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excellent and valuable contribution to the subjects discussed by this Society, 

 it is capable of advantageous development in several respects. In § 10 

 reference is made to the seeming dissimilarity of the stellar bodies, especially 

 in the case of the planets, which, it is stated, are found on investigation to be 

 very similar. The writer might here have referred to the recent discoveries in 

 connection with the spectral analysis and I suggest that it would have been 

 well worth the while of an Institution like this, to have heard, and quite in 

 harmony with the well-known attainments of the writer of the paper, if he 

 had made some reference to this subject. (Hear.) This wonderful discovery, 

 so lately made, has enabled us to know that the planets are similar in their 

 character to the earth on which we dwell, and that there is some reason to 

 believe that even the so-called fixed stars, which are suns themselves, are also 

 composed of the same elements. Again, in § 14 a farther reference is 

 made to an interesting analogy between the constituent parts of the earth, and 

 the various things found in the Bible, against which it is charged, that they 

 are thrown together confusedly and without discrimination, and that therefore 

 the Bible cannot be the work of the divine Creator. It is said by the writer 

 of the paper that we find the various strata of the earth, although seemingly 

 thrown together without order, yet, by means of this apparent disorder, 

 bringing up to the surface where needed the various elements required for 

 the comfort and sustenance of man. No doubt this is in itself a very 



* Mr. R. A. Proctor, F.R.S., has since written in regard to a recent discovery 

 as follows : — " News has been received about the constitution of the atmo- 

 sphere of Uranus, and news so strange (apart from the strangeness of the 

 mere fact that any information could be gained at all respecting a vaporous 

 envelope so far away) as to lead us to speculate somewhat curiously respecting 

 the conditions under which the Uranians, if there are any, have their being. 

 Admitting that the line seen by Dr. Huggins is really due to hydrogen — a 

 fact of which he himself has very little doubt — we certainly have a strange 

 discovery to deal with. If it be remembered that oxygen, the main sup- 

 porter of such life as we are familiar with, cannot be mixed with hydrogen 

 without the certainty that the first spark will cause an explosion (in which 

 the whole of one or other of the gasses will combine with a due portion of 

 the other to produce water), it is difficult to resist the conclusion that oxygen 

 must be absent from the atmosphere of Uranus. If hydrogen could be 

 added in such quantities to our atmosphere as to be recognizable from a dis- 

 tant planet by spectroscopic analysis, then no terrestrial fires could be lighted, 

 for a spark would produce a catastrophe in which all living things upon the 

 earth, if not the solid earth itself, would be destroyed. A single flash of 

 lightning would be competent to leave the earth but a huge cinder, even if 

 its whole frame were not rent into a million fragments by the explosion 

 which would ensue. Under what strange conditions, then, must life exist 

 in Uranus, if there be indeed life upon that distant orb. Either our life- 

 sustaining element, oxygen, is wanting, or, if it exists in sufficient quantities 

 (according to our notions) for the support of life, then there can be no fire 

 natural or artificial, on that giant planet. It seems more reasonable to con- 

 clude that, as had been suspected for other reasons, the planet is not at 

 present in a condition which renders it a suitable abode for living crea- 

 tures." [Ed.] 



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