F. W. Very— A Cosmic Cycle. 187 



the Milky Way, as do the Orion stars.* This and the bright 

 lines in the spectrum might incline ns to group the hydrocar- 

 bon stars with those in which helium plays a leading part ; but 

 we cannot thus combine stars whose surface temperatures are 

 the highest and the lowest known. These stars are at the 

 opposite poles of development. Can it be that the thing which 

 has been is the thing which shall be again, that entrance and 

 exit communicate, or that these most ancient stars are relics of 

 an antecedent galaxy, out of whose ashes a new starry heaven 

 has sprung ? 



Legitimacy of the Hypothesis of Elemental Destruction and 



Genesis. 



If the explanation of these appearances of gigantic explosive 

 phenomena which has been suggested, is rejected, what other 

 can take its place 1 And if the hypothesis is found to aiford 

 a way out of other dilemmas which have long been recognized, 

 does not the speculation gain a weight which deserves further 

 trial of its efficacy to explain difficulties and to stand tests? 

 The hypothesis of elemental dissociation, or atomic dissolution, 

 far from being opposed by known facts, is suggested by many 

 familiar chemical decompositions. Among the many sugges- 

 tions from eminent chemists which are in the same general 

 direction, I will only refer to those of Crookes. 



Sir William Crookes has represented the recurrent proper- 

 ties of the series of chemical elements, indicated by Mendeleeff's 

 periodic law, by distributing the elements along a cuspidate 

 helix, whose widening spirals express a relation between the 

 gravitational constants of the atomic weights, determined by 

 the successive addition of the same quantity of electricity, 

 conferring the property of valency and special chemical attri- 

 butes, combined with some thermal property ; and the idea 

 is put forth that these relationships point to some community 

 of origin, and to some sort of evolution of elementary proper- 

 ties. The series is certainly very suggestive. My conception 

 of its meaning is that the heavier atoms are the more complex, 

 and that their formation has required a greater expenditure of 

 energy and a longer duration of development. Like the higher 

 forms of life, they are the last to appear in time, and are also 

 the rarest. 



" Bodies not in harmony with the present general conditions 

 have disappeared, or perhaps have never existed. Others — 

 the asteroids among the elements — have come into being, and 

 have survived, but only on a limited scale, whilst a third class 

 are abundant because surrounding conditions have been favor- 

 able to their formation and preservation."f 



* Astrophysical Journal, vol. viii, p. 239, 1898. 



f W. Crookes, British Association for the Advancement of Science. Report for 

 1886, p. 561. 



