atmosphere

58:2.1The plan­e­tary at­mo­sphere fil­ters through to the earth about one two-bil­lionth of the sun’s to­tal light em­a­na­tion. If the light falling upon North Amer­ica were paid for at the rate of two cents per kilo­watt-hour, the an­nual light bill would be up­ward of 800 quadrillion dol­lars. Chicago’s bill for sun­shine would amount to con­sid­er­ably over 100 mil­lion dol­lars a day. And it should be re­mem­bered that you re­ceive from the sun other forms of en­ergy—light is not the only so­lar con­tri­bu­tion reach­ing your at­mo­sphere. Vast so­lar en­er­gies pour in upon Uran­tia em­brac­ing wave lengths rang­ing both above and be­low the rec­og­ni­tion range of hu­man vi­sion.

58:2.2The earth’s at­mo­sphere is all but opaque to much of the so­lar ra­di­a­tion at the ex­treme ul­tra­vi­o­let end of the spec­trum. Most of these short wave lengths are ab­sorbed by a layer of ozone which ex­ists through­out a level about ten miles above the sur­face of the earth, and which ex­tends space­ward for an­other ten miles. The ozone per­me­at­ing this re­gion, at con­di­tions pre­vail­ing on the earth’s sur­face, would make a layer only one tenth of an inch thick; nev­er­the­less, this rel­a­tively small and ap­par­ently in­signif­i­cant amount of ozone pro­tects Uran­tia in­hab­i­tants from the ex­cess of these dan­ger­ous and de­struc­tive ul­tra­vi­o­let ra­di­a­tions pres­ent in sun­light. But were this ozone layer just a tri­fle thicker, you would be de­prived of the highly im­por­tant and health-giv­ing ul­tra­vi­o­let rays which now reach the earth’s sur­face, and which are an­ces­tral to one of the most es­sen­tial of your vi­ta­mins.

58:2.3And yet some of the less imag­i­na­tive of your mor­tal mech­a­nists in­sist on view­ing ma­te­rial cre­ation and hu­man evo­lu­tion as an ac­ci­dent. The Uran­tia mid­way­ers have as­sem­bled over fifty thou­sand facts of physics and chem­istry which they deem to be in­com­pat­i­ble with the laws of ac­ci­den­tal chance, and which they con­tend un­mis­tak­ably demon­strate the pres­ence of in­tel­li­gent pur­pose in the ma­te­rial cre­ation. And all of this takes no ac­count of their cat­a­logue of more than one hun­dred thou­sand find­ings out­side the do­main of physics and chem­istry which they main­tain prove the pres­ence of mind in the plan­ning, cre­ation, and main­te­nance of the ma­te­rial cos­mos.

58:2.4Your sun pours forth a ver­i­ta­ble flood of death-deal­ing rays, and your pleas­ant life on Uran­tia is due to the “for­tu­itous” in­flu­ence of more than two-score ap­par­ently ac­ci­den­tal pro­tec­tive op­er­a­tions sim­i­lar to the ac­tion of this unique ozone layer.

58:2.5Were it not for the “blan­ket­ing” ef­fect of the at­mo­sphere at night, heat would be lost by ra­di­a­tion so rapidly that life would be im­pos­si­ble of main­te­nance ex­cept by ar­ti­fi­cial pro­vi­sion.

58:2.6The lower five or six miles of the earth’s at­mo­sphere is the tro­po­sphere; this is the re­gion of winds and air cur­rents which pro­vide weather phe­nom­ena. Above this re­gion is the in­ner iono­sphere and next above is the strato­sphere. As­cend­ing from the sur­face of the earth, the tem­per­a­ture steadily falls for six or eight miles, at which height it reg­is­ters around 70 de­grees be­low zero F. This tem­per­a­ture range of from 65 to 70 de­grees be­low zero F. is un­changed in the fur­ther as­cent for forty miles; this realm of con­stant tem­per­a­ture is the strato­sphere. At a height of forty-five or fifty miles, the tem­per­a­ture be­gins to rise, and this in­crease con­tin­ues un­til, at the level of the au­ro­ral dis­plays, a tem­per­a­ture of 1200° F. is at­tained, and it is this in­tense heat that ion­izes the oxy­gen. But tem­per­a­ture in such a rar­efied at­mo­sphere is hardly com­pa­ra­ble with heat reck­on­ing at the sur­face of the earth. Bear in mind that one half of all your at­mo­sphere is to be found in the first three miles. The height of the earth’s at­mo­sphere is in­di­cated by the high­est au­ro­ral stream­ers—about four hun­dred miles.

