JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 87 
we find on the outskirts of our solar system huge planets of a lighter 
composition than ourselves and they swing round their orbits by the 
centrifugal force obtained in their vast revolution at a period when 
the sun’s dimagnetic state allowed their masses to revolve further and 
further away, as they (we have to use the word), cooled, and because 
of sufficient density to swing far away into space. They thus assem- 
bled themselves the lightest (to put it into simple language), on the 
outside circle, the heavier next, and by a natural selection until we 
reach our earth. We may here observe that the number of moons 
are an indication of the composition of the planets, the lighter the 
more nuclei could form, and in the case of Saturn there is likely to be 
present a proportion of some element (possibly some familiar to us 
but under our conditions part of our earth), whose magnetic proper- 
ties are such that in the proportion it is in the belts of Saturn, it has 
not yet had time to condense (as we would say). 
To repeat, the lighter the planet the further away from the sun 
(the reason we have observed), and the more moons. 
If it is required or that we wish to observe the absorption of our 
atmosphere, we have but to look at a chalk cliff hundreds of feet 
high, or the deposit of coral, in which lie countless tons of oxygen 
and carbon locked, by the magnetic force with which every atom of 
our planet is imbued, with the calcium which once, together with the 
other elements, floated as our chromosphere, locked forever or until 
, on the ocean floor. Or again, the rusting of the rocks, 
bethink you of the limestone, the ore mountains, the whole earth, 
indeed, slowly but surely drinking, atom by atom, the ocean of air 
in which we live. But we may leave the question here, and in a 
crucible in our laboratory we may, in the littleness of our scope, 
repeat the great, great work of the Chemistry of Creation. 
