Abstract
ON the strength of an acquaintance with popular astronomical literature, in many cases not up to date, the author of this work offers a theory which he states to be capable of interpreting all the phenomena presented to us in the heavens. Briefly, we are asked to believe that all interstellar space is filled with attenuated water vapour, and that this vapour is decomposed into its constituents by the electricity generated by the movements of planetary bodies; the oxygen remains on the planets, while the hydrogen goes to maintain the incandescence of the central suns. The author deals very ingeniously with many of the apparent difficulties, such, for example, as the absence of an atmosphere from the moon; but his anxiety to leave nothing unexplained, has occasionally demanded other assumption?, and led to self-contradictions. Thus, in regard to comets, it is necessary to suppose, from the repulsion of the tails, that when they enter our system, they do not behave electrically as planets do, but like suns, and so they should have hydrogen atmospheres; on the other hand, since carbon is assumed to be a “planetary” element (p. 69), they should not contain carbon. This is in complete contradiction with the facts. The author is so much behind the times in spectroscopic matters as to imagine that nebulæ abound in-free nitrogen, and possibly oxygen, and that free nitrogen and hydrogen are characteristic of comets. It would serve no good purpose to discuss a theory based on such misconceptions.
The Source and Mode of Solar Energy.
By I. W. Heysinger (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1895.)
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The Source and Mode of Solar Energy. Nature 52, 316 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/052316b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/052316b0