THE EARTH AS A PLANET.—Élisée Reclus
The earth on which we dwell is one of the lowest in rank among the heavenly bodies. If an astronomer in some other planet were exploring the immensity of space, our earth, owing to its small size, might readily elude his intelligent view. A mere satellite of the sun, the volume of which is 1,255,000 times greater, the earth is but a point as compared with the immense tract of ether traversed by the planets in their courses round their central globe. The sun itself is only a spark, which seems lost amid the eighteen millions of stars which Herschel’s telescope discerned in the Milky Way; the latter, an immense agglomeration of suns and planets, which looks to us like a broad streak of light round the whole universe, is in reality nothing but a nebula. Beyond our own sky, other skies stretch far away into infinity, and others beyond these, so that light notwithstanding its prodigious rapidity, takes eternities to cross them. How small the earth seems in this fathomless abyss of stars!
In the form of its orbit, in its movements round the sun and on its own axis, in the succession of days and seasons, and in all the phenomena governed by the great law of attraction, the earth becomes the representative of all the other planets; in studying it, we study all the heavenly bodies.
Our planet is a spheroid; that is, a sphere flattened at the two poles and enlarged at the equator, so that all the circles passing through the extremity of the polar axis form ellipses. The presumed depression of each pole is about thirteen miles, nearly a three-hundredth part of the radius of the earth; but it is not altogether certain that the two poles are equally flattened. Perhaps a contrast exists between the two hemispheres, not only in the features of their continents and the distribution of seas, but also in their geometrical shape. Be this as it may, it appears to be proved that the curvature is not exactly the same at all points of the earth at an equal distance from the poles; the meridians appear without exception to be irregular ellipses.
The dimensions of the earth, as we have already seen, are almost as nothing compared with the larger celestial bodies, and especially with the extent of space which can be explored by the telescope. If light, the speed of which has been adopted in astronomy as a term of comparison, could be diffused in a curved line, it would travel seven times round the globe in a second of time; this standard of measurement, therefore, the only one suited to the stellary field, is completely inapplicable to the surface of our globe.
The isolated globule in the immensity of space which we call the earth is not motionless, as the ancients necessarily supposed, looking upon it, as they did, as the immovable base of the firmament of heaven. Hurried on in the vortex of universal vitality, our globe is ever actuated by ceaseless motion, describing in ether a series of elliptic spirals so complicated that astronomers have not yet been able to calculate their various curves. Besides rotating on its own axis, the earth describes an ellipse round the sun, and, under the influence of this body, is drawn along from one heaven to another toward distant constellations. It also oscillates and rocks on its axis, and deviates more or less from its path, to salute, as it were, every heavenly body which meets it. It is probable that it never passes a second time through the same regions of the air; yet, if it has again to traverse the spiral line of ellipses it has already described, it would be after a cycle of so many thousands of millions of years, that the earth itself, completely transformed, would be no longer the same planet.
The motion of the earth, the immediate effects of which are the most obvious to the notice of men, is the daily rotation which takes place round an ideal axis passing through the two poles. The globe turns from right to left, or from west to east—that is, in a contrary direction to the apparent motion of the sun and stars, which seem to rise in the east and to set in the west. As the earth’s axis terminates at each pole, there is least surface-motion at those points, and the motion is the more rapid in any part of the surface of the globe the further it is from the central axis. At St. Petersburg, in 60° latitude, the speed of rotation is about nine miles a minute; in Paris, it exceeds eleven and a half miles during the same brief time; on the equatorial line, which may be looked upon as the ring of an immense wheel, the speed of the earth is twice as great as it is at 60° of latitude—that is, about eighteen miles a minute, or 528 yards a second—a rapidity equal to the flight of a 26-pound cannon-ball impelled by thirteen pounds of powder. By means of this rotatory motion, the earth presents toward the sun each of its faces alternately, and each also in turn toward the comparatively darker regions of space; the succession of day and night is thus constituted. In addition to this, the rotation of the earth is an important fact which must always be taken into account in determining the direction of fluids in motion on the surface of the globe, such as streams and rivers, also marine and atmospheric currents.
The annual revolution which the earth performs round the sun follows the line of an ellipse, one of the foci of which is occupied by the central star; the eccentricity of the ellipse is nearly equal to 17/1000th of the great axis. The distance between the sun and the earth always varies according to the particular point of its orbit which the latter is traveling over. At its aphelion, that is, at its greatest remoteness, this distance is about 93¾ millions of miles; at the period of its perihelion, when the two heavenly bodies are nearest to each other, it is approximately 90,259,000 miles. The mean distance, as estimated by astronomers since the corrections of Encke, Hansen, Foucault, and Hind, is 91,839,000 miles. This extent of space is traversed by the solar rays in 8 minutes, 16 seconds; sound would take fifteen years in passing through the same distance.
