450 Prof, P. E. Chase on the Nebular Hypothesis. 



representing a change from parabolic to circular orbits and a 

 condensation of two volumes into one. 



At the parabolic limit between complete dissociation and 

 incipient aggregation, if the 

 focal abscissae # = V F, is 

 taken as the unit of wave- 

 length, the value of the suc- 

 cessive ordinates, as well as 

 the velocity communicated 

 by uniform wave influence 

 acting through the entire 

 length of the ordinates, will 

 be represented by *J kx n ; 

 the resulting vis viva, and 

 the consequent length of 

 path, or major axis, commu- 

 nicable against uniform re- 

 sistance, by 4#„ ; the succes- 

 sive differences of major axis 

 by 4. Each normal, v n f n+2 , 

 equals the next ordinate, 

 i'n+\fn+i i there are, therefore, triple tendencies, both in the 

 axis of abscissas and on each branch of the curve, to successive 

 differences of 4 in the major axes of aggregation, in conse- 

 quence of the meeting of abscissa], ordinal, and normal waves 

 in the axis, and the meeting of tangential, normal, and abscissal 

 waves upon the curve. At each node of aggregating collision 

 two of the wave systems are due to normally alternating rect- 

 angular oscillations, the third serving as a link between the 

 axial and the peripheral waves. The bisection of the normals 

 by their equivalent ordinates adds importance to the normal 

 major axes, and increases the tendency to aggregation at their 

 respective centres of gravity. 



Chemical molecules and atoms are so small that we are un- 

 able at present to show so conclusively as in cosmical gravita- 

 tion that the "nascent" velocity, or the mean radial velocity 

 at the limit between complete dissociation and incipient aggre- 

 gation, is equivalent to the velocity of light. But the analogies 

 which are here presented are strengthened by the frequent 

 vivid, luminous, and thermal accompaniments of chemical 

 change, and by the electric polarity of combining elements. 

 It seems, therefore, reasonably certain that the same limiting 

 unit of velocity and vis viva, which can be easily traced in 

 light, heat, electricity, and gravitation, is also fundamentally 

 efficient in chemical affinity. M. Aymonnet, in his commu- 

 nication of a "Nouvelle Methode pour etudier les Spectres 



