ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISOVEBY. 



bluish. He also mentioned that the shadow of the ball upon the ring can be 

 seen on both sides of it, being on one side rather faint, but on the other quite 

 decided. This anomalous appearance he first noticed in October, 1852, and 

 as yet he could give no satisfactory explanation of it, nor of the singular 

 shape of the shadow, the convexity of which was towards the bah 1 , instead 

 of from it, as it might be expected to be. His observations were made with 

 the great Cambridge Refractor in the years 1852, 1854, and 1855. 



Prof. Pierce, at the American Association, in a discussion on the constitu- 

 tion of Saturn's ring, observed, that the analogy between the ring of Saturn 

 and the belt of the asteroids, was worthy of notice. It was to be remem- 

 bered that in order to have Saturn's ring remain continuous and flattened 

 into so thin a sheet, the radial or vertical tide in the ring produced by the 

 satellites must be neither too large nor too small But if the solar system 

 were formed according to the nebular hypothesis, the tides in the remaining 

 mass, after the formation of Jupiter, must have been, from his great size, 

 extraordinarily great, and have produced a different sort of ring at the 

 distance of the asteroids from those produced for the other planets. 



Mr. Vaughan observed that the orbits of interior planets would render 

 those of exterior ones circular, as grinding a stopper in the neck of a jar 

 rendered it circular. 



ON THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



The following is an abstract of a paper read before the American Associa- 

 tion, Albany, 1856, by Prof. Alexander, on the above subject: Prof. A. 

 observed that this hypothesis had long borne the reproach of atheism, but borne 

 it unjustly. It is not necessary in this hypothesis to substitue blind force for 

 intelligent arrangement. Any theory must fail which would substitute any- 

 thing for God's wisdom and power. Go back with this theory to a period 

 so remote that even geology never dreamed of it, and ask how did it happen 

 that a gaseous ring rolled itself up into a world so exactly adapted in the 

 length of its years and its days, its seasons and its physical constitution, to 

 the abode of intelligent races ? How did it happen, he asked it reverently, 

 but because God reigns from everlasting to everlasting, and because God is 

 true ? Laplace's hypothesis is no more atheistic than the law of gravity. It 

 has been, it is true, enormously abused and made use of for atheistic purposes; 

 but we have yet to learn that what has been abused is thereby made untrue, 

 and we shall be slow to take that lesson on the bare authority of those who, 

 upon their own showing, are but the descendants of monkeys improved. But 

 it is said, the foundation of Laplace's theory has been knocked away from 

 under it ; that the nebulas seen by Herschel, by which the hypothesis was 

 suggested, are all resolved by Lord Rosse's telescope. But this is not the fact. 

 But suppose it were, does it follow that when the tiling which suggests a 

 theory falls the theory falls with it? Columbus started for the Western 

 World iri confident expectation of reaching the Indies ; did he, because he 

 did not find the Indies, find nothing ? If we reason as those do who think 

 the resolution of nebula) disproves the nebular hypothesis, we must say that 

 this continent does not exist. But we need care nothing for nebulae so long 



