"THE EVOLUTION OF WORLDS."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13651, 21 July 1906, Page 5

"THE EVOLUTION OF WORLDS."

Tho Rev. D. Dutton lectured in the John Street Baptist, Church, Cavcrsham, last ovening on "Tho Evolution of Worlds." The Rev. C. Boyall presided, and the lecture was given under the auspices of the Caversham Baptist Young Men's Club. There was a good muster of members of the club and tlieir friends, and the subject was treated in a popular and elementary manner so as to bring the salient points within the. mental grasp of the youngest intelligence present., With tho aid of photographic and coloured diagrams, tho rev. lecturer traced tho evolution of the principal solar planots from the period of their birth when they wero launched forth from tho sun up to the condition in which they now appear as revealed to tho astronomer. Special emphasis was laid upon the hulk, lieat. circumference, and diameter of the sun, its intense activity, its gaseous condition, tho perpetual changes it is undergoing as. revealed by still spots, and tho shooting forth from its surface of immense bodies of gas into space, which assumed the form of nebulae. Fiom the last-named circumstance the birth of worlds was inferred. In tho ease of the earth, tho throwing off of tbo moon from its surface at an early period in tho earth's separate existence was used ss an illustration near at hand of what was "occurring and what had occurred in the region of the far-away <?un. and the "deadncss" of the moon as ft small orb was also avniled of to draw a contrast between the energy of heat and tho inactivity which followed when that important factor (bed away. The distances separating the earth from the sun and moon and other planets, tho size and principal features of each, and the more recent of modem astronomical discoveries and observances wero as far as possible stripped of their scientific ahstrusencM and treated in a popular manner, which earned for the lecturer close attention throughout his interesting and instructive address, At

iho eio-ft of the. lecture the rev. gentleman was accorded a hearty voio of thanks by acclamation.