| Show precision of gravitation allows man to live here precariously writer says has the thought occurred to you that there might be a time when summer never will come again we are accustomed to think of our 0 ur ordinary seasonal variations in temperature as being of consider able magnitude to us degrees fahrenheit is unbearably hot 30 degrees below zero insufferably cold when either of these temper agures is reached according to don aid ald B harris in the coronet we feel that nature must be exerting herself strenuously in order to make us uncomfortable in order to get even a faint idea of how critical our temperature adjust ment is we must imagine a very large heat regulator with a dial 14 inches long one end of this dial is degrees below zero 1800 1 de grees above zero the other then the normal terrestrial range of temperature is represented by a line on the dial narrower than the thickness of the thinnest piece of paper if we are to maintain tern tem pera tures on earth as they are to day the pointer must be set square ana J 4 J t ly in the center of this line if it is moved to one side or the other by even so much as the thickness of a hair average temperatures on earth will either drop far below freezing or rise above the boiling point of water it is literally true that all life on earth is I 1 hanging by a thread the thread of gravitation which links us to the sun and holds the earth within the beneficent sphere of its radiation it if this thread should break or if it should stretch ever so slightly or contract even by the smallest amount temperature con editions would so change on earth that we would all immediately freeze to death or perish in a horror of suffocation and flame |
