact, imbedded in Siberian ice. If the
uprush of an air current would disturb the cold stratum above a chimney,
what would be the effect of the upheaval of a mountain mass with or
without a volcano? It is unnecessary to suppose that the axis of the
earth has changed.
"The ice crop of the Antarctic is much larger than that of the North
Pole, but the volcanoes of Erebus and Terror are in violent activity.
There are scores of terrestrial and celestial phenomena, from the double
tide to the cold moon, that can be _explained only by the electrical
theory_."
Thus I could fill a book with the recent proofs and statements of
scientists which sustain the electric theory.
The dropping of an icicle into a barrel of unslaked lime once caused a
great disaster in one of our cities. The slaking of the lime caused a
fire. The firemen came and the more water they used the greater was the
heat generated, until an explosion wrecked the neighborhood. In like
manner, water in the fissures of the earth act chemically upon various
minerals and produce similar results. Two or three layers of different
metals in the earth produce a galvanic battery and results in the
disaster of a volcanic explosion or an earthquake.
A silver dollar, a twenty-dollar gold piece, and a piece of copper of
similar size, placed one on top of the other, with pieces of moist paper
blotter between them, will generate sufficient electricity to send a
telegram. Two iron tablespoons tied together with a piece of copper wire
and their ends dipped in water will generate an electric current
sufficient to send a cablegram across the Atlantic Ocean. So says Prof.
Trobridge of Harvard. If this is true, what a fearful volcano or
earthquake may be produced by water moistening the clay or substance
between the thousands of acres of different mines or metals one above
the other in the outer crust of the earth?
These things are marvelous to contemplate and paralyze the imagination.