proportional to the planets' resisting energy. This, however, is on the
hypothesis that the planets are not permeable by the radial stream,
which, perhaps, is more consistent with analogy than with the reality.
And it is more probable that the mean atomic weight of a planet's
elements tends more to fix the position of equilibrium for each. Under
the law of gravity, a planet may revolve at any distance from the sun,
but if we superadd a centripulsive force, whose law is not that of
gravity, but yet in some inverse ratio of the distances, and this force
acts only superficially, it would be possible to make up in volume what
is wanted in density, and a lighter planet might thus be found occupying
the position of a dense planet. So the planet Jupiter, respecting only
his resisting surface, is better able to withstand the force of the
radial stream at the earth than the earth itself. To understand this, it
is necessary to bear in mind, that, as far as planetary matter is
concerned, the earth would revolve in Jupiter's orbit in the same
periodic time as Jupiter, under the law of gravity: but that, in
reality, the whole of the gravitating force is not effective, and that
the equilibrium of a planet is due to a nice balance of interfering
forces arising from the planet's physical peculiarities. As in a
refracting body, the density of the ether may be considered inversely as
the refraction, and this as the atomic weight of the refracting
material, so, also, in a planet, the density of the ether will be
inversely in the same ratio of the density of the matter approximately.
Hence, the density of the ether within the planet Jupiter is greater
than that within the earth; and, on this ethereal matter, the sun has no
power to restrain it in its orbit, so that the centrifugal momentum of
Jupiter would be relatively greater than the centrifugal momentum of the
earth, were it also in Jupiter's orbit with the same periodic time.
Hence, to make an equilibrium, the earth should revolve in a medium of
less density, that there may be the same proportion between the external
ether, and the ether within the earth, as there is between the ether
around Jupiter and the ether within; so that the centrifugal tendency of
the dense ether at Jupiter shall counteract the greater momentum of the
dense ether within Jupiter; or, that the lack of centrifugal momentum in
the earth should be rendered equal to the centrifugal momentum of
Jupiter, by the defici