6^ 



would impart greater centrifugal force to the solar matter of inter- 

 planetary space, cooling its outer edges and contracting them. This 

 condensation would separate successive zones of vapour, which by 

 mutual attractions of their particles, would form concentric circles 

 circulating round the sun. These rings would divide into several 

 masses and would circulate with nearly equal velocity ; mechanical 

 considerations show how these masses would assume a spheroidal 

 form, with their rotatory motions in the same direction, viz., from west 

 to east, if one of them were of sufficient bulk to unite by its attraction 

 all the lesser masses of the same zone. It is easy to conceive how 

 the planetary system has come into being, the sun rotating from west 

 to east, the planets and their satellites rotating from west to e^st, and 

 all nearly in the same plane, the motion of rotation on their respective 

 axes being in the same direction, and nearly in the same planes of 

 their motion of projection. The human mind grows dizzy with the 

 thought ! 



The whole solar system, then, with the orbits of the diflerent 

 bodies that compose ii, would be circles, whose equators would coincide 

 with the solar equator, and if there had been no disturbing causes, such 

 as temperature, unequal condensation, chemical constituents to pro- 

 duce eccentricity of orbits and the deviation of these orbits from the 

 plane of the equator, there would have been absolute coincidence in 

 them ; but this very deviation is the key by which mathematicians have 

 been able to show the probability of such an origin. The earth then 

 with its attendant satellite may have been thus projected, thus formed 

 from an incandescent mass ; and. as it is one of the smallest 

 satellites of the sun, its size being only 1,140,000 part of that 

 luminary, and the planetary system to which it belongs, although 

 3,000,000,000 of miles in radius, is only one amongst myriads It 

 depends on the sun, and, therefore, could not have existed before the 

 sun, much less could it exist before the system to which it belong. 

 The earth, then, although one of the smallest objects in the universe 

 serves as an exponent of the laws by which the whole is governed' 

 The rays of light streaming in from remote space declare for unity and 

 in many cases for identity, of substance. ' 



One law prevades the universe . Solar spots and solar phenomena 

 are now the objects of such intense interest that physicists of every 

 country are enlarging our knowledge of the volcanic action of the sun 



