CHAPTER IV

THE UNIVERSE BEGAN IN EXTREME COLD, NOT HEAT

My theory of electrical creation does not necessarily conflict with many phases of the nebular hypothesis; but I insist that if the universe began in nebula, electricity gathered it, and the nebula was extremely cold, instead of being "a fiery mist, or intensely heated gas." The electric theory does not conflict with the supposed law of gravitation, which, I contend, is electro-magnetism or universal electric attraction. And it accepts the law of evolution by electric development, and shows how all things came from atoms and electricity.

But the electric theory does not need the nebular hypothesis to explain the formation of the solar system, and is just as good without it. I deem the Newton-La Place theories unscientific and obsolete, and they should be supplanted by the electric theory as the most rational and in accord with the latest advancements of science. The discovery of electricity opened a new and marvellous field of investigation unknown to Newton and La Place, and has revolutionized all modern scientific theories. Its invisible, magic-like potency has been the wonder and glory of the nineteenth century.

As all the sciences have changed and advanced in the last two hundred years, why should not cosmogony? The world has long been waiting for a better theory to accord with our advanced civili

zation, and grander conception of the universe, and of man's future destiny. La Place's theory of the spontaneous generation of planet worlds and burning stars seems a plan to account for the formation of the universe without the intelligent design of a Creator. But if so intended it is a great failure, for there is such a complex variety and perfect harmony as shows infinite design and omnipotent wisdom. Newton accepted it, but he believed in a divine power that created and preserves all things.

The earth shows evidence of great heat by the rocks and minerals that have been in a molten state at some period in its history; yet this heat was more or less local and periodic, and it does not show that the universe began in white heat.

On the contrary, all evidence of great heat on the earth can be accounted for in two ways: first, by local volcanoes and earthquakes, which have been numerous in all parts of the earth; second, by burning meteors from space shot through our atmosphere and lodged in our earth by the millions. Flamarion says: "The mass of the earth increased from age to age by the meteoric stone and shooting stars, which continually fall upon it-more than one hundred billions annually." Millions of these are consumed in our atmosphere, and fall upon the earth in showers of ashes or molecules. Other millions, in the form of molten rock and obdurate metals, are buried in the earth and mixed in volcanic formations. It is believed that all diamonds, rubies, and precious stones were thus distributed over the earth, and formed by meteors of hot carbonaceous rocks and metals falling into water and being suddenly cooled.

I cannot accept the popular theory among scien

tists that the earth was once a burning mass, now extinguished on its surface, but still burning in its interior, while its centre is even now a molten mass. I do not believe it was ever a molten mass, or any considerable part of it excessively hot or in a molten state. There are local volcanic eruptions and earthquakes which are the result of local and temporary causes, and constitute escape valves for internal electrical disturbances; but the great mass of the earth is solid, and its rock-ribbed foundations are unchangeable and enduring.

Flamarion says: "The earth was first in the condition of the sun, hot, luminous, and incandescent." Goodwin says: "The early condition of the earth presents to us a ball of molten fluid with intense heat, spinning on its axis, and revolving around the sun." Campbell says: "The world was once a globe of liquid fire. It is like a deep lake frozen over; and we build our cities on the ice crust as it were." Dana says: "There must have been a first era after that of the original nebula, if such there was, in which the earth was a globe of molten rock. A second era, in which cooling went forward until the exterior became solid from cooling."

These theories, I believe, are disproved by the geological formations of the earth, which is an orderly structure, built layer upon layer of stratified rocks, each differing in some respects from the others, and all encircling the globe everywhere in the same order. And wherever a break in this sure foundation of orderly construction, stone upon stone and brick upon brick, as we build the foundations of a house or temple, occurs, it is the result of some local volcanic disturbance, and does not affect the orderly processes of nature.

Electric energy, which is the right hand of Omnipotence, created this earth a great electric magnet, formed its magnetic centre, and built around it the rock-ribbed foundations in regular and orderly perfection. It did the same for all the globes of our solar system, and for the universe. It shaped them all in the same regular spherical form and general contour by the law of electrical attraction, which creates circles by drawing all growing forms in circular lines around their magnetic centre, and thus fixed the electro-magnetic law of organic growth and formation in circles and globes, from dewdrops to worlds, and from pebbles to suns.

The nebular hypothesis, that the universe began in a white heat, is purely speculative and fallacious. There is no considerable heat in the universe except in the atmosphere of suns and worlds, and that only a few miles above their surface.

The heat of the earth at the equator reaches upward only fifteen thousand feet, which is less than three miles, and is the highest point of heat on earth; then extreme cold gradually approaches the earth's surface until it reaches it at 60° of north and south latitude. I believe the heat extends above the sun's surface but a few thousand miles. By the law of proportion its heat would extend less than three thousand miles up into its atmosphere around the sun's surface, and its photosphere would be from ten thousand to twenty thousand miles above, near the frigid cold of space, just as our aurora borealis is in the upper regions of frigid space at our poles. However, the sun's photosphere might cause the heat to extend much higher. Electricity is convertible into heat, but is only so converted where needed. Heat is needed only in the atmosphere of suns and

planets near their surface, where it is necessary to sustain animal and vegetable life. It is not needed in space, and nature does no useless and nugatory things; and therefore there is no considerable heat in space, and never was; and the universe did not begin in nebulous heat.

On the contrary, the universe began in supreme cold. All ether and space is at absolute zero, being four hundred and sixty degrees colder than crystal ice, and has always been so. All the energy of the universe could not heat to white heat a nebulous mass the width of the solar system (six billions of miles) and the thickness of the diameter of the sun (eight hundred and sixty-five thousand miles). Even if it were possible, the heat would disappear in frigid space so quickly it would not last an hour. It needs no mathematics to demonstrate this fact. Electricity, the cosmic protean force of the universe, has its dwelling-place and home in the dark, cold ether of space. There it gathers its virgin radiate atoms for world-building and sun-feeding, and for the growth of all organic life forms. Cold, in the formation of suns and worlds, is more important than heat, for cold is a centralizing, cohesive, sphere-moulding force, while heat is repulsion, diffusion, dissolution, and ruin. Heat is needed only for animal and vegetable life, and then only in moderation. Excess of heat means decay and death. All animal and vegetable life exists and flourishes only on the surface of suns and planets, in a magnetic atmosphere that produces moderate heat. There alone is heat needed, and there alone is heat found, including heat engendered in local volcanic action in the crust of their surface. And there excessive heat destroys all animal and vegetable life.