718 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



atmosphere, are, in my estimation quite too chilling. To credit 

 them would be to prostrate tjie beautiful doctrines of conservation 

 of force in the undulation of etJier, so well taught by modern sci- 

 ence and so generally received by modern philosophers. Where 

 could be stored the force necessary to endow an imponderable ray 

 with the genial and vivifying heat of the sun-beam? Not in the 

 atmosphere; certainly not in the ray. 



It Vv'ill not be out of place here to suggest an hypothesis in re- 

 gard to the sun spots. 



When earthy matter in a molten state, cools by radiation and 

 crystal izes, it is lighter than the molten mass and floats upon it; 

 but v/hen the crystaline mass cools, it contracts, becomes heavier 

 and tends to sink. After contemplating the peculiar appearances, 

 motions and evolutions of the sun's spots, may we not conclude it 

 is possible, nay, probable, that they are the manifestation of an 

 effort, on the part of nature, under the operation of well known 

 laws, at solar incrustation ? 



May not a mass commencing to crystalize, extend its borders 

 and increase upon its under surface; the upper portion at the same 

 time cooling more and more, until the increasing specific gravity, 

 aided by the buffetings of waves and currents, causes it to be sub- 

 merged and to melt and disappear ? 



If the sun is approaching a great astral winter, as has been sug- 

 gested, it seems reasonable to suppose that the spots will increase, 

 and that in less perhaps than a million of years they may so accu- 

 mulate, as finally to coalesce and form a solid crust, like that of 

 our earth. Then the "God of day" will cease to shine and be 

 counted among the lost stars. 



Dr. P. 11. Vanderweyde read the following paper, 



Ox THE Instability and Tki^'sitoey Condition of the Planetary 



System. 



With all due respect to the great men who were our teachers in 

 the science of Cosmogony, at the head of which stand Newton 

 'and Laplace, we need not necessarily adopt all the conclusions 

 they arrived at, as those conclusions were founded merely on the 

 facts known at the time they lived. At present our knowledge 

 is increasing in a ratio never known l)cfore, and, as is always the 

 case, chiefly in a direction in which we did not expect to progress 

 so immensely. New facts are accumulating all around us, we 

 commence to invent and discover the art of making inventions and 



