THE PLANETS, ARE THEY INHABITED ? 



identified with them. Clouds are DO more parts of the atmo- 

 sphere than the mud and sand which float in a turbid river are 

 parts of its waters. Water is converted into vapour by the 

 agency of the sun and wind. This vapour, when it escapt-s 

 from the surface of the liquid, is generally lighter, bulk for bulk, 

 than that part of the atmosphere contiguous to it. It rises into 

 more exalted regions, where, by the agency of cold, and by 

 electricity, it is made to resume its liquid state, but in such 

 minute particles that it floats and forms those semi-opaque 

 masses called clouds. Clouds are, then, in fact, water existing 

 in a very minute state of mechanical division, and affected iu 

 peculiar ways by electricity. 



5. When these particles are caused to coalesce into drops or 

 spherules of water an effect which may arise from temperature 

 or electricity, or both combined their weight renders their 

 further suspension impossible, and they descend to the surface 

 In the form of rain : or if the cold be so great as to congeal the 

 particles before they coalesce into globules, they descend in the 

 'form of snow ; or, finally, if by the sudden evolution of heat 

 caused by electrical influences their solidification is eifected in 



drops, they come down in the form of hail. 



Thus wherever the existence of clouds is made manifest, there 

 WATER must exist ; there EVAPORATION must go on ; there ELEC- 

 TRICITY, with its train of kindred phenomena, must reign ; there 

 IJAINS must fall ; there HAIL and SNOW must descend. 



6. That healthful and refreshing winds agitate the atmospheres 

 of the group of worlds in the centre of which our sun presides, 

 and of which it is the common bond that showers refresh their 

 surfaces that their climates and seasons are modified by evapo- 

 ration that their continents are bounded by seas and oceans 

 that intercourse is facilitated by winds which convert the surfaces 

 of their waters into highroads for nations these and a thousand 

 other consequences of what has been here explained, all tending 

 to one conclusion that these various globes are placed in the 

 'System for the same purpose as the earth that they are in fact, 

 the dwellings of beings in all respects, even from their lowest 

 physical wants to their highest social advantages, like ourselves, 

 crowd upon the mind so thickly that we can scarcely give them 

 expression in a clear and intelligible order. 



It may be asked whether by immediate observation we may 

 not perceive the geographical surfaces of the planets, so as to 

 declare by direct survey their divisions of land and water, 

 mountain and valley, and other varieties of surface. 



Even the most superficial view of the subject will render 

 apparent some great difficulties which mtibt obstruct such an 

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