Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe Part 14

The Milky Way composed of nebulae does not belong to our starry stratum, but surrounds it at a great distance without being physically connected with it, pa.s.sing almost in the form of a large cross through the dense nebulae of Virgo, especially in the northern wing, through Comae Berenicis, Ursa Major, Andromeda's girdle, and Pisces Boreales. It probably intersects the stellar Milky Way in Ca.s.siopeia, and connects its dreary poles (rendered starless from the attractive forces by which stellar bodies are made to agglomerate into groups) in the least dense portion of the starry stratum.

We see from these considerations that our starry cl.u.s.ter, which bears traces in its projecting branches of having been subject in the course of time to various metamorphoses, and evinces a tendency to dissolve and separate, owing to secondary centers of attraction -- is surrounded by two rings, one of which, the nebulous zone, is very remote, while the other is nearer, and composed of stars alone. The latter, which we generally term the Milky Way, is composed of nebulous stars, averaging from the tenth to the eleventh degree of magnitude,* but appearing, when considered individually, of very different magnitudes, while isolated starry cl.u.s.ters (starry swarms) almost always exhibit throughout a character of great uniformity in magnitude and brilliancy.

[footnote] *Sir John Herschel, 'Astron.', 585.

In whatever part the vault of heaven has been pierced by powerful and far-penetrating telescopic instruments, stars or luminous nebulae are every where discoverable, the former, in p 152 some cases, not exceeding the twentieth or twenty-fourth degree of telescopic magnitude. A portion of the nebulous vapor would probably be found resolvable into stars by more powerful optical instruments. As the retina retains a less vivid impression of separate than of infinitely near luminous points, less strongly marked photometric relations are excited in the latter case, as Arago has recently shown.*

[footnote] *Arago, in the 'Annuaire', 1842, p. 282-285, 409-411, and 439-442.

The definite or amorphous cosmical vapor so universally diffused, and which generates heat through condensation, probably modifies the transparency of the universal atmosphere, and diminishes that uniform intensity of light which, according to Halley and Olbers, should arise, if every point throughout the depths of s.p.a.ce were filled by an infinite series of stars.*

[footnote] *Olbers, on the transparency of celestial s.p.a.ce, in Bode's 'Jahrb.', 1826, s. 110-121.

The a.s.sumption of such a distribution in s.p.a.ce is, however, at variance with observation, which shows us large starless regions of s.p.a.ce, 'openings' in the heavens, as William Herschel terms them -- one, four degrees in width, in Scorpio, and another in Serpentarius. In the vicinity of both, near their margin, we find unresolvable nebulae, of which that on the western edge of the opening Scorpio is one of the most richly thronged of the cl.u.s.ters of small stars by which the firmament is adorned. Herschel ascribes these openings or starless regions to the attractive and agglomerative forcesof the marginal groups.*

[footnote] *"An opening in the heavens," William Herschel, in the 'Phil.

Trans.' for 1785, vol. lxxv., Part i., p. 256. Le Francais Lalande, in the 'Connaiss. des Tems pour l'An.' VIII., p. 383. Arago, in the 'Annuaire', 1842, p. 425.

"They are parts of our starry stratum," says he, with his usual graceful animation of style, "that have experienced great devastation from time." If we picture to ourselves the telescopic stars lying behind one another as a starry canopy spread over the vault of heaven, these starless regions in Scorpio and Serpentarius may, I think, be regarded as tubes through which we may look into the remotest depths of s.p.a.ce. Other stars may certainly lie in those parts where the strata forming the canopy are interrupted, but these are unattainable by our instruments. The aspect of fiery meteors had led the ancients likewise to the idea of clefts or openings ('chasmata') in the vault of heaven. These openings were, however, only regarded as transient, while the reason of their being luminous and fiery, instead of obscure, was supposed to be owing to the p 153 translucent illuminated ether which lay beyond them.*

[footnote] *Aristot., 'Meteor.', ii.,, 5, 1. Seneca, 'Natur. Quaest.', i., 14, 2. "Coelum discessisse," in Cic., 'de Divin.', i., 43.

