Solar energy; its source and mode throughout the universe

Front matter

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Preface To The Second Edition

Since this book was first published, in 1895, a marvellous change has taken place in the attitude of science towards the questions which it presents, and the movement in the direction of substantial acceptance by those most qualified to judge, of the conclusions herein reached, is going on with a constantly accelerated rapidity. Having presented a comprehensive generalization capable of fully explaining, even with our present knowledge, the various cosmical and astronomical phenomena, and of harmonizing their processes of genesis and maintenance, this growing acceptance is not surprising, for prior to this the various hypotheses in vogue were but partial in scope, and set up only to cover certain more obvious and closely related species or varieties, or even individual phenomena, so that one hypothesis was in contradiction to another ; whole categories were left entirely out of account, and there was no possibility of reaching, for the whole, more than a mere surface or classificational system of cosmical physics.

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The data for a broad generalization were, however, at hand, and were sufficiently ample in number and scope and fully established. What was needed was to bring these various types and classes systematically together, to reexamine their apparently diverse modes and sequences, and correct conclusions would have become inevitable.

By precisely similar means Darwin established. Anally, the half-forgotten and wholly neglected principles of evolution in Biology, and laid the foundation for its extension to other fields.

There is nothing revolutionary in the treatment of the problems of astronomy as presented in this book on "Solar Energy ;" not a single important fact therein stated could have been questioned, and, indeed, since its publication, among the very numerous letters and papers received concerning it there has been scarcely a single protest against any of its facts, and but few against its conclusions. And in the latter case, in almost every instance, whatever objection was made was in general terms, and made by men who had already written and published books on the subject from an older stand -point, with which, as a. matter of course, this book was totally irreconcilable.

To briefly summarize the accepted facts and principles of science, or those which became inevitable deductions from such accepted facts, may more clearly demonstrate that, sooner or later, some such work must have appeared as soon as these problems had been seriously taken in hand ; not, however, by a specialist in a single branch of this science, whose very limitation of work precluded comprehensiveness, and whose training excluded familiarity with the other and kindred sciences absolutely necessary to be correlated therewith in order to reach any valid general conclusions, or establish any comprehensive theory at all.

The book was intentionally made available to reach a clientlle outside that of Physical Astronomy ; for it is a fact that in none of the great fields of knowledge have great original

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discoveries been made, except in the rarest instances, by those practically and constantly engaged in limited special work. In almost every case such discoveries were forced in upon the astronomy of that day from without, but once successfully forced in and embodied in its literature, the same inertia was offered against succeeding discoveries which older and more imperfect knowledge had originally offered against them.

The tendency to treat accepted systems as complete is th* essential cause of this inertia. In order to produce the effect of a complete and systematic presentation of any subject the isolated and irreconcilable facts, which cannot be fitted in, must be glossed over or ignored ; and this is habitually done in many cases in all the various fields of scientific knowledge. But irreconcilable facts are themselves almost the sole source of all possible advancement ; as Sir John Herschel says, "Almost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena, of a qualitative or numerical kind, of such portions of the numerical or quantitative results of observation as remain outstanding and unaccounted for, after subducting and allowing for all that would result from the strict application of known principles. ' '

As an example of this sort may be mentioned the proper motion through space of our entire solar system at the annual rate of more than a hundred and fifty million miles towards the northern region of the heavens.

It is obvious that this presents a much more formidable problem to solve than that of the orbital movements of the planets and their satellites around the sun, and that it demands to be accounted for, also, by any hypothesis which claims to account for 'the origin of the planetary motions. And most of, and perhaps all, the "fixed stars" have their own proper motions also, in all possible directions and at all angles to each other, and at all velocities up to a speed which is far in excess of the utmost which could be acquired by any body falling through space under the attraction of

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gravitation of the whole universe, and from an infinite distance ; so that here, at all events, there must be a force at vrork different from and vastly transcending the attraction of gravitation. And yet the books are satisfied to point out some hypothetical means by vv'hich, in a condensing gaseous sphere, under gravitation alone, the planetary motions might possibly be accounted for. The fact is that in the larger case the explanation is inapplicable, and hence in the smaller one is insufficient and not necessary to be considered alone.

