GKOLOGY — CHAMBERLIN. 167 



substitution of Roche's formula of internal density and by other formulas de- 

 duced to satisfy special conditions. A contrasting theory was also developed 

 on the basis of a substance whose nature was such that the work of com- 

 pression was done mainly against volume-elasticity, and deductions from this 

 compared with those previously obtained. The special phases of these treat- 

 ments will be best understood from the synopsis of his report given below. 



Dr. Julius Stieglitz determined mathematically the relations of equilibrium 

 subsisting, under varying degrees of concentration, between the carbon dioxide 

 of the atmosphere and calcium sulphate and calcium carbonate and bicar- 

 bonate in solution in water in contact with the atmosphere. This involves 

 the conditions of precipitation of the calcium salts. Variations of carbon 

 dioxide from ten times greater to ten times less than the present atmospheric 

 content were employed. The rigorous calculations have been restricted for 

 the present to the simple case of the three calcium salts being present 

 alone in aqueous solutions, and proximate calculations have been made to 

 determine roughly the influence on the conditions of equilibrium of the 

 presence of sulphates other than gypsum in the proportions existing in 

 the ocean at present. The purpose of the inquiry was to lay a foundation 

 for the study of such states of equilibrium between the atmosphere and the 

 hydrosphere as may be involved in climatic problems on the one hand, and 

 in the determination of the saline content of the hydrosphere, and of the 

 nature and order of its precipitations, on the other. 



The researches of this group of colaborers and the relations of these 

 results to one another are more concretely expressed in the following syn- 

 opses of their papers, which are now in an advanced stage of preparation 

 and are soon to be submitted as a correlated group of mutually auxiliary 

 discussions, under the title given below. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO COSMOGONY AND THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS 



OF GEOLOGY, I. 



Paper I. — On the Planetesimal Factor in Cosmogony. By T. C. Chamberi,in. 



This opens with a critique upon the basal deductions usually drawn from 

 the direction of planetary rotation relative to the state of the parent nebular 

 material and currently accepted during the past century. The doctrine 

 that the aggregation of dispersed nebulous matter pursuing independent 

 orbits, and controlled by Kepler's third law, would normally give rise to 

 retrograde revolutions of the planets is challenged, and arguments for the 

 reversal of the proposition are presented. It is pointed out that the rectifi- 

 cation of this proposition is fundamental in that, in the currently accepted 

 form, it is a serious bar to the acceptance of any hypothesis founded on a 

 revolutionary state of the parent nebular matter so far as applied to the 

 solar system, while the truth of the reverse proposition is prerequisite to the 



