Energy and Ether. 1015 



and a thousand various modes of work have all been derived from the same 

 source, the force of gravity converted into energy. The conditions for 

 the production of energy, then, seem to be ponderable, matter, that is, 

 matter endowed with attraction, in masses great or small, placed at dis- 

 tances from each other. The greater the masses, and the greater the 

 distances, the greater will be the energy which they develop; the de- 

 velopment of the energy depending on the diminution of the distance 

 by the motion of the bodies toward each other; and when they come to- 

 gether the greatest energy possible to that combination is developed. 

 When the distances apart are the greatest, the potential energy is the 

 greatest, and the force of attraction the least. When the bodies have 

 rushed together, and distance is annihilated, the kinetic energy is the 

 greatest, and the force of attraction the greatest. Thus potential and 

 kinetic energy are reciprocal, one being exchanged for the other, and so 

 are distance and force. 



When masses big enough to form a solar system have rushed to- 

 gether from distances great enough to generate energ}' of heat sufficient 

 to thoroughly disintegrate them and disperse their atoms in the form of 

 an incandescent gas, the foundation for a solar system may be said to 

 have been laid. Supposing the first effect of the collision and the sub- 

 sequent dispersion to have been to set the entire mass spinning around 

 a common center, as such collisions seen in whirlpools, whirlwinds, cy- 

 clones, &c. , always do, the next effect would be a shaping of the mass 

 into a spheroid which would soon become flattened at the poles or points 

 of little motion, and greatly elongated through the equator or parts 

 having the greatest centrifugal motion. The radiation of heat into 

 space would allow attraction to draw the particles closer together, and 

 thus reduce the bulk of the mass, which would be accompanied by an 

 increase in the rapidity of rotation. The external part by thus acquir- 

 ing a different motion from the central part, would tend to become inde- 

 pendent of it. Thus a vast shell of gaseous matter very thin at its 

 poles but of great perpendicular thickness in its equatorial parts, would 

 become detached from the rest, and from its attraction for the material 

 directly below it, in competition with the central nucleus which would 

 draw it the other way, there would result a vast space between the shell 

 and the central mass comparatively free from matter. The continued 

 shrinking of the central mass would cause it to disengage a second shell 

 in the same manner as the first, and this operation might be repeated a 

 number of times. In the case of our solar system there appear to 

 have been nine of these spherical jackets cast off. In the process of 

 forming a planet from one of these hollow spheres, the swiftly moving 

 bulky equatorial parts would gradually draw to themselves the smaller 

 and slowly moving parts about the polar ends, a process which would 



