exactly a certain appearance; and in that spot, and with that appearance, the planet was found. "Nothing," says Professor Airy, "in the whole history of astronomy can be compared to this."

ASTEROIDS AND RUPERT'S DROPS.

Mr. J. Nasmyth has compared the planet whose scattered fragments are supposed to form the Asteroids to a Rupert's Drop. It is in a state of fusion; the surface cools, hardens, and resists for a time the tension created by the contraction of the central portions. This tension becomes at length so strong, that the crust yields, as in the case of the Drop.

Mr. Hind has drawn attention to the singular fact, that the Asteroids "appear to separate the planets of small mass from the greater bodies of the system, the planets which rotate on their axes in and about the same time as our earth from those which are whirled round in less than half that time, though oftentimes the diameter of the earth; and (he continues) it may yet be found that these small bodies, so far from being portions of the wreck of a planet, were created in their present state for some wise purpose, which the progress of astronomy in future ages may eventually unfold."

THE MAGELLANIC CLOUDS

are a unique object in the universe of celestial phenomena, and one which, says Humboldt, "adds to the picturesque charms of the southern hemisphere, I might almost say to the elegance of the landscape. The two Magellanic clouds, which probably received, first from the Portuguese pilots, and subsequently from those of Holland and Denmark, the name of 'the Cape clouds,' attracted the attention of the voyager by their bright aspect; by their isolation, which renders them the more conspicuous; and by the revolution which they perform round the south pole, although at unequal distances from it. Their actual name is evidently derived from the voyage of Magellan, although he was not the first who observed them." They exhibit to the eye of the observer a sort of miniature of the celestial sphere; and there have been discovered in them constellations, clusters of stars, and nebulous matter in different degrees of condensation.

DANGER FROM COMETS.

Newton conjectured that Comets are "the aliment by which suns are sustained;" wherefore he concluded that these bodies were in a state of progressive decline upon the sun's round, which they respectively swept; and that in these they from time to time fell. By way of illustration he added, whenever the comet of 1680 shall fall into the sun, its "heat

will be raised to such a point, that our globe will be burnt, and all the animals upon it will perish." Mr. Phillips, in his Worlds beyond the Earth, however, maintains :

"In the first place, no comet, out of the hundreds which have appeared, has shown any tendency to fall into the sun; they all regularly continue in their orbits, as the planets do. Again, the appearances which present themselves when a comet is in the close neighbourhood of the sun, rather manifest a repulsion between the matter of the comet and the sun. Again if, as is most likely, the atomic constitution of a comet differ from that of the sun, it would not reach the surface. Were a comet to fall into the body of the sun, its mass is so trifling in comparison with that stupendous globe, that it would scarcely produce any appreciable effect; and, unless it consisted of gaseous matter which could unite chemically with that of the sun, no combustion would take place. The reverse might happen. No comet ever yet recorded, perhaps, contained the same amount of matter as the earth. Now, were the earth to fall into the sun, supposing it would burn, it would at most produce a small spark-a minute scintillation, and all would be over. Besides, the earth consists of substances which have already been burned; they would not burn again. The mass of a comet is so small that were it to come into collision with the earth it would suffer the most itself from the shock. The comets seem to take very good care of themselves. When we find that one comet has actually passed through the group of Jupiter's moons without deranging them in the least, we need not fear for our earth."

How strangely imagination will assist belief in the wildest absurdities, is proved by the ideas of the Epicureans, that the stars and the sun were extinguished every day in the west, and rekindled in the east; which notions, according to Cleomedes, "have for their foundation the tale of an old woman, according to which, the Iberians heard every evening the hissing noise made by the incandescent sun, as it was extinguished like a red-hot iron in the waters of the ocean." We remember to

have been assured, when a child, by our nurse, a native of Sussex, that she had seen from the cliff at Eastbourne the Great Comet of 1769 descend and dip its tail into the sea with "a hissing noise!"

KEPLER'S PROPHESYING ALMANAC."

On the reformation of the calendar, Kepler was summoned to the Diet at Ratisbon to give his opinion as to the subject, upon which he published a short essay. But though the government did not scruple to avail themselves of his services, yet his pension was allowed to fall in arrear; and, in order to support his family, he was compelled to publish an almanac, suited to the taste of the age; "to defray the expense of the Ephemeris for two years," says Kepler, "I have been obliged to compose a vile prophesying Almanac, which is scarcely more reputable than begging, unless from its saving the Emperor's credit, who abandons me entirely, and would suffer me to

perish with hunger." Has this fact escaped the notice of those persons who have exposed the absurdities of our early almanacs? If so, it should be immediately appended to every exposure of the matter, so as to explain with whom rests the blame.

SCEPTICISM OF LAPLACE.

