321 



Cosmological View. 



Geological Society, Someuset House, 

 March 10, 1852. 



S1R5 — Mr Nasmyth having brought forward an hypothesis 

 respecting the origin of light, which I have just met with in 

 your last number, I am emboldened to mention an hypo- 

 thesis on a kindred subject which occurred to me some 

 months past. 



Sir J. Herschel considers that the sun's outer atmosphere 

 is the source of light to our system ; and has, I believe, sug- 

 gested that the sun himself, as well as the rest of the system, 

 has been gradually condensed from a gaseous condition. 

 Now, combining these two ideas, we may conceive of a period 

 when, though both the sun and the earth were in nearly their 

 present state of condensation, the luminous atmosphere of 

 the sun was vastly more extended than it now is, and reached 

 beyond the limits of our orbit. Under these conditions, the 

 earth would receive a nearly uniform amount of external 

 heat, and polar climates would not have begun to exist. We 

 should thus be enabled to account for facts in geology which 

 are more difficult of explanation than the glacial epoch,* 

 namely, the occurrence of tropical forms of organic life in 

 temperate and even in arctic latitudes, and the approach to 

 a cosmopolitan distribution of species which we meet with in 

 descending the geological series. 



This hypothesis — for to no higher title does it aspire — will 

 as well tally with the description in Gen. i. of the prior crea- 

 tion of light, as does that advanced by Mr Nasmyth, though 

 both are open to the objection that day and night are men- 

 tioned before the creation of the sun. This, however, is a 

 difficulty which has perhaps not been satisfactorily solved on 

 any supposition. 



In favour of the view which I am bringing forward, it may 

 be observed that in Gen. i. 14 the Hebrew for " lights," is 

 rather " luminaries or \\^\i-hearersr 



* See Hopkins on Changes of Climate, Geol. Quart. Journal, Feb. 1852. 

 VOL. LII. NO. CIV. — APRIL 1852. X 



