226 The American Geologist. October, 1904. 
of the Suwa lake as the fulcrum in the turning of this Akaischi mount- 
ain block, then it is easy to surmise that the connecting line between it 
and "Vatsuschiro in Kiusiu is in accord as a likewise scarcely moved 
point approximating to the original course of the north border of the 
south zone. It runs somewhat south of Matsu-yama, touches Kioto, 
and has the direction of the average sinian strike. If one compares with 
it the present position of the band of mica schist, one derives from it 
approximately the amount of deformation that has occurred. 
(To be continued.) 
THE UNTENABLENESS OF THE NEBULAR 
THEORY. 
By N. MiSTOCKLKS, Minneapolis, Minn. 
I. 
"There was once a time when the earth was distended on all sides 
away out to the moon and beyond it, so that the matter now contained 
in the moon was then a part of our equatorial zone. And at a still 
remoter date in the past, the mass of the sun was diffused in every di- 
rection beyond the orbit of Neptune, and no planet had any individual 
existence, for all were indistinguishable parts of the solar mass. At the 
period where the question is taken up by Laplace's treatment of the 
nebular theory, \h& shape of this mass is regarded as spheroidal." (John 
Fiske, The Unseen World, p. 7.) 
To readers, who are interested in cosmogon}- and who 
have acquainted themselves with the works of Kant. Laplace, 
Herbert Spencer, and John Fiske, it may, perhaps, seem like 
lost labor trying to find flaws in and pronounce untenable, a 
theory which was advanced by the two former and. on the 
whole, accepted and defended by the two latter. Still, every- 
one must admit, that a theory, which pretends to explain any 
natural i^henomenon, but leaves linth its essence and qualities in 
general unexplained, is highly tmsatisfactory and not to be de- 
pended upon. The nebular theory* can, consequently, not com- 
mand belief so long as the phenomena and natural forces, 
which it has taken upon itself to interpret, practically remain a 
mystery. This failure on the part of that theory proves it 
conclusivelv to be erroneous. Xor is there any risk in asserting 
*The term Nebular Theory is, in this treatise, considered more proper than 
Nebular Hypothesis, and is treated as an elaborated theory, -which the well- 
known Nebular Hypothesis is in the full meaning of the word. The Nebular 
Hypothesis is also often spoken of as a theory, even by authorities, and among 
others John Fiske has accepted it as such, which is shown in the quotation 
given above. 