Derham, and even Huygens, did not appear disinclined to explain in a similar manner the mild radiance of the nebulae.*

[footnote] *Arago, in the 'Annuaire', 1842, p. 429.

When we compare the stars of the first magnitude, which, on an average, are certainly the nearest to us, with the non-nebulous telescopic stars, and further, when we compare the nebulous stars with unresolvable nebulae, for instance, with the nebula in Andromeda, or even with the so-called planetary nebulous vapor, a fact is made manifest to us by the consideration of the varying distances and the boundlessness of s.p.a.ce, which shows the world of phenomena, and that which const.i.tutes its causal reality, to be dependent upon the 'propagation of light'. The velocity of this propagation is according to Struve's most recent investigations, 166,072 geographical miles in a second, consequently almost a million of times greater than the velocity of sound. According to the measurements of Maclear, Bessel, and Struve, of the parallaxes and distances of three fixed stars of very unequal magnitudes ('a' Centauri, 16 Cygni, and 'a' Lyrae), a ray of light requires respectively 3, 9 1/4, and 12 years to reach us from these three bodies. In the short but memorable period between 1572 and 1604, from the time of Cornelius Gemma and Tycho Brahe to that of Kepler, three new stars suddenly appeared in Ca.s.siopeia and Cygnus, and in the foot of Serpentarius. A similar phenomenon exhibited itself at intervals in 1670, in the constellation Vulpis. In recent times, even since 1837, Sir John Herschel has observed, at the Cape of Good Hope, the brilliant star [Greek symbol] in Argo increase in splendor from the second to the first magnitude.*

[footnote] *In December, 1837, Sir John Herschel saw the star [Greek symbol] Argo, which till that time appeared as of the second magnitude, and liable to no change, rapidly increase till it became of the first magnitude.

In January, 1838, the intensity of its light was equal to that of 'a'

Centauri. According to our latest information, Maclear in March, 1843, found it as bright as Canopus; and even 'a' Crucis looked faint by [Greek symbol] Argo.

These events in the universe belong, however, with reference to their historical reality, to other periods of time than those in which the phenomena of light are first revealed to the inhabitants of the Earth: they reach us like the voices of the past. It has been truly said, that with our large and powerful telescopic instruments we penetrate alike through the boundaries of time and s.p.a.ce: we measure the former through the latter, for in the course of an p 154 hour a ray of light traverses over a s.p.a.ce of 592 millions of miles. While according to the theogony of Hesiod, the dimensions of the universe were supposed to be expressed by the time occupied by bodies in falling to the ground ("the brazen anvil was not more than nine days and nine nights in falling from heaven to earth"), the elder Herschel was of opinion* that light required almost two millions of years to pa.s.s to the Earth from the remotest luminous vapor reached by his forty-foot reflector.

[footnote] *"Hence it follows that the rays of light of the remotest nebulae must have been almost two millions of years on their way, and that consequently, so many years ago, this object must already have had an existence in the sidereal heaven, in order to send out those rays by which we now perceive it." William Herschel, in the 'Phil. Trans.' for 1802, p.

498. John Herschel, 'Astron.', 590. Arago, in the 'Annuaire', 1842, p.

334, 359, and 382-385.

Much, therefore, has vanished long before it is rendered visible to us -- much that we see was once differently arranged from what it now appears.

