28 
“ found it was empty in London ! ” And yet our own Astro- 
nomer Koval made the announcement at tie first meeting ot 
the British Association, in 1831, “that the existence , of 
a resisting medium has once more been established in tin 
century by Encke.” (Rep. on Astr., in loc.) No indi- 
vidual astronomer I believe, nor any e ^ st ' n S scie “ tlfio 
society, has made it its business to see what effect this restora- 
tion of “ the plenum ” must have upon all Newtons anc 
Laplace’ s demonstrations in the “ Pnncipia and Mecamque 
Celeste,” inbotb of which the non-existence of a resisting medium 
is taken for granted. Not only so ; but recent theories. , " 
ward by Professor Thomson before the Royal Society of Ed 
burgh and elsewhere, and also by others m England assuming 
an intense heat in the sun, are utterly irreconcilable with the 
Newtonian hypothesis that, as the centre of the solar system, 
it must have a mass 350,000 times greater than the earth 
while about 1,400,000 times greater m bulk* If as hot as has 
been recently speculated, as its bulk remains the same (namely, 
about 850,000 miles in diameter), then its mass will not b 
1 000 times greater than that of the earth ; and, on Newtonian 
principles, this would render its being cen , tr ® of , 
solar system impossible. Any child can understand that 
if the calculation which required the sun s mass to be 
350,000 times greater than that of the earth, was . science, 
it cannot be also “science” that its mass should be so 
reduced that it can only be about 1,000 times greater. Noi 
is this all. These speculations, as to the sun s intense heat, 
have required the co-relative theory of some means of sup- 
plying the immense waste of matter by beat and radiation. 
So, it has further been speculated that this was accom- 
pbsbed by meteoric matter wbicb was supposed to be tailing 
constantly into the sun to supply it with fueh This theory 
was noticed approvingly by the President of the British Asso- 
ciation in 1863, and the fullest account of it is to be found 
in two papers by Mr. E. W. Brayley, F.R.S., in the Com- 
panion to the British Almanack.” But scarcely had this theory 
been completed, as it were, in detail, and recognized as a 
reasonable supposition” by the President of the British Asso- 
ciation, than all of a sudden Mr. Brayley, who formerly ap- 
peared to be one of its staunchest advocates, put forward, in e 
Royal Society, another theory as diametrically opposed to it as 
* Vide Letter of “ Kauticus,” in tlie Astronomical Register for February, 
1865, p. 49. (London : Adams & Francis,. Fleet Street.) Also, Essay on 
“ The Scriptures and Science,” in Fresh Springs of Truth. ( on on , n 
& Co.) 