58:2.7Au­ro­ral phe­nom­ena are di­rectly re­lated to sun­spots, those so­lar cy­clones which whirl in op­po­site di­rec­tions above and be­low the so­lar equa­tor, even as do the ter­res­trial trop­i­cal hur­ri­canes. Such at­mo­spheric dis­tur­bances whirl in op­po­site di­rec­tions when oc­cur­ring above or be­low the equa­tor.

58:2.8The power of sun­spots to al­ter light fre­quen­cies shows that these so­lar storm cen­ters func­tion as enor­mous mag­nets. Such mag­netic fields are able to hurl charged par­ti­cles from the sun­spot craters out through space to the earth’s outer at­mo­sphere, where their ion­iz­ing in­flu­ence pro­duces such spec­tac­u­lar au­ro­ral dis­plays. There­fore do you have the great­est au­ro­ral phe­nom­ena when sun­spots are at their height—or soon there­after—at which time the spots are more gen­er­ally equa­to­ri­ally sit­u­ated.

58:2.9Even the com­pass nee­dle is re­spon­sive to this so­lar in­flu­ence since it turns slightly to the east as the sun rises and slightly to the west as the sun nears set­ting. This hap­pens ev­ery day, but dur­ing the height of sun­spot cy­cles this vari­a­tion of the com­pass is twice as great. These di­ur­nal wan­der­ings of the com­pass are in re­sponse to the in­creased ion­iza­tion of the up­per at­mo­sphere, which is pro­duced by the sun­light.

58:2.10It is the pres­ence of two dif­fer­ent lev­els of elec­tri­fied con­duct­ing re­gions in the super­strat­o­sphere that ac­counts for the long-dis­tance trans­mis­sion of your long- and short-wave ra­dio­broad­casts. Your broad­cast­ing is some­times dis­turbed by the ter­rific storms which oc­ca­sion­ally rage in the realms of these outer iono­spheres.

• atmosphere

59:6.12The vast oceanic nurs­ery of life on Uran­tia has served its pur­pose. Dur­ing the long ages when the land was un­suited to sup­port life, be­fore the at­mo­sphere con­tained suf­fi­cient oxy­gen to sus­tain the higher land an­i­mals, the sea moth­ered and nur­tured the early life of the realm. Now the bi­o­logic im­por­tance of the sea pro­gres­sively di­min­ishes as the sec­ond stage of evo­lu­tion be­gins to un­fold on the land.

57:7.22,000,000,000 years ago the earth be­gan de­cid­edly to gain on the moon. Al­ways had the planet been larger than its satel­lite, but there was not so much dif­fer­ence in size un­til about this time, when enor­mous space bod­ies were cap­tured by the earth. Uran­tia was then about one fifth its pres­ent size and had be­come large enough to hold the prim­i­tive at­mo­sphere which had be­gun to ap­pear as a re­sult of the in­ter­nal el­e­men­tal con­test be­tween the heated in­te­rior and the cool­ing crust.

58:1.8And it was from such seashores of the mild and equable climes of a later age that prim­i­tive plant life found its way onto the land. There the high de­gree of car­bon in the at­mo­sphere af­forded the new land va­ri­eties of life op­por­tu­nity for speedy and lux­u­ri­ant growth. Though this at­mo­sphere was then ideal for plant growth, it con­tained such a high de­gree of car­bon diox­ide that no an­i­mal, much less man, could have lived on the face of the earth.

