New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces — Themes and Context

CHAPTER I. PAGE THE SUN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

WHAT IS PROPOSED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

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.

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.

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--Aurorae--Well understood processes in confirmation--The ordinary battery--The Great Sun Battery--Heat without combustion--Inter-currents--Solution of the problem.

THE SEASONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Why their varying temperature?--A new philosophy.

GRAVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Its essential nature and its source.

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.

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.

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.

SOUNDS, AND THEIR TRANSMISSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Essential character and mode of progression--Waves have no act or part in their conveyance.

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.

INFLUENCE OF THE FORCES AS CAUSATION OF DISEASE . . . . . . . . . 84

Meteorological influence--Higher appreciation of the source of disease, and increased efficiency in its treatment.

THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF LIGHT, HEAT, AND POWER, AND THEIR UTILIZATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

WHY WAS NOT THIS DISCOVERY SOONER MADE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Its consummation nearly perfected by many others--Its successful accomplishment plainly foretold by Faraday.

APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

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._

GREAT PHYSICAL FORCES.

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.

In the following pages I shall endeavor to set forth, in a simple and orderly manner, certain of my own theories of the Great Physical Forces.

In these theories will be comprised the identity of those forces, the intimate and essential nature of sunlight, sun-heat, gravity, sun-spots, winds and sounds, also the intimate nature of the atmosphere.

In treating these subjects my opinions will not be found in accord with those which receive universal assent at the present time, and I may thus unintentionally offend. I shall therefore claim exceeding indulgence.

If I differ from high authority, I have not a thought of detraction. None can venerate the NESTORS in science who have enriched its annals, more than I, and though we reverse their judgments, their errors are confessedly our indispensable helps and guides.

The problem of the great physical forces has engaged the profoundest attention of mankind from the earliest historic period down to the present time, yet it remains practically unsolved.

Before the Christian era the opinion was entertained that all of the phenomena of nature might be reduced to one principle of explanation; that there was more than a connection between the imponderable agents--more than a relationship even,--that there was an actual identity.

No substantial progress was thereafter made in the direction of verifying this theory until along into the present century, when the development of electrical science presented a tangible basis for successful investigation.

The correlation of nearly all of those forces is now assured, leaving little to be added besides gravity to complete the unity. Yet notwithstanding the satisfactory progress which has been made in solving the grand problem of their correlation, little has been learned of their intimate nature, and the method of their operation. This is due, in the highest degree, to certain theories which were developed, and which made their way, _pari passu_, with the advancements of electrical and electro-magnetic science. These theories, specious, inconsistent, illogical, yet withal plausible, and even fascinating, served to blind the mental vision so that mankind might not appreciate the truth.[1]

The hypothesis promulgated by BRUNO, KANT and LAPLACE, of the nebular origin of the spheres, and the deductions consequent thereupon, in regard to the progressive stages through which the earth in its developments has passed, was pernicious in its influence in diverting the minds of investigators from other and truer channels. To the blind confidence with which that hypothesis has been universally accepted and perpetuated, and to the fallacious theories thus directly and indirectly engendered, we owe our false position at the present day.

The present theories of the transmission of light and sound; of the production of winds, and sun-spots, and of the method of development and dissemination of heat, are in point of fact, unphilosophical and incomprehensible.

It is quite remarkable that in the present century, excelling as it does any period in the world's history in exact and reliable scientific knowledge, such unsatisfactory opinions should obtain. The failure is still more inexplicable when we reflect that these subjects are in importance the highest which can engage our attention as scientists.

We have at the present time sufficient reliable data whereon to found satisfactory hypotheses. We have but to utilize the means which the true scientists of the century have so wonderfully developed, and with which they have so prodigally surrounded us, in order to complete the consummation of the great and crowning achievement in physical science.

THE GREAT FORCES, THEIR CHARACTER AND OPERATIONS.

I now ask, What is the intimate and inherent nature of those forces? Do they, or either of them, belong to the domain of the supernatural? Are they the products of some supreme force, or forces, heretofore unappreciated? The reply is clear and unquestionable. The supernatural must necessarily be a part of the Divine Essence, and consequently intangible. Not so the subjects of our inquiry. They are _natural products_, therefore, and _the result of the operation of some power commensurate with the stupendousness of their manifestations_.

_Sunlight and Sun-heat._

In the forces, light, and heat, what immensity of power is represented! Strangely enough we have ever imagined these forces to be the unaided work of the sun, as though that luminary could be capable of sending forth in undiminished exuberance, such marvels of force, during all the ages, and remain itself unexhausted!

