xliv REPORT—1852. 
selected to direct an establishment of this novel description. Such may still 
be deemed, perhaps, the least exceptionable course; but at the same time it 
may be desirable that it should be fully known, that we are not unprepared. 
on these and other points, if it be the pleasure of Her Majesty’s Government 
to desire our opinion. 
Hitherto the researches of Sidereal Astronomy, even in their widest exten- 
sion, had manifested the existence of those forces only with which we are 
familiar in our own solar system. The refinements of modern observation 
and the perfection of theoretical representation, had assured us that the 
orbits in which the double stars, immeasurably distant from us, revolve 
around each other, are governed by the same laws of molecular attraction which 
determine the orbits of the planetary bodies of our own solar system. But 
the Nebulz have revealed to us the probable existence in the yet more distant 
universe, of forces with which we were previously wholly unacquainted. The 
highest authorities in this most advanced of all the sciences, acknowledge 
themselves unable-even to conjecture the nature of the forces which have 
produced and maintain the diverse, yet obviously systematic arrangement of 
the hosts of stars which constitute those few of the Spiral Nebule which 
have been hitherto examined. Hence the importance of increasing our 
knowledge of the variety of forms in which the phenomena present them- 
selves, by a similar examination of the Southern Heavens to that which Lord 
Rosse is accomplishing in the Northern Heavens; hence also, we may believe, 
in great measure, the devotion with which his Lordship has directed the un- 
precedented instrumental power which he has created almost exclusively to 
the observation of nebule. But whilst we cannot but admire the steadiness 
of purpose with which an object regarded as of paramount importance is un- 
deviatingly pursued, we can scarcely forbear to covet at least an occasional 
glance at bodies which from their greater proximity have more intimate 
relations with ourselves, and which, when viewed with so vast an increase of 
optical power, may afford instruction of the highest value in many branches 
of physical science. In our own satellite, for example, we have the opportu- 
nity of studying the physical conformation and superficial phenomena of a 
body composed, as we believe mainly at least, of the same materials as those 
of our own globe, but possessing neither atmosphere nor sea. When we re- 
flect how much of the surface of the earth consists of sedimentary deposits, 
and consequently how large a portion of the whole field of geological research 
is occupied with strata which owe their principal characteristics to the ocean 
in which they were deposited, we cannot but anticipate many instructive 
lessons which may be furnished by the points of contrast, as well as of resem- 
blance, which the surface of the moon, viewed through Lord Rosse’s telescope, 
may present to the best judgement we are able to form of what the appearance 
of the earth would be if similarly viewed, or with what may be more difficult 
perhaps to imagine,-what we may suppose the earth would appear if it 
could be stript of its sedimentary strata, which conceal from us for the most — 

