THE GEOLOGIST. 
MARCH 1864. 
CfN SPIRAL PLANETARY ORBITS AXD THE PHYSICAL 
EFEECTS OF A RETARDATION OP THE EARTH. 
By the Editor. 
Whett we see the untenable deductions to which even such an emi- 
nent man as Professor Frankland is led, in his new glacial doctrines,* 
by basing a meteorological hypothesis upon the uuproven basis of a 
central molten core in our planet, we cannot but be the more con- 
vinced of the necessity of reconsidering the theories and hypotheses 
which have been proposed to account for the origin and supposed 
early conditions of our earth. "\Ve have been called upon by geolo- 
gists to reject the Mosaic cosmogony because its statements were 
not coincident with geological facts, and equally now are we called 
upon to examine what those asserted geological facts are, and whe- 
ther the asserted superior theories of geologists are substantially^ 
correct, or whether they are one whit less mythical than the tradi- 
tions of aboriginal peoples. 
Because men saw what through their telescopes looked like lumi- 
nous clouds, the elder Herschel and Laplace assumed the idea, still 
later urged by Nichols, that these celestial nebulae were vast masses 
of ethereal vapours condensing into stars. Modern telescopes, how- 
ever, constantly being increased in size and power, have resolved one 
after the other of these into wonderful star-systems — dust-clouds of 
brilliant suns. And has not every one of these far distant stars 
non-luminous planets and worlds rolling round it, as our earth and 
* See ProceediDgs of Royal Institution, page 105. 
VOL. VII. m: 
