The Weekly News and Visitors' Chronicle for Colwyn Bay Colwyn Llandrillo Conway Deganwy and Neighbourhood

Sir Robert Ball at Llandudno. (BY SIGMA.) The other evening, at the Llandudno Pier Pavilion, I had the pleasure of hearing Sir Robert Ball, the celebrated. Irish astronomer, lecturing to a crowded audience, on "The Earth's Beginning." Sir Robert commenced by remarking that the earth's beginning has been substantially in accordance with the Nebular Theory, which is now very generally admitted, and which was enunciated by the philosopher Immanuel Kant and supported mathematically by Laplace, the eminent French mathematician. The only authority cited by Sir Robert was that of THE LADY PSYCHE, who commences her exquisite address to her "patient range of pupils" with the words "This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling", cast 1 he planets." A great Spiral Nebula. Showing- how the nebulous matter aggregates by rapid motion and contraction to form Sun and Planets. The first celestial body he made reference to as having an important bearing with regard to the evolution of the solar system from a fire- mist or nebula was the. sun. Solar heat is scattered through space with boundless prodi- gality the earth's inhabitants do receive a fairly minutie supply of its sunbeams, but what is available for mankind can be hardly more than an infinitesimal fraction of what the sun emits. But what is the amount of the sun's heat which is so lavishly scattered into space, and of which tfhe earth receives but a small frac- tion? and how again is this continual outpour- ing supported? Every child knows that the fire on the hearth will go out unless coal be provid- ed. As to the amount of heat radiated by the sun, we find that a patch of its surface measur- ing 50 yards each side emits as much heat per armum as would be supplied by 250,000,000 tons of coal. We must deliberately face the fact that the energy of the sun is becoming exhaust- ed. But the rate of exhaustion is so slow that it affords no prospect of inconvenience to hu- manity it does not excite alarm. And now the sun's heat is maintained by the continual con- traction of the solar orb itself. The law which declares that a body which gives out heat must in general submit to a corresponding diminu- tion in volume appears to be obeyed not alone by bodies on which we experiment, but by bodies throughout the extent of the universe. Applied to the solar system it declares that as the sun, in dispensing its benefits to the earth day by day, has to pour forth heat, so in like manner must it be diminishing in bulk. As- sumi-niz that this principle extends sufficiently widely through time and space, we shall venture to apply its consequences over the mighty spaces and periods required for celestial evolu- tion. We disdain to note the paltry centuries or mere thousands of years which include that infinitesimal trifle known as human history. A statement that THE SUN IS BECOMING GRADUALLY SMALLER seems for the moment remarkable. The reduc- tion required to sustain the radiation corres- ponds to a diminution of the diameter by about a mile every eleven years. It may serve to im- press upon us the fact of the sun's shrinkage if we will remember that on that auspicious day when Queen Victoria came to the throne the sun had a diameter more than five miles greater than it had, when her long and glorious career was ended. It is easily calculated then what The last stage in the life of a Nebula,-a Sun and Planet. the sun's diameter would be four thousand years ago, or what the diameter of the sun is to become in the next forty thousand years. Calculated; at the rate we have given the altera- tion in the sun,'si diameter in this period amounts to rather less than 4,000 miles. This no doubt seems a huge alteration in the dimen- sions of the orb of day: we must, however, re- member that at the present moment the diameter of the sun is about 863,000 miles, and that a loiss of 4,000 miles would leave a sun with a dia- meter of 859,000 miles,. There would not be much recognisable difference between two suns )f these different dimensions. I think I may say that if we could imagine two suns in the sky at the same moment, which differed only in the circumstance that one had a diameter of 863,000 miles and the other a diameter of 859,000 miles, there would be no more difference in the size }f either than there is in the size of MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S TWO LOAVES! After contraction has taken place by loss of heat that still remains, in the body is contained within a smaller volume than it had originally. The temperature depends not only on the actual quantity of heat that the mass of gas contains, but also on the volume through which that quantity of heat is diffused. If there be two equal weights of gas, and' if they each have the same absolute quantity of heat, but if one of them occupies a larger volume than the other, then the temperature of the gas in the large volume will not be so high as the temper- ature of the gas in the smanerr volume. From the above reasoning we are forced to conclude that the sun was larger in years gone by than it is to-day, it is, larger to-day than it will be to- morrow. This is indeed so much the case that the reduction of volume by the loss of heat may sometimes have a greater effect in raising the temperature than the very loss of heat which produced the contraction, has in depressing it. As we pierce back through the