The Universe a Vast Electric Organism Part 7

The spectroscope simply photographs the colors of the elements in solution composing the atmosphere, just as we photograph the rich colors of a glowing sunset or a gorgeous rainbow. The evidence of the spectroscope as to heat has been greatly exaggerated and overestimated by the scientists, for it can give no evidence of heat. An astronomer standing on the moon and examining our gorgeous, glowing, crimson sunsets or aurora through a spectroscope would declare our earth was a blazing ball of fire. It would seem so to him, and he would have just as strong evidence as our astronomers have that the sun is hot or a ball of fire. Our astronomers look at the brilliant colors of the sun's aurora and make the same mistake.

All the astronomers admit the truth of Prof. Proctor's statement--that "the heat-giving power of a star is not proportional to the amount of light it emits." I ask why? And the answer is very plain: Because the stars and suns have no excessive heat and never had. Recent facts prove the sun is not hot. Prof. C. G. Abbott of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute, in his observations on the sun's eclipse on May 28th, 1900, says in his report: "My experiments showed the corona of the sun was actually cooler than the gray card which had been used at the room temperature."

What our astronomers have taken for fire and evidences of heat is the rich and glowing rainbow colors of the outer atmosphere of the sun, produced by infinitesimal atoms of the different metals and substances of the sun floating in solution in its brilliant aurora, just as the elements of the earth float in solution in our gorgeous sunsets. The sun having a larger surplus of electricity than the earth is thereby enabled to extend its vast aurora from the equator to the poles, and this gives continuous, varied and beautiful light, with no darkness to its celestial inhabitants. But the earth, lacking a sufficient surplus of electricity to extend its aurora from the equator to the poles, must content itself by displaying its brilliant light and beauty near its poles, only occasionally extending it half way to the equator. The fact that the earth creates its own aurora shows it manufactures its own light. Every flash of lightning in our midnight sky, every blazing meteor in our atmosphere, prove the earth and planets evolve their own light and heat.

I agree with Prof. Proctor, when he says: "I adopt the principle of Sir William Hersch.e.l.l that a.n.a.logy is the chief and the best guide for the student of astronomy. General resemblance of structure indicates a general resemblance in the purpose which the celestial bodies are intended to subserve." And I contend that all or nearly all suns and planets are alike in structure and in substance, and are vast inhabited worlds, governed by the same laws, controlled by the same electric energy, and possessing varied types of vegetable, animal and intellectual creations similar to our earth.

It is a universal law of nature that wherever great electric power is conferred there are creations and results commensurate with that power.

Prof. Garrett P. Serviss, in the New York Journal, July 24th, 1901, predicted we would have four years of excessive heat on account of the dark spots on the sun, and many other scientists agreed with him. He said: "The earth is a satellite of a variable star. The source of terrible heat is directly in the sun and due to an extraordinary increase in its effective radiation. The periodic sunspot has thrown open the furnace door and sent forth the destroying blast which will continue for four years."

I undertook to answer him and contended that the sun is not variable in its heating power, and furnishes no more heating power to the earth at one time than another. That there is no increase in its effective radiation. That the sun does not furnish heat to the earth at all, and is not a thermal or heating engine as claimed by the scientists, but is an electric generator like the earth and does not need to be hot. That the sun furnishes the electric power and the earth heats itself. In other words, the sun furnishes powerful currents of electricity which come in contact with the earth's opposite electricity and the resistance of its atmosphere, and which are converted into light, heat and vital force down near the earth's surface.

The electric power furnished by the sun does not vary, but is measured by the attracting power of the earth as a vast magnet. Therefore all excess of heat is due to local causes and the uneven distribution of the sun's electric current on the earth's surface. This unequal distribution of sun currents, causing excessive heat in the west, was produced by light rainfall during the previous year, and the harvesting of large areas in Kansas, Missouri and adjacent territories, thus exposing a dry soil and preventing the acc.u.mulation of moisture necessary to form clouds. The succeeding summers justified my position and refuted the predictions of the learned professor and other scientists.

In mentioning these things I mean no disparagement to Prof. Serviss, whom I hold in high esteem, and only find fault with the old traditions which he upholds.

I am a friend to all scientists and regard them as earnest workers seeking the truth. But they follow accepted and antiquated authority too closely, and thus "the blind lead the blind." They are too often one-sided and impracticable. Men who study apes and beetles or atoms and gases all their lives are no judges of angel's faces or of the scope and design of the universe. Prof. Proctor's testimony that "nine-tenths of the astronomers employ their powers in making observations at great pains and labor which are not worth the paper on which they are recorded," is a plain statement of their tendency to be cranky and impracticable.

