Since the author's arrival in New York for the purpose of publishing his
outlines, the third and fourth volume of the Cosmos has been placed in
his hands, containing the latest uranological discoveries and
speculations. It is now more than twenty years since he began to
investigate the subject he has treated of, and fifteen since he first
announced to the world, that he had satisfactory evidence of his theory
being true. Luckily, perhaps, he has been cut off from the great streams
of knowledge; and he may confess that it was with pardonable feelings of
gratification that he discovered in 1853, by the acquisition of the two
first volumes of the Cosmos, that the philosophic mind of Humboldt had
also pondered deeply on the planetary peculiarities of size, density,
distance, inclination of axes and eccentricities of orbits, without
eliciting any satisfactory relations.
From the tenor of the third and fourth volume of this learned summary of
scientific knowledge, it is evident that the question of a medium
filling space is more and more occupying the learned world; but the
author is unable to discover any consistent theory respecting it. The
increasing interest attaching to it, however, is evidently preparing the
world for some radical change in preconceived views. The explanation
given by this present theory to many prominent phenomena, is so totally
contrary to that of the learned world, as to leave it untouched by
anything yet advanced. What the fifth volume of the Cosmos will
contain, is not yet known in this country, neither has the author been
favored with any glimpse of the progress of science as developed before
the British Association; he supposes, however, that he yet stands alone
in the position he has defined.
As a question of practical importance, the reader will find in the work
cited, the various opinions of the temperature of space. Both Fourier
and Poisson regard this as the result of radiated heat from the sun and
all the stars, minus the quantity lost by absorption in traversing the
regions of space filled with ether.[51] But why should we regard the
stars as the source of all motions? Why cannot physicists admit the idea
of an infinite space filled (if we may use the expression) with an
infinite medium, possessing an unchangeable mean temperature long before
the formation of a single star. A star equal to our sun at the distance
of Sirius, would give about one million of million times less heat than
our present sun, which is only able to give an average temperature to
the whole globe--about twenty degrees above freezing--then let us
remember that there are only about fifty stars of the first and second
magnitude, which give more light (and by analogy heat also) than all the
rest of the stars visible. Such labored theories as this of Poisson's is
a lamentable instance of the aberrations of human wisdom.
We would also call the reader's attention to a late conclusion of
Professor Dove, viz.: That differences of temperature in different
longitudes frequently exist on the same parallel of latitude, or, in
other words, are laterally disposed. This may be thought adverse to the
theory, but it should be borne in mind that the annual mean temperature
of the whole parallel of latitude should be taken when comparing the
temperatures of different years.
Another fact cited in the Cosmos apparently adverse to the theory, is
the idea entertained by Sir John Herschel, that the full-moon
dissipates the clouds. This question has been fully examined by
Professor Loomis before the American Association, and he concludes that
there is not the slightest foundation for the assertion--taking as data
the Greenwich observations themselves.