IN FAVOR OP THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 29 
and the moon once formed one mass, that this mass 
rotated very rapidly, and that on account of the strong 
tides produced on it partly by the sun’s attraction 
and partly by its own rotation, a part of the matter 
was separated from the earth and became the moon, 
which revolved about the earth very close to it and 
with the same velocity, as if the two were bound to¬ 
gether by an invisible band; and that on account of 
the friction of the tides the velocity of rotation dimin¬ 
ished. Professor Ball, of Dublin, in a lecture on Pro¬ 
fessor Darwin’s demonstrations, published in Philo¬ 
sophical Transactions of 1879, says; “ In those an¬ 
cient times I see the sun rises and sets to give the 
succession of day and night, but the day and night 
together only amount to three hours instead of twen¬ 
ty-four.” Nor is this all. The rotation will become 
slower and slower through ages until it shall cease 
altogether. The moon gradually withdrew from the 
earth until it is now more than two hundred and forty 
thousand miles distant. 8. From data at hand it has 
been computed that the sun is growing slowly smaller 
—about four feet less in diameter in a century. If 
this can be proved, it will be a strong evidence in 
favor of the nebular hypothesis. When Chufu erected 
the Great Pyramid the sun’s diameter was eighty miles 
greater than it is now, and when Adam left the gar¬ 
den of Eden it was two hundred and forty miles 
greater. Thus we can imagine the sun’s diameter to 
have been once increased and its substance more and 
more attenuated until it filled the space within the 
orbit of Mercury; yes, and more still till it expanded 
