aring, the arguments by which they are supported, and the
counter reasons by which they appear to be wholly or partially impugned.
Our readers will thus be enabled to appreciate the merits of a
controversy, the most comprehensive and interesting that for a
lengthened period has occupied the attention of the scientific and
intellectual world.

For greater clearness of exposition we shall endeavour to follow the
order observed by the author in the division and treatment of his
subjects, commencing first with the

BODIES OF SPACE.

The author opens his subject with a brief but luminous outline of the
arrangement and formation of the astral and planetary systems of the
heavens. He first describes the solar system, of which our earth is a
member, consisting of the sun, planets, and satellites with the less
intelligible orbs termed comets, and taking as the uttermost bounds of
this system the orbit of Uranus, it occupies a portion of space not less
than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. The mind
cannot form an exact notion of so vast an expanse, but an idea of it may
be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest racehorse ever known
had began to traverse it at full speed at the time of the birth of
MOSES, he would only yet have accomplished half his journey. Vast as is
the solar system, it is only one of an infinity of others which may be
still more extensive. Our sun is supposed to be a star belonging to a
constellation of stars, each of which has its accompaniment of revolving
planets; and the constellation itself with similar constellations to
form revolving clusters round some mightier centre of attraction; and so
on, each astral combination increasing in number, magnitude, and
complexity, till the mind is utterly lost in the vain effort to grasp
the limitless arrangement.

Of the stars astronomers can hardly be said to know anything with
certainty. Sirius, which is the most lustrous, was long supposed to be
the nearest and most within the reach of observation, but all attempts
to calculate the distance of that luminary have proved futile. Of its
inconceivable remoteness some notion may be formed by the fact, that the
diameter of the earth's annual orbit, if viewed from it, would dwindle
into an invisible point. This is what is meant by the stars not having,
like the planets, a _parallax_; that is, the earths' orbit, as seen from
them, does not subtend a measurable angle. With two other st