Another example is that of the assumption of a vast, gradually condensing and rotating sphere or disk of cosmical substance contracting under gravitation and increasing in speed of rotation as it contracts, successively leaving behind, at different distances, cosmical rings v^hich agglomerate ynder gravity into planets. All this by the terms of the hypothesis must have taken place under the action of gravitation alone, so that the planetary rings thus successively thrown off or left behind must have been substantially circular, or else the whole fabric would have been reduced to chaos, — that is, that these planetary bodies could otherwise never have been formed at all with the contracting solar nucleus as a center.

But we find with the telescope, throughout space, thousands of nebulae of all dimensions and at all distances, which, instead of being circular in form and disk-shaped, are spiral, the whorls spreading outward from the luminous center like the spokes of a great wheel. In fact, this is the recognized rule of formation among active nebulae, even those of the largest dimensions, and they exhibit all the evidences of great internal repulsion, their outer wisps and sprays being driven off in all directions. In the so-called Ring Nebula, in the constellation Lyra, the center is occupied by a faintly luminous haze, showing a few separate points of light to mark the place from which the ring has been expelled, while the outer margin of the luminous ring itself is tufted and sprayed outward radially as by an incessant and powerful blast from within. If the process continues, the ring itself must expand and be event-

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ually dissipated in space, leaving only a region of floating haze such as now exists in the center, and which areas of unorganized haze the telescope reveals in various parts of the sky. So the Crab Nebula, in the constellation Taurus, shows a large condensed, nearly spherical, lower portion, from which are driven upward, and to some extent outward, great jets of obviously repelled matter, much as is seen in the so-called "flower-pots" in fireworks. Any picture of this nebula will speak for itself and require no argument to convince. All these phenomena are totally incompatible with the gravitational hypothesis of the origin of our own system, or of any system, and the gravitational hypothesis is Itself, as a working theory, incapable of maintaining its position when seriously examined in detail ; it has been proven untenable physically, chemically, dynamically, teleologically, and mathematically. In these spiral nebulae we have manifest, obviously, a force transcending and dominating gravitation, and the operation of this force is the most conspicuous feature in the development into solar systems of the nebulae of space.

The basic facts on which the generalizations of this book are established may be briefly recapitulated as follows, and none of them has been, or can be, disputed by men of science who are sufficiently grounded in the allied sciences to comprehend and follow their operations and consequences.

1. The earth's atmosphere, in general terms, consists of a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen gases, commingled with which is a variable quantity of aqueous vapor, composed of oxygen and hydrogen chemically combined. This atmosphere surrounds the earth and extends upward with a constantly decreasing density under the stress of gravitation, this diminution of pressure and density being one-half for each rise in altitude of about three miles, starting from the earth's surface.

2. This terrestrial atmosphere rotates, at the earth's surface, with the earth. But at some definite altitude its density and pressure must be so diminished that the attenuated gaseous envelope will rotate more and more slowly, being gradually left xii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

behind by diminution of the attractive force of the earth, and finally an altitude will be reached when what is left of this atmosphere will be merged into the realms of interplanetary or interstellar space, and this, of course, cannot rotate with any single one of the planets, since it cannot rotate with all of them.

