132 COSMOS. 



render it at least probable tbat the meteoric masses of Cha- 

 teau-Ren ard may be a compound of diorite, consisting of horn- 

 blende and albite, and those of Blansko and Chantonnay com- 

 pounds of hornblende and labradorite. The proofs of the tel- 

 luric and atmospheric origin of aerolites, which it is attempt- 

 ed to base upon the oryctognostic analogies presented by these 

 bodies, do not appear to me to possess any great weight. 



Recallins: to mind the remarkable interview between New- 

 ton and Conduit at Kensington,* I would ask why the ele- 

 mentary substances that compose one group of cosmical bodies, 

 or one planetary system, may not, in a great measure, be iden- 

 tical ? Why should we not adopt this view, since we may 

 conjecture that these planetary bodies, like all the larger or 

 smaller agglomerated masses revolving round the sun, have 

 been thrown ofi^ from the once far more expanded solar at- 

 mosphere, and been formed from vaporous rings describing 

 their orbits round the central body ? We are not, it appears 

 to me, more justified in applying the term telluric to the nickel 

 and iron, the olivine and pyroxene (augite), found in meteoric 

 stones, than in indicating the German plants Avhich I found 

 beyond the Obi as European species of the flora of Northern 

 Asia. If the elementary substances composing a group of 

 cosmical bodies of different magnitudes be identical, why 

 should they not likewise, in obeying the laws of mutual at- 

 traction, blend together under definite relations of mixture, 

 composing the white glittering snow and ice in the polar zones 

 of the planet Mars, or constituting in the smaller cosmical 

 masses mineral bodies inclosing crystals of olivine, augite, and 

 labradorite ? Even in the domain of pure conjecture we should 

 not suffer ourselves to be led away by unphilosophical and ar- 

 bitrary views devoid of the support of inductive reasoning. 



Remarkable obscurations of the sun's disk, during whicli 

 the stars have been seen at mid-day (as, for instance, in the 

 obscuration of 1547, which continued for three days, and oc- 

 curred about^ the time of the eventful battle of Miihlberg), 

 can not be explained as arising from volcanic ashes or mists, 

 and were regarded by Kepler as owing either to a materia 

 cometica, or to a black cloud formed by the sooty exhalations 

 of the solar body. The shorter obscurations of 1090 and 

 1203, which continued, the one only three, and the other six 



* " Sir Isaac Newton said he took all the planets to be composed of 

 the same matter with the Earth, viz., earth, water, and stone, but vari- 

 ously concocted." — Turner, Collections for the History of Grantham^ 

 eontainhig authentic Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, p. 172. 