The aspect of the starry heavens presents us with the spectacle of that which is only apparently simultaneous, and however much we may endeavor, by the aid of optical instruments, to bring the mildly-radiant vapor of nebulous ma.s.ses or the faintly-glimmering starry cl.u.s.ters nearer, and diminish the thousands of years interposed between us and them, that serve as a criterion of their distance, it still remains more than probable, from the knowledge we possess of the velocity of the transmission of luminous rays, that the light of remote heavenly bodies presents us with the most ancient perceptible evidence of the existence of matter. It is thus that the reflective mind of man is led from simple premises to rise to those exalted heights of nature, where in the light-illumined realms of s.p.a.ce, "myriads of worlds are bursting into life like the gra.s.s of the night."*

[fotnote] *From my brother's beautiful sonnet "Freiheit und Gesetz."

(Wilhelm von Humboldt, 'Gesammelte Werke', bd. iv., s. 358, No. 25.)

From the regions of celestial forms, the domain of Ura.n.u.s, we will now descend to the more contracted sphere of terrestrial forces -- to the interior of the Earth itself. A mysterious chain links together both cla.s.ses of phenomena. According to the ancient signification of the t.i.tanic myth,* the powers of organic life, that is to say, the great order of nature, depend upon the combined action of heaven and earth.

[footnote] *Otfried Muller, 'Prolegomena', s. 373.

If we suppose that the Earth, like all the other planets, primordially belonged, according to its origin, to the central body, the Sun, and to the solar atmosphere that has been separated into nebulous p 155 rings, the same connection with this continguous Sun, as well as with all the remote suns that s.h.i.+ne in the firmament, is still revealed through the phenomena of light and radiating heat. The difference in the degree of these actions must not lead the physicist, in his delineation of nature, to forget the connection and the common empire of similar forces in the universe. A small fraction of telluric heat is derived from the regions of universal s.p.a.ce in which our planetary system is moving, whose temperature (which according to Fourier, is almost equal to our mean icy polar heat) is the result of the combined radiation of all the stars. The causes that more powerfully excite the light of the Sun in the atmosphere and in the upper strata of our air, that give rise to heat-engendering electric and magnetic currents, and awaken and genially vivify the vital spark in organic structures on the earth's surface, must be reserved for the subject of our future consideration.

As we purpose for the present to confine ourselves exclusively within the telluric sphere of nature, it will be expedient to cast a preliminary glance over the relations in s.p.a.ce of solids and fluids, the form of the Earth, its mean density, and the partial distribution of this density in the interior of our planet, its temperature and its electro-magnetic tension. From the consideration of these relations in s.p.a.ce, and of the forces inherent in matter, we shall pa.s.s to the reaction of the interior on the exterior of our globe; and to the special consideration of a universally distributed natural power -- subterranean heat; to the phenomena of earthquakes, exhibited in unequally expanded circles of commotion, which are not referable to the action of dynamic laws alone; to the springing forth of hot wells; and, lastly, to the more powerful actions of volcanic processes. The crust of the Earth, which may scarcely have been perceptibly elevated by the sudden and repeated, or almost uninterrupted shocks by which it has been moved from below, undergoes, nevertheless, great changes in the course of centuries in the relations of the elevation of solid portions, when compared with the surface of the liquid parts, and even in the form of the bottom of the sea.

In this manner simultaneous temporary or permanent fissures are opened, by which the interior of the Earth is brought in contact with the external atmosphere. Molten ma.s.ses, rising from an unknown depth, flow in narrow streams along the declivity of mountains, rus.h.i.+ng impetuously onward, or moving slowly and gently, until the fiery source is quenched in the midst of exhalations, and the lava becomes incrusted, as it were, by p 156 the solidification of its outer surface. New ma.s.ses of rocks are thus formed before our eyes, while the older ones are in their turn converted into other forms by the greater or lesser agency of Platonic forces. Even where no disruption takes place the crystalline moleculres are displaced, combining to form bodies of denser texture. The water presents structures of a totally different nature, as, for instance, concretions of animal and vegetable remains, of earthy, calcareous, or aluminous precipitates, agglomerations of finely-pulverized mineral bodies, covered with layers of the silicious s.h.i.+elds of infusoria, and with transported soils containing the bones of fossil animal forms of a more ancient world. The study of the strata which are so differently formed and arranged before our eyes, and of all that has been so variously dislocated, conforted, and upheaved, by mutual compression and volcanic force, leads the reflective observer, by simple a.n.a.logies, to draw a comparison between the present and an age that has long pa.s.sed. It is by a combination of actual phenomena, by an ideal enlargement of relations in s.p.a.ce, and of the amount of active forces, that we are able to advance into the long sought and indefinitely antic.i.p.ated domain of geognosy, which has only within the last half century been based on the solid foundation of scientific deduction.

