The Earth.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19227, 6 February 1928, Page 8

The Earth.

We print a letter to-day from a correspondent who complains of the " levity " of our treatment on Wednesday last of Sir Oliver Lodge's prediction that the earth will one day be crashed into by the moon. On Friday, however, we printed another letter the complaint of which seemed to be that we should have taken any notice at all of " the vapourings of an unconverted, "hell-deluded spiritualist." It may help us with one correspondent, but we are afraid we are taking a risk with the other, if we make the further comment to-day that Sir Oliver's announcement followed closely on the publication of a book by Mr J. B. S. Haldane (Possible Worlds) in which the same fate is described with a far greater wealth of scientific and imaginative detail. There have been several ends predicted for the world, though it may be a comfort to many people to know that Mr Haldane appears not to think that there is serious danger of a sudden cataclysm. But, he says, "just as my body will not "go on working for ever, apart from "accidents, so the earth carries with " it through space what will certainly " alter its conditions profoundly, and "very possibly destroy it as an abode "of life. I refer to the moon." He projects his mind some forty millions of years hence, and imagines the account of the destruction of this earth

that will be broadcasted to children on the planet Venus. This account is derived partly from the reports of inhabitants of the earth who have succeeded, from time to time, in reaching Venus. This story told to the children in Venus begins with the formation of the planets from the sun; then it describes how the moon was formed from the earth, and then how the moon, by causing the tides, had the effect of slowing down the earth's rotation. In the history of mankind in the future far beyond to-day the force of the tides is used to create power, which accelerates the effect of the moon. By the year 17,846,151 the day lasts forty-eight of the old days. As the end of the world approaches, expeditions to Venus become commoner. In the year 36,000,000 the moon appears twenty-five times as large as the sun, and raises the sealevel about 200 metres four times a year. Then the moon begins to disintegrate, and in the language of the later account given on Venus, " through "the clouds of steam and volcanic " smoke which shrouded the earth our "astronomers could see but little, but "later on it became clear that its "tropical regions had been buried "many kilometres deep under lunar "fragments, and the remainder, though "some traces of the former continents "remain, had been submerged in the "boiling ocean." It will be remembered also by some readers that the most impressive passage in the works of Lord Balfour envisages a time when " the energies of our system will decay, " the glory of the sun will be dimmed, " and the earth, tideless and inert, will "no longer tolerate the race which "has for a moment disturbed its soli- " tude. Man will go down to the pit, " and all his thoughts will perish . . . " Imperishable monuments and im- " mortal deeds, death itself, and "love stronger than death, will be as " though they had never been." But if Mr Haldane pictures a fiery end for the earth, his vision pictures human consciousness and endeavour outliving the catastrophe, and the purposes of the Ultimate Purpose—or whatever it may be called —being worked out elsewhere. "Man's little "world will end. The human mind "can already envisage that end. If "humanity can enlarge the scope of " its will as it has enlarged the reach "of its intellect, it will escape that "end." In the meantime, however, there is our life here—one sad or glad thing after another according to our temperament and digestion. There are still families to be kept, countries to be governed, and the little tyrant of the fields to be. withstood, throughout all the years between 1928 and 36,000,000, so that there is no very rosy prospect, even with science, of any surcease of the "demnition " grind."