corridors of time we find the sun gradually enlarging its size, if it contains, the same amount of matter now- adays as it did in those early ages., and if its volume was immensely larger then than now, it follows, its! density must have been. very low. Let us now consider what the density of the sun must have been in those, primaeval days, say, for example., when the luminary had ten times its present volume. Even now it does not weigh half as much again as a globe of water of the same, size, so that when it was ten times as big as its density must have been only a small frac- tion of that of water. Let us think of a time— it was, perhaps1, many scores of millions of years ago—when the sun was a thousand times as big as it is- at present. The same quantity of matter which, now constitutes the sun was then expanded over a. volume a thousand times great- er. A remarkable conclusion, follows from this consideration. The air that we breathe has a density which is about the seven hundredth part of that of water. Hence we seei that at a time when the materials of the sun were expanded into a volume a thousand times as great as it is at present the density of the luminary must have been about equal to that of ordinary air. We must not pause to consider intermediate stages. We shall look back at once to an ex- cessively early period when th,e,siin-or perhaps we ought rather to say the matter which in a more condensed form now constitutes the sun— was expanded throughout the volume of a globe whose, radius was, as, great as the present distance from the sun to the earth. The sun at that early date did not at all resemble THE GLORIOUS ORB to which we owe our very existence. The prim- aeval sun must have been a totally different object, as we can easily imagine if we try to think that the sun's, materials then filled.' a vol- ume twelve million times as great as they occupy at present. Instead of comparing such an object with the gases, in our ordinary atmos- phere, it should rather be likened to the residue left in an exhausted receiver after the resources A rich portion of the Galaxy or Milky Way. Scattered Nebulous Wisps, a Nebula in its primitive state: every black spot of the sky contains a wisp of Nebula, invisible to the highest telescopic power, but teveal themselves to an exposed plate. of chemistry have been taxed to make as near an approach as possible to a perfect vaccum. The ground over which we have already passed will prepare us for the famous doctrine that the sun, the planets and! their satellites, to- gether with the, other bodies which form the group we call the solar system, have originated from the contraction of a primaeval nebula. As the ages rolled by, this, great primaeval nebula began to undergo modification. In accordance with the universal law which we find obeyed in our laboratories, ad which we have reason to believe are obeyed throughout the whole extent of space, this nebula, if warmer than the sur- rounding space, must begin to radiate forth its heat. The nebula does not receive heat from other bodies adequate to compensate for that which it dissipates by radiation. There is thus a loss of heat, and consequently the nebula must begin to contract. Its, material must gradually draw together, and must do so under the operation of those fundamental laws which we have already explained. The contraction, or rather the condensation, of the material would of course generally be greatest at the central portion of the nebula. This, is notice- able in the accompanying diagrams of the great spiral nebula. But in addition to the special condensation at the centre, the contraction takes place also, though in a lesser degree, at many other points1 throughout the whole extent of the glowing^ mass. Each centre of condensation which in this way becomesi established tends continually to increase. In consequence of this law, as the great nebula contracted, a,-idi as the great bulk of the material drew in towards the centre, there were isolated regions in the nebula which became subordinate centres of condensa- tion. Perhaps, in, the primaeval nebula, from which the solar system originated, there were half a dozen, or more of these centres that were of conspicuous importance, white a much larger number of small points were also distinguished from the surrounding nebula. But still the con- traction went on. The heat, or, rather, the energy with which the nebula had been origin- ally charged, was still being dissipated by radiation. We give no estimate of THE MYRIADS OF YEARS that each stage of the mighty process' must have occupied. Certainly the most numerous, and perhaps the grandest, illustrations of the great natural principles we have been: considering are to be found in the case of the spiral nebulae. The characteristic appearance of these objects demands special explanation. As an illustra- tion. of a nebula, in what we may describe as its comparatively primitive shape, we may take the Great Nebula in Orion. This' stupendous mass of vaguely diffused vapour may probably be re- garded as in an early stage when contrasted with the spirals. We must not forget that the only spiral nebulae which lie within the reach of our powers of observation-, whether telescopic or photographic, appear to be objects of enor- mously greater cosmical magnificence than was that primaeval nebula from which so insignificant an object as the solar system has. sprung. The great spirals, so far as we can tell at present, appear to be thousands