7° 



STUDIES OF NATURE. 



would fometimes traverfe, in it's unbounded ca- 

 reer, the fpaces of immenfity, where no flar would 

 be perceptible during the courfe of many ages ; 

 fometimes, fwinging through regions where chance 

 might have collected the matrices of Creation, it 

 might pafs along am id ft the elementary parts of 

 Suns, aggregated by the central Laws of attrac- 

 tion, or fcattered about in fparks and in rays, by 

 thofe of projection. 



But, on the luppofition that thefe two contrary 

 forces were combined happily enough in favour 

 of the Globe, to fix it, with it's vortex, in a corner 

 of the firmament, where thefe forces fïiould act 

 without deftroying themfelves, it would prefent 

 it's Equator to the Sun with as much regularity 

 as it defcribes it's annual courfe round him. From 

 thofe two confiant motions never could be pro- 

 duced that other motion fo varied, by which it 

 daily inclines one of it's Poles toward the Sun, 

 till it's axis has formed, on the plane of it's an- 

 nual circle, an angle of twenty-three degrees and 

 an half; then that other retrograde motion, by 

 which it prefents to him, with equal regularity, 

 the opponte Pole. Far from prefenting to him 

 alternately it's Poles, in order that his fertilizing 

 heat may, by "turns, melt their ices, it would re- 

 tain them buried in eternal night and Winter, 



with 



