That cannot be considered a chaotic state from which the eternal order
sprung; nor that a created body, the substance of which previously
existed, which was and is common to all bodies. Hence it may be
concluded that a planet is a natural production, equally as the
instantly-formed ponderous atmospheric aërolite, supposed to have come
from the moon.
From the elementary to the aëriform, thence the aqueous state, seems
the simplest and primeval order of atomic combination. Hence it is
conceivable, that, were an immense volume of the general elements
collected together in the regions of space, and subjected to extreme
pressure, the result would be an aqueous sphere, with an attached
residue of the same elements to serve as a primeval atmosphere to
receive increase from future mists and exhalations. While aqueous
and with one side only of the sphere facing the sun, the elements of
the water cannot avoid being in a state of constant disturbance and
transfer, productive of combinations, formations, and precipitations
until the equilibrium has obtained, leaving ultimately the solid masses
so formed, as they would now appear were the ocean away: the original
water, from having contributed the elements of the newly-formed solids,
being reduced in quantity and changed in quality, is left as the ocean
is at present, saline. During the intermediate plastic state, and as
induration increased, the endowed fertility may have produced _kinds_,
many of which have become extinct.
It may be further assumed, that deep within the planet the elements
abound in neither kind nor quantity as at the surface and in the
atmosphere; and if the imponderable oxygen element be absent, an
immense mass of ice would form the nucleus of the earth, the occasional
melting at the surface of which, in the neighbourhood of sulphurous and
ferruginous masses, may cause those volcanic eruptions from which no
region of the earth is free. Thus it would seem that a planet may be
the natural formation of an instant, requiring time for completion, and
may be an everyday circumstance in space.
The strict inquirer into terrestrial magnetism has to ascertain,
whether the non-conducting central ice be not the means, some how,
of separating the correlative fluids which the centripetal flow
carries with it along the axis through the Poles, and which make the
Poles magnetic opposites; or, whether, of these fluids, one only is
transmissible through ice.
A planet may be subject to wear and the fertility to decrease, thence
to be uninhabitable, as Herschel describes the very probable condition
of the moon, owing to the rapid motion through space, solar effects
and cultivation. The idea is neither gloomy nor a threatened dread.
Man was born to leave this world, and live where GOD has pleased. Some
anticipate the night, when we shall see "our God in terror, and our
world on fire!"--"undoing all, as all had never been," or made in vain.
But He who blessed and never cursed his works, whose mercy and goodness
endureth for ever, and who will "save both man and beast," is not a God
of terror!
Why the planets are moved round the sun, all in the same direction,
excites speculation in the absence of demonstration. Let it be supposed
that the inequalities in a newly-formed planet prevent the body being
at rest under the general pressure; in which case the planet is put
into its primeval motion, and in the direction of the strongest
impulsive pressure. But as the like inequalities precisely, cannot
present in every new planet, neither could the motion of all be in
the same direction, which gives room for conceiving the probability
that the portion of the medium, however extensive, in which the
solar system is involved, revolves round the sun, or round the orbit
of the sun, and that its motion is promoted by the sun in the solar
orbit,--which orbit may probably be promoted by the rarity of the
elements in the solar regions. The medium of space so revolving,
determines the direction of all the planets, which by the hypothesis
must be the same as that of the revolving medium.
By some such means only is it conceivable how solar matter can arrive
at Neptune, the Earth, or even Mercury,--the _inert_ sun being
incapable of radiating anything from itself, and solar atoms requiring
a physical impelling cause, in motion, and acting on the rear of each
from the sun to the extreme of planetary space. A circulating medium of
constantly-increasing radius, appears indispensably necessary for the
purpose of conveying solar matter through the regions of space, and for
the maintaining all planetary motion in the same uniform direction. The
subject is open to all, and worthy of notice: what is now advanced will
be passed over, from having no mathematical appendage, but which, makes
even false causes pass for the demonstrated truth. The mathematical
science has not to this day demonstrated the cause of planetary
motion,--a subject wholly indifferent to modern astronomy, in which the
false, self-gravitation, in connection with _inertia_, satisfies all as
long as the astronomer remains self-satisfied.
_Formation and Use of a Comet._--A _Comet_ may have been a planet by
formation, and impelled, before completion, immeasurably far beyond
the sun. The tail is probably the primitive atmosphere, left behind and
pressed after the body as towards a sheltering wall; the _coma_ may be
electric matter collected on the front, and subject to increase, which,
by lessening pressure on the side facing the direction of motion,
and without increased pressure on the opposite side, may cause the
velocity of the planet to be subject to acceleration, or prevent the
motion being equitable: the reticulated tail may serve to collect all
redundant solar matter in space, after planetary use, for deposit in
the solar regions, or the sun as the heart of the system, for future
circulation. Were the tail to approach the earth sufficiently near,
the waters of the sea would be pressed upwards as towards an immense
water-spout; in which case the rivers must become drained; and as the
Comet recedes from the earth, the fall of the immense column would
produce _another general deluge_ over one hemisphere, at least, of the
globe! The deposits from a comet's tail may occasion those nebulocities
named solar spots.
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