58 



Sohir and Phinffa I'lj KnAuthtn. 



which was made to throw otf concentric rings of nebiikius 

 matter. These rings being thinner at some point than else- 

 where, broke at the thinnest place, condensed into oblate 

 spheroids, and, with continued rotation, into spheres. See 

 Figures 1, 2 and 3, pages ^Q>, 57 and 58.) The rotating 

 nebulous mass contracts by loss of heat ; and, accord- 



Fig. 3.— representing the fragments of the ring, as sliown in Fig. 2, gatliered 

 up into spherical form by the nuitual attraction of their molecules. It will be 

 seen that the sijheres must naturally revolve around the solar equator in the 

 same direction that it moves, and also rutate on their axes in the same direction. 

 Moving in nearly the same orliit, they would next be gathered into a single 

 sphere, moving around the sun in the" same direction, but with eccentricities 

 dependent upon the force and directions of their cv/Hsions at the time of their 

 uniting. 



ing to a well-known law, as it contracts its velocity of 

 rotation increases. When the centrifugal and centripetal 

 forces at the equator of the mass balance one another a ring 



