268 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL 



ferences of temperature, of which the latter have acted for 

 thousands of years, and still continue to act though with 

 less energy, in modifying the form and character of the 

 terrestrial surface, in some places by abrasion and denu- 

 dation, in others by the accumulation of transported 

 detritus. The sun's influence operates, moreover, in producing 

 and maintaining the electro-magnetic activity of the crust of 

 the Earth, and of the oxygen contained in the atmosphere ; 

 it acts sometimes silently and tranquilly in forces of chemical 

 attraction, and in determining the varied processes of organic 

 life in the endosmose of vegetable cells, and in the texture 

 of muscular and nervous fibres ; and sometimes with 

 more obvious and tumultuous energy, by calling forth in the 

 atmosphere luminous processes, coloured flashing polar light, 

 lightning, hurricanes, and water-spouts. 



I have attempted the enumeration in a single brief sketch 

 of the various solar influences, so far as they do not relate to 

 the position of the axis and to the path of our globe, for the 

 sake of bringing vividly into view, by means of the presen- 

 tation of grand and varied phenomena which at first sight 

 appear so heterogeneous, that character of my work which 

 tends to depict physical nature in this " book of the 

 Cosmos" as a WHOLE, moved, and as it were animated, by in- 

 ternal, often mutually compensating and counterbalancing, 

 forces or powers. But the luminous undulations act not 

 alone on the material world, decomposing and reuniting its 

 substances in fresh combinations, they do not merely call 

 forth from the bosom of the earth the tender germs of plants, 

 elaborate in leaves the substance (chlorophyll) to which 

 they owe their verdure, and in flowers their tints and 

 fragrance, and repeat a thousand, and again a thousand 