Some are so one-sided they think mathematics is everything. Mathematics in its place, like the miser, is good to count gains after they are acquired; but had man relied on mathematics he would have remained as ignorant of the fundamental truths of the universe as the Blackfoot Indians. Newton owed none of his discoveries to mathematics. When his constructive imagination formulated a theory he tried to bolster it up with mathematics. But it generally proved as delusive as did his calculation that the sun was 1,669,300 degrees hot.

The great boast of the mathematicians is that Le Verrier calculated where Neptune was before it was discovered by Galle at Berlin, but the fact is he missed it eight astronomical units or over seven hundred millions of miles, and said Neptune was not the planet he was looking for.

These are two average tests of mathematical calculations, and they are on a par with the mis-calculations of how much the sun must burn up annually under the so-called laws of gravity to supply the necessary heat to the earth and planets.

Imagination--constructive ideality--is the highest gift of Deity to man, and the only faculty that can reason from the known to the unknown and comprehend the wonders and grandeur of the universe.

I am not a practical chemist seeking the mysteries of nature in the laboratory, nor a professional scientist exploring the fields of original research; but, like La Place, Comte, Herbert Spencer and others, I formulate my theories and scientific hypotheses from the latest and best established facts of science as I see it. Science is only unified or systematic knowledge. Every fact is a scientific fact, and every truth is a scientific truth whether it pertains to so-called science or to religion or philosophy. Nature has no subdivisions of science, religion or philosophy, nor astronomy, chemistry or geology; but all things are a unity, const.i.tuting one harmonious universe; and he who separates science from religion or either from philosophy goes contrary to nature and divides the universe into fractions. As I am not a member of any scientific or religious a.s.sociation, I have no prejudices to overcome and seek the truth only, without fear, favor or undue predilections. Old traditions, fossilized theories and antiquated authority have little weight in my mind by the side of recent facts. But I am not an iconoclast, for I am more anxious to build up than to tear down.

The professional scientists may deem such students of nature as myself who trespa.s.s upon their chosen domain as amateurs. If so, it is a proud distinction. Amateurs have accomplished nearly all the great things in the world's history. Cromwell was a farmer, Hastings and Clive were clerks, Bismarck twice failed in his examination to become a lawyer, Washington was a surveyor and Franklin a printer, Hersch.e.l.l was a musician, Faraday a bookbinder, Scott a lawyer's clerk, Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning machine, was a barber; Spinoza a gla.s.s-blower, Herbert Spencer an engineer, Edison a newsboy, and Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive, an ordinary workman; Lincoln was a railsplitter, Grant a tanner, Andrew Johnson a tailor, Andrew Jackson a saddler, Vanderbilt a ferryman, Rothschild a peddler, Krupp a blacksmith, Paul a tent-maker, and Christ a carpenter. The names of distinguished amateurs could be continued indefinitely, but s.p.a.ce forbids.

As I have discussed this question elsewhere and touched on it in other chapters, extended discussion might cause repet.i.tion. Besides, this volume is not intended for detail or abtruse minutiae, but for the statement of leading facts for the ma.s.ses of intelligent people, who abhor technical terms and dry details. Many people find scientific books so dry and unpalatable, that, like the weary listener to the dry, dull sermon of the missionary, who said:

"If I were a cannibal from Timbuctoo, I would eat that missionary and his hymnbook too."

Doubtless he thought the hymnbook would be excellent dessert after such a dry meal; and some readers of scientific works find most any kind of dessert refreshing after partaking of the mental pabulum of dry statistics and technical terms to be found in many scientific works.

Our American Indian is never dull or unpoetic in his conception of the Universe. He sees G.o.d in the lightning, hears Him in the thunder; and according to him the "Milky Way" is the "Path of souls" leading to the villages in the sun. Along this pathway travel the spirits of the dead, and the brighter stars are "the campfires for the solitary journey to the land of the hereafter."

The j.a.panese term the Milky Way "the silver river of heaven." And the ancient Greeks considered the blue dome of the sky a crystal globe where dwelt the Olympian G.o.ds.

No science should be dry, and above all astronomy should lift us to empyrean heights where we may tread among the stars.

CHAPTER VIII

RECENT ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES AND APPLIANCES, WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, ETC.

