BicKERTON. — On the Genesis of Worlds and Systevis. 187 



Art. XV. — On the Genesis of Wor-lds and Systems. By Prof. A. W. Bicker« 

 TON, F.C.S., President of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. 

 [Read before the Philosophical Itistitute of Canterbury, Srd April, 1879.] * 

 After much consideration, I have decided to depart from the custom of 

 giving a general view of the advance of science, feeling that the stupendous 

 strides of the last few years are more fitting a course of lectures than a 

 short address. I shall therefore devote the time at my disposal to one 

 branch of science, viz,, astronomy, which, from our occupying the southern 

 portion of the globe, is one of the few physical sciences which possess local 

 interest. 



A new country, with its strange famia and flora, is the naturalist's 

 paradise. But the isolation, the want of differentiation in his studies and 

 laboratory work, must ever render it a desert to the experimental physicist. 

 The impossibility of ascertaining fully the progress of any branch of science 

 by the few intellectual rays which reach so far from the focus of intelli- 

 gence, will also tell in preventing much original research. But of course 

 locally characteristic natural phenomena, if any exist, form an exception 

 to this rule. This is the position of stellar astronomy : a circle of the 

 heavens is hidden from the view of the great men of Europe, and, as it 

 happens, a circle singularly rich in phenomena, containing, as it does, that 

 magnificent region of the galaxy about the Southern Cross and the two 

 Magellanic Clouds. 



It is true that the harvest of this work was reaped by Herschel with his 

 great reflector at the Cape. But there is still work for the gleaner, and in 

 a large field of research it may be considered that his observations were only 

 seed sown, the harvest of which may be reaped by future observers — I refer 

 to all those phenomena in which the effect of time gives the chief interest. 



As the study of astronomy has thus an undoubted claim upon our con- 

 sideration, I shall not apologize for offering to you a brief accomat of a new 

 cosmical hypothesis which has occupied a considerable portion of the Society's 

 time lately. An hypothesis which appears to offer a possible explanation 

 of many of the more peculiar among celestial phenomena. It certainly 

 suggests many definite fields of astronomical research, the results of which, 

 even if unfavourable to the hypothesis, cannot fail to be of value to science. 



To the mathematician, also, it offers many novel problems. In fact, if 

 this theory should attract attention so far as to pass into that first stage of 

 success as to be called fallacious in principle, impracticable in detail, and 

 absurd on the face of it ; or, better still, should it succeed so weU as to pro- 

 mote rational discussion worth answering, or obtain that highest eulogy the 

 world knows how to give — of being discovered not to be new, it is probable 



* President's Anniversary Address. 