_The Great Law of Conservation of Force._

But how speaks the law of conservation, that law most enduring, and most inexorable? According to the decrees of that law, whatever is received by the earth from the sun, an equivalent for the same must again be returned from the earth to the sun, to the uttermost fraction.[2] Such being the conditions, how may this retro-acting process that all analogy and the profoundest scientific axiom prove to be in constant operation--how, I ask, may this retro-acting process be explained? What equivalent may the earth give back as compensation for such enormous benefits, for such stupendous powers? The laws of conservation may not be violated: _the earth will respond_.

_How are the Spheres constructed?_

The constitution of these two retro-acting spheres, and consequently of all the others of the heavenly host,[3] at this point demands our attention. How are the spheres made up? How speaks the earth? The earth with which we are familiar--our sample--is formed of a slight crust, a core, to a greater or less extent and degree incandescent, and measuring 250,000 millions of cubic miles in dimensions, also an envelope which we call the atmosphere.

Now, from the presence of the vast mass of incandescent material within the enclosure of each sphere-crust, it may reasonably be inferred, nay the very nature of human reason _compels_ the decision, that _they are placed there for some specific purpose_, and that _their operations are commensurate with their immensity_.

We may not neglect to make account of so vast an element, and so vital and preponderating, in all globes.[A]

We are thus compelled to answer the question, What part in the economy of nature is this great central core particularly fitted to perform? What its function among the great forces?

The great problem of the age, which scientists are intently engaged in solving, is the correlation of the leading forces already adverted to. Thus far light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, vital action, cohesion, etc., have been proved to be parts of one great whole. Now, since the especial characteristic of the great earth-core is heat, it comes directly into relationship with the forces mentioned. How then are its forces expended? Through what channels do they manifest their presence? The philosophical mind would most naturally associate with it the idea of stupendous magnetic power. We may well suppose such a power extending its influence through and beyond the earth-crust, reaching out towards the moon, and retro-acting with that body in preserving their mutual relations.

Does not this mighty influence reach out toward the sun also, and act conjointly with that great central orb in producing results, which to us, have ever been great mysteries.[4]

_The Grand Magnetic Circuit._

In the retro-acting influence in operation between these great bodies, may be found _A Grand Magnetic Circuit_. In this grand magnetic circuit is found the _key_ to the whole subject of the correlation and identity of all the forces.

And now, as preparatory to using this _key_ that we may enter in and consider the intimate nature of the physical forces, we would be impressed with the clear and full idea of this mighty _current_, which bears upon its tide, _as one_, all manner of forces with which we have to do.

It remains for us to tell what this great current _is_, and what it _does_. To the child, to the savage, and to the civilized man alike, it comes first and pre-eminently as light.

[A] The earth's core constitutes nearly 98/100 of its entire mass.

_Its Source and Nature._

Sunlight is one of the products of that grand retro-action which is incessantly in operation between sun and earth, and is, in its intimate and essential nature, a vito-magnetic _fluid_[B] (or so-called magnetic). Subtle, and apparently intangible, manifesting itself rather as a presence than a real substance, it fills all the space between the sun and earth--which space may, with sufficient accuracy, be termed the solar cone or cone-space.

Beyond the boundaries of the solar cone, _no light is_.

_The Sun not Incandescent._

The apparent brightness of the sun is owing to the aggregation of the 93,000,000 of miles of this fluid which is present between the sun and earth, or to our presence in the great current of activity of the vito-magnetic force. It is therefore not due to a condition of incandescence _at_ or _near_ that body. It is cool and habitable, and emits no light. The brightness of the intervening fluid intercepts the view, and thus no one may behold its body. Dark spots upon its face disclose its true character.[5]

If, therefore, the sun be truly dark, the brightness of its satellites cannot be caused by light projected from its surface or surroundings. How, then, may we account for the light of the moon and planets, which do not possess a light _sui generis_? A new hypothesis is requisite. To frame this hypothesis is not difficult.

_The New Hypothesis._

Analogy teaches us that the earth is seen from the moon and planets, even as they are seen from the earth. Yet there is nothing upon the face of the whole earth which is capable of reflecting the slightest amount of the sun's rays to those spheres. The fields, forests, rocks, and seas, only absorb light, they do not reflect it. In this phenomenon, therefore, there is no element of specular reflection. It consists rather of the lighting up of the static vito-magnetic fluid of our atmosphere, by the great solar current. The atmosphere, thus vivified, discloses our presence to those orbs, and in like manner, their presence to the inhabitants of the earth.

