G58 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



smaller scale, we may see different light vapors floating around 

 lis -when standing on one of tlie highest tops of the Alps or Rocky 

 Mountains; the atoms of each nebular uiass attracting one another, 

 the, at first scarcely visible, nebula contracts, becomes more dense, 

 and after the lapse of an almost infinite time, the final result is the for- 

 mation of millions of drops of liquid melted matter of a size gigantic 

 for us to contemplate, each drop being a sun or a world, and the 

 amount of these worlds as numberless as that of the raindrops 

 falling from a summer cloud. 



The nebular matter originating the starry system of which our 

 Milky Way was formed, and of which ,ve are a part, converted 

 thus out of irregular, cloud-like masses, of the same kind as a 

 good telescope reveals to us at present in the remotest regions of 

 the heavens, fiir beyond the last trace of stars belonging to our 

 starry system, and which are insolul)le iu stars, even with the 

 best telescopes not alone, but which the spectroscope has demon- 

 strated to be real nebular gaseous masses, some of them contain- 

 ing hydrogen gas. These nebulae, when closer investigated, con- 

 sist of an accumulation of cloud-like masses, of the form called 

 bv meteoroloijists cumuli, \yhen these masses are not very irreg- 

 nlar but globular in form, by gravitation their constituent atoms 

 will be condensed into single stars of enormous splendor; when 

 not regular in outline, the first efiect of beginning gravitation wil 

 necessarily be first a contraction, till the expansive resistance of 

 the gases commences to act, then a rounding off of their limits, 

 protuberances and all projectory parts will disappear, and exterior 

 cavities will be filled up, till the mass has obtained a more rounded 

 form. In the meantime, this change may have produced a series 

 of sideward currents on the outside, which motion, when added 

 to the motion toward the common center of attraction, caused the 

 moving atoms finally to describe spiral lines around and toward 

 that centre, along which spiral line the matter moved like down 

 an inclined plane, with accelerated velocity, at the same time 

 communicating this motion to the more interior parts, which prim- 

 itively had no other motion than toward the centre, and by inequality 

 in the density of this portion of the mass, of course aflected the 

 resultant action of gravitation towards the main centre of a future 

 sun. 



As far as I am aware, the German philosopher, Dr. Zimmerman 

 was the first who showed that when diflerent parts move towards 

 centres of attraction, some particles will move sideward in relation 