It has been acutely remarked, "that notwithstanding our continual employment of large telescopes, we are less acquainted with the exterior than with the interior of other planets, excepting, perhaps, our own satellite." They have been weighed, and their volume measured; and their ma.s.s and density are becoming known with constantly-increasing exactness; thanks to the progress made in astronomical observation and calculation. Their physical character is, however, hidden in obscurity, for it is only in our own globe that we can be brought in immediate contact with all the elements of organic and inorganic creation. The diversity of the most heterogenous substances, their admixtures and metamorphoses, and the ever-changing play of the forces called into action, afford to the human mind both nourishment and enjoyment, and open an immeasurable field of observation, from which the intellectual activity of man derives a great portion of its grandeur and power. The world of perceptive phenomena is reflected in the depths of the ideal world, and the richness of nature and the ma.s.s of all that admits of cla.s.sification gradually become the objects of inductive reasoning.

I would here allude to the advantage, of which I have already p 157 spoken, possessed by that portion of physical science whose origin is familiar to us, and is connected with our earthly existence. The physical description of celestial bodies from the remotely-glimmering nebulae with their suns, to the central body of our own system, is limited, as we have seen, to general conceptions of the volume and quant.i.ty of matter. No manifestation of vital activity is there presented to our senses. It is only from a.n.a.logies, frequently from purely ideal combinations, that we hazard conjectures on the specific elements of matter, or on their various modifications in the different planetary bodies. But the physical knowledge of the heterogeneous nature of matter, its chemical differences, the regular forms in which its molecules combine together, whether in crystals or granules; its relations to the deflected or decomposed waves of light by which it is penetrated; to radiating, transmitted, or polarized heat; and to the brilliant or invisible, but not, on that account, less active phenomena of electro-magnetism -- all this inexhaustible treasure, by which the enjoyment of the contemplation of nature is so much heightened, is dependent on the surface of the planet which we inhabit, and more on its solid than on its liquid parts. I have already remarked how greatly the study of natural objects and forces, and the infinite diversity of the sources they open for our consideration, strengthen the mental activity, and call into action every manifestation of intellectual progress. These relations require, however, as little comment as that concatenation of causes by which particular nations are permitted to enjoy a superiority over others in the exercise of a material power derived from their command of a portion of these elementary forces of nature.

If, on the one hand, it were necessary to indicate the difference existing between the nature of our knowledge of the Earth and of that of the celestial regions and their contents, I am no less desirous, on the other hand, to draw attention to the limited boundaries of that portion of s.p.a.cefrom which we derive all our knowledge of the heterogeneous character of matter. This has been somewhat inappropriately termed the Earth's crust; it includes the strata most contiguous to the upper surface of our planet, and which have been laid open before us by deep fissure-like valleys, or by the labors of man, in the bores and shafts formed by miners. These labors*

do not extend beyond a vertical depth of somewhat more than 2000 feet (about one third of a geographical mile) below the p 159 level of the sea, and consequently only about 1/9800th of the Earth's radius.

[footnote] *In speaking of the greatest depths within the Earth reached by human labor, we must recollect that there is a difference between the 'absolute depth' (that is to say, the depth below the Earth's surface at that point) and the 'relative depth' (or that beneath the level of the sea).

