1883.J 5^^ [Chase. 



secular aphelion of Uranus, or its locus of incipient subsidence (20.679233), 

 represents a cometary major axis with a period of 33.2473 years. The 

 period of the great "star-shower" of November 1833 and 1866 has been 

 computed at "about 33.25 years." A similar cometary major axis 

 (20.7072688), with a period of 33.315 years, would exactly represent, by 

 its apsidal loci, the mean positions of Mars and Uranus. The special 

 photodynamic indications of the first equation in Note 315, may be fairly 

 presumed to have exerted an influence on each side of the central track, 

 which would be sufBcient to account for all ot the approximations that 

 have been indicated. 



318. Geological Time. 



Dr. Haugliton {Am. Joiirn. Sci., Nov. 1882) read before the American 

 Association, in August, 1882, some "New views of Mr. George H. 

 Darwin's Theory of the Evolution of the Earth-Moon System, considered 

 as to its bearing on the question of the duration of Geological time." He 

 cites Sir William Thomson's views as to the pi-esent rigidity of the earth, 

 the probability that Saturn's rings consist of swarms of discrete meteoric 

 stones, the low specific gravity of the outer planets, the recent researches 

 connecting the periodic swarms of shooting stars with comets, Huggins's 

 comparisons of the spectroscopic appearances of comets and incandescent 

 portions of meteoric stones, and Prof. H. A. Newton's hypothesis that the 

 asteroids maybe extinct comets, to justify the position " that the earth 

 and moon when they separated from the solar nebula, did so as a swarm 

 of solid meteoric stones, each of them having the temperature of inter- 

 stellar space." He then shows that the meteoric problem resembles the 

 hydrodynamical problem, giving equations "in all respects similar to 

 those derived by Mr. Darwin, from the hypothesis of a viscous earth" 

 and placing "a cool earth and almost indefinite time at the disposal of 

 geologists." These views are in accordance with Herschel's theory of 

 subsidence, which I have found so abundantly illustrated by the actions 

 and reactions of gravitation and sethereal elasticity {Proc. A. P. 8., ix, 

 283-8, 345-9, 355-60; x, 261-9, 368-79; xi, 103-7; xii, 392-417, 518-22; 

 XV}, 184^92; xvii, 294-307, et al). Dr. Haughton refers to Prof. Newton's 

 application of the same theory to account for the asteroids and some of 

 the satellites, but he has made no allowance for the modifications of 

 planetary and satellite arrangements which would result from harmonic 

 motion. 



319. The Key-Note of Nature. 



Gardiner says(i¥imco/iVrt<MW, 2d, Ed. p. 417): "In the fifteenth century, 

 music was generally written in the key of F, and its relative D minor. 

 This order of sounds was first adopted, probably on account of its being 

 the most familiar to the ear, as it will be seen that the cries of animals, the ■ 

 buzzing of insects, the roar of storms, the murmurs of the brook, and 

 some of the grandest sounds of the natural world, are to be referred to this 

 harmony and maybe denominated The Key of Nature." In 1873, (Proc. 



