of the two globes perpendicular to the plane of their lines of motion is just equal to the moment of momentum of the sun's rotation round his axis. It is an elementary and easily proved law of dynamics that no mutual action between parts of a group of bodies, or of a single body, rigid, flexible, or fluid, can alter the moment of momentum of the whole. The transverse velocity in the case we are now supposing is so small that none of the main features of the collision and of the wild oscillations following it, which we have been considering, or of the magnitude, heat, and brightness of the resulting star, will be sensibly altered; but now, instead of being rotationless, it will be revolving once round in twenty-five days and so in all respects like to our sun. If instead of being at rest initially or moving with the small transverse velocities we have been considering, each globe had a transverse velocity of three-quarters of a kilometre per second (or anything more than 71), they would just escape collision, and would revolve in equal ellipses round the centre of inertia, in a period of one year, just grazing one another's surfaces every time they come round to the nearest points of their orbits. The fluid mass thus formed will be exploded by this prodigious heat, outwards in vapour or gas all round. Its boundary will reach to a distance considerably less than one hundred times the radius of the earth's orbit on first flying out to its extreme limit. A diminishing series of out and in oscillations will follow, and the incandescent globe thus contracting and expanding alternately, in the course it may be of three or four hundred years, will settle to a radius of forty* times the radius of the earth's orbit. The average density of the gaseous nebula thus formed would be (215 x 40)-3, or one six hundred and thirty-six thousand millionth, of the sun's mean density; or one four hundred and fifty-four thousand millionth of the density of water; or one five hundred and seventy millionth of that of common air at an ordinary temperature of 10° C. The density in its central regions, sensibly uniform through several million kilometres, is one twenty thousand millionth of that of water; or one twenty-five millionth of that of air. This exceedingly small density is nearly six times the density of the oxygen and nitrogen left in some of the receivers exhausted by Bottomley in his experimental measurements of the amount of heat emitted by pure radiation from highly heated bodies. If the substance were oxygen, or nitrogen, or other gas or mixture of gases simple or compound, of specific density equal to the specific density of our air, the central temperature would be 51,200° Cent., and the average translational velocity of the molecules 6.66 kilometres per second, being ✔ of 10-2, the velocity acquired by a heavy body falling unresisted from the outer boundary (of 40 times the radius of the earth's orbit) to the centre of the nebulous If the initial transverse velocity of each globe be less than, but not much less than, 71 of a kilometre per second, there will be a violent grazing collision, and two bright suns, solid globes bathed in flaming fluid, will come into existence in the course of a few hours, and will commence revolving round their common centre of inertia in long elliptic orbits in a period of a little less than a year. Tidal interaction between them will diminish the eccentricities of their orbits, and if continued long enough will cause the two to revolve in circular orbits round their centre of inertia with a distance between their sur-mass. faces equal to 6.44 diameters of each. Suppose now, still choosing a particular case to fix the ideas, that twenty-nine million cold solid globes, each of about the same mass as the moon, and amounting in all to a total mass equal to the sun's, are scattered as uniformly as possible on a spherical surface of radius equal to one hundred times the radius of the earth's orbit, and that they are left absolutely at rest in that position. They will all commence falling towards the centre of the sphere, and will meet there in two hundred and fifty years, and every one of the twenty-nine million globes will then, in the course of half an hour, be melted, and raised to a temperature of a few hundred thousand or a million degrees centigrade. The gaseous nebula thus constituted would in the course of a few million years, by constantly radiating out heat, shrink to the size of our present sun, when it would have exactly the same heating and lighting efficiency. But no motion of rotation. The moment of momentum of the whole solar system is about eighteen times that of the sun's rotation; seventeen-eighteenths being Jupiter's and one-eighteenth the Sun's, the other bodies being not worth taking into account in the reckoning of moment of momentum. Now, instead of being absolutely at rest homogeneous gas is 40 per cent. of the radius of the spherical