CONCENTRIC RINGS. 79 



a circular or orlitual motion, coincident with the rotating 

 motion of the general mass, which MOTION the united mo- 

 menta of their previously gravitative and emanative movements 

 would tend to sustain. 



Now, supposing that there were originally just seven kinds 

 or classes of atomic particles (no matter into how many more 

 kinds or classes these were susceptible of being subdivided), 

 it is easy to perceive that the foregoing principles would 

 probably involve something like the following results: one class 

 of atoms, rejecting the immediate companfcmship of all others, 

 would cluster around a central point, and form a sun. Each 

 of the other six classes of atoms, in like manner, rejecting the 

 immediate companionship of other atoms, while obeying the 

 impulses of its internal and strongest affinities, would assume 

 a general distance from the center determined by its specific 

 point of equilibrium, and there, contracting upon itself, 

 would form a mass of its own, in the general shape of a ring, 

 surrounding the interior solar mass. Here we have a law of 

 deposition and aggregation, corresponding to the law by which 

 particles, circulating in the human blood, are deposited and 

 aggregated in the form of muscle, cellular tissues, etc. 



The universal system, as thus definitely organized, would, 

 therefore, supposing that there are seven general varieties of 

 matter, present the form of six concentric rings of nebulous 

 matter, surrounding the seventh formation, which is the central 

 sun. But if there were a greater or less number of kinds of 

 matter, there would be a correspondingly greater or less num- 

 ber of rings, but all constructed on the same principle. Of 

 this annular structure we have a general analogue, though on 

 a small scale, in the rings of the planet Saturn, and also on a 

 larger scale, in the annular nebulae, of which there are a few 

 examples in the heavens. 



