86 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS. 



tance of particles at any two extremes, must have been so 

 great as to prevent them from having any appreciable attrac- 

 tion for each other. Some tendency to draw together and form 

 a single permanent mass, indeed there must have been ; but 

 this tendency at the more distant points in the mass, must 

 have been so small, and the activity of particular districts, es- 

 pecially after incipient nucleation, must have been so great, 

 and so rapidly increasing, as to give rise to subsequent and 

 numerous mundane forms and systems the very thing pro- 

 posed in our theory of segregation, and confirmed by appear- 

 ances in the heavens. 



But in the solar system, the distance from one extreme of 

 the annular formation to the other, was comparatively small ; 

 and besides this, we may suppose that the varieties of matter 

 in so small a mass, were less extreme, and that their affinities 

 were more intimate, than in the universal mass previously 

 spoken of. There was, therefore, not only a possibility, but a 

 high degree of probability, that the materials of each of the 

 rings of nebulous matter formed around our sun, would assume 

 the form of one mass, which would subsequently move in an 

 orbit whose plane and distance would be coincident with the 

 previous ring. 



But, admitting the nebular hypothesis, the multipled segre- 

 gative process actually does seem to have taken place in one 

 instance even in our solar system, and given rise to several 

 planetary bodies as the products of one ring. It i-s scarcely 

 necessary to say that we refer to those strange bodies called 

 the asteroids, which revolve at almost equal distances from 

 the sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and of which 

 there is now known to be fifteen or sixteen in number. That 

 these bodies must have originated from one primitive mass of 

 planetary matter, there can be but little doubt, as such an 