surface from which its ingredients must fall to their actual positions in the nebula to have the same kinetic energy as the nebula has. The radius of a steady globular gaseous nebula of any * in the beginning, let the twenty-nine million hundred million years. Thus there may in moons be given each with some small motion, reality be nothing more of mystery or of difmaking up in all an amount of moment of ficulty in the automatic progress of the solar momentum about a certain axis, equal to the system from cold matter diffused through moment of momentum of the solar system space, to its present manifest order and which we have just been considering; or beauty, lighted and warmed by its brilliant considerably greater than this, to allow for sun, than there is in the winding up of a effect of resisting medium. They will fall clock and letting it go till it stops. I need together for two hundred and fifty years, scarcely say that the beginning and the and though not meeting precisely in the maintenance of life on the earth is absolutely centre as in the first supposed case of no and infinitely beyond the range of all sound primitive motion, they will, two hundred and speculation in dynamical science. The only fifty years from the beginning, be so crowded contribution of dynamics to theoretical biotogether that there will be myriads of col- logy is absolute negation of automatic comlisions, and almost every one of the twenty-mencement or automatic maintenance of life. nine million globes will be melted and driven into vapour by the heat of these collisions. The vapour or gas thus generated will fly outwards, and after several hundreds or 9 centimetres Fig. 3. thousands of years of outward and inward oscillatory motion, may settle into an oblate rotating nebula extending its equatorial radius far beyond the orbit of Neptune, and with moment of momentum equal to or exceeding the moment of momentum of the solar system. This is just the beginning postulated by Laplace for his nebular theory of the evolution of the solar system; which, founded on the natural history of the stellar universe as observed by the elder Herschell, and completed in details by the profound dynamical judgment and imaginative genius of Laplace, seems converted by thermodynamics into a necessary truth, if we make no other uncertain assumption than that the materials at present constituting the dead matter of the solar system have existed under the laws of dead matter for a I shall only say in conclusion:-Assuming the sun's mass to be composed of materials which were far asunder before it was hot, the immediate antecedent to its incandescence must have been either two bodies with details differing only in proportions and densities from the cases we have been now considering as examples; or it must have been some number more than two-some finite number at the most the number of atoms in the sun's present mass, a finite number (which may probably enough be something between 4 x 107 and 140 x 1057) as easily understood and imagined as number 3 or number 123. The immediate antecedent to incandescence may have been the whole constituents in the extreme condition of subdivision -that is to say, in the condition of separate atoms; or it may have been any smaller number of groups of atoms making up minute crystals or groups of crystals-snowflakes of matter, as it were; or it may have been lumps of matter like a macadamising stone; or like the stone (Fig. 1) on page 264, which you might mistake for a macadamising stone, and which was actually travelling through space till it fell on the earth at Possil, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, on April 5, 1804; or like that (Fig. 2) on page 265, which was found in the Desert of Atacama, in South. America, and is believed to have fallen there from the sky-a fragment made up of iron and stone, which looks as if it has solidified from a mixture of gravel and melted iron in a place where there was very little of heaviness; or this splendidly crystallised piece of iron (Fig. 3), a slab cut out of the celebrated äerolite of Lenarto, in Hungary ;+ or this Even in this, and all the properties of matter which it involves, there is enough, and more than enough, of mystery to our limited understanding. A watch-spring is much farther beyond our understanding than is a gaseous nebula. These three meteorites are in the possession of the Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow, and the wood wonderfully-shaped specimen (Figs. 4 and 5), a model of the Middlesburgh meteorite (kindly given me by Professor A. S. Herschel), with corrugations showing how its melted matter has been scoured off from the front part of its surface in its final rush through the earth's atmosphere when it was seen to fall on March 14, 1881, at 3.35 P.M. For the theory of the sun it is indifferent which of these varieties of configurations of matter may have been the immediate antecedent