Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1882 — A Wonderful Fact. [ARTICLE]

A Wonderful Fact.

The earth is one of the smaller planets in our system, and seems of little account compared with such giant masses as Jupiter and Saturn. It lost a huge slice of territory when it parted with the moon, faring better, however, than the unknown planet between Mars and Jupiter, which was broken up by some great convulsion into many parts, 120 of which our busy astronomers have already discovered. But the earth may some day make up for its great loss, for it has not reached its full growth. It is gaining in mass slowly and by small accretions, but, as the old proverb runs, “every little helps.” The nebulous matter diffused through space, or compacted into innumerable minute bodies moving round the sun, is instantly gathered by the earth in its annual sweep, and becomes a part of its own material. Some astronomers compnte that 150,000 metesrs fall every day upon the earth, while others place the number still higher. Prof. Proctor says, “I have shown by a very moderate computation that the eartn increases in mass each year by more than 20,000 tons. Since she was first formed, then, she must have increased by jnillions of millions of tons. ”