Views on Prenebular Conditions. — A. Winchell. 203 
merits, whether initial or gravitational, bring them occasion- 
ally into collision. 
But there are prenebular inquiries prior to those reached by 
these theories. What was the antecedent history of matter 
which had attained the condition of meteoroidal masses? In 
the work already quoted, the present writer set forth the theo- 
ory that the "universal world-stuff" postulated by Grove, 
Brodie, Hunt and many others, or generalized from the phen- 
omena of meteors, is, in its state of ultimate attenuation, the 
ethereal medium conceived by Newton, Young, Saigey, Mac- 
vicar, Lodge and others.^' He suggested, in other words, that 
out of this semi-spiritual substance may have germinated the 
molecules of common matter, and that the so-called ethereal 
medium may thus have been the ultimate condition of the 
matter of nebulae.^- Further considerations confirmatory of 
the doctrine of the continuity of planetary atmospheres 
with the interplanetary medium, were based, at a later date, 
on the fact that the gaseous atmospheric constituents fixed in 
coal-beds, carbonates and other forms, during the progress of 
rock-formation have been many times greater than could have 
been yielded by a terrestrial atmosphere of determinate vol- 
ume and mass.^^ 
The recent memoir of Dr. Huggins, "On the Spectrum, 
Visible and Photographic, of the Great Nebula in Orion^'-^ is 
thought by some "to go a good Avay to overturn the views held 
by Mr. Lockyer, and recently advocated by professor Darwin, 
on the meteoric constitution of nebulse." The present writer 
does not share in that impression. Dr. Huggins' researches 
confirm the presence of hydrogen, throw some doubt on the 
presence of nitrogen and perhaps still more doubt on 
Mr. Lockyer's contention for the presence of mag- 
nesium at a comparatively low temperature. Had he 
shown that the nebula is exclusively gaseous, the 
2'Dr. Croll in aUusion to this says: "Professor "Winchell has ad- 
vanced views similar to those of Tait and Lockyer regarding the nature 
and origin of nebuhe. But he, in addition, discusses the further ques- 
tion of tlie origin of these swarms."— "Stellar Evolution," p. 23. 
'" AVorld-Life, p. 533, and more specifically, pt. i. ch. i §7. 
'-^\. Winchell, "Secular increase of the Earth's Mass," Science, ii. 
820-1, Dec. 28, 1883. Chemical Xeirs, London, :March, 1884. 
-'^Read before the Ro>/al Societi/, May 2, 1889, but not yet published — 
an uncorrected proof copy having been received from Dr. Croll by the 
present writer. 
