The earth is 500,000,000 years of age, according to Prof. Proctor, but she doesn't look it to me. The Duke of Argyll maintains that she is 10,000,000 years old last August, but what does an ordinary duke know about these things? So far as I am concerned I will put Proctor's memory against that of any low-priced duke that I have ever seen.
Newton claimed that the earth would gradually dry up and become porous, and that water would at last become a curiosity. Many believe this and are rapidly preparing their systems by a rigid course of treatment, so that they can live for years without the use of water internally or externally.
Other scientists who have sat up nights to monkey with the solar system, and thereby shattered their nervous systems, claim that the earth is getting top-heavy at the north pole, and that one of these days while we are thinking of something else, the great weight of accummulated ice, snow, and the vast accummulation of second-hand arctic relief expeditions, will jerk the earth out of its present position with so much spontaneity, and in such an extremely forthwith manner, that many people will be permanently strabismused and much bric-a-brac will be for sale at a great sacrifice. This may or may not be true. I have not been up in the arctic regions to investigate its truth or falsity, though there seems to be a growing sentiment throughout the country in favor of my going. A great many people during the past year have written me and given me their consent.
If I could take about twenty good, picked men, and go up there for the summer, instead of bringing back twenty picked men, I wouldn't mind the trip, and I feel that we really ought to have a larger colony on ice in that region than we now have.
The earth is composed of land and water. Some of the water has large chunks of ice in it. The earth revolves around its own axle once in twenty-four hours, though it seems to revolve faster than that, and to wobble a good deal during the holidays. Nothing tickles the earth more than to confuse a man when he is coming home late at night, and then to rise up suddenly and hit him in the back with a town lot. People who think there is no fun or relaxation among the heavenly bodies certainly have not studied their habits. Even the moon is a humorist.