chapter xiii., page 267, entitled "Formation de l'Universe et du Monde

Solaire"--an explanation which must have occurred to everyone who has taken the trouble to think seriously, of how nebulous spheres could be formed out of a flat nebulous ring endowed with a motion of revolution.

We have seen at page 127 that when the nebula was condensed to a little over 4,000,000 miles in diameter, its average temperature might have been 2740°, provided no heat had been radiated into space. In like manner, we can see that the sun being now condensed to 1·413 times the density of water, or 1093 times the density of air, in other words, that number of atmospheres, its present average temperature might be about 300,000°--as each atmosphere corresponds to 274°--provided no radiation of heat into space had been going on. But this way of estimating could not in any way apply to the nebula after it had ceased to throw off planetary matter; because from that time, or at all events from the time when it came to be of a density equal to one atmosphere and temperature of 0°, or freezing point of water, that would be accumulated within it, owing to the difficulty of carrying to the surface, to be radiated into space, what was produced by condensation in the interior, as we have shown before. Both heat and pressure would increase from the surface towards the centre, the former rising, in spite of surface radiation, to something far beyond what we have stated above that it might be, aided by the increase of pressure which near the centre must be enormously greater than the average of 1093 atmospheres, seeing that the pressure at the surface of the sun is estimated to be not far from 28 atmospheres. The first cause of the increase of pressure would be the condensation produced by gravitation, which according to the areolar law would increase the rotary velocity of the nebula in proportion as the centre was approached; and as this would begin long before it had given up abandoning rings, or rather from the very beginning of its rotation; from that time, there would be different rates of rotation at different distances between the surface and the centre, which would cause friction among the particles of its matter, in other words a churning of the matter shut up in the interior of the nebula, and thus produce heat over and above that produced by the condensation of gravitation alone. If two particles of matter would produce a given quantity of heat, in falling from the surface of the nebula to any point nearer to the centre, they would surely produce more if they were rubbed against each other by churning action during their fall.

Reflecting on what we have written up till now, we see that the analysis of the nebular hypothesis we have made, which at first may have appeared to be unnecessary or even useless, has shown us and made us think over many details, of which we had only a vague notion previously. It has shown us that without condensation at or near the surface of the nebula--which we have pointed out must have been caused by its greatest mass being near that region, and which Laplace procured by endowing it with excessive heat--the various members of the solar system could not have been evolved from it in terms of the hypothesis. From it we have been able to learn, by means of the register of the acceleration of revolution from one planet to another, when, and for what reason, the nebula ceased to be able to throw off any planet nearer to the sun than the supposed Vulcan, or almost even so near. Finally, and not to go into greater detail, it has so far given us some ideas, that we had not before, of the internal structure of the sun, and has made us believe that a great deal may be learnt by attempting to find out what that structure really is. For this purpose, it appears to us that a careful examination into, and study of, the interior of the earth might be a great help, and to this we shall appeal, as we cannot think of any other process by which our object can be attained. This, therefore, we shall endeavour to do in the following chapters.