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CONTRIBUTIONS
TO
SOLAR AND TERRESTRIAL PHYSICS.
"In knowledge, that man only is to be contemned and despised who
is not in a state of transition."
"--nor is there anything more adverse to accuracy than fixity of
opinion."--FARADAY.
"Science must grow. Its development is as necessary, and as
irresistible as the motion of the tides, or the flowing of the
Gulf Stream."--TYNDALL.
"The cry of science is still onward, and its goal of yesterday
will ever be its starting-point to-morrow."--DAWSON.
*.* May be procured through all booksellers. It will be sent by mail,
_postage free_, on receipt of price, $1.00 cloth, 50 cts. paper. Liberal
discount to the trade.
Per C. K. ABEL & SON, BOOKSELLERS,
Dunkirk, N. Y.
NEW AND ORIGINAL
THEORIES
OF THE
GREAT PHYSICAL FORCES.
BY
HENRY RAYMOND ROGERS, M.D.
"Every time
Serves for the matter then born in it."
SHAKSPERE.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
MDCCCLXXVIII.
COPYRIGHT, 1878.
BY HENRY RAYMOND ROGERS.
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
_205-213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
PREFACE.
"Show me a man who makes no mistakes, and I will show you a
man who has done nothing."--LIEBIG.
In this little volume the author gives but his own personal opinions
upon the subjects discussed, and although the sentiments are expressed
with an assurance born of conviction, yet he claims not infallibility.
He has ever been unable to accept the usual explanations of the great
physical forces; and the inadequacies of mooted theories have impelled
him to efforts for more philosophical interpretations. If in his
investigations he has been forced to strange and unusual conclusions, he
has been actuated only by an honest desire to promote the advancement of
science.
He is not insensible to the responsibility of the position which he thus
voluntarily assumes, in asserting his opinions upon problems so vast and
momentous.
It is no enviable position to occupy, that of antagonism to so large a
proportion of the scientific world and, too, upon subjects of strictly
scientific import. That he does thus find himself placed in such
relations at the present time, has not been a matter of his own seeking.
No other consideration than the profoundest sense of duty and
responsibility could have influenced him in the course pursued. Perhaps
some apology is yet due for so boldly trespassing upon hypotheses which
were very generally thought to be well established, and certainly secure
from such treatment.
The attempt, in a measure, to develop so extended a field of research,
in so few pages, has led to much crudeness in the presentation. For this
a reasonable indulgence may be claimed.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE SUN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS PROPOSED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The great problem.
CHAPTER III.
INTIMATE NATURE OF THE FORCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Sunlight and sun-heat--The great law of conservation--How the spheres
are constructed--The great earth-core and its functions--The grand
magnetic circuit.
CHAPTER IV.
SUNLIGHT, ITS SOURCE AND NATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Its limits--The solar cone--The sun not incandescent--New hypothesis--No
borrowed light--The sun dependent--Light as a substance--Velocity of
Light.
CHAPTER V.
SUN-HEAT, ITS SOURCE AND LIMITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Tendencies to unsettle in science--Present theories--True
source--Earth's part in the process--Sun's part--New philosophy--Old
phenomena and new interpretations--Auroræ--Well understood processes in
confirmation--The ordinary battery--The Great Sun Battery--Heat without
combustion--Inter-currents--Solution of the problem.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SEASONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Why their varying temperature?--A new philosophy.
CHAPTER VII.
GRAVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Its essential nature and its source.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ATMOSPHERE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
A veritable ocean--How constituted--The vito-magnetic principle, its
extent and character--Its functions--The air not yet comprehended--Have
we been mistaken?--New light--Electrical induction--Its mode of action
and illustrations--The character and virtue of the vito-magnetic
element.
CHAPTER IX.
WINDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Entertained theories erroneous--Their true character--What gives rise to
the currents--Purely vito-magnetic phenomena--Philosophical
considerations drawn from observation--Whirlwinds, waterspouts, and
tornadoes--The Barbadoes--Manufactured wind--Wind within a wind--Winds
may not arise from presumed causes--A great cosmical system.
CHAPTER X.
SUN-SPOTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Old theories--Degrees of spot-shadow overestimated--What spots
are not, and what they are--They are caused by magnetic
perturbations--Inconsistency of accepted theories--Figures that are
deceptive--Effects of these wonderful phenomena--Mistaken
conceptions--May not be tabulated--Unbiassed estimate of their character
and location.