The greatest relative depth that man has. .h.i.therto reached is probably the bore at the new salt-works at Minden, in Prussia: in June, 1814, it was exactly 1993 feet, the absolute depth being 2231 feet. The temperature of the water at the bottom was 98 degrees F., which a.s.suming the mean temperature of the air at 49.3 degrees gives an augmentation of temperature of 1 degree for every 54 feet. The absolute depth of the Artesian well of Grenelle, near Paris, is only 1795 feet. According to the account of the missionary Imbert, the fire-springs, "Ho-tsing." of the Chinese, which are sunk to obtain [carbureted] hydrogen gas for salt-boiling, far exceed our Artesian springs in depth. In the Chinese province of Szu-tschuan these fire-springs are very commonly of the depth of more than 2000 feet; indeed, at Tseu-lieu-tsing (the place of continual flow) there is a Ho-tsing which, in the year 1812, was found to be 3197 feet deep. (Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. ii., p. 521 and 525. 'Annales de l'a.s.sociation de la Propagation de la Foi', 1829, No. 16, p. 369.)

[footnote continues] The relative depth reached at Mount Ma.s.si, in Tuscany, south of Volterra, amounts, according to Matteuci, to only 1253 feet. The boring at the new salt-works near Minden is probably of about the same relative depth as the coal-mine at Apendale, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Staffords.h.i.+re, where men work 725 yards below the surface of the earth.

(Thomas Smith, 'Miner's Guide', 1836, p. 160.) Unfortunately, I do not know the exact height of its mouth above the level of the sea. The relative depth of the Monk-wearmouth mine, near Newcastle, is only 1496 feet.

(Phillips, in the 'Philos. Mag.', vol. v., 1834, p. 446.) That of the Liege coal-mine, 'l'Esperance' at Seraing, is, according to M. Gernaert, Ingenieur des Mines, 1223 feet in depth. The works of greatest absolute depth that have ever been formed are for the most part situated in such elevated plains or valleys that they either do not descend so low as the level of the sea, or at most reach very little below it. Thus the Eselchacht, at Kuttenberg, in Bohemia, a mine which can not now be worked, had the enormous absolute depth of 3778 feet. (Fr. A. Schmidt, 'Berggestze der oter Mon.', abth. i., bd. i., s. x.x.xii.) Also, at St. Daniel and at Geish, on the Rorerbubel, in the 'Landgericht' (or provincial district) of Kitzbuhl, there were, in the sixteenth century, excavations of 3107 feet. The plans of the works of the Rorerbubel are still preserved. (See Joseph von Sperges, 'Tyroler Bergwerksgeschichte', s. 121. Compare, also, Humboldt, 'Gutachten uber uerantreibung des Meissner Stollens in die Freiberger Erzrevier', printed in Herder, 'uber Herantreibung des Meissner Stollens in die Freiberger Erzrevier', printed in Herder, 'uber den jetz begonnenen Erbstollen', 1838, s. cxxiv.) We may presume that the knowledge of the extraordinary depth of the Rorerbuhel reached England at an early period, for I find it remarked in Gilbert, 'de Magnete', that men have penetrated 2400 or even 3000 feet into the crust of the Earth. ("Exigua videtur terrae portio, quae unquam hominibus spectanda emerget aut eruitur; c.u.m profundinus in ejus viscera, ultra efflorescentis extremitatis corruptelam, aut propter aquas in magnis fodin, tanquam per venas scaturientesaut propter seris salubrioris ad vitam operariorum sustinendam necessarii defectum, aut propter ingentex sumptus ad tantos labores exantlandos, multasque difficultates, ad profundiores terrz'

partes penetrre non possumus; adeo ut quadrigentas aut [quod rarissime]

quingentas orgyas in quibusdam metallis descendisse, stupendus omnibus videatur connatus." -- Guilielmi Gilberti, Colcestrensis, 'de Magnete Physiologia nova'. Lond., 1600, p. 40.)

