Familiar Talks on Science-World-Building and Life. Earth Part 6

The difference in structure of snowflakes is chiefly due to the conditions under which they are formed. If the moisture is frozen too rapidly the molecular forces that are active in crystallization do not have time to carry out the work, in its completeness of detail, as it will where the freezing process, as well as the condensing process, goes on more slowly.

CHAPTER XVI.

METEORS.

Meteors are the tramps of interplanetary s.p.a.ce. They sometimes try to steal a ride on the surface of the earth, but meet with certain destruction the moment they come within the aerial picket line of our world's defense against these wandering vagrants of the air. They have made many attempts to take this earth by storm, as it were, and many more will be made. They fire their missiles at us by the millions every year with a speed that is incredible, but thanks to the protecting influence of the great ocean of air that envelops our globe they become the victims of their own velocity.

Meteors or shooting stars are as old as the earth itself, and they are the material of which comets are made. Before it was determined what these meteors or shooting stars were, many theories were promulgated as to their origin. One was that they were ma.s.ses of matter, large and small, projected by volcanic action from the face of the moon with such violence as to be brought within the attraction of the earth. Others supposed them to be the effect of certain phosphoric fluids that emanated from the earth and took fire in the upper regions of the atmosphere. This, however, was mere speculation and without any scientific basis of fact. Anyone who has been an observer of shooting stars will have learned that there are certain periods of the year when they are more numerous than at other times; notably in August and November. Then again there are longer periods of many years apart. By persistent observation it has been established that there are great numbers of schools or collections of cosmic matter that fly through interplanetary s.p.a.ce, having definite orbits like the planets. Any one of these collections may be scattered through millions of miles in length. A comet is simply one of these wandering collections of meteoric stones having a nucleus or center where the particles are so condensed as to give it a reflecting surface something like the planets or the moon. This enables us to see the outline of the comet to the point where the fragments of matter become so scattered that they are no longer able to reflect sufficient light to reach our eyes. The fringe of a comet, however, may extend thousands or even millions of miles beyond the borders of luminosity.

There is scarcely a day or night in the year when more or less of these meteoric stones do not come within the region of our atmosphere, and when this happens the great velocity at which they travel is the means of their own destruction. They become intensely heated by friction against the atmosphere just as a bullet will when fired from a gun--only to a greater extent owing to the greater velocity. They disintegrate into dust which floats in the air for a time, when more or less of it is precipitated upon the surface of the earth. Disintegrated meteors, or star dust, as they are sometimes called, are often brought down by the rain or snow. Most of the shooting stars that we observe are very small, resembling fire-flies in the sky, but once in a while a very large one is seen moving across the face of the heavens, giving off brilliant scintillations that trail behind the meteor, making a luminous path that is visible for some seconds. These brilliant manifestations are due to one of two causes. Either there is a very large ma.s.s of incandescent matter or else they are so much nearer to us than in ordinary cases that they appear larger. It is more likely, however, that it is due to the former cause rather than the latter, from the fact of its apparently slow movement as compared with the smaller shooting stars. It has been determined by observation that the average meteor becomes visible at a point less than 100 miles above the earth's surface. It was found as far back as 1823 that out of 100 shooting stars twenty-two of them had an elevation of over twenty-four and less than forty miles; thirty-five, between forty and fifty miles; and thirteen between seventy and eighty miles. It was determined by Professor Herschel that out of sixty observations of shooting stars the average height of their first appearance was seventy-eight miles and their disappearance was at a point fifty-three miles above the earth.

It is a matter of history, however, that sometimes these meteoric stones descend to the surface of the earth before they are entirely disintegrated. A fine specimen of this kind is to be seen in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution. There are over forty specimens of these aerolites (air-stones) in the British Museum, labeled with the times and places of their fall. Instances of falling to the earth are so rare that there is little to fear from these wandering missiles of the air. We do not remember a case where life or property has suffered from the fall of a meteor.

This brings us to the consideration of the part which the great air envelope surrounding the earth plays as a protection against many outside influences. For instance, if it were not for the air, millions of these meteoric stones would be showered upon our earth every year and at certain times every day, which would render the earth untenable for human existence. We should be at the mercy of those wandering comets whose fringes strike our atmosphere more or less deeply at frequent intervals. It is not impossible that the earth may at some time pa.s.s directly through one, and yet there is little danger that in such a case there would be more than an unusual display of celestial fireworks.

