familiar evidence, we might with the more confidence speak of our
system as not amongst the elder born of Heaven, but one whose
various phenomena, physical and moral, as yet lay undeveloped,
while myriads of others were fully fashioned, and in complete
arrangement. Thus, in the sublime chronology to which we are
directing our inquiries, we first find ourselves called upon to
consider the globe which we inhabit as a child of the sun, elder
than Venus and her younger brother Mercury, but posterior in date
of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; next to regard our
whole system as probably of recent formation in comparison with
many of the stars of our firmament. We must, however, be on our
guard against supposing the earth as a recent globe in our ordinary
conceptions of time. From evidence afterwards to be adduced, it
will be seen that it cannot be presumed to be less than many
hundreds of centuries old. How much older Uranus may be, no one can
tell, far less how much more aged may be many of the stars of our
firmament, or the stars of other firmaments, than ours."

All this is ingenious and fluently expressed. The author has an easy way
of surmounting his difficulties by the use of such little auxiliary
phrases, as "of course," "it may be surmised," "it is reasonable to
suppose," and so on; which, though trifling in themselves, help him in
their connecting inferences through many embarrassing perplexities. But
his hypothesis is yet unproved; his fire-mist is only a conjecture; his
nuclei, scattered like so many eggs in space out of which future suns
and worlds are in process of incubation, is of the same description, and
rotation, the first step in his process of creation, would not ensue
under the conditions he has assigned. Without dwelling on these
shortcomings, we shall terminate this portion of the author's inquiry
with a few general strictures. First, on its inconsistency with what we
know of the solar system; and, secondly, on its inadequacy to explain
the facts of which we are cognizant on our own globe.

In the first place, for the hypothesis to be applicable to our system,
it is requisite that the primary and secondary bodies should revolve,
both in their orbits and round their axes, in one direction, and nearly
in one plane. Most of the bodies of the system observe these laws, their
orbits are nearly circular, nearly in