156 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
be as completely covered with sea as is at present the actual one: that 
present southern hemisphere, which to the human race of that period 
shall have become the northern hemisphere of this planet. Thus, 
through the magnificent revolution attending the Earth’s perihelion 
point, the Creator has ordained the gradual alternate regeneration of 
her two hemispheres, thereby maintaining, through 21,000 years after 
another, that vital principle of planetary reproductiveness constituting, 
throughout infinitude, the stamp of Omnipotence. And thus, by an 
unheeded, but unremitting operation, are the present fathomless 
abysses of ocean fructifying into the luxuriant valleys of far distant 
future ages, and its trackless deserts, into the majestic continents aud 
fertile islands, of remote generations; destined sites of the splendid 
states and empires, irradiating the next hemispheric mutation. Hence ~ 
the durability of this globe, as a planet. Hence, throughout cycles, 
incalculable by man, may the Earth hold on her course of fulness and 
gladness, in ceaseless harmony with the countless other glorious worlds 
of an Omniscient Creator.” 
Miss Burton represents NeBuL«® as groups or shoals, of divers 
forms and sizes, occupying regions of space so infinitely remote as not 
to be discernible, except through telescopes of very superior power, 
and then they appear in the fashion of light clouds or vapours; but 
many of them, when examined through the very strongest magnifiers 
hitherto known, exhibit one or two, or sometimes three, luminous bo- 
dies, apparently appertaining to such light clouds or vapours. The 
most important (ebu/a to human apprehension, she says, is the 
Milky Way, which comprises a multitude of these nebulous forms ; 
and, after descanting on the multiplicity, diversity, and vastness of 
these wonderful bodies, she proceeds to delineate a classification of 
them, and concludes with an animated sketch on the “ Regions of 
Nebulosity.” From this we draw our second extract :— 
* When we contemplate the regions of nebulosity among the multi- 
plicity of objects either too vast or too minute for unassisted human 
perception, not the least wonderful are the particles of which they are 
composed. Although excessive rarity, or minuteness, places the com- 
ponent particles of nebulosity beyond any term efficiently expressive 
of smallness, yet each of them possesses a determinate bulk, and is 
allied, by definite angular construction, to a specific class. The count- 
less varieties, both in form and substance, of these particles, exhibit a 
diversity in creative operation amounting to infinite; while the har- 
monious uniformity of its designs is equally apparent from the fact 
that, how much soever different species of nebulous particles vary in 
other particulars, yet all correspond in possessing affinity towards 
their own specific class. The classification of each particle may, there- 
fore, be held as determined by its specific angular construction, and 
its rotatory action, by the modification either of the electric or mag- 
netic effluvia, to which the polarity of that construction bears affinity. 
Here it may not be unappropriate to remark that the magnetic prin- 
ciple seems an agent more powerful in action, and wider in scope, 
