Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of DiscussionsSpencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
But we have no need to rest in analogy. On considering what must happen in
a rotating gaseous spheroid having currents moving as above described, we
shall see that external condensation is a corollary. A nebulous mass, when
it has arrived at this stage, will consist of an aeriform mixture of
various matters; the heavier and more condensible matters being contained
in the rarer or less condensible, in the same way that water is contained
in air. And the inference must be, that at a certain stage, some of these
denser matters will be precipitated in the shape of a cloud.[P]
[P] The reader will perhaps say that this process is the one
described as having taken place early in the history of nebular
evolution; and this is true. But the same actions will be
repeated in media of different densities.
Now, what are the laws of precipitation from gases? If a gas through which
some other substance is diffused in a gaseous state, expands in consequence
of the removal of pressure, it will, when the rarefaction and consequent
cooling reach a certain point, begin to let fall the suspended substance.
Conversely, if, a gas, saturated even with some substance, is subject to
increased pressure, and is allowed to retain the additional heat which that
pressure generates; so far from letting fall what it contains, it will gain
the power to take up more. See then, the inference respecting condensation
in a nebulous spheroid. The currents proceeding from the equator to the
centre, subject to increasing pressure, and acquiring the heat due both to
this increasing pressure and to arrested motion, will have no tendency to
deposit their suspended substances, but rather the reverse: a formation of
liquid matter at the centre of the mass will be impossible. Contrariwise,
the gaseous currents moving from the centre to the poles and thence to the
equator, expanding as they go, first from diminished pressure and
afterwards from increased centrifugal force; and losing heat, not only by
expansion, but by more rapid radiation; will have less and less power to
retain the matter diffused through them. The earliest precipitation will
take place in the region of extremest rarefaction; namely, about the
equator. An equatorial belt of cloud will be first formed, and widened into
a zone, will by-and-by begin to condense into liquid.[Q] Gradually this
liquid film will extend itself on each side the equator, and encroaching on
the two hemispheres, will eventually close over at the poles: thus
producing a thin hollow globe, or rather spheroid, filled with gaseous
matter. We do not mean that this condensation will take place at the very
outermost surface; for probably, round the denser gases forming the
principal mass, there will extend strata of gases too rare and too cool to
be entangled in these processes. It is the surface of this inner spheroid
of denser gases to which our reasoning points as the place of earliest
condensation.
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