188 REV. A. IRVING, D.SC., B.A., ON 
energy of chemical affinity) must set in. As a direct result of this, 
concentration into a nucleus must follow from the law of universal 
attraction. As the nucleus (the embryo-sphere) is thus formed, 
latent heat is set free, and the temperature of the nucleus is raised, 
giving off its heat by radiation, to be absorbed for the most part by 
the surrounding nebulous matter, and ultimately lost by radiation 
into space. As dissipation of energy progresses, further conden- 
sation must follow, the newly-condensed matter gravitating towards 
the nucleus, every increase of mass in this increasing the force of 
gravitation.” 
In the light of this, which was published in 1889, but is now out of 
print, I think my remarks upon Dr. Warren Upham’s paper (7’rans. 
Vict. Inst., xxxvii) were fully justified. (Through the great kind- 
ness of Mr. E. W. Maunder, I am able to illustrate this by a few 
lantern slides from the Greenwich Observatory.) 
ITV. Earty LIFE ON THIS PLANET. 
We may proceed next to trace in the hght of science, the 
sequence of development of this planet as a member of the 
solar system, when the early oceanic waters condensed upon 
the surface. As steam was more and more condensed, with the 
gradual lowering of temperature, there must have been gradual 
dilution of the saturated brine, in which were dissolved the 
salts (chiefly sodium chloride) previously formed syuthetically 
in “the dry way” during the “ pre-oceanic stage,” as the teach- 
ing of the higher chemistry (“ physical chemistry”) compels us 
to believe; and we brush aside the fundamental conception of 
Joly’s theory, upon which he has attempted to calculate the age 
of the ocean.* Oxyven, nitrogen, and carbon were present 
(the last-named as carbon-dioxide, CO,, the result of the 
combustion of carbon during the solar phase) in the atmo- 
sphere and in the waters under the partial pressures of the 
respective gases; and these constitute along with the hydrogen 
of the water (H,O) the most important elements of all those 
forms of matter with which /ife is known to be associated on 
this globe. It is the essential function of vegetable life to take 
up crude mineral matter to build up the protoplasm, which 
forms the “physical basis of life,” as this comes under human 
observation ; although it may be equally true, as the late 
Dr. Burden Sandersont pointed out, to say that “life Gn 
* See The Age of the Earth, by Professor J. W. Sollas, F.R.S. 
t+ See his Presidential Address, British Association, Nottingham, 
1893. 