59:4.17The el­e­va­tion of the con­ti­nents pro­ceeded, and the at­mo­sphere was be­com­ing en­riched with oxy­gen. The earth was over­spread by vast forests of ferns one hun­dred feet high and by the pe­cu­liar trees of those days, silent forests; not a sound was heard, not even the rus­tle of a leaf, for such trees had no leaves.

59:6.10160,000,000 years ago the land was largely cov­ered with veg­e­ta­tion adapted to sup­port land-an­i­mal life, and the at­mo­sphere had be­come ideal for an­i­mal res­pi­ra­tion. Thus ends the pe­riod of ma­rine-life cur­tail­ment and those test­ing times of bi­o­logic ad­ver­sity which elim­i­nated all forms of life ex­cept such as had sur­vival value, and which were there­fore en­ti­tled to func­tion as the an­ces­tors of the more rapidly de­vel­op­ing and highly dif­fer­en­ti­ated life of the en­su­ing ages of plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion.

43:1.3Eden­tia and its as­so­ci­ated worlds have a true at­mo­sphere, the usual three-gas mix­ture which is char­ac­ter­is­tic of such ar­chi­tec­tural cre­ations, and which em­bod­ies the two el­e­ments of Uran­tian at­mo­sphere plus that mor­ontia gas suit­able for the res­pi­ra­tion of mor­ontia crea­tures. But while this at­mo­sphere is both ma­te­rial and mor­ontial, there are no storms or hur­ri­canes; nei­ther is there sum­mer nor win­ter. This ab­sence of at­mo­spheric dis­tur­bances and of sea­sonal vari­a­tion makes it pos­si­ble to em­bel­lish all out­doors on these es­pe­cially cre­ated worlds.

41:10.3The phys­i­cal as­pects of the in­di­vid­ual worlds are largely de­ter­mined by mode of ori­gin, as­tro­nom­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, and phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment. Age, size, rate of rev­o­lu­tion, and ve­loc­ity through space are also de­ter­min­ing fac­tors. Both the gas-con­trac­tion and the solid-ac­cre­tion worlds are char­ac­ter­ized by moun­tains and, dur­ing their ear­lier life, when not too small, by wa­ter and air. The molten-split and col­li­sional worlds are some­times with­out ex­ten­sive moun­tain ranges.

42:4.6Grav­ity pres­ence and ac­tion is what pre­vents the ap­pear­ance of the the­o­ret­i­cal ab­so­lute zero, for in­ter­stel­lar space does not have the tem­per­a­ture of ab­so­lute zero. Through­out all or­ga­nized space there are grav­ity-re­spond­ing en­ergy cur­rents, power cir­cuits, and ul­ti­ma­tonic ac­tiv­i­ties, as well as or­ga­niz­ing elec­tronic en­er­gies. Prac­ti­cally speak­ing, space is not empty. Even the at­mo­sphere of Uran­tia thins out in­creas­ingly un­til at about three thou­sand miles it be­gins to shade off into the av­er­age space mat­ter in this sec­tion of the uni­verse. The most nearly empty space known in Neb­a­don would yield about one hun­dred ul­ti­ma­tons—the equiv­a­lent of one elec­tron—in each cu­bic inch. Such scarcity of mat­ter is re­garded as prac­ti­cally empty space.

57:7.1Through­out these early times the space re­gions of the so­lar sys­tem were swarm­ing with small dis­rup­tive and con­den­sa­tion bod­ies, and in the ab­sence of a pro­tec­tive com­bus­tion at­mo­sphere such space bod­ies crashed di­rectly on the sur­face of Uran­tia. These in­ces­sant im­pacts kept the sur­face of the planet more or less heated, and this, to­gether with the in­creased ac­tion of grav­ity as the sphere grew larger, be­gan to set in op­er­a­tion those in­flu­ences which grad­u­ally caused the heav­ier el­e­ments, such as iron, to set­tle more and more to­ward the cen­ter of the planet.

