248 Review of Reoent Geological Literature. 
in the various inhabited spheres. This tlie author claims under the 
law of the "conservation of force ;" and tliat the sum total of all the 
sun's radiations, and the radiation of all suns, again are restored to 
them he assumes under the simple law of the boy's axiom, "whatever 
goes up must come down." The sum total of the energy of the uni- 
verse neither gains nor loses. The ether can not retain it ; it simply 
transmits it. But it can only transmit it to a receiver, and the heav- 
enly bodies are the only receivers. 
Despecialized heat, however, which starts from the sun, returns as 
specialized energy. The author supposes the sun's surface to be the 
place where it is again despecialized. It returns as mechanical 
energy (or gravitation), as electricity, and perhaps as other forces, 
and "precipitating themselves upon the myriad points of the photo- 
sphere they turn to light and heat almost exactly as electricity does in 
tlie electric lamp ; that is by the excitation of and resistence to elec- 
tric currents. I should lay more stress on this mode of transformation 
of energy were it not that every dabbler in science invokes the aid of 
electricity to solve every mystery. Still the abuse of one of the great 
energies of nature sliould not deter us from assigning it to its proper 
place in the grand economy of the universe." The author then 
enforces this thought by instituting a comparison between the electric 
spai'k of two approximate carbon points and the incandescent carbon 
clouds of the photosphere, where the particles are divided to the last 
degree of minuteness and offer every inducement to the action of 
electricity. 
As to the second necessary condition mentioned above, the author 
accepts the nebular hypothesis, but while allowing for the cooling of 
the sun, the planets and all the satelites, he insists that no heat is 
lost. It is simply reduced to specialized conditions. One of the first 
specialized forces, subsequent to the nebulous condition wherein all 
energy is expressed in one word — heat — was mechanical motion in tlie 
form of immense vortices, resulting in some condensation of the vol- 
ume and some cooling of the substance of the nebulous mass. This 
vortical motion continued has resulted in the partition of the mass 
into suns, and into systems. Then came cohesion, which further 
reduced the common stock of heat. Then gravitation became appar- 
ent, and chemical action, electricity, magnetism, and lastly via viva, 
each in its proper order, accompanied by cooling and contraction until 
the present equilibrium was attained. This specialization of energy 
from the all-embracing form of force, heat, the author claims, is not 
a loss of heat, only a change of its form of existence as energy, but 
this is a play on the word. As heat it does not longer exist, but as 
energy it continues to act. The author technically seems to fall into 
the inconsistency of allowing cooling to go on, but denies the loss of 
heat by the cooling body. We understand, however, that he combats 
the idea that the heat radiated by the cooling nebulous mass is lost to 
the emergent planetary system, and maintains that it is preserved in 
other forms of energy. 
