THE SOLAR S YS TEM IN A BLAZE. 45 



spond, and the material constitution of all th^se bodies be 

 identical, without leaving a profound conviction upon our 

 minds that they have had a common origin and a common 

 history ? Such queries were raised by Leibnitz and Kant 

 upon slenderer data than we possess. Does not the hy 

 pothesis of Laplace rise almost to a demonstration ? 



But what, again, of our family of infant planets ? Each 

 sprang forth a globe of igneous vapor like their common 

 mother. Each began to repeat the process of cooling, con 

 densation, and accelerated rotation. In the cases of the 

 larger, the cooling had not reached the point of liquefac 

 tion before the rotation had become sufficiently rapid to 

 detach from one to six or seven rings, which, in turn, be 

 came satellites revolving about their planets. The larger 

 planets have had time to detach the greater number of 

 rings. Our earth threw oif but one, and became too rigid 

 to repeat the process. Mars, Venus, and Mercury all 

 smaller than the earth attained the rigid condition before 

 their acquired velocity had separated the periphery. Their 

 nights are consequently unillumined by the presence of a 

 moon. Saturn not only threw off seven rings which be 

 came satellites, but another also, which to this day hangs 

 poised in a state of unstable equilibrium as if the hand 

 of Omnipotence had steadied it, and arrested it in its ca 

 reer, to hold it up to the gaze of intelligent creatures, to 

 reveal to them the nature of events which transpired be 

 fore their arrival upon the theatre of existence. And this 

 ring is said to be a liquid a discovery for which we are 

 indebted to the analysis of an eminent American scholar, 

 but one which lends still farther corroboration to our view 

 of the genesis of worlds.* 



We have then, preserved as if by the care of Providence, 



* The only difficulty arises from the fact that the liquid ring is not self- 

 luminous. But this difficulty is not insurmountable. It may be aqueous. 



