RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1887 AND 1888. 

 ASTRONOMY FOR 1887, 1888. 



By William C. Wixlock. 



The followiug- record of tUe progress of Astronomy duriiig the years 

 1887 aud 1888 is ijresented in essentially the form adopted by Professor 

 Holden in 1879. It is thought that this form is most suitable for an 

 annual record, as it furnishes a series of reference notes for those espe- 

 cially interested in the study of astronomy", and at the same time a con- 

 densed review for the general reader. 



The writer has made free use of reviews and abstracts which have 

 appeared in tbe Bulletin Astronomique, the Observatory, Nature, the 

 Athenaium, and other periodicals. 



COSMOGONY. 



Dr. Carl Braun, S. J., formerly director of the Kalocsa Observatory, 

 has collected in a book of 1G7 pages a series of essays, first published 

 in the Catholic periodical Natur und Offenbarung in 1885-'8G, in which 

 he enters into a scientific discussion of the evolution of the universe, 

 more particularly the formation of the sun aud planets. His theory 

 demands a structureless, motionless, tenuous nebula, its particles en- 

 dowed with gravity and atomic repulsion. Such a nebula, if perfectly 

 homogeneous, should give birth to one portentous solitary sun. But, 

 in point of fact, it would possess innumerable, almost imperceptible, 

 local irregularities, which, forming so many centers of attraction, would 

 eventually lead to the breaking up of the nebula into a vast multitude 

 of separate fragments. On one of these, the destined progenitor of the 

 solar system, we are asked to concentrate our attention. The manner 

 of its development is, however, a widely difierent one from that traced 

 by Laplace, who assumed the needful rotation and left the rest to work 

 itself out spontaneously. Dr. Braun, on the other hand, assumes less 

 to begin with, but invokes adventitious aid in emergencies, lie ascribes 

 the rotation of the original solar nebula to the impact of masses drawn 

 in from the depths of space, comet-like projectiles, endowed with energy 

 external to the system. These mitsses would affect the outer shell cou- 



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