As Kepler has laid down in his celebrated laws, our planet moves with an increased rapidity as it approaches nearer to the sun and travels more slowly in proportion to its distance from that luminary; but its mean speed may be estimated at nearly nineteen miles a second, or sixty times the rapidity of a ball from the cannon’s mouth. This speed, which makes one dizzy to think of, is to be added, as regards each point in the surface of the earth, to the rotatory motion which impels it round the polar axis.
After having turned round 366 times on its axis, our planet has terminated its orbicular course, and is in the same position relatively to the sun as at its starting-point; it has then accomplished its year.
This daily rotation of the earth round its axis produces the succession of days and nights, and, in the same way, its annual revolution round the sun causes the alternations of the seasons. If the axis of the earth, that is the ideal line which passes through its two poles, were perpendicular to the plane of its annual orbit, it is evident that the portion of the globe lighted by the sun would invariably extend from one pole to the other, and that in both hemispheres the days and nights would always consist of twelve hours each. But this is not the case. The earth performs its revolutionary movements in an inclined position; its ideal polar axis is sloped about 23° 28′ from a perpendicular to its plane, and this position is so far maintained that as regards the comparatively rapid succession of days and seasons it may be looked upon as invariable. This obliquity of axis causes continued changes in the phase presented to the sun. The portion of the earth illumined by the rays of the sun varies every day; for, although the planetary axis may appear to maintain its extremity in a fixed position as regards some point in infinite space, in respect to the sun it presents a constantly varying degree of inclination, in consequence of the continual motion of the earth. Twice during the course of the year it so happens that the solar rays fall perpendicularly upon the equator of the earth; at every other period in the annual revolution, sometimes the Northern and sometimes the Southern Hemisphere receives the greatest amount of light.
The astronomical year commences on the 20th of March, at the exact moment when the sun illumines the equator in a vertical direction, and the line of separation between light and shade passes through the two poles. The period of darkness is then equal to that of light, and admits of exactly twelve hours at all points of the earth. Hence the name of “equinox” (equality of nights). But after this day, which in the Northern Hemisphere serves as the starting-point of spring, the earth continues its translatory movement. In consequence of the inclination of its axis, the Northern Hemisphere, being turned toward the sun, receives a greater quantity of light, while the southern half of the globe is less vividly lighted. The vertical rays of the sun now fall more and more to the north of the equator, and the circle of light, far from arresting its progress at the poles, where the day of six months’ duration is commencing to dawn, extends far beyond it over the regions of the north. On the 21st of June, the day of the first solstice, the axis of the earth being deeply inclined toward the sun, this luminary shines on the zenith of the tropic of Cancer at 23½° north of the equator, and its light illumines the whole of the arctic zone, that is, the portion of the earth’s surface extending to 23½° round the North Pole. Then spring ceases and summer begins as regards the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, on the contrary, autumn is giving place to winter. Above the equator long days are prevailing, interrupted by short nights; while in the south it is the nights which last the longest. In the arctic zone the sun performs its apparent course of diurnal rotation entirely above the horizon. The six months’ day, which spring inaugurated at the North Pole, attains its high noon on the first day of summer. At the same moment midnight arrives in the darkness which is oppressing its antipodes.
Immediately after the 21st of June all the phenomena which took place during the preceding season are directly reversed. The sun appears to retrograde toward the southern horizon; its vertical rays cease to fall on the line of the northern tropic, and constantly approach the equator. The zone of light in the northern pole and of shade in the southern equally diminish, and the days shorten in the Northern Hemisphere in the same proportion as they lengthen in the Southern; an equilibrium is gradually being re-established between the two halves of the earth. On the 22d of September the position of the sun is again exactly above the equator, and its light just reaches both poles. The equinox, or the absolute equality of day and night in every part of the globe, occurs for the second time in the year; but this moment of equilibrium is, so to speak, but a mathematical point between the two seasons. The axis of the earth which, during the six months past, turned the North Pole toward the sun, now presents to him the South Pole; the vertical rays of the central luminary fall to the south of the earth’s equator, and the Southern Hemisphere, in its turn, is the best endowed of the two halves of the globe in the amount of light it receives and in the length of its days. In the Southern Hemisphere spring is commencing; in the Northern, autumn. Three months afterward, on the 21st of December, the sun comes directly over the southern tropic, or the tropic of Capricorn, 23½° south of the equator, and the whole of the antarctic zone is presented to the solar rays. Summer has begun in the Southern Hemisphere, and at the same time winter commences in that of the north. Then, as the globe moves on, these two seasons follow each other in their course, until at length the earth attains a position similar to that from which it started; the March equinox, the first day of spring in Europe, and the first day of autumn in Australia, commences anew the astronomical year.
