Daniel Vaughan

“ Now, if friction were so potent as to counteract to such an extent the normal effects of gravitation, it must be an eternal bar against the origin of worlds by nebulous dismemberment; and if a ring of attenuated matter were placed under the circumstances suggested by the eminent astronomer, it would be ultimately doomed, not to form a planet, but to coalesce with the immense spheroid of fiery vapor which it is supposed to have environed. ”

“ It may, however, be safely asserted that the future age of the earth cannot be much less than a million times as long as the period during which the sun's contraction could supply heat and light, at the equable rate which the purposes of life require; and there is no reason to admire a course of creation which makes worlds outlive so long their term of utility, and condemns solar systems in coming time to endure an interminable reign of darkness. ”

“ There are, perhaps, in our solar domain too few cases to show how excessive tidal action can produce its definite results in its various degrees of power. If the nearest satellite of Mars bore to its primary such relations of size and density as subsist between the earth and the moon, it would, no doubt, surpass all known planets in deviating from a true sphere, even though its materials were not of the most yielding character. If similar relations existed between Saturn and his closest secondary, the latter would show a greater deviation than the primary does from a spherical form. ”

“ Whether the incorporating mass was a planet, or the last remains of the great companion which cooperated in giving being to the solar family, the effects deserve attention so far as they show the present working of a power which has been long in a declining condition. The movement of one zone of matter over another having a different velocity of rotation must be a source of solar magnetism, and this force may be therefore regarded as much weaker than it was a million years ago, but much stronger than it will be in very distant future ages. ”

“ A modern advocate of the nebular hypothesis supposes that each planet, when formed from the rarefied matter of a previous solar ring, was fifteen times less dense than the sun would be if it were an homogeneous sphere inclosed by the planetary orbit. In his own words, "After all their contraction during their condition as rings, and during their aggregation into globes, we may assume at a moderate estimate that when their rotation began they were fifteen times less dense than the average density of the sun expanded to their orbits." ”

“ In the limited number of cases which one system is capable of affording, we cannot expect to see the last struggles of a satellite to maintain its planetary structure when moving in a very close proximity to its primary. But the wonderful annular girdle around Saturn shows evidence not only of a great conflict for planetary existence in past times, but even of lesser ones, on an extensive scale, at the present day. ”

“ During the last century the doctrine of the uniformity of Nature held such a sway over scientific opinion that even slight accession of foreign matter to the earth by falling meteors would not be admitted. As, even at the present day, the origin of meteoric stones and shooting-stars cannot be said to be entirely free from doubt, I shall not introduce them for evidence in this stage of my inquiry, as items of the greatest certainty must claim the first attention. ”

“ In such an innumerable group of small and light bodies in symmetrical array, a large meteorite or the nucleus of a comet might become the embryo of a future world which may require many thousand years to attain the mass of one of the average asteroids. But its attraction after a time must become powerful enough to clear a large tract of space of matter, and thus to divide into two zones the great ultra-planetary ring of floating matter, while it must gradually make the paths of the small bodies deviate from true circles. ”

“ Accordingly, great suns, in passing through their most terrific scenes, call forth a world-making power of the greatest vigor; and will not only give birth to larger spheres, but also send them forth in wider orbits.
But the size and mass which a world attains must depend mainly on the numbers of meteors and comets frequenting the solar dominions while it was in the course of formation. At the birth of Jupiter this vagrant matter was more than usually abundant, and it served to give the planet a predominance over the other members of the solar family. ”

“ On grounds as uncertain as those which sustained many of the exploded doctrines of antiquity, it has been too hastily concluded that the past career of the earth and the duration of solar light must have been comprised within the course of a few millions of years. It is even supposed that, within a like circumscribed period of change and activity, the myriads of solar systems in the wide domains of space around us came into existence from chaotic fire-mist which filled the entire universe. ”

“ It would be hazardous to attempt to calculate or to trace the precise effects of gravity, motion, and friction, on matter more than 100,000,000 times more rarefied than the air we breathe, and diffused over a spheroidal space more than 6,000,000,000 miles in extent. It may seem easy to suppose all its parts rotating with regularity in the same direction around a common axis; but it would be very difficult to determine how many millions of years or centuries must elapse before such a regular rotation of the entire mass would be produced by an impulse at any locality. ”

“ It is the terrific conflict of matter on such rare and stupendous events, that awakens the power which is mainly concerned in giving birth to worlds. Large primary planets would be called into being if one or both of the celestial objects undergoing these violent stages of combination had the rank of a sun. The vast mass of matter precipitated to the greater body on these occasions would sweep along its equator with furious velocity. ”

“ Reasoning from the most reliable principles of physics, and guided by the light of recent discoveries, many eminent scientists have come to the very just conclusion that the movement in Saturn's rings must be attended with a loss of energy and a reduction in the size of the orbits described by the innumerable disconnected masses of which the curious appendage is now generally believed to be composed. ”