[footnote continues] The absolute depth of the mines in the Saxon Erzgebirge, near Freiburg, are: in the Thurmhofer mines, 1944 feet; in the Honenbirker mines, 1827 feet; the relative depths are only 677 and 277 feet, if, in order to calculate the elevation of the mine's mouth above the level of the sea, we regard the elevation of Freiburg as determined by Reich's recent observations to be 1269 feet. The absolute depth of the celebrated mine of Joachimsthal, in Bohemia (Verkreuzung des Jung Hauer Zechen-und Andreasganges), is full 2120 feet; so that, as Von Dechen's measurements show that its surface is about 2388 feet above the level of the sea, it follows that the excavations have not as yet reached that point. In the Harz, the Samson mine at Andreasberg has an absolute depth of 2197 feet. In what was formerly Spanish America, I know of no mine deeper than the Valenciana, near Guanaxuato (Mexico), where I found the absolute depth of the Planes de San Bernardo to be 1686 feet; but these planes are 5960 feet above the level of the sea. If we compare the depth of the old Kuttenberger mine (a depth greater than the height of our Brocken, and only 200 feet less than that of Vesuvius) with the loftiest structures that the hands of man have erected (with the Pyramid of Cheops and with the Cathedral of Strasburg), we find that they stand in the ratio of eight to one. In this note I have collected all the certain information I could find regarding the greatest absolute and relative depths of mines and borings. In descending eastward from Jerusalem toward the Dead Sea, a view presents itself to the eye, which, according to our present hypsometrical knowledge of the surface of our planet, is unrivaled in any country; as we approach the open ravine through which the Jordan takes its course, we tread, with the open sky above us, on rocks which, according to the barometric measurements of Berton and Russegger are 1385 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. (Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', th. ii., p. 323.)

The crystalline ma.s.ses that have been erupted from active volcanoes, and are generally similar to the rocks on the upper surface, have come from depths which, although not accurately determined, must certainly be sixty times greater than those to which human labor has been enabled to penetrate. We are able to give in numbers the depth of the shaft where the strata of coal, after penetrating a certain way, rise again at a distance that admits of being accurately defined by measurements. These dips show that the carboniferous strata, together with the fossil organic remains which they contain, must lie, as, for instance, in Belgium, more than five or six thousand feet* below the present level p 160 of the sea, and that the calcareous and the curved strata of the Devonian basin penetrate twice that depth.

[footnote] *Basin-shaped curved strata, which dip and reappear at measureable distances, although their deepest portions are beyond the reach of the miner, afford sensible evidence of the nature of the earth's crust at great depths below its surface. Testimony of this kind possesses, consequently, a great geognostic interest. I am indebted to that excellent geognosist, Von Dechen, for the following observations. "The depth of the coal basin of Liege, at Mont St. Gilles, which I, in conjunction with our friend Von Oeynhausen, have ascertained to be 3890 feet below the surface, extends 3464 feet below the surface of the sea, for the absolute height of Mont St. Gilles certainly does not much exceed 400 feet; the coal basin of Mons is fully 1865 feet deeper. But all these depths are trifling compared with those which are presented by the coal strata of Saar-Revier (Saarbrucken). I have found after repeated examinations, that the lowest coal stratum which is known in the neighborhood of Duttweiler, near Bettingen, northeast of Saarlouis, must descend to depths of 20,682 and 22,015 feet (or 3.6 geographical miles) below the level of the sea." This result exceeds, by more than 8000 feet, the a.s.sumption made in the text regarding the basin of the Devonian strata. This coal-field is therefore sunk as far below the surface of the sea as Chimborazo is elevated above it -- at a depth at which the Earth's temperature must be as high as 435degrees F. Hence, from the highest pinnacles of the Himalaya to the lowest basins containing the vegetation of an earlier world, there is a vertical distance of about 48,000 feet, or of the 435th part of the Earth's radius.