of his incandescence, but I can never think of these material antecedents without remembering a question put to me thirty years ago by the late Bishop Ewing, Bishop cuts, Figs. 1, 2, and 3, have been executed from the actual specimens kindly lent for that purpose by the Keeper of the Fig. 1 is contained in the Hunterian collection, that by Fig. 2 museum, Professor Young. The specimen represented by lection-the scale of dimensions is shown for each. It may be remarked that Fig. 2 represents a section of the meteorite taken in the plane of the longest rectangular axes; the bright markings being large and well-formed crystals of olivine, embedded in a matrix of iron. In Fig. 3 is depicted the beautiful Widmanstätten marking characteristic of all in the Eck collection, and that by Fig. 3 in the Lanfine col meteoric iron, and so well shown in the well-known Lenarto meteorite. Fig. 5. of Argyll and the Isles: "Do you imagine that piece of matter to have been as it is from the beginning; to have been created as it is, or to have been as it is through all time till it fell on the earth?" I had told him that I believed the sun to be built up of meteoric stones, but he would not be satisfied till he knew or could imagine, what kind of stones. I could not but agree with him in feeling it impossible to imagine that any one of these meteorites before you has been as it is through all time, or that the materials of the sun were like this for all time before they come together and became hot. Surely this stone has an eventful history, but I shall not tax the patience of readers of GOOD WORDS I shall only say that we cannot but agree by trying just now to trace it conjecturally. with the common opinion which regards meteorites as fragments broken from larger masses, but we cannot be satisfied without trying to imagine what were the antecedents of those masses. A RAINBOW. BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. CLOUD rolls up from the west, Blotting the sun in the sky; Rain pours down from its breast, Stone nor leaf is dry. Cloud rolls off to the east, Vast arch springs from the plain, That hop and flutter and trill, Or the placidly grazing herds, Or the flock of sheep on the hill. Storm, shadow, and ray Day melts into year. Force changes and flows; Curve and colours are thine, HER TWO MILLIONS. AUTHOR OF "RED RYVINGTON," "THE PHANTOM CITY," "Two PINCHES OF SNUFF," ETC. CHAPTER XVIII.-LEYLAND AND MAYO. MR. the R. LEYLAND, the proprietor of the Helvetic News, was a tall, good-looking man, with a heavy moustache, dark hair, which he parted in the middle, an imposing presence, and a plausible tongue. He neither wrote for the paper nor paid much attention to the details of the business, but he was great at giving orders, drawing cheques, entertaining people of distinction, and giving the coup de grâce to hesitating advertisers; yet he did not commit the error of making himself too common, never interfering unless "some big thing" was at stake, when his grand manner and amazing statements about the circulation of the paper were generally successful. He was equally clever at raising the wind, and on several occasions, when the paper seemed to be at the last extremity, had contrived by some bold stroke or ingenious combination to give it new life. His latest feat of the sort was persuading the American banker mentioned by Gibson to take an interest in the paper (albeit the fact was not generally known) and grant the proprietor an almost unlimited over-draft. Mayo, Leyland's manager and second in command, was a slightly built young fellow with sharp grey eyes, blonde complexion, and a quick, vivacious manner. He was full of fire and energy, and as industrious as Leyland was the reverse, conducted all the business correspondence of the paper, looked after the accounts, and kept his eye on everything. Like his chief, he was nothing if not enterprising, and their enterprise generally took the form of spending money. If profuse outlay could insure success then might the Helvetic News count on a brilliant future. On the day after Balmaine's first appearance in the office, Leyland and Mayo were engaged in conversation in the former's room, a handsome, luxuriously furnished apartment, one side of which was covered with a great map of Europe, the other adorned with valuable engravings. "Has anything come in this morning?" asks Leyland as he leans back in his fauteuil and lazily smokes a fine Havanna cigar. "Nothing to mention-orders for a thousand francs from Paris and eight hundred from Baden." "Nothing from Bevis ?" "I did not expect anything-he has only just got to work." "Late, is he not ?" "Very. I have been urging him to start for a month past, both by letter and telegram; but when he once gets down to that villa of his in the Riviera he is hard to move, and whatever you say or do he always takes his own time." "Always; but for all that he is the best. canvasser we have." "Rather. I