and the conclusions drawn from it important; only a part, however, of
the matter with which it deals is of a nature to be apprehended by the
student who does not approach it in a somewhat professional way. We
shall therefore now turn to a description of the portion of the starry
world which is found in the limits of our solar system. There the
influences of the several spheres upon our planet are matters of vital
importance; they in a way affect, if they do not control, all the
operations which go on upon the surface of the earth.


THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

We have seen that the matter in the visible universe everywhere tends
to gather into vast associations which appear to us as stars, and that
these orbs are engaged in ceaseless motion in journeys through space.
In only one of these aggregations--that which makes our own solar
system--are the bodies sufficiently near to our eyes for us, even with
the resources of our telescopes and other instruments, to divine
something of the details which they exhibit. In studying what we may
concerning the family of the sun, the planets, and their satellites,
we may reasonably be assured that we are tracing a history which with
many differences is in general repeated in the development of each
star in the firmament. Therefore the inquiry is one of vast range and
import.

Following, as we may reasonably do, the nebular hypothesis--a view
which, though not wholly proved, is eminently probable--we may regard
our solar system as having begun when the matter of which it is
composed, then in a finely divided, cloudy state, was separated from
the similar material which went to make the neighbouring fixed stars.