From the facts that have been above stated it will be apparent to anyone that the number of these meteoric stones in the air is being constantly reduced by their constant collision with the atmosphere and consequent reduction to ashes or dust. Another conclusion is that the earth must be gradually, but imperceptibly perhaps, increasing in size on account of the constant settling upon its surface of meteoric dust.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SKY AND ITS COLOR.

In the chapters on light in Vol. II. it will be stated that we see all objects by a reflected light, except those that are self-luminous, such as the sun or any other source of light. We see the moon and many of the planets entirely by reflection. There are myriads of smaller objects, too small to be seen as such, even under a microscope, that still have a power to reflect light that is sensible to our vision. The air surrounding the globe is literally filled with these microscopic light reflectors. They serve to give us a diffused light which enables us to see clearly all visible objects. We have all noticed the effect of a single electric arc light, situated at a distance from any other source of light, and how it casts extremely dark shadows and very high lights; so much so that it is difficult to see an object perfectly in this light, because the part of an object that is under the direct rays of the lamp is so highly illuminated that the shadow, by comparison, has the effect of simply a dark blot without form or shape. Many of you have noticed in a country village, where the streets are lighted with electric arc lamps, what a difference there is in the illuminating effect between a clear and a foggy night. When there is a fog, or when the clouds hang low down, we get a reflection from these which tends to diffuse and soften the powerful light rays that are sent out by these lamps. This effect is especially noticeable when the night is only moderately foggy. Each globule of moisture floating in the air becomes a reflector of light, and by myriads of reflections and counter reflections the light (which on a clear night is concentrated) is diffused over a large area, producing an illumination which for practical purposes is far superior to that produced on a clear night.

When the latter condition prevails the rays of light are so intense on objects immediately surrounding the lamps that one is blinded; so that the places which are in shadow seem darker than they would be if there were no light at all. The only way to prevent this effect is to have the lights so close together that there will be cross lights, which tend to break up the intensity of the shadows. This principle of light diffusion is taken advantage of to produce an even illumination in stores that are lighted only on one or two sides. This is effected by a series of prisms or reflecting surfaces that are cast upon the panes of gla.s.s.

If now there were no atmosphere--or, to state it differently--if there were no floating substances in the atmosphere, the sun would produce an effect upon the earth similar to that of a single electric light. The lights would be extremely high, and the shadows extremely dense. To one looking off into s.p.a.ce, the sky, instead of having the blue appearance that we see, would have the effect of looking into a deep, dark abyss without illumination.

Tyndall has shown us by a beautiful experiment that if there be in a gla.s.s tube a mixture of gases related to each other in a certain way chemically, they will combine into small globules or particles similar to moisture in the air. If now a beam of light is thrown upon this tube and a dark screen put behind it, we shall, in the beginning of the experiment, simply see the dark screen. As soon, however, as the molecules of the gases have combined in sufficient numbers to produce particles of sensible size we begin to have a reflection of light from them, the color of which is constantly changing as the combining particles grow in size. At a certain stage in its progress the color which the mixture of gases a.s.sumes is a beautiful azure blue, rivaling in purity the finest skies of Greece or southern Italy.

The sun is the great lamp that illuminates the world, while the atmosphere, which is filled with particles of various substances, becomes the shade of the lamp which diffuses and softens the light and gives it its color tones, whether of warmth or coldness. We could not well do without the reflected light of the sky. The poetry of life would be sadly marred. The beautiful effects of color and purity of tone would be wanting. We need to bathe in light as much as in water, and the character of the light is almost as important as the character of the water. Imagine a world with an atmosphere devoid of all substances that would in any way reflect light or give to it softness or color tone.

Imagine a sun or a moon without visible rays--for without a reflecting atmosphere there would be none. Imagine a sky that was no sky at all, but only a dark void, with no protecting vault. Think of the shadows, so dark that you could see nothing in them. These would be some of the effects that would come from an atmosphere that had no sky substance in it. Imagine the world lighted by one great arc light. The reflex action upon the race living in such a light would be anything but desirable.