3. Oxygen is a powerfully paramagnetic body, like iron ; nitrogen is diamagnetic, or practically neutral, and aqueous vapor is an excellent conductor of electricity, so that we have here all the elements of a vast electrical influence machine, many thousands of miles in diameter, and also all the elements and structures of an enormous electrical condenser. This is in accordance with the principles of electrical science, and the earth and its appendages, by the very fact of rotating, as they do, must necessarily operate as such an electric machine. Professor Faraday, who made a special study of the electrical properties of atmospheric gases, estimated the air over a single square foot of the earth's surface as equivalent in magnetic force to more than four tons of crystallized protosulphate of iron. Of the energizing properties of this atmospheric oxygen Professor Faraday says, "It is hardly necessary for me to say here that this oxygen cannot exist in the atmosphere exerting such a remarkable and high amount of magnetic force without having a most important influence on the disposition of the magnetism of the earth as a planet ; especially if it be remembered that its magnetic condition is greatly altered by variations of its density and by variations of its temperature. I think I see here the real cause of many of the variations of that force, which have been and are now so carefully watched on different parts of the surface of the globe. The daily variation and the annual variation both seem likely to come under it ; also very many of the irregular continued variations which the photographic process of record renders so beautifully manifest. If such expectations be confirmed, and the influence of the atmosphere be found able to produce results like these, then we shall probably find a new relation

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between the aurora borealis and the magnetism of the earth, r— namely, a relation established, more or less, through the air itself, in connection with the space above i<."

The later discoveries regarding the connection between solar changes and sun-spots, and the electrical tensions and the aurora borealis on earth, have brilliantly confirmed Faraday's experiments, and it is unnecessary to say that any dynamic agency which varies or modifies a static condition must be one capable of being used to establish or maintain such a condition.

Professor Trowbridge, of Harvard University, speaks of ' ' the slow discharge through rarifled air of the electrical charge on the condenser formed by the upper layers of cloud and the lower strata of humid air ;" and Professor Oliver Lodge suggests that " the horizontal cyclone is very like a cylindrical electrical machine, with the earth acting as rubber and the upper regions of air acting as prifne conductor." Thunder-storms with their tremendous electrical effects, carrying a spark-discharge over thousands of feet, are produced by the relatively slow movement on each other of adjacent strata of air, with the cloud acting as a charged condenser for the electricity thus generated. This is comparatively insignificant in area and time, but we know that the whole atmosphere, up to its ultimate limit, is constantly in motion, plane upon plane, molecule upon molecule, and must be generating electricity in the upper regions far more energetically (as the constant rise in atmospheric potential shows as we ascend) than near the surface of the earth.

A rough estimate of the electrical energy capable of being developed by the rotating electrosphere of the earth, — say twenty-four thousand miles in diameter and with a surface velocity of a mile a second, — compared with the results secured by a good electrical influence machine of the largest size and a lamp on its circuit, shows that an amount of electricity would be produced simply incalculable, and probably far in excess of that required to perform the earth's part in the dynamic operations of the planets as a whole.

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4. The electricity generated by these planetary electrical machines from the vapors of space must, if the electrical resistance of space be low enough, find an exit to a negative terminal somevifhere, if such terminal exist. That interplanetary and interstellar space is occupied by such electro-generating and conducting vapors is manifest from the very fact that atmospheric densities diminish proportionately as we ascend. The lately propounded theory deduced from the kinetic activity of gaseous molecules, that the more mobile gases have been escaping into space from the outer parts of certain planetary atmospheres, and have thus disappeared into outer space, must concede as its corollary, if it have any validity, that outer space is occupied by such discharged material vapors, and that if the less mobile gases are held by gravitation in the atmospheres, they must also have been attracted thereto by the same planetary gravitation from space, and that such atmospheres must be constantly interchanging with the vapors of space, and hence if removed here, by the oxidation of rocks or other chemical agencies, must be again replaced from without. Therefore throughout all space this interchange goes on between the gases which pertain to cosmical bodies and those which occupy outer space. The fears, therefore, that our earth may some time lose its atmosphere, or that the oceans may be absorbed into cracks, or chemically combined with rocks, and leave our planet airless and waterless are idle fancies, for as atmospheres have been generated by gravitation and condensation from space and are constantly interchanging with the vapors and gases of space, while gravitation continues the same on any planet, the atmosphere will continue as it is, and, if destroyed, would be at once replaced, as water finds its level, from space.

