14 THE BODIES OF SPACE, 



instead of being flattened ; but this is accounted for by the 

 learned professor in a satisfactory way. 



A little after the stoppage of the rotatory motion of the disc, 

 the ring of oil, losing its own motion, gathers once more into a 

 sphere. If, however, a smaller disc be used, and its rotation 

 continued after the separation of the ring, rotatory motion and 

 centrifugal force will be generated in the alcoholic fluid, and 

 the oil-ring, thus prevented from returning into the globular 

 form, divides itself into several isolated masses, each of which 

 immediately takes the globular form. These " are almost always 

 seen to assume, at the instant of their formation, a movement 

 of rotation upon themselves, a movement which constantly 

 takes place in the same direction as that of the ring. Moreover, 

 as the ring, at the instant of its rupture, had still a remainder 

 of velocity, the spheres to which it has given birth tend to fly 

 off" at a tangent ; but as, on the other hand, the disc, turning 

 in the alcoholic fluid, has impressed on this a movement of 

 rotation, the spheres are especially carried along by this last 

 movement, and revolve for some time around the disc. Those 

 which revolve at the same time upon themselves, consequently 

 then present the curious spectacle of planets revolving at the same 

 time upon themselves and in their orbits. Finally besides three 

 or four large spheres into which the ring resolves itself, there 

 are almost always produced one or two very small ones, which 

 may thus be compared to satellites. The experiment presents, 

 as we see, an image in miniature of the formation of the planets, 

 according to the hypothesis of Laplace, by the rupture of the 

 cosmical rings attributable to the condensation of the solar at- 

 mosphere." J It must of course be admitted that the process 

 of the experiment was of a reverse kind, and attended, as far 

 as M. Plateau's description informs us, by slightly various 

 effects ; but the general reflection which it gives of Laplace's 

 cosmogony is certainly such as to confer upon that theory a 

 strong probability. 



To conclude this section of the great history. What we 

 see is a boundless multitude of bodies with vast empty 

 spaces between. We know of certain motions amongst these 

 bodies ; of other and grander translations we are beginning 

 to get some knowledge. Besides this idea of locality and 

 movement, we have the equally certain one of a former soft 



1 See Professor Plateau on the phenomena presented by a free liquid 

 mass withdrawn from the action of gravity. Taylor's Scientific Memoirs, 

 Nov. 1844. 