It is said facts are now being discovered and physical theories developed the ultimate result of which may be the explanation of the mysterious phenomena presented by the corona of the sun, the tails of comets, the aurora, terrestrial magnetism and its variations, nebulae and the zodiacal light. First, these facts are being established in connection with the pressure exerted by light which was pointed out by Maxwell and deduced by him from his electro-magnetic theory of light, which is, that when a pencil of light impinges perpendicularly on an opaque object, it produces a pressure on the surface of that object.

This pressure is determined by the condition that if the object were set in motion with the velocity of light and the force against it kept up, the power to keep up the pressure would be equal to that carried by the ray of light.

Second, that particles smaller than atoms, called corpuscles or ions, are thrown off with high velocity from the intensely heated bodies. The sun, they claim, being such a body, it follows that such ions must be shot out from it. On this theory it is held that the explanation of a comet's tail is simple. The comet evaporates on the side next to the sun and, there being no pressure to hinder its expansion, it begins in flying off in all directions. It condenses into very minute particles which, by reason of the impulsion or pressure of the sun's rays, are thrown in the opposite direction from the sun.

My explanation has been, without all this detail, that it was the same law of electric repulsion which drove the comet off and prevented it falling into the sun, which also drove the comet's tail in an opposite direction from the sun.

This solution of the comet's tail does not solve the greater one of the repulsion of the comet itself. The pressure of the electric ions or corpuscles might force the tail away, but a greater electric force from the sun drives off the comet.

Prof. J. J. Thomson and Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist, have by experiments discovered and elaborated the manner and principles on which the ions or corpuscles operate. Arrhenius discovered that these ions were conductors of electricity and why, and Prof. Thomson discovered each corpuscle had the same electric charge as an ion of hydrogen, and that each must be smaller than a hydrogen atom--in fact only a thousandth part of it.

And here for the first time in the world's history science tells us there are bodies smaller than an atom--a thousand times smaller than an atom. We are told an atom is a thousand times smaller than the particles of invisible air we breath; now we have an ion a thousand times smaller than the atom. Surely the scientists have at last reached my theory of the fourth state of matter which I call the electro-magnetic. In fact these ions or corpuscles may be electricity itself or the atoms of electricity which science has at last discovered. And streams of these infinitesimal ions may const.i.tute the swift and invisible currents of electricity which produce all natural phenomena. Prof. Blake, of the Kansas University, says: "Crookes called his cathode streams the fourth form of matter, but first to-day is such a state proven. Now, we must recognize at the beginning of this twentieth century a new form of matter. We have to deal with negatively charged particles so small that they have free paths of motion even among the atoms of substances."

As electric currents have free paths of motion even among the atoms of matter, these ions or corpuscles must be one form of electricity and must be both positive and negative, though the negative ions attract the most attention. I am glad to find science coming to my conclusions as to the fourth state of matter. But instead of calling it electric ions, electrons or Thomson corpuscles, it should be named electro-magnetic ether. It may be that science has at last discovered what electricity is, and that it consists of these infinitesimal corpuscles. Prof. Blake says: "These ions or corpuscles shatter into charged gases the molecules of gases and ionize the gases and make them conductors of electricity; they raise gases to incandescence and make them light-giving sources; they form nuclei about which matter will aggregate and condense; they seem to explain some of the most stupendous and perplexing problems in cosmic physics--such as the cause of the sun's corona, the spread of the comet's tail, the source of the meteors, the fantastic play of the auroras, whence the electric displays of our atmosphere, the after-glow of the setting sun, and the why of the zodiacal light."

He says the corpuscles seem to be solving the big problems of the heavens, and adds: "The corpuscles become luminous when impinged upon by electric waves; and waves of light, which are electro-magnetic disturbances, must move them, and light will be produced and be scattered in all directions as if reflected from minute particles of ordinary matter. This may account for the glow of the nebulae, and the zodiacal light. These corpuscles, being admitted into the moist air of our earth, form nuclei of condensation and drops are formed; and the growth of the high, fleecy clouds finds its beginning around these corpuscles. They also strike our equatorial region; there they are influenced by the earth's magnetic forces and deflected towards the poles, and near the poles they reach gases dense enough to become luminous by their impact and show the fantastic colorings of the aurora.

"Our atmosphere lies, then, like a great insulating sheet between conducting layers--the surface of the ocean and the upper air. In the ether of this intermediate insulating region electric waves may be set up to be propagated as signals in straight lines in all directions. When wireless telegraphy first reached out timidly into s.p.a.ce, we all said its currents would leave the earth's surface within a short distance, for they went out from the earth's surface in straight lines; but as they extended farther and farther they seemed to bend around the earth and to follow its curvature. Hertz, who discovered the electric waves which Marconi now so successfully uses in wireless telegraphy, showed us in 1887 that conductors reflected these waves, and the ocean's surface sent them back when they impinged upon it.