The world would develop into an arc-light civilization--if one can imagine what that would be like; certainly one of intensely violent contrasts. Look on this picture and let us be thankful for the blue sky and golden sunsets.

"But," you ask, "why is the sky blue?"

In one of the chapters on the subject of light in Vol. II. the properties of soap bubbles are discussed. It is shown that when a film is stretched across the mouth of a tumbler held in a position so that the film is perpendicular, by the action of gravity (the moisture constantly falling to the lower part of the film) it will continually grow thinner, and horizontal bands of color will appear upon it,--first red, then followed by the other colors of the solar spectrum, ending with violet.

It is also stated that every color of light has a definite wave length.

Where a band of blue color appears upon the film we know that its thickness is right for the wave length of that particular color which is reflected from the back of the film to the eye. If we could conceive the blue vault of the heavens to be half a sphere of a soap bubble, the color that the sky would appear to us (if the light could be thrown upon it from beneath) would be determined by the thickness of this film. If the film was 1-156,000 of an inch the sky would be red instead of blue.

To reflect the other colors the film would have to grow thinner for each color, in the progression from red to violet. The color of the sky is determined by a light-reflection from minute globules of moisture floating in the air. If the sky is blue, then the globules must be of the right diameter to reflect that color. The various tints and colorings of the sky are determined by what is found in the atmosphere, and this is the reason why skies differ in coloring and tone in different sections of the globe. The finest skies are probably found in semi-tropical regions like southern Italy, Greece, and California.

In 1892 I visited Greece in the early part of June. In crossing the Adriatic, from Brindisi to Patras in Greece, the route was through the Ionian Islands that are grouped along the southwestern sh.o.r.e of Albania.

The sky was without a cloud, and its beautiful blue color was reflected in the waters of the Adriatic, and I never shall forget the impression made upon my senses when we first came in sight of the mountains on the west coast of Albania. At this point they rise abruptly from the water and are colored with that peculiar azure haze, mixed with a shading of warmth, which is an effect that distance gives in the cla.s.sic atmosphere of old Greece. The effect upon the beholder is to intoxicate the senses and to fill him with that deliciously poetic feeling that always comes when standing in the presence of the sublime in nature. It was not the mountains themselves that produced the effect, for I had seen grander than these; but it was the sky on the mountains. When we look at a distant mountain it seems to be partly hidden by a peculiar haze that is the color of the sky at that time; we are really looking at the mountain through a portion of the sky. While in Athens I took a trip to the top of Mount Pentelicus, which separates the plains of Athens on the south from those of Marathon on the north. From the summit of this mountain we have a most wonderful view of the archipelago of the aegean Sea--a beautiful map of blue water and brown islands that melt together in the distance. At our feet lay the historic plains of Marathon, and in the distance rose the snow-capped peaks of Mount Olympus. It is doubtful if the world furnishes a more beautiful combination of ocean, island, continent, and sky than can be seen from Mount Pentelicus. Myriads of brown islands set in the bluest of water--graceful in outline and multiform in shape--jutting headlands and land-locked harbors--strong in color and outline in the immediate foreground, but gradually melting together in the distance, the brown becoming bluer and the blue a softer blue till the whole is lost on the horizon in a sky that shades back to the zenith in an ever-changing azure that for purity of tone baffles all description.

What wonder that a people born under such skies and whose eyes have feasted on such beauties in nature should conceive and execute such a masterful work of art as the Parthenon! While the variation of landscape, the stretch of water filled with islands, and the mountains capped with eternal snow were a prominent part of the picture, it was the sky with its beautiful color-tones that after all gave it its wonderful charm.

The skies in a northern lat.i.tude are colder and grayer, due to the fact that nearly always there is a certain degree of condensation of moisture existing, which, while it does not take the form of a cloud, still gives a toning to the sky.

There is no doubt but that the color-tones of the sky have an influence upon the character and temperament of the people who live under them.

Under semi-tropical skies the poetic nature is more strongly appealed to, and a man is more likely to be controlled by his dreamy imaginings than his cold calculations. We find this latter characteristic prevailing to a greater or less extent among the people who live under colder and sterner skies. If all these qualities or influences could be combined in the right way, the race would be stronger intellectually and in other ways. It is always dangerous to a race of people to be developed along certain lines only. The development should be symmetrical. The strongest men are not those who are simply coldly intellectual, neither those who are simply emotional and sentimental, but those in whom heart, mind, and soul are so related that each one of these elements re-enforces and strengthens the others.