of times, or even mil- lions of times, greater in area than our solar system. At this point, however, we must speak with special caution, having due regard to the paucity of our knowledge of a most important element. Astronomers must confess that no efforts which have yet been madie to dletermine -00 the dimensions of a nebula have been crowned with success. They have not any precise idea as' to what the distance of the great spiral might be. They generally take for granted that these nebulas are at a distance comparable with the distance. of the stars. The spiral nebulae that have so far come, within their observations seem to be objects of an order of magnitude alto- gether higher than a solar system. They seem to be engaged on the majestic function of evolv- ing systems of stars LIKE THE MILKY WAY, rather than on the inconsiderable tasli of pro- ducing a system which concerns only a single Showing what a microscopic speck our System is aside of a Nebula. The Solar System includes the Sun and 8 gigantic worlds known as Planets, viz., Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. star and not a galaxy. We thus see that our sun', our earth, yea, our whole solar system, must have been in the distant past utterly different from that which we see at present. We must not de-em them nonexistent merely be- cause we have not actually witnessed their evo- lution. That the great oak tree, which has lived for centuries sprang from, an. acorn no one can doubt; but what is, the evidence on which we believe this to have been the origin of a veter- an of the forest when, history and tradition are both silent? In the absence of authentic docu- ments: to trace the growth of that oak tree from the beginning, how do we know that it sprinted from an acorn? The' only reason we have for believing that the oak tree has gone through this remarkable development is deduced from the observation of other oak trees. We know the acorn, we know the young sapling as thick as a stick, we know the vigorous' young tree as stout as a man's arm, we know the tree when it is known, as timber, we can therefore observe different trees grade by grade in a continuous succession, from an acorn to the monarch of ten centuries. No one doubts that the growth as witnessed in the stages exhibited by several different trees, gives an accurate picture of their development. We are to study what the solar system has' been in the course of its history by the stages which we witness at the present moment in the evolution of other systems, throughout the universe. We cannot read the history in time, but we can read it in space. The. migot transformation through which our solar system has passed, and is now even pass- ing, cannot be actually beheld by poor creatures of a day. It might be surveyed by beings whose pulses beat centuries, as ours beat seconds, by beings whose minutes lasted longer than thie dynasties of human, history, by beings, to whom a year was comparable with the period since the earth was young and since life first began to move. We must with all reverence attune our ,thoughts to the time conceptions required by quoting the hymn "A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone, Short as the watch that ends the night, Before the rising sun." -n_

The Incorporated Society of Musicians." T..OCAL PRACTICAL EXAMINATIONS. The following is a list of the candidates who were awarded certificates at the examination held at Llandudno, on December 7th and 8th. The examiners were Mr J. C. Ames, Diploma Dresden and Stuttgart Conservatoriums, of Lon- don, and Mr Charles Fletcher, of Bournemouth. Grade Four (Advanced) (Pass).—Katie Clarke (pf.) (Mrs H. W. Powlson). Gladys I. Donisthorpe (pj.) (Miss E. Rothwell), Coed Pella School (Miss Briggs). Claudia Hughes (pf.) (Mrs H. W, Powlson). Olive Jenkin (sg.) (Mr Llewelyn Jones, F.R.C.O), Narellan, Old Colwyn (The Misses Thorne and Verdan). Eileen Malam (pf.) (Mrs H. W. Powlson). Grade Three (Pass).-Vera Alabaster (pf.) (Miss W. M. Clements), Redcliffe, Prestatyn (Miss Clements, B.A.). Maggie Griffith (pf.) (Miss Nixon). Jessie Jones (pf.) (Miss W. M. Clements), Redcliffe, Prestatyn (Miss Clements, B.A.). Grade Two (Pass).—Ethel Baxter (pf.) (Mr Llewelyn Jones, F.R.C.O.). Lois Green, (pf.) (Dr R. Rogers), Girls' College), Old Colwyn (Miss M. M. Mellor). Mary E. Roberts (vn.) (Mrs H. W. Powlson). Grade One (Honours).—Margaret A. Roberts (pf.) (Miss F. Pope), Abergele Intermediate School (Mr J. Williams, B.A.). Grade One (Pass).-Stuat-t W. Adam (pf,) (Mr Liewelyii Jones, F.R.C.O.). Bryn D?E?rNven, Preparator? School for Boys (Mr F. Bro,vnswood, M.Sc.). Al,ce G. ughes (pf.) (Mr Llewelyjn_ Jones, F.R.C.O.). Rooftree, Old Colwyn (Mrs Williams Rees). Hubert M. Oddy (pf.) (Dr R. Rogers), Rydal Mount School, CoiNvyn Bay. Violet H. C. Stubbs (pf.) (Mr Llewel),n Jones, F.R.C.O,), Rooftree Old Colwyn (Mrs Williams-Rees). Eveline D. Watson ipf.) (Miss E. Rothwell Pr?p?,),t Coed Pella School (Miss Briggs). ory Grade (Honours).-Mary Evans (pf.) (Miss Redstone), Girls' College, Old Colwyn (Miss M. M. Mellor). Emy Green (pf.) (Miss C. Anwyl). Helen M. Skilbeck (pf.) (Miss Redstone), Girls' College, Old Colwyn (Miss M. M. Mellor). Preparatory Grade (Pass).- Norman Green (pf.) (Miss C. Anwyl) Gwen G. Hughes (pf.) (Fraulein Schroten), Girls' College, Old Colwyn (Miss M. M. Mellor). Elen O. Roberts (pf.) (Mrs H. W, Powlson). Beatrice R. Sever (pf.) (Dr R. Rogers), Plas Tudno. Florence Williams (pf.) (Mrs H. W. Powlson). .¿;,