58 



Soliii- (I lid I'huiiUit'ij Kriil nt'iiiti. 



which was made to throw oif concentric rings of nebnlons 

 matter. These rings being tliinner at some i»oint than else- 

 where, broke at the thinnest phice, condensed into obhite 

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

 Figures 1, 2 and 3, pages 56, 57 and 58.) The rotating- 

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



Fig. 3.— representing the fragments of the ring, as shown in Fig. 2, gathered 

 up into sjiherical form liy the mutual attraction of their molecoles. It will be 

 seen that the spheres must naturally revolve around the solar eciuator in the 

 same direction that it moves, and also rotate 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 

 (fependent upon the force and directions of their collisions at the time of their 

 uniting. 



mg 



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 



