LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS. 



perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way), suggesting the 

 idea of a very remote approximation to the horizontal 

 boundary of the stratum. Though it is a thought bordering 

 on the confines of the human concept! ve powers, and thus 

 penetrating somewhat into the realms of uncertainty and doubt, 

 it may still be propounded as a query Whether the plane of 

 this grand stratum of sub-universes, may not indicate the 

 direction of the plane of the great Ring of original nebulous 

 materials, from which these nebulae and stellar systems be- 

 come segregated and resolved into their present forms, and 

 whether all firmamental creations, revealed by the telescope, 

 may not thus be included within a comparatively small 

 fraction of a segment of one of the great cosmical rings which 

 surround the Center of all centers ? Though a question so 

 profound can probably never be finally decided by the human 

 intellect, the indication of this grand plane of cosmical for- 

 mations, tends, so far as it bears upon the subject, to confirm 

 our hypothesis, that all visible neb"" 1 ^ ^nd stellar systems, 

 are segregations from one general mass of nebulous matter, 

 originally existing on one general plane ; and the analogies of 

 all known definite motions and formations in the stellar 

 spaces, point to the idea of a circular or elliptical form as 

 characterizing this grand plane of creations. 



While this theory gives definite form and order to the sub- 

 ject of our contemplations, it opens the mind to the most 

 sublime conceptions of magnitudes and distances. Herschel 

 estimated that his great telescope would reveal the existence 

 of a star so far removed into space that light, traveling at 

 the rate of twelve millions of miles in a minute, would require 

 three thousand five hundred and forty-one years to pass from 

 that star to our earth. Such, therefore, may be supposed to 

 be the approximate distance of the remotest of those luminous 