At certain seasons of the year and in certain localities it is not uncommon to have wonderfully beautiful displays of coloring upon the skies and clouds at sunset. The question is often asked why we do not see these displays at other times in the day than at sunrise and at sunset--for the same effects are seen in the morning, but they are not noticed so often, because to do so would interfere with the habits of the average man and woman.

The reason for this change of coloring is the angle at which the sun's rays strike the clouds of an evening sky, which are reflected to our eyes. When the sun is high in the heavens it shines against the back of the clouds, from the point of view of a person standing on the surface of the earth. It also shines a shorter distance through the air at midday than at sunset. At sunset the rays are able to shine on the under side of a cloud, especially if it is high in the air. The moisture globules of which the cloud is made up are much larger than the transparent ones that are uncondensed and just as they were when released in the process of evaporation.

As we have already seen, the reflections from these minute globules give us the blue coloring of the sky and are very much smaller in diameter than a globule that is able to reflect the red ray. When these small globules are condensed into cloud a great number are combined into one globule, and they are of all sizes, from the globule of evaporation to that of the raindrop when precipitation takes place. We have, then, in the various stages of cloud formation all conditions present for reflecting the various colors and combinations of colors that are found in the solar spectrum. Hence it is that, under certain conditions of atmosphere and cloud formation, we see at sunset painted upon the sky those wonderful combinations of colors, more beautiful and delicate in shading, more various in combination and purer of tone, than any artist, however cunning his fingers or brilliant his pigments, has ever been able to truthfully reproduce. Even when the sky is cloudless it often a.s.sumes a brilliant hue, which is partly a reflection from invisible moisture globules and partly due to floating particles of dust that may have been driven up from the surface of the earth, or may be the ashes of meteorites disintegrated by contact with the air.

Some years ago, commencing in August, 1883, there was a wonderful exhibition of red skies at sunset that lasted for several hours after twilight ordinarily disappears. This phenomenon ran through a period of several weeks, gradually fading away. It was afterward determined that these displays were occasioned by small particles of ashes or dust floating high in the air, that were thrown off from the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in the Island of Java. By the general circulation of the air the ashes were carried to all parts of the world, making a circuit of the earth in from twelve to thirteen days--which showed a velocity of over eighty miles an hour. This is an instance of the high velocity of the air currents in the upper regions of the atmosphere. The reason why the illumination extended so late in the night was because of the great height that these particles of dust attained. The higher the reflecting surfaces are in the air the longer they may be seen after sunset. Ordinary twilight is caused by a reflection of sunlight from the upper air; and from its duration as ordinarily observed it is estimated that the reflection does not proceed from a point more than thirty-six miles high. In the higher lat.i.tudes the twilight is long, from the fact that the sun does not go directly down, and if we go far enough north the whole night is twilight. In the tropical regions the twilight is shorter than at any other point on the globe for reasons that are obvious. The sun there goes directly down and is soon hidden behind the earth.

There are other optical effects to be seen sometimes on the horizon somewhat resembling twilight. The "aurora borealis" (northern lights), which we describe in Vol. III., is seen in the northern skies at certain times, and has very much the appearance of twilight in some of its phases. It is constantly changing, however, and is easily distinguished by anyone who has observed both. These appearances are undoubtedly electrical. There is another phenomenon seen in the arctic regions that causes a band of white light to appear on the horizon called "ice blink," and it is caused by the reflections from the great icebergs that abound in that region.

Curious optical effects are sometimes observed a little after sunset in the form of streamers or bands of light that shoot up into the sky, sometimes to a great height. These are undoubtedly due to cloud obstructions that partially shut off the sun's rays from a part of the sky, but allow it to shine with greater brilliancy in the path of these bands of light.

It will be seen from the foregoing that the sky in all of its phases is a product of sunlight and the substances that float in the air, including moisture, not only in the invisible state, but in all the stages of condensation, as well as particles of floating dust.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LIQUID AIR.