The elliptical form of the earth’s orbit and the unequal pace of the globe in the various points of its course cause some considerable variations in the duration of the seasons. In fact, from the 20th of March to the 22d of September, that is, during the spring and summer of the Northern Hemisphere, the earth takes 186 days to travel over the first and largest half of its orbit, while during the winter period, from the 22d of September to the 20th of March, only 179 days are required to accomplish the second half of its journey. The summer period of the Northern Hemisphere actually exceeds by seven or eight days, or about 187 hours, the corresponding period in the southern half of the globe; added to this, in consequence of the longer space of time during which the Arctic Pole remains inclined toward the sun in the regions north of the equator, the hours of daylight exceed the hours of night, while in the south the hours of darkness predominate. This is, however, to some extent compensated for; as, although in the southern regions of the earth the summer lasts a shorter time, our planet is then closer to the sun; it is at its perihelion, and consequently receives a larger proportion of heat. There is, however, no doubt about the fact—as it is proved by a direct observation, both of the winds and currents, and also of their various temperatures—that, taking an equal distance from the equator, the southern regions are colder than those of the north.
If an equality of seasons between the two halves of the world does not at present exist, it will not fail to be established after a long series of centuries by means of a slow terrestrial movement, which has been known by the name of the precession of the equinoxes. Just as a top (if we may be allowed to avail ourselves of so old an illustration) turns round on the ground and bends over successively in every direction, thus describing with its axis an ideal cone, so the earth revolves in space, and slowly sways the line of its poles. This line, which is always sloped at an angle of 66° 32′ to the plane of the terrestrial orbit, turns round with a slight lateral motion, so as always to point to a new region of the sky; if it were prolonged indefinitely it would describe a circle amid the distant stars. As the axis of the earth is constantly changing its direction in this way, the plane of the equator must vary exactly to the same extent in its position as regards the sun. In fact, every year the exact moment of the March equinox anticipates by about twenty minutes the time at which the corresponding equinox fell in the year preceding. Each revolution of the earth round the sun brings a fresh advance of twenty minutes in the determination of the equinox; and as, during the long course of ages, the axis of the earth does not intermit in this swaying motion, the time must come, after a period of 12,900 years, that the conditions of the seasons will be altogether changed. The hemisphere which hitherto received the larger proportion of heat will receive the lesser share, and that half of the globe which has endured the larger number of wintry days will now, in its turn, enjoy the more lengthened period of summer. Then, after a second period of 12,900 years, during which the relation between the seasons of the two hemispheres is being gradually modified, the axis of the earth completes its round of swaying, which has lasted for 258 centuries, and the position of the globe in respect to the sun being nearly the same as at its starting-point, a second cycle of seasons will then commence.
We might call this period the earth’s great year, if, at the end of it, the earth were in an identical position to that which it occupied at the commencement; but this is not the case. The attraction of the moon, and the disturbances caused by the vicinity of certain planets, are incessantly modifying the curve described in the starry fields of space by the earth’s axis, and complicate it with a multitude of spirals, the various periods of which do not coincide with the great period of the swaying of the axis. The successive undulations form a continuous system of interwoven spirals. “It is a manifestation of the infinite.”
But even this is not all. In addition to all the motions of the globe which we have already pointed out—its diurnal rotation, its annual revolution round the sun, the rhythmical swaying of its axis, proved by the precession of the equinoxes, the nutation or more rapid swaying which is caused by the attraction of the moon—we must now notice the enormous translatory movement which is dragging it through endless tracks of space in the train of the sun. Not many years ago, this motion was entirely unknown to astronomers, and yet it is going on with inconceivable rapidity—a rapidity more than double that of the course of the planet round its central luminary. In one second of time the earth moves about forty-four miles toward the point of the heavens where we find the constellation of Hercules. During one year only she travels 1,382 millions of miles in this direction. Our own little earth itself is carried on from space to space, and never closes the cycle of its revolutions. Ever since the time when its particles were first grouped together, it has been describing in space the infinite spiral of its ellipses, and thus will it go on turning and oscillating in ether until the moment when it will exist no longer as an independent planet. For the earth, too, must have an end; like every other body in the universe, it comes into existence, and lives only to die when its turn comes. Already its annual motion of rotation is diminishing in speed; certainly this slackening of pace is not very observable, since no astronomer from Hipparchus to Laplace has yet exactly defined it. But, unless some cosmical force acting in a contrary direction compensates for the loss of speed caused by the friction of the tides against the bed and the shores of the ocean, the impetus of our planet will every century diminish. After various catastrophes which it is impossible to foresee, the earth will eventually completely change its course of action, and lose its independent existence, either uniting itself with other planetary bodies or breaking up into fragments; or it will perhaps terminate its course by falling like a mere aerolite upon the surface of the sun.