57:7.3Def­i­nite vol­canic ac­tion dates from these times. The in­ter­nal heat of the earth con­tin­ued to be aug­mented by the deeper and deeper burial of the ra­dioac­tive or heav­ier el­e­ments brought in from space by the me­te­ors. The study of these ra­dioac­tive el­e­ments will re­veal that Uran­tia is more than one bil­lion years old on its sur­face. The ra­dium clock is your most re­li­able time­piece for mak­ing sci­en­tific es­ti­mates of the age of the planet, but all such es­ti­mates are too short be­cause the ra­dioac­tive ma­te­ri­als open to your scrutiny are all de­rived from the earth’s sur­face and hence rep­re­sent Uran­tia’s com­par­a­tively re­cent ac­quire­ments of these el­e­ments.

57:7.41,500,000,000 years ago the earth was two thirds its pres­ent size, while the moon was near­ing its pres­ent mass. Earth’s rapid gain over the moon in size en­abled it to be­gin the slow rob­bery of the lit­tle at­mo­sphere which its satel­lite orig­i­nally had.

57:7.5Vol­canic ac­tion is now at its height. The whole earth is a ver­i­ta­ble fiery in­ferno, the sur­face re­sem­bling its ear­lier molten state be­fore the heav­ier met­als grav­i­tated to­ward the cen­ter. This is the vol­canic age. Nev­er­the­less, a crust, con­sist­ing chiefly of the com­par­a­tively lighter gran­ite, is grad­u­ally form­ing. The stage is be­ing set for a planet which can some­day sup­port life.

57:7.6The prim­i­tive plan­e­tary at­mo­sphere is slowly evolv­ing, now con­tain­ing some wa­ter va­por, car­bon monox­ide, car­bon diox­ide, and hy­dro­gen chlo­ride, but there is lit­tle or no free ni­tro­gen or free oxy­gen. The at­mo­sphere of a world in the vol­canic age pre­sents a queer spec­ta­cle. In ad­di­tion to the gases enu­mer­ated it is heav­ily charged with nu­mer­ous vol­canic gases and, as the air belt ma­tures, with the com­bus­tion prod­ucts of the heavy me­te­oric show­ers which are con­stantly hurtling in upon the plan­e­tary sur­face. Such me­te­oric com­bus­tion keeps the at­mo­spheric oxy­gen very nearly ex­hausted, and the rate of me­te­oric bom­bard­ment is still tremen­dous.

57:7.7Pres­ently, the at­mo­sphere be­came more set­tled and cooled suf­fi­ciently to start pre­cip­i­ta­tion of rain on the hot rocky sur­face of the planet. For thou­sands of years Uran­tia was en­veloped in one vast and con­tin­u­ous blan­ket of steam. And dur­ing these ages the sun never shone upon the earth’s sur­face.

57:7.8Much of the car­bon of the at­mo­sphere was ab­stracted to form the car­bon­ates of the var­i­ous met­als which abounded in the su­per­fi­cial lay­ers of the planet. Later on, much greater quan­ti­ties of these car­bon gases were con­sumed by the early and pro­lific plant life.

57:7.9Even in the later pe­ri­ods the con­tin­u­ing lava flows and the in­com­ing me­te­ors kept the oxy­gen of the air al­most com­pletely used up. Even the early de­posits of the soon ap­pear­ing prim­i­tive ocean con­tain no col­ored stones or shales. And for a long time af­ter this ocean ap­peared, there was vir­tu­ally no free oxy­gen in the at­mo­sphere; and it did not ap­pear in sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ties un­til it was later gen­er­ated by the sea­weeds and other forms of veg­etable life.

57:7.10The prim­i­tive plan­e­tary at­mo­sphere of the vol­canic age af­fords lit­tle pro­tec­tion against the col­li­sional im­pacts of the me­te­oric swarms. Mil­lions upon mil­lions of me­te­ors are able to pen­e­trate such an air belt to smash against the plan­e­tary crust as solid bod­ies. But as time passes, fewer and fewer prove large enough to re­sist the ever-stronger fric­tion shield of the oxy­gen-en­rich­ing at­mo­sphere of the later eras.