5. Experiment demonstrates that electric impulses from the sun manifest themselves to recording instruments on the earth at the precise instant at which the disturbances on the sun which produce the electric impulse become visible on the earth. As the theoretical velocity of electricity transmitted

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through a medium without resistance is the same as that of light, — to wit, one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, — the above facts demonstrate that the electrical path between sun and earth is practically a perfect conductor for such stresses or currents as pass between them.

6. It has been established that there can be no electrical transmission through gaseous conductors without electrolytic disassociation, the electrical passage being produced by interchanging ions constituting chains, there being no actual current between the terminals.

Says Professor Oliver Lodge, in his "Modern Views of Electricity," "An important consequence of the breaking up of a molecular chain, and one which appears necessary to accompany gaseous conduction, is the fact that at each end of the chain an atom is disassociated. Indeed, it may be said that the principal function of chains is to enable the slope of potential to cause disassociation. Let the molecule be but broken up around an electrode and conduction at once follows. Professor Schuster has shown, for instance, that a gas is thrown into what he calls a ' sensitive state' by a discharge in any part of its enclosure ; the sensitive state being one in which electricity can be passed through gas by any electro-motive forces however small. In this condition the gas has, for the time being, entirely lost its property of perfect insulation for low electrical stresses, and the disassociation of atoms produced by the discharge in one part of the gas is doubtless the cause of the easy conduction everywhere else. ... If the vacuum be high, collisions will be less frequent, and the atoms may then be expected to retain most of their initial velocity and continue in their initial straight paths without much regarding the constraint of a feeble field. This phenomenon is perhaps to be seen in the well-known ' radiant matter' of Mr. Crookes, which first makes its appearance when the pressure is extremely low."

The electrical disassociation of the constituents of aqueous vapor results in the presence of free oxygen at one pole and.

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coincidently, of free hydrogen at the other. This is not a matter of distance between the poles, but entirely one of conductivity and resistance. ' While radiant forms of energy, like light and heat, extend out through ethereal space in all directions from exciting centers, electric chains are formed between terminal and terminal, or exciting center and terminal, so that if there is no resistance in transit, the so-called current strength will be transmitted unimpaired between Neptune and the sun, just as between the generator and lamp in a private room or lecture hall.

The generating dynamo, the earth and its appendages, produce positive electricity, and the atmospheric condenser is charged to its full capacity with electricity of the same sign. Conduction between the atmospheric condenser and the sun is perfect, and with high frequency currents of strong potential, as are the atmospheric planetary currents necessarily, a return conductor is not required, so that it only need be shown that the sun and its atmosphere constitute a negative terminal or electrode to prove the operation of the device as a whole, which will find as an inevitable effect the production of solar light and heat, precisely as in an electric lamp circuit.

7. The planets rotate axially as well as revolve around the sun. The sun has a rotation on its axis, which is slow compared with those of the larger planets, but there is practically no orbital motion of the sun outside its own mass. Sun and planets together share equally in the drift through space, and this drift is substantially at right angles to the planetary plane, so that new areas of space are entered and passed by sun and planets at the same time.

Now, the slow rotation of the sun on its own axis will either make that body also an electrical machine, independently of the planets, or it will not. This is a matter to be determined by observation. When comets approach the sun, as a rule they develop an atmospheric or gaseous envelope, which, by the sun's repulsive energy, is driven off as a luminous tail radially backward from the sun, so that as the

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nucleus travels around the sun the tail is obliged to sweep over a half-circle or more, always keeping the radial position most distant from the repelling force at the center, which is the sun. That this is an electrical phenomenon is now universally conceded. We therefore know that the sun and its atmosphere, and comets and their atmospheres, have the same electrical polarity. If a comet were as large as the sun and the sun as small as a comet, there is no doubt but that the sun would be tailed when these bodies approached each other, and the sphericity of the nebulous cometic atmosphere be apparently unchanged, just as the converse is now the case.

