simply cooling, nor is its heat caused by combustion; for, "If the sun
were a vast globe of solid anthracite, in less than 5,000 years, it
would be burned to a cinder." We quote from Prof. Young's Astronomy:
"We can only say that while no other theory yet proposed meets the
conditions of the problem, this [contraction theory] appears to do so
perfectly, and therefore has high probability in its favor." "No
conclusion of Geometry," he continues, "is more certain than
this,--that the shrinkage of the sun to its present dimensions, from a
diameter larger than that of the orbit of Neptune, the remotest of the
planets, _would generate about 18,000,000 times as much heat as the
sun now radiates in a year_. Hence, if the sun's heat has been and
still is wholly due to the contraction of its mass, it can not have
been radiating heat at the present rate, on the shrinkage hypothesis,
for more than 18,000,000 years; and on that hypothesis, the solar
system in anything like its present condition, can not be much more
than as old as that." If so, evolution, on account of lack of time,
can not possibly be true. If we add many millions of years to this
number, or double it more than once, the time is not yet
sufficient. For if the sun is 25,000,000, or even 50,000,000 years
old, by the time the planets are thrown off, in turn, from Neptune to
the earth, and then the earth cooled sufficiently for animal life,
only a few million years would be left for evolution, a mere fraction
of the time required. This is a mathematical demonstration that
evolution can not be true. The same calculations, 18,000,000 to
20,000,000 years, have been made by Lord Kelvin, Prof. Todd and other
astronomers.

2. The thickness of the earth's crust is fatal to the theory of the
great age of the earth, required by evolution. The temperature
increases as we descend into the earth, about one degree for every 50