CHAPTER XI.
SOUNDS, AND THEIR TRANSMISSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Essential character and mode of progression--Waves have no act or part
in their conveyance.
CHAPTER XII.
SOME OF THE RESULTS OF THE FOREGOING THEORIES . . . . . . . . . . 79
Extent and character of their influence--Old channels obliterated, and
new ones developed--Sentiments changed--Nebular hypothesis--The sun
cool, luminous, and habitable--Celestial spectroscopy--Undulatory
theories ignored--Light instantaneously transmitted--Telephone--No light
nor heat wasted--Extent of the atmosphere of the spheres--The sun's
power overestimated.
CHAPTER XIII.
INFLUENCE OF THE FORCES AS CAUSATION OF DISEASE . . . . . . . . . 84
Meteorological influence--Higher appreciation of the source of disease,
and increased efficiency in its treatment.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER, AND THEIR
UTILIZATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
CHAPTER XV.
WHY WAS NOT THIS DISCOVERY SOONER MADE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Its consummation nearly perfected by many others--Its successful
accomplishment plainly foretold by Faraday.
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
I.--THE SOLAR CONE, OR CONE-SPACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
II.--THE SEASONS. SUMMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
III.-- " " WINTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
IV.--MANUFACTURED WIND. (From DESCHANEL'S Natural Philosophy) . . 66
"If we suppose the sun and fixed stars to be gigantic
fountains of magnetic influence, acting upon our globe and
its atmosphere, and likewise upon all the other planets, the
phenomena of the universe would then become susceptible of
the grandest and simplest interpretations."--CROSSLAND.
"Are not the sun and fixed stars great earths vehemently
hot?"--NEWTON.
"Herschel's fixed idea was that the darkness of a spot upon
the sun was an indication of a cool and habitable
globe."--HUMBOLDT.
"The sun as the main source of light and heat must be able
to call forth and animate magnetic forces on our
planet."--_Ibid._
THE
GREAT PHYSICAL FORCES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
_The Sun._
The sun's position in the great field of energy is daily becoming more
exalted in the estimation of philosophic minds. His labors are being
revealed to us with a distinctness never before conceived. He it is that
stored the coal in the bosom of the earth, and piled up the polar ice.
He it is that aids the chemist, drives the engine, ripens the harvest,
dispenses life and health.
The study of the sun and solar physics, therefore, must be essential to
the right understanding of whatever we observe to take place at the
earth. Sun and earth are united in indissoluble bonds. In philosophic
minds the conviction of a most perfect _inter-dependence_ is rapidly
gaining ground.
All this has been known and appreciated to a degree, yet this great
source of universal operations is shrouded in mystery. Still, our
curiosity has been kindled, and men are eagerly looking for further
developments.
Natural Science, in all her branches, is fully awake, and is on her
watch-tower of observation. Ignorance of the sun, of its character, and
of the methods by which its functions are performed, must be confessed;
notwithstanding all the more recent unfoldings and imaginings of
scientists, regarding the great orb. But yet we are very hopeful of vast
increase in our solar knowledge; not alone, or chiefly, by new
observations, or discoveries, but quite as much by new interpretations
of old, long observed phenomena. The ground of hopefulness lies in the
belief that a _grand unity_ underlies, and binds together in one, all
Physical Forces, as well in earth and sun.
While regarding the sun as all, and more than all that has ever been
claimed for it, still we are impressed most strongly that the sun has
_social relations_ with his planets, which have never been duly
considered by the masters in science. The sun _acts_, but it must also
be that the earth and planets _react_. The sun gives and dispenses
favors, but science has too much overlooked the great fact that the sun
receives and sympathizes.
Let our philosophy but accept the idea that _the sun rouses the earth
into action through their mutual relationships; that the two interchange
good offices and essential services, rather than that the sun is wholly
independent, and simply gives outright, as philosophy has hitherto
conceived_, and we think that the dawn of a better day has come.
The new philosophy, in our opinion, will teach that the sun gives in
such a way that he will not be impoverished; that though bountiful, he
is not wasteful; that though he freely gives, yet that he also as freely
receives in return.
The new philosophy will be true to correlation, and it will be true to
conservation as well.