“ But by such a violent oceanic movement the earth's rotation should rapidly change until it kept pace with the revolution and then the destructive tides would come to a close, as our planet, having the same hemisphere ever turned to Jupiter, would ever elongate in the same direction, and our oceans would be elevated in the same localities. Now, all the secondary planets, so far as observation has been able to decide, have their movements so adjusted as to keep the same ever turned to the primary. ”

“ The possibility that some straggling fragments from the ruins of one world might become the satellites of another, depends on a principle which has been long applied in tracing the origin of the cometary members of the solar family. It has been maintained by Laplace that comets were at first strangers in our system, and that many of them, coming from remote interstellar regions and entering the sphere of the sun's attraction, obtained a permanent domicile in his extensive domain; their orbits being changed from hyperboles to ellipses chiefly by some planetary disturbances. ”

“ In that remote and frigid zone of our planetary domain, the rays of our sun are too feeble to mitigate the rigors of extreme cold; and the outer ring at least can obtain but little calorific relief from the great planet which it environs. But, from the incessant changes and convulsions in the restless fields of matter, heat is abundantly produced by the violent mechanical action which, in a ring of aqueous composition, would proceed in a manner calculated to give a uniformity of temperature. ”

“ It is very probable that the minute and the rare tenants of space are very numerous in the Milky Way; but this abundance of chaotic material, though calculated to increase the size of worlds, must shorten their term of existence, as the increase which suns obtain in mass and attraction would have the same effect as a resisting medium in abridging the lives of their planets. ”

“ The evidence which late writers have endeavored to deduce from the large size of Jupiter and Saturn is equally weak and unsatisfactory; for the most distant planets are not the largest, and there is no definite law calling for an increased size of worlds in proportion as they are distant from the solar orb. According to the most generally received theory of its variability, the star Algol presents the case of a remote sun with a planet nearly as large as himself, yet confined to so small an orbit that the period of revolution is less than three days. ”

“ With a wide deviation from the ordinary figure of worlds, they exhibit changes which are interesting on account of the vast scale on which they occur, and the light which they throw on the past and the future history of the solar system. In the absence of those restraints which secure much repose on the surface of our globe, the Saturnian girdle is abandoned to rage of the most violent commotions and becomes occasionally the seat of disturbances which, though transpiring at the distance of about 900,000,000 miles, are yet revealed by the telescope. ”

“ It would, accordingly, seem that cometary bodies have portions of their matter separated from them, and occasionally sent as meteors into the atmospheres of the planets. The dismemberment which, in such cases, is occasioned by the heat, and more rarely by the attraction of the sun, is analogous to that which planets would suffer in very narrow orbits; but it occurs on a scale infinitely smaller, and can never be productive of any very conspicuous results. The greatest exhibition of shooting-stars in our atmosphere could never be observed from any of the neighboring planets ”

“ From the estimates and observations of Bond, as well as from the theoretical researches of Pierce and Maxwell, it appears certain that the innumerable parts of Saturn's ring cannot be all connected together, in a rigid or permanent manner, but must move independently around the great planet. But, while affording much valuable negative information on the subject, the investigations of these eminent mathematicians do not show how the floating matter eternally circulating in these extensive zones is kept from concentrating into two satellites by the impulse of gravity. ”

“ THE information which geologists derive from the evidences of organic remains does not wholly satisfy the keen appetite of educated minds for a knowledge of the mysteries of Nature and the revolutions of past times. The relics disentombed from our globe give no clew to its origin; and they throw but little light on the great physical events which transpired before life appeared on its surface. ”

“ Those who believe, with Helmholtz, that a sun's heat and light are produced by the contraction of its mass, and that solar activity has a limited duration, might be naturally led to consider dark systems a hundred or even a thousand times as numerous as those which are illuminated. ”

“ It is evident that the matter composing Saturn's wonderful appendage must have once moved in a wider zone, where it could exist only in the form of two secondary planets. I have shown in a previous article that a dismemberment and a conversion into a ring must be the general fate of every planetary body which, by a slow contraction of its orbit, revolves at last too close to its primary. ”

“ The alteration which the moon occasions in terrestrial gravity is too small to be detected by the most delicate experiment; and it might remain forever unknown if our watery domain were not so sensitive to extraneous disturbance. A tidal force more than a thousand times greater prevails on the majority of the known secondary planets. If our globe, while keeping its present rotation, could exchange orbits with Jupiter's first satellite, our oceans would feel a periodical disturbance more than 20,000 times as powerful as that which now affects them ”

“ According to the crude opinions prevailing during the infancy of modern science, matter and motion were all required for calling a world into existence; but it was soon found that, unless, in the beginning, the materials which formed the solar system moved with a certain order and regularity, they could never have risen from the chaotic to the cosmical condition. As all the planets move around the sun in the same direction, Laplace was led to believe that in remote times all must have been connected together ”