49 



RECENT ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. 



Bt the Rev. T. W. WEARE, M.A, 



There is an intimate " connexion " between the several " physical 

 •ciences," and this connexion will render the few remarks which I have been 

 requested to make this day not inappropriate for the consideration of the 

 Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club. It is the province of geology and its sister 

 sciences to inquire into and illustrate the constitution of the planet on which 

 we live, and the natural productions of the earth ; and such subjects, in the 

 general, form the staple of the investigations of our members ; yet, nevertheless, 

 we are compelled sometimes to look beyond this earth, and to gaze into tha 

 starry heavens overhead, for the causes whence have sprung most, if not all, 

 of the operations which have made this earth what it is, and which now daily 

 influence its "life" and "growth," for the terms are by no means inapplicable. 



Here, however, it seems necessary, at the outset, to explain myself when 

 I employ or accept terms or phrases which may be understood in a wrong 

 sense,— in a sense, certainly, far different from that which the writer of these 

 remarks would intend. The expressions the "life" and "growth" of the earth 

 have been taken by some to imply an independence of existence, a self-subsist- 

 ing, inherent power in itself, at once creative and developing. They have been 

 taken to imply that the earth in no wise owes such creation and its subsequent 

 development to a Creative Hand ; or if creation by such Hand be conceded, it is 

 denied that the same Power now, daily, hourly, and momentarily, sustains and 

 upholds in its multiform operations that work of His hands which " in the 

 beginning " was called forth into existence, in that day when "He spake the 

 word, and they were made," when " He commanded, and they were created." 



I have said that the causes whence have originated the workings which 

 have laid the foundations of the earth's structure, and which still modify, 

 alter, and develope that structure every instant of time as it passes, are to be 

 sought for not on this earth but beyond it. They are to found in the heavens, 

 and specially so in that great luminary, the centre of our system, which we call 

 the Sun. 



To examine, therefore, occasionally, subjects connected with the solar 

 orb, or the planets of our solar system, is not beyond our province, as students 

 of geology and of nature ; and in obedience to the request of our President, it 

 has fallen to my lot, as a duty to the society, to say a few words on this specuJ 

 subject. I could have wished that some other and abler member of our Club 

 had been invited to address you this day, for I feel that I am myself but a 

 learner in this, the grandest and most sublime of all sciences ; and I repeat that 

 I only respond to the President's call from a sense of loyalty to the Club, and 

 a hope that my remarks, such as they are, will suggest subjects of deep 

 thought and interesting investigation to many here present. The study, I can 