But the nuclei of comets consist only of a granular cloud of particles bathed in a nebulous atmosphere of composite hydrogen gases, and have no axial rotation of their own. This was clearly shown in 1846, and subsequently, when Biela's comet first flattened and broadened its nucleus laterally, then took a sort of dumb-bell nebula form, and finally separated into two tailed nuclei, which gradually repelled each other, forming two diverging tailed comets. This is in accordance with what is known of comets in general.

Professor Todd, in his "New Astronomy," speaks of "Biela's comet in 1846, the great comet of 1882, and Brooks's comet of 1889, the heads of which were seen either to divide or to be divided into fragments. " It is obvious that each of these fragments, if the nucleus was rotating, would describe a spiral as they separated, but which they never do.

The tails of comets have been seen to pass in close contiguity to planetary bodies, and have even become entangled among their satellites. No repulsion was here manifested, but, on the contrary, mutual attraction. Hence we know that the sun and its envelope are of opposite electrical polarity to that of the planets, and must, therefore, constitute a negative terminal, so that the sun is not a generating electro-dynamo machine like the planets, but a lamp on their circuits.

8. By the very conditions involved, the planetary electricity must be of high frequency and enormous potential. Such xviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

currents are of tremendous carrying and penetrating power, and operate with a single conductor to an electrode in space.

An example of this sort is found in one of Nikola Testa's experiments before a large audience, in which he practically produced a working solar system in miniature, and which, in his lecture, he described as follows : " I find it preferable, when using such high frequencies, to employ only one electrode and one connecting wire. . . . Under the violent impact of the molecules of the gas surrounding it the small electrode is, of course, brought to an extremely high temperature, but around it is a mass of highly incandescent gas, a flame photosphere many hundred times the volume of the electrode. With a diamond, carborundum, or zirconia button the photosphere can be as much as one thousand times the volume of the button. Without much reflection, one would think that in pushing so far the incandescence of the electrode it would be virtually volatilized. But after a careful consideration one would find that, theoretically,- it should not occur, and in this fact — which, moreover, is experimentally demonstrated — lies principally the future value of such a lamp. At first, when the bombardment begins, most of the work is performed on the surface of the button, but when a highly conducting photosphere is formed, the button is comparatively relieved. The higher the incandescence of the photosphere, the more it approaches in conductivity to that of the electrode, and the more, therefore, the solid and the gas form one conducting body. The consequence is that the further the incandescence is forced the more work, comparatively, is performed on the gas and the less on the electrode. The formation of a powerful photosphere is, consequently, the very means for protecting the electrode. ' '

It will be perceived that the eminent electrician could find no word to describe this incandescent gaseous bombardmentenvelope around the solid electrode but the well-known term applied to the sun's gaseous envelope, "photosphere;" nor will the reader fail to be reminded of the ripe conclusion as to

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the sun's constitution of tlie elder Herschel, perhaps the most skilled, as well as the most careful, observer of and reasoner on astronomical phenomena which the world has ever produced.

Nor will it fail to be observed that we have in the above experiment the whole rationale of the genesis of sun-spots. "At first, when the bombardment begins, most of the work is performed on the surface of the button.'^ An increase in planetary electrical currents, or a concentration of planetary currents on limited areas, would produce precisely such work on the sun's solid surface beneath, followed by an uprush of volatilized metallic vapors, with faculae on the photosphere, and then, "when a highly conducting photosphere is formed, the button is comparatively relieved."

