82 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS. 



In this way, therefore, as may be rationally supposed, 

 originated all the nebulae, clusters, stellar systems, or firma 

 ments, which the telescope has revealed, together with untold 

 millions of others of like nature, which lie forever concealed 

 from mortal vision ! In other words, each one of these 

 originated from a fragment of the periphery of a great wheel 

 or circle of nebulous materials, surrounding the great Center 

 of all centers. 



This hypothesis, relative to the origin of the stellar clusters, 

 is not without strong confirmatory evidence in celestial ap- 

 pearances. I have suggested that the vivifying emanations 

 from the central sun, acting upon the angular masses of 

 nebulous matter, would produce planes 'of rarefaction and 

 cleavage in various directions, from which planes each result- 

 ant insulated mass, as also each of its subordinate and in- 

 cluded masses, would contract upon its own center. It is 

 evident, therefore, that each general mass, with its included 

 sub-masses, would first be of an angular form on the same 

 principle on which any cooling and contracting substance 

 tends to separate into angular masses, and as is sometimes 

 exemplified in the cleavages of igneous rocks. But, by the 

 force of internal gravity, and the rotatory motion which, 

 according to principles before explained, would naturally 

 result therefrom, these nebulous masses would all tend, as 

 they progressed, to assume the elliptical or spherical form. 

 Now, this is precisely what is observed in relation to the 

 nebulous and stellar masses of space. Some are of exceed- 

 ingly irregular form, having long and sharp projections from 

 their sides, and are of irregularly alternating degrees of density 

 in their centers, as though they had, by variously intersecting 

 forces, been subdivided into numerous inferior compartments. 

 Commencing at these extreme irregularities, there are all 



