THE END OF THE WORLD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1843, 19 November 1897, Page 6

THE END OF THE WORLD.

SENSATIONAL PREDICTIONS. From thk Evening Star's Correspondent ] la the days of the late lamented Dr Cummings predictions with regard to the end of the world were of common occurrence. The rev. gentleman frightened hysterical and imaginative people somewhat seriously at first, but when the crack of doom came due and failed to put in an appearance they cheered up and reviled him. Astronomers have more than once since fixed the dread day. They generally, however, place it such a long way down future ages that nobody minds much. Now, I’m sorry to say, a disquieting theory on the subject is agitating America, its inventor being Professor S. J. Corrigan, director of the Carleton University, Northfield, Minnesota, the great university of the north-west of America. Under the title of‘Visibility of Intra-Mercurial Planets’ Professor Corrigan writes a paper for ‘ Popular Astronomy,’ the recognised organ of American astronomy, in which he asserts that the earth is closely approaching an extremely critical epoch of its existence; and, while the actual day cannot bo foretold, its certain destruction is imminent. Astronomers in all parts of the world are confessing their failure to account for the appearance of the remarkable sun-spots which are engaging the attention of the whole scientific world. With his fellow-astronomers, Professor Corrigan has been making a close and earnest examination of these spots on the sun, and in pursuing this investigation has discovered the existence of three hitherto unknown planets which are tearing through space between our earth and the sun. In making this disclosure Professor Corrigan finds a clue in the condition of atmospheric disturbances to show beyond doubt that the sun-spots are due to the evolution from the sun of an entirely new planet. “ This new planet,” says Professor Corrigan, “ may at any instant break away from the sun, and the terrific explosion which will necessarily accompany this breaking away will produce a great disturbance of the entire universe, but particularly of the earth, perhaps completely smashing it, and surely destroying all animal life op land as well as in the waters.” Professor Corrigan makes no conditions to his announcement. He does not qualify his prediction with any clauses about events that may only possibly happen and bring about the destruction of all life on the globe. He shows conclusively that this new planet is unmistakeably nearly completely separated from the sun, and as all the available gaseous space between the earth and the sun is now fully occupied by the other existing planets in that space, when the new planet burns itself off from the sun the want of sufficient gaseous space for it to rqam around in must without fail produce the great disturbance that he warns all men to bo prepared for. “ Neither is this tremendous disturbance of the earth and the destruction of all life upon it completely unprecedented,” says Professor Corrigan. “ A similar detachment of solar matter by the same means is known by scientists to have occurred 23,000,000 years ago, a period simultaneous with the paleozoic age, at which time all animal and vegetable life then existing on the face of the earth was completely crushed out.” The announcement of Professor Corrigan continues: “ The results of my investigation' on this subject indicate that the earth ip ,closely approaching a critical epoch in its career; yet the day or the hour of visitation * no man knoweth,’ but these results have con’ vinced me that it is imminent. V The law of the series of planetary development from the primitive, condensing, gaseous nebula which I have found, and through which I have derived the mean distances of the bodies aforesaid, indicates that between the mean distance 0.0713 and the present surface of the sun there are four more possible orbits in Which planets may move ; but it is probable that if such intra-Mercurial bodies do exist their dimensions are much less than those of the smallest of the three above described, and it is even probable that the great intensity of the solar radiation in the immediate vicinity of the sun may have prevented the agglomeration of the solar matter there detached into planetary bodies, and caused it to be diffused in space.” ____________________