Webb. — On Astronomy and Celestial Physics. liii 



fonnd to be nebulous, the nebulosity being most condensed near it. If, as 

 Mr. Le Sueur conjectured, this star had consumed the nebulous matter which 

 formerly surrounded it, it would appear to have found a fresh envelope. 



Mankind for ages believed that the celestial orbs ruled the destinies of 

 men in some occult but very direct manner. Science is gradually restoring to 

 lis some phases of this faith. The influence which the physical circumstances 

 that surround him have upon the character and actions of the individual 

 man, has been made clear by the comparison and classification of innumerable 

 observations. The statistics of human life, of human action, and human 

 manners, have been brought into conjunction with those of the physical con- 

 ditions to which our race is subjected, and wonderful and most convincing 

 coincidences have been revealed ; and at the same time we have been 

 learning how intimate is the tie which binds together all things that exist in 

 the universe. It is no new thing to acknowledge the rule which the sun has 

 over the physical conditions which prevail upon our planet ; but it is only of 

 late years that we have been taught to appreciate at their full intent the 

 influences which are brought to bear upon the sun from without — influences 

 which dictate the character of his dealings with the subordinate members of 

 this system, of which he is the ruling centre. The time has gone by when the 

 sun was accepted as a self-sufficient source of light, and heat, and power. 

 Irreverent investigators inquire into his pedigree, speculate upon the sources 

 of his annual income of force, calculate the probable length of his present 

 existence, and dogmatize on the nature of the " future state " that is provided 

 for him. We have long since satisfied ourselves that there is no certainty 

 about the sun ; we suspect him of being influenced by the fair face of any 

 planet that happens to be in aphelion, accuse him of consuming comets behind 

 the scenes, and of devouring myriads of asteroids to keep himself and his 

 subject planets warm. And so we have come to recognize the fact that, as the 

 moral condition of a nation depends upon its harvests, so do these harvests 

 depend upon the physical condition of the sun's surface, whilst this, in its 

 turn, depends upon other thiugs of which we have as yet but little knowledge, 

 but of which we know enough to certify us that they again are not indepen- 

 dent phenomena, but are moulded and made what we find them by the flux 

 and reflux of cosmical forces whose origin is far beyond our ken, and of whose 

 mode of action we have but a faint glimmer of knowledge. 



Such reflections as these are inevitably excited in the minds of those who 

 address themselves to the study of the current labours and speculations of 

 their fellow men in the departments of science with which we are occupied to- 

 night. The past winter in the Northern Hemisphere, as with ourselves, was 

 remarkable for the occasional intensity of its cold, and general severity of its 

 weather. In November and December the cold was very severe, then 



