248 Resisting Medium. 



ceive how any other mode of distribution than what is here sup- 

 posed eventually to obtain, could be permmient. 



Those who admit the nebular theory, would hardly contend 

 that the ether has been otherwise circumstanced since the detach- 

 ment of the planetary rings. While each expanded belt or atten- 

 uated globe was describing the orbit which the planet has since 

 described, a medium capable of resisting its motions, could not 

 remain at rest. There is no known reason why an incongruity of 

 angular velocity, and partial equilibrium of the centripetal and 

 centrifugal forces, capable of separating the zones of grosser mat- 

 ter exceedingly rarefied, should fail to produce analogous effects 

 upon any other fluid, governed by similar laws, and having like 

 diversities of velocity. And should the belts of ether, having their 

 several appropriate rates of motion, and separated by considerable 

 intervals, probably, even before the completion of the earlier ad- 

 justments of the system, subsequently interfere with each other, 

 or be otherwise disturbed, the same causes which would be capa- 

 ble of producing it, must operate to restore the arrangement. 



Should it be assumed that this medium is, and must necessarily 

 remain continuous, and that such a disposition of it as has been 

 indicated, is impossible, it is conceded that the system must ex- 

 perience important changes. The impropriety of any such as- 

 sumption has been already shown. Since then no disposition or 

 tendency of the resisting medium inconsistent with the purposes 

 of our argument, is at all probable, and since the planets cannot 

 be retarded by a medium having the same periodical revolution 

 with themselves, it is conceived that we are justified in concluding 

 that we have no sufficient reason to infer that these bodies must, 

 from any such cause, fall to the sun. 



But although what has been already advanced is deemed suffi- 

 cient to evince that the orbits of the principal planets are not likely 

 to experience any essential alteration from the causes under dis- 

 cussion, the possible effects upon the rotation of the primaries 

 upon their axes, and upon all the motions of their secondaries, 

 remain to be noticed. Such motions, whenever they take place 

 in a zone of ethereal fluid, must evidently be resisted until the 

 contiguous portions acquire an equal rotation. This could not 

 happen, until they should cease to be retarded by other and exte- 

 rior portions ; but that it must sooner or later take place is evident 

 from the following considerations. 