Air, like water, a.s.sumes the liquid form at a certain temperature. Water boils and vaporizes at 212 degrees Fahrenheit above zero, while liquid air boils and vaporizes at 312 degrees below zero.

Heat and cold are practically relative terms, although scientists talk about an "absolute zero" (the point of no heat), and Professor Dewar fixes this point at 461 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. Others have estimated that the force of the moon during its long night of half a month, is reduced in temperature to six or seven hundred degrees below, which is far lower than Professor Dewar's absolute zero. However this may be, to an animal that is designed to live in a temperature of 70 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, any temperature below zero would seem very cold.

If, however, we were adapted to a climate where the normal temperature was 312 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, we should be severely burned if we should sit down upon a cake of ice. Such a climate would be impossible for animal existence, for the reason that there would be no air to breathe, since it would all liquefy.

Liquid air is not a natural product. There is no place on our earth cold enough to produce it. If the moon had an atmosphere (which it probably has not) it would liquefy during the long lunar night, for heat radiates very rapidly from a planet when the sun's rays are withdrawn from it.

As you have already surmised, liquid air is a product of intense cold.

Any method that will reduce the temperature of the air to 312 degrees Fahrenheit below zero will liquefy it. Great pressure will not do this, for we may compress air in a strong vessel until the pressure on every square inch of the vessel is 12,000 pounds, or six tons, and still it will not liquefy unless the temperature is brought down to the required degree of coldness. If this is done it will change from a gas to a liquid, but will occupy as much s.p.a.ce as before, if it is condensed to a pressure of six tons to the square inch.

Until twenty years ago it was supposed that oxygen and atmospheric air (the latter a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen) were fixed gases and could not be liquefied. In 1877, it is said that Raoul Pictet obtained the first liquid oxygen, but only a few drops. About fifteen years later Professor Dewar of the Royal Inst.i.tution, London, succeeded in liquefying not only oxygen but atmospheric air. And besides liquefying the air he made ice of it.

In 1892 I visited London, where I met Professor Dewar, who invited me to witness an exhibition of the manufacture of liquid oxygen--and incidentally liquid air--at the Royal Inst.i.tution. To me it was a most wonderfully interesting event. I saw air, taken from the room, gradually liquefy in a small gla.s.s test tube open at the top. When the tube was withdrawn from the refrigerating chamber it boiled by the heat of the room, and rapidly evaporated. We lighted a splinter of wood and blew it out, leaving a live spark on the end of it, and held it over the mouth of the tube, knowing that if anything like pure oxygen were evaporating the splinter would relight and blaze (an old experiment with oxygen gas). At first the splinter would not relight, because the evaporating gases were a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen in the proportions to form air. But owing to the fact that nitrogen evaporates sooner than oxygen, a second trial was successful, for the splinter immediately began to blaze, showing that the gas evaporating then was pure, or nearly pure, oxygen.

When the liquid oxygen was poured into a saucer and brought into proximity with the poles of a powerful magnet the liquid immediately rushed out of the saucer and clung to the magnet poles; showing that oxygen is magnetic.

Since that time other experimenters have succeeded in making liquid air on a comparatively large scale, and the process is simple when we consider some of the old methods.

Mr. Tripler of New York, who has made liquid air in great quant.i.ties, does it substantially as follows: First, he compresses air to about 2500 pounds to the square inch. Of course the air is very hot when it is first compressed because all the air in the tank has been reduced in bulk about 166 times, and all the heat that was in the whole bulk of air is concentrated into one-166th of the s.p.a.ce it occupied before it was compressed. It is 166 times hotter. There are two sets of pipes running from the compressor to a long upright tank called the liquefier. These pipes pa.s.s through running water, so that the compressed air is quickly cooled down to the temperature of the water (about 50 degrees Fahrenheit). The pipes--at least one set of them--run the whole length of the liquefier, and most likely are coiled. This set of pipes contains the air to be liquefied. A second set of pipes runs to the bottom of the liquefier, where there is a valve. By opening this valve a jet of compressed air is allowed to play on the other set of pipes, when intense cold is produced by the sudden expansion of the air. This cold air rushes up around the pipe containing the air to be liquefied and escapes at the top, thus absorbing the heat until the temperature is reduced to 312 degrees below zero. Then the air liquefies and runs into a receptacle, where it may be drawn off at pleasure.