FORMATION OF A PLANET.

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.

THE END.

Tyler and Reed, Printers, Bolt-court, London.