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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.] 
2 e2 
