power to resolve them into distinct stars.

But the author can hardly claim this negative success in grappling with
a second objection--namely, his assumed origin of _rotatory motion_.
According to him, a confluence of atoms round a spherical centre of
attraction, would cause the agglomerated mass to revolve upon its axis
in the manner of our earth. This was denied by everybody the least
acquainted with the laws of motion; and thus did one of his imaginary
solutions of a great phenomenon of the universe fall dead to the ground.
This he now seems to concede, but in a sentence unintelligible to us,
in which an undoubted physical law is spoken of as only an _abstract
truth_ (p. 20). He obviously still clings to his first mistaken
inference, and calls to his aid Professor NICHOL, whom he has also
pressed into his service to help him over the last-mentioned difficulty
by the Professor's affirmation of a diversity of nebulous clusters. But
the Professor does not commit himself to the extent of the author; his
aqueous whirlpool is cited from HERSCHEL, only in illustration, and
correctly said to be produced by the unequal force of convergence of a
fluid to a common centre. But the author's nuclei, disposed in his
notable "fire-mist," did not act with unequal force on the ambient
vapour, and whose central convergence in consequence, would not produce
rotation or motion of any kind. This was the real matter in question,
the author was taken up on his own premises, and the results he assumed
to follow from them proved to be inconsistent with the unquestionable
laws of gravitating matter.

He has gone over the geological portion of his subject with much care,
but if competent, it would be impossible within our narrow limits to
accompany him; nor could the discussion be made either interesting or
intelligible except to the scientific, who have devoted attention to an