Observations on Glacial Phenomena in Scotland. 97 



The author showed how a system of solid bodies, large and 

 small, initially at rest, and at great distances from one an- 

 other, may, by their mutual gravitations, and by the resist- 

 ance their motions must experience in the gaseous atmosphere 

 evaporated from them by the heat of their collisions, after a 

 vast period of time come into a state of motion, heat, and 

 light, analogous to the present conditions of our solar system 

 and of the visible stars. 



The origin of rotatory motion is explained by showing that 

 different systems starting from rest will influence one another 

 so as to acquire contrary rotatory motions without any aggre- 

 gate of rotatory momentum being acquired by the whole. Any 

 system or group beginning to concentrate round one principal 

 mass, after having thus acquired a momentum of rotatory 

 motion, will acquire from it, in a certain stage of advance- 

 ment, just such approximately circular motions as those of the 

 planets, the particles of the zodiacal light, and the satellites 

 of our solar system, and such rotatory motions as the central 

 and other masses are known to have, all chiefly in one direction. 



In considering the question whether all the heat and mo- 

 tion at present existing in matter have their origin in that 

 action by which their amount is at present being increased, it 

 is shown that unless their entire actual energy exceeds a cer- 

 tain definite limit, namely, the value of the whole potential 

 energy of gravitation that would be spent in drawing all the 

 particles of matter from a state of infinite diffusion into their 

 present positions, it is quite possible they may be so produced 

 — or, that the potential energy of gravitation may be in 

 reality the ultimate created antecedent of all the motion, 

 heat, and light at present existing in the universe. 



Further Observations on Glacial Phenomena in Scotland 

 and the North of England. By R. Chambers, F.R.S.E. 



In a former paper, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 and published in Jameson's Philosophical Journal for April 

 1853, I endeavour to establish a distinction between an early 

 general operation of ice over the surface of Scotland, leaving 

 ihe compact boulder clay as its monument, and a more recent 



VOL. I. no. I. — JAN. 1855. G- 