The light of the planets is therefore in no sense a borrowed light, since the action which generates and transmits it, is purely co-operative. Otherwise there could be no light at the earth, or planets.

_The Sun Dependent for His own Supply._

And, indeed, the sun possesses within himself alone no element of supply of his own needed light and heat; and in his immensity and power is even _dependent_ upon the circling orbs, for the quantity of each which is indispensable to a condition of habitation.

The bodies of the planets are in like manner invisible; we behold but the illumined atmosphere of each sphere. Thus the moon and planets, to be visible, must possess atmospheres.

_Light as a Substance._

That the thunderbolt is a substance may not be questioned. That the aurora borealis, or polaris, another form of vito-magnetic fluid, is a substance is not questioned. The so-called heat-lightning, though apparently intangible, must therefore be regarded as a substance. Yet further in the remove we find the zodiacal light. Sunlight is but the same, in form of extreme tenuity. The thunderbolt passes from earth to cloud, and instantaneously changes its _substantial_ form to one as tenuous as light; yet, in the transformation, this fluid has not lost its identity. Though unseen, it continues to exist as matter.

While ever present, light is being incessantly replenished; its action being instantaneous. The calculations of ROEMER, founded upon observations made through spaces of 382 and 568 millions of miles of distance, should not be too confidently accepted, especially as the results of such conclusions are so vitally important. When we consider that with our best telescopes directed towards the moon, less than a quarter of a million of miles distant, nothing really satisfactory may be discerned, what value, therefore, may be attached to statements founded upon such thoroughly unreliable data?

BRADLEY'S estimate of the velocity of light, founded upon his study of "the aberration of light," is even less worthy of consideration.

Any effort to measure such an inconceivable velocity as that claimed for light, by any means or appliances which may be devised by human ingenuity, must be regarded as futile. DESCARTES says: "Light reaches us _instantaneously_ from the sun, and would do so, even if the intervening distance were greater than that between the earth and heaven."

[B] This term is employed as being most exact and comprehensive, as this fluid is now known to be the source of all life and all attractions.

_Its Source and Limits._

Sun-heat is another product of the same retro-action between the sun and earth; consequently it has the same range and the same boundaries as when it is viewed as light.

_Tendencies to unsettle in Science._

The scientists of to-day may well look after the soundness of their favorite theories of the great physical forces; for the uncertain tenure of old theories, by reason of recent discoveries, is becoming but too manifest. New phenomena are now observed which require solutions not met by present hypotheses. The nebular hypothesis which has so long possessed the scientific mind has, by the discovery of the moons of Mars, become a thing of the past. According to M. MAICHE, water is found to be no longer the old-fashioned conventional oxygen and hydrogen, but essentially a new element must be considered in estimating its composition.[6] Light is ascertained to be as veritable a substance as water. The sun is recognized to be dark, cool, and habitable. Messages go through the air from kite to kite ten miles apart without visible agency. Telephonic sounds leap from wire to wire through quite ten feet of space.

_Present theories of Supply of Sun-heat._

The present theories of the production and dissemination of sun-heat, are simply accepted for want of better, and not because they account satisfactorily for the phenomena.

The first and most prominent is the combustion theory, which, though bearing the seal of ages, is obnoxious both to common and philosophic reasoning. This theory presupposes a consumption of material beyond all conception, and the supply of which has been no small tax upon the scientific imagination. The source of this supply has been claimed to be the subsidence of useless worlds, and of asteroids, and meteors, showered down upon its surface. Estimates have been carefully made, and we are gravely informed of the probable amount of combustive material required to supply the sun's demands for given periods. It is said that the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, which would supply the world's consumption for centuries, would keep the sun's rate of emission for considerably less than 1/1,000 part of a second. POUILLET estimated the quantity of heat emitted by the sun per hour to be equal to the supply of a layer of anthracite coal ten feet thick, spread over the whole surface of the sun.

The theory advocated by HELMHOLTZ, and by many other scientists, of "the gradual contraction of the solar orb," and that of SECCHI, "the dissociation of compound bodies in the sun's substance," are attempts after a more consistent philosophy.

The foregoing theories pre-suppose the sun to be a glowing fiery mass, from which, in all directions, issue radiations of heat and light into space. Of this enormous quantity of radiated heat, the earth is supposed to receive but 1/2,000,000,000 part.

MEYER observes: "_A general law of nature which knows no exception_ is the following: _In order to obtain heat, something must be expended._"