146 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
as it appeared in the columns of the * Edinburgh Evening 
Oourant' of the 2d December last, and from several other 
and similar evidence, it seems to be the following : — That 
infinite space was originally sparsely filled with what the 
eminent French astronomer Laplace called star-dust. How 
this was the case, or how that dust acquired the requisite 
intense initial heat, attraction, and other qualities ascribed to 
it, neither Laplace nor Dr M'Bain has chosen to inform us." 
The author then follows up with what he considers a " fair 
and faithful sketch of what may be called the nebulo-geolo- 
gical hypothesis of this Society and of the present day. The 
author has thus united the two pieces under one name, as 
he is, and has all along been, convinced they are, and ever 
have been, virtually only different and mutually depending 
portions of one great whole." The author asserts that the 
nebular hypothesis was all along untenable on various 
grounds, one of which was the immense lapse of ages it 
required for performing its operations. Bat the strongest 
of all grounds, in the opinion of the author, for rejecting the 
nebular hypothesis, was that the Creator himself had plainly 
announced in His Word that he had, at the first completion 
of creation, framed all the merely physical universe sum- 
marily and in its highest degree of perfection. What 
have been the findings of Science herself," asks the author, 
on this point ? A few years ago, as most of you are 
aware (although some appear to wish to conceal the fact), 
the Creator himself, as if resolved to rescue this part of his 
handiwork from the aspersions of man, snatched, through 
the instrumentality of the ' monster telescope,' every starry 
orb from the condition of ignoble dust to which it had been 
ground down and kept far too long, and restored it to its 
primitive condition, again a glorious sun ! Of the late 
nebular hypothesis, let it be said, quiescat in pace!" And 
now, having performed his duty to that subject, let us give 
a glance, says the author, at the still remaining member of 
this indissoluble partnership. After some ingenious illus- 
trations, the author says — " It is pleasant to find that how- 
ever much the sentiments of this Society and those of the 
author differ, in the meantime, on other points, there is one, 