9. That such activities should be set up and carried on in the gaseous envelope of the sun necessarily required the previous presence of aqueous vapors. These were gathered by gravity from the vapors of space ; there is no mystery about that ; and the same is true of the planets and other cosmical bodies, even including comets, and, as chemical analysis shows, even meteorites. With these elements, and the solar system working, disassociation would necessarily produce a dilute hydrogen envelope around the sun, and a dilute oxygen envelope around each of the planets. Under continuing electrical stress and continuing bombardment from the planetary electrospheres we should find a flame photosphere of hydrogen commingled with the vapors of the sun's partially volatilized metallic surface, and above the photosphere a vast gaseous and more and more attenuated envelope, electrically held together and balanced, and terminating in repelled streamers, protuberances, eruptions in the envelope, and all the phenomena of solar activity, with hydrogen as the great component factor. In this way the enormous depth of the sun's gaseous atmosphere is relieved of all pressure of gravity, a problem on any other basis entirely insoluble, and, indeed, opposed to the laws of increase with depth, of atmospheric densities, under gravitation, as pointed out by

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Professor Newcomb, one of the most capable and commonsense astronomers of all those who have ever written on these subjects.

Among the unsolved problems of solar physics are the coronal streamers, so gloriously manifested during eclipses. Of these, Proctor says, ' ' I cannot but think that the true explanation of these streamers will be found whenever astronomers have found an explanation of comets' tails." Professor Todd, in his "New Astronomy," says, "The origin of tails of the first type (nearly straight), is related to ejections of hydrogen, and the sun's repulsive force is in this case fourteen times stronger than his gravitative attraction. The slightly curved tails of the second type are due to hydrocarbons repelled with a force somewhat in excess of solar gravity. In producing the sharply curved tails of the third type, the sun's repellant energy is about one-fifth that of his gravity, and these tails are formed from emanations of still heavier substances, principally iron and chlorine."

The coronal streamers are emanations of hydrogen with still rarer gases, and are projected radially outward, most abundantly, as Professor Young says, at the middle solar latitudes, — that is, along each side of the solar zone covered by the planetary planes, — and that "those filaments which are emitted on either side of the zone have a tendency to lean towards the central ones." That is to say, they curve towards the planetary planes themselves.

This could readily be accounted for if they were produced from the latitudes just outside the area of planetary bombardment, under powerful electrical tension in the solar envelope itself, in conjunction with the different planets, of opposite electrical polarity, as attracting centers outside. Professor Young says, also, that photographs taken at different points along the path of solar eclipses " agree so closely as to make it evident that the main features of the corona change only gradually, persisting, as a rule, for hours at least, and perhaps for days or weeks, for aught we know."

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A comparison of photographs of eclipses in successive years appeared to the writer to indicate that these coronal streamers had an angular motion of their own, and different for each, and that these angular motions corresponded, apparently, with the movements of the different planets In their orbits.

I wrote Miss Mary Proctor, daughter of the celebrated astronomer, who observed the eclipse of 1896, in Norway, asking her if the coronal streamers, in that case, were directed individually towards the separate planets, and she replied that, so far as the planets then visible were concerned, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, I was "exactly right," and urged me to prepare a paper on the subject, which, however, was not done. The notes of the eclipse of 1900, as published, seem also to have identified the positions of the streamers with reference to the planets towards which they were individually directed. If such be the case generally, the explanation of these phenomena will be in exact accordance with those of comets' tails, but with one polarity reversed, and with resultant attraction instead of repulsion as their directing cause.

The residue of aqueous vapor around the sun, and that around the planets, constitute the raw material which makes a self-compensating machine of our solar system, to be disassociated to whatever degree may be requisite to maintain the electrical equilibrium, and the vast areas of interstellar space are the store-house from which, by gravitation, the aqueous vapors are gathered around these bodies to maintain the supplies at hand unimpaired. We can therefore know that the "fuel of the sun" is as wide-spread as the universe, and that its quantity is illimitable, and its utilization automatic so long as rotating planets continue to circle around their solar center. 10. It is a curious fact that comets, in recent years particularly, have been relegated to outer space, stragglers picked up by gravitation from the great universal void. The reason is that, on any other theory, the gravitational hypothesis of our solar system as produced by condensation would be obviously untenable from the start. As a matter of fact, however.