"Now, with upper air layers proven conductors, the electric waves must be deflected from above as well and bent downward to follow the earth's curvature."

And thus electric signals, silent but all pervading, will before long circle our globe by their repeated deflections through this great speaking tube around the earth. The mysterious negative corpuscles, more minute than our smallest atoms, thus are themselves the very basis of the practicability of wireless telegraphy, our latest invention. Nay, more, may not these ions or corpuscles be atoms of electricity, and, being a thousand times smaller than atoms of matter, impregnate them with positive and negative force?

Inventors have been endeavoring to send messages over long distances without wires ever since the first tests were made in 1896. Only recently Marconi has succeeded in sending them across the Atlantic, two thousand miles through the air.

The distance to which messages may be transmitted and received depends on the amount of electric energy employed, the frequency of oscillation in the radiating system, the length of the electric waves emitted, the height of the perpendicular wires from the ground, the medium through which the waves are propagated, the sensitiveness of the coherer or receiver, and the precision with which the instruments are adjusted.

Long electric waves are radiated to greater distances than shorter ones, and much depends on the syntonic system, or tuning of the instrument, so as to communicate with any selected receiver to the exclusion of all others.

An electric generator supplies the source of electricity for operating an induction coil to transform the low pressure into an alternating current of high pressure. This charges the wire suspended from a mast and the wire leading to the earth to a sufficient potential to cause the opposite charges of electricity to rush together, thus forming a spark or disruptive discharge through a small air gap; as a result high potential currents surge to and fro through the wires hundreds of thousands of times per second.

These high potential currents radiate electric waves which are propagated as light waves and spread out in every direction. It is said the whole process of transmitting and receiving wireless messages is not unlike to the emission of light and its reception by the retina of the eye.

The reception of these waves is by means of a vertical wire similar to that used in transmitting, the difference being the wires at the terminals are connected with metal filings inclosed in a small gla.s.s tube called the coherer instead of the spark gap. The electric waves impinge on the elevated wire and are converted into electric oscillations, which act on the filings, and an auxiliary circuit registers the impulses on a ribbon of paper in readable Morse dots and dashes. The higher the vertical or mast wires and the greater the number of wires, the greater the wave length and the farther the distance transmitted.

Marconi in his first Atlantic tests employed kites and balloons to carry the vertical wire so that long electric waves could be obtained. Since then he has carried his wires on high masts, as at Poldhu, Glace Bay, and Wellfleet Station. The Marconi companies have equipped six stations in the United States, five in Hawaii, twenty in Great Britain, one in Belgium and one in France. There are eighteen ocean steamers, thirty-two British-men-of-war and several Italian and American warships which have Marconi installations. Marconi says: "There are thirty-five land stations, twenty-one liners and eighty-five warships equipped with Marconi apparatus. Land stations cost $1,000, and ship equipment, $700.

Trans-Atlantic stations cost $100,000 each."

Wireless telegraphy is the most recent miracle of electricity, and shows it to be the cosmic energy of the universe. Science stumbled upon it.

And in the same way, Sir Wm. Crookes, in a recent interview, says: "Science may some day stumble upon the soul. Men of science believe more than they can express, spiritually as well as physically." He will not prophesy, but said with ominous import: "If you had come to me a hundred years ago do you think I should have dreamed of foretelling the telephone? Why, even now I cannot understand it. I use it every day, but I don't understand it. Think of that little, stretched disk of iron at the end of a wire repeating not only sounds, but words, and with the most delicate and illusive inflections of tone which separate one human voice from another."

Mr. Peter Cooper Hewitt, says the Electrical Review, has invented a new apparatus which it is said will make a revolution in the method of sending wireless telegraph messages. The device consists of a gla.s.s globe about ten inches in diameter, having two tubes containing mercury sealed in the bottom of the vessel.

This apparatus acts, as a powerful and effective interrupter and takes the place of the spark gap now used in discharging the condensers for setting up electrical waves. It enables powerful, rapid and continuous oscillations to be set up in the antenna, or sending mast, used in transmitting wireless messages, and not only enables messages to be sent over very great distances with ease, but permits secrecy to be maintained, which heretofore has been impossible.

The operation of this device depends upon two new phenomena in physics which Mr. Hewitt has discovered in the course of his researches. The first is the resistance of the mercury in the apparatus to a pa.s.sage of current until a high potential has been applied; the second is the disappearance of this resistance after this high voltage has been reached.