don't know what we should do without him. I wish he was not quite so expensive, though. I have just been looking up his account, and his commission last year amounted to fifteen thousand francs, and his travelling expenses to eight." "Nearly a thousand pounds sterling-rather stiff that; but he gets more advertisements than all the other fellows put together, so we must not complain. Where is he now ?" "At Florence. It is no use going farther south at this time of the year-hardly any use going even to Florence, I am afraid. Then by Milan and Turin to the Italian lakes Locarno and Bellinzona, and over the Gothard "Sure to do. He always does. He has three of the best qualifications for an advertising canvasser a man can have-fine manners, ready tact, and a tongue that would almost talk a knot out of a tree, as Harman would say. I know nobody to be compared with him, except you, Leyland-if you would work." "I'll take care I don't," answered Leyland with a laugh. "I know a trick worth two of that, Mayo. I would rather watch others work. That reminds me, though I really don't see why it should, that I had a question to ask about finance. How do we stand with Harmans ?" "Sixty thousand francs to our debit. Will they stand it, do you think?" "What a question, Mayo! They have stood it, or we shouldn't have got the money." "Will they let it stand, I should say?" "What else can they do? And if we want more they will let us have it; and the more we owe them the safer we are. They cannot afford to pull us up, and we cannot afford to pay them off." "That is quite true; especially the latter," returned Mayo with an amused smile, "and I assure you I never thought of anything so absurd as paying them off. I only feared that they might possibly bother us with questions and request us to reduce the account." "Not they; there is no reason why they should, at any rate at present; and I have got the length of Robert Harman's foot. He called last night. "About business?" "No; he wanted to introduce an American general and his wife to our family circle, as he put it; and we asked them all to dinner for next Monday. By the way, have you seen the new assistant editor yet? Harman was asking about him." "Not yet. The fellow may be useful if he has anything in him." "Of course he may, but now we have got Milnthorpe we might have done without him." "That is true; but don't you see what a pull it gives us over Gibson? This new fellow, Balmaine, will always be ready to slip into the other's shoes; and, to tell the truth, I am getting rather out of conceit with GibHe is lazy, his leaders are stale, and son. Balmaine would do the work for half his screw." "I dare say. But you forgot that Gibson has a three years' agreement." "No, I don't; but it is a queer agreement that one cannot get out of, and I have no doubt we shall find a way of getting out of this when the time comes. Hallo! there's a whistle, put your ear to the spout, Mayo." "Mr. Robert Harman would be glad to see Mr. Leyland," says Mayo, still holding the tube to his ear. The next moment the door opens and in walks the American banker. A large man all over-hair long, hat tilted back on his head, eyes all aglow with excitement, clean shaven, fresh-coloured face, and an eager look, as if he had just conceived some new idea and was burning to bring it forth. "Good day, gentlemen, good day," he exclaimed, in a loud and hearty voice, shaking hands with both Leyland and Mayo at the same time, "how is the Helvetic News today?" "First rate," says Leyland with his most urbane smile. "We had several thousand francs worth of advertisements this morning, and the season is only just beginning. Now Bevis has got to work we shall have as many every day." "Glad to hear it. Nothing like going a-head. And you do go a-head, there is no mistake about that, we cashed drafts yesterday that make your account more than sixty thousand on the wrong side." "So Mayo was saying just now," quietly observes Leyland, "and to tell you the truth, I am surprised it is not more. You have no idea what the expenses of a daily paper are; and we are only just emerging from winter, which, as you know, is our worst time, a great deal going out and very little coming. in. But now the tide is turning, and in a few weeks we shall be flush. I dare say, though, we shall have to ask you for another ten thousand francs or so in the meantime." "The devil you will! Well, draw it as mild as you can, for though we want to give your enterprise all the support in our power we are not quite made of money, and I have partners. So far as I am personally concerned I look on a daily paper here as a grand fact, and the Helvetic News, properly worked, is destined, I do believe, to become a great power. It will help in the realisation of my design of making Geneva the centre of European travel for the English-speaking people of three continents. We are adding a large news-room and lounge to our offices. |