Laplace's great intellect could occupy itself during a lifetime with the sublimest truths of astronomy to no better purpose than to deny the existence of the Almighty Maker of the universe; impiously to insinuate that the supposed useful purposes of our system could have been accomplished otherwise, and better, than at present! and, finally, to discard religion, and the sanctions which it derives from a future existence and its conditions, as a cruel imposture practised upon the ignorant credulity of mankind! It is right, however, to state, that M. Laplace, not long before his death, intimated to a distinguished English philosopher (Professor Sedgwick) a great change of opinion. Having spoken to him earnestly on the religious character of our endowments and course of academical study, M. Laplace added: "I think this right; and on this point I deprecate any great organic changes in your system; for I have lived long enough to know-what at one time I did not believe that no society can be upheld in happiness and honour without the sentiments of religion." This remarkable statement is made on the authority of Professor Sedgwick himself, who says it is in the very words of Laplace, as nearly as I can translate them."-Samuel Warren, D.C.L.

THE DOOM OF OUR WORLD.

66

What this change is to be, we dare not even conjecture; but we see in the heavens themselves some traces of destructive elements, and some indications of their power. The fragments of broken planets-the descent of meteoric stones upon our globe-the wheeling comets welding their loose materials at the solar furnace-the volcanic eruptions of our own satellitethe appearance of new stars, and the disappearance of othersare all foreshadows of that impending convulsion to which the system of the world is doomed. Thus placed on a planet which is to be burnt up, and under heavens which are to pass away; thus treading, as it were, on the cemeteries, and dwelling in the mausoleums, of former worlds,-let us learn the lesson of humility and wisdom, if we have not already been taught it in the school of revelation.-North British Review, No. VI.

The Earth, its Surface and Enterior.

THE AGE OF THE GLOBE.

DR. BUCKLAND, in his Bridgewater Treatise, quotes the following "Theories of the Age of the Globe." "The Earth," says Burnet, was first inveiled with a uniform light crust, which covered the abyss of the sea, and which, being broken up for the production of the Deluge, formed the mountains by its fragments."-Theoria Sacra.

"The Deluge," says Woodward, "was occasioned by a momentary suspension of cohesion among the particles of mineral bodies. The whole of the globe was dissolved, and the paste thus formed became penetrated with shells."-Essay.

"God raised up," says Schenekzer, "the mountains for the purpose of allowing the waters which had produced the deluge to run off; and selected those places in which were the greatest quantity of rocks, without which the mountains could not have supported themselves."-Mém. de l'Académie.

Whiston's "New Theory" is, that "the earth was formed from the atmosphere of one comet, and deluged by the train of another. The heat which it retained from its origin was the cause of exciting its inhabitants to sin; for which they were all drowned, except the fishes, which, having been fortunately exempt from the heat, remained innocent."

"The earth," says Leibnitz (Protogræa), "is an extinguished sun, a vitrified globe, on which the vapours, falling down again after it had cooled, formed seas, which afterwards deposited the limestone formations."

Man

"The whole globe," says Demaillet, was covered with water many thousand years. The water gradually retired. All the land animals were originally inhabitants of the sea. was originally a fish; and there are still fish to be met with in the ocean which are half-men, on their progress to the perfect human shape, and whose descendants will in process of time become men.

Buffon's "Théorie" is: "The earth was a fragment of the sun, struck off red-hot by the blow of a comet, together with all the other planets, which were also red-hot fragments. The age of the world, then, can be calculated from the number of years which it would take to cool so large a mass from a redhot down to its present temperature. But it is, of course,

growing colder every year; and, as well as the other planets, must finally be a globe of ice."

Lamarck says: "All things were originally fluid. The waters gave birth to microscopic insects; the insects, in the course of ages, magnified themselves into the larger animals; the animals, in the course of ages, converted a portion of the water into calcareous earth; the vegetables converted another portion into clay! The two substances, in the course of ages, converted themselves into silex; and thus the silicious mountains are the oldest of all. All the solid parts of the earth, therefore, owe their existence to life; and without life the globe would be entirely liquid." This, too, is the favourite mode among the German philosophers of accounting for the formation and filling of the world.

"The earth," says Patrin, Dict. d'Histoire Naturelle, “is a great animal; it is alive; a vital fluid circulates in it; every particle of it is alive; it has instinct and volition, even to the most elementary molecules, which attract and repel each other according to sympathies and antipathies. Every mineral has the power of converting immense masses into its own nature, as we convert food into flesh and blood. The mountains are the respiratory organs of the globe! The schists are the organs of secretion; the mineral veins are abscesses; and the metals are products of disease, for which reason most of them have a repulsive smell."

Oken says:

"All is done by polarisation."

NATURE OF THE EARTH.

Its polar and equatorial diameters differ by only 26 miles; and the greater of the two-the equatorial-is 7925 miles. Hence our excavations are mere scratches of the exterior only; for our deepest mines have never penetrated lower than to the ten-thousandth part of the distance between the earth's surface and its centre. As far as scientific researches enable us to conjecture, we should conclude that when our earth was first set in motion it must have been somewhat soft, in order to have produced its present undoubted spheroidal form. But what is the real nature of the earth's interior? Transcendental mathematics fully recognise the principle of interfluidity or fusion; while all actual observations point to the existence of heat in a greater degree the lower we go. M. Humboldt, indeed, tells us that at only thirty-five miles distance from the earth's surface "the central heat is every where so great, that granite itself is held in fusion !"

ROTUNDITY OF THE EARTH.

The truth of this doctrine is familiarly illustrated by the