Evidence of the Vast Age of the Universe.
“I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars, of which the light, it can be proved, must take two millions of years to reach this earth. Nay more, if those distant bodies had ceased to exist two million of years ago, we should still see them, as the light would travel after the body was gone. * * *
“The light from the nearest star requires some three years to reach the earth. From a star one thousand three hundred and forty-four times farther it would require about four thousand years, and for such a cluster as we have imagined, no less than six thousand years are needed.” (Sir Wm. Herschell, “Life and Works of Sir Wm. Herschell” by Edward S. Holden.)
Sir Wm. Thomson, in Encyclopedia Britannica, article, Geology, showed from data available at the time, “that the superficial consolidation of the globe (this earth) could not have occurred less than twenty millions of years ago.”
“And as any table of the earth’s crust will show you there are rocks above and below the chalk, for the production of which millions heaped upon millions of years were required.” (Clodd’s “Childhood of Religions.”)
Such eminent scientists as Sir Wm. Thomson, Helmholtz, Newcomb, Croll, Bishop, Reade, Lyell, Darwin, and others think it would have taken many millions of years for the original nebulæ to condense to the present dimensions of the sun.