probably related to each other in the order of time, and we are irresistibly led to the conclusion, that the vegetable world in the one case, and the sidereal world in the other, exhibit at one instant a succession of changes requiring time, which the life of man or the duration of a solar system may not be sufficient to trace out in individual instances." The difference is immense between the oak that for centuries has braved the breeze, and the sapling that has not yet borne an acorn, and parallel to it is that between a rude nebulosity and a stellar orb. Yet, if we deny an identity in the latter case, because we cannot produce an instance of actual progression from the one to the other, so might the insect of an hour, if endowed with intelligence, reason against an identity in the former instance, because ten thousand generations of its race are born, live, and perish during the period which sensible development requires. It has been conceived, therefore, that the nebulæ furnish the true theory of physical existence-a key to the origin of the worlds and the systems of worlds which are disclosed around us an unveiling, too, of the early history and first estate of the solar universe-a diffused nebulosity gradually advanced by the mutual attraction of its particles into dense spheroids, formed by the action of centripetal and centrifugal forces.

The theory may be premature, or hereafter proved positively erroneous, but in the present state of general physics, it is entitled to attention because sustained by some striking evidence, having certainly far more in its favour than could be advanced for the system of Copernicus in the early stages of its history. Those who have treated the nebular hypothesis with ridicule have strangely forgotten what is daily passing before their eyes-forgotten the uniform plan of Providence with reference to the world in which we live. What is man-full-grown, active, intellectual man- as he appears in the maturity of his powers, the noontide of his day, but an example of ascension from a crude to a higher condition? By gradual and slow degrees, he acquires his vigour of frame, fluency of speech, agility of movement, and furniture of mind. There was a time when the profound moralist or philosopher, who has become the guide of his fellows, was unable to guide himself; when he who is the sustainer of others was himself the sustained; when he who can now fearlessly go forth to traverse earth and ocean could not move a yard from his mother's knee by his own independent energy. Practising an unerring geometry, he can measure the space between the poles, the centre, and the circumference of his terrestrial habitation. He can calculate the extent of the planetary universe, predict the return of the far-wandering comet, and measure the interval between him and the stars; but upon a period in his history he can look back when the compass of a mile was a formidable adventure, and the crossing of a pathway an impossible achievement. The founder of physical astronomy, who discovered the wonderful law of matter gravitating to matter with a force directly proportioned to the mass of the attracting body, and inversely to the square of its distance from the body which it attracts he who seized upon the sunbeam and disclosed the constituent rays of light, detecting the origin of its various hues, and building up the details of optical science-he who thus stood forth confessedly eminent over eminence in the world of intellect-was once a stranger to the lowest elements of knowledge, as unable to express his wants as to anticipate his destiny. There is thus in the physical and mental constitution of every individual an illustration of the law of Progress. We start not into life in full maturity of mind and body, but grow up to be what we are by slow and imperceptible degrees. From the moment when existence commences, the years that roll over our heads carry us onward in the march of their changing administration, from a helpless and imperfect condition of being, through stages of awakening thought, expanding intellect, and improving physical capacity, until the full stature of man is gained, rife with life and replete with energy: and what is the period of human evolution, the time of childhood and youth, when compared with the brief term of terrestrial

existence, but as great an interval as ages of material condensation in contrast with the duration of a world.

In each of the subordinate realms of animated nature, there is the same law of gradual advance developed. The cattle upon a thousand hills are subject to it, with the bird that wings its flight through the air, the sovereign of the jungle or the desert, and the thousand existences that swarm in the ocean, from the smallest upon its sands to the leviathan in its depths. The history of their physical constitution displays the principle of progressive formation the gradual advance of the functions of life from weakness to strength, from immaturity to vigour the elevation of the individual from an inferior stature to one more formidable, or perfect, or independent. So, the almost infinitely varied vegetable substances of the globe develope progress, differing in its rate of advance in different classes, but an unfailing condition of their being; and, if we turn to inanimate existence around us, we find testimonies as strong of the operation of the same law. The descending rain or the silvery snow is the offspring of preceding processes of evaporation from the seas, rivers, lakes, and moist earth, producing the ascending vapour, and then the fantastic clouds, that discharge their showers upon the soil. The most powerful and the most gentle winds are called into activity by previously preparing agencies of heat and electricity, creating a vacuum in the atmosphere more or less large, and more or less sudden, which the surrounding air proceeds to fill. The dew and rain give birth to the scanty spring that issues from the earth, and also to the flowing stream; and to the extended river, which rolls onwards to meet the tides of the ocean, terrifying by its cataracts, and fertilizing by its exundations; and though we know but little of the theory of the earthquake and the volcano, yet we know enough to show us that, sudden as are their eruptions, they are not the events of the moment, but preceded by processes of chemical action, combinations of earths and alkalies with water, which gradually produce a high temperature, and lead ultimately to an explosion. Even of extensive tracts of solid land, we may speak of birth, childhood, and youth, without at all abusing language, or torturing phenomena. In the seas of tropical climates there are countless myriads of madrepores, and other minute marine insects, which, with astonishing precision and skill, erect walls and reefs of coral rock, which become the bases of new islands, or additions to those which have already been formed. The process is proceeding extensively in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, where multitudes of such formations emerge above the waves, which, uniting with sands and weeds drifted upon them, lay the foundation of a territory, upon which vegetation speedily blooms, and on which man ultimately plants his footsteps. A single coral reef of seven hundred miles in length, extends from the north-west of Australasia towards New Guinea. Millions of polypii are thus at work preparing abodes which are destined ultimately to be the residence of other animals living in another element, in comparison with which the artificers themselves are utterly insignificant. The crests probably of submarine mountains form the basis upon which their beautiful erections rest. Gradually the reef rises to the surface, and is laid bare to the light and air of heaven. Soil is formed upon it, by accumulations of earthy matter deposited by the ocean. The land and sea birds visit it seeds are wafted to it by the winds, or borne by the waters, or brought by the wild-fowl, plants spring up, and herbage blooms-and finally man comes to give to the territory a name, and a population to connect it with the occupations of human life, and to render it in revolving years, at once the cradle and the grave of his race.

With inductive philosophy such considerations as these have no weight, and will properly be dismissed without regard. The fabric of true science rests upon facts that are rigidly demonstrable, and not upon appearances supported by analogical phenomena. Yet the preceding remarks may serve to show that the hypothesis of the nebular philo

sophers, true or false, involves no new principle under the sun, and, on that account, until disproved, it deserves no ridicule. If, in this minuter department of the creation, there is a law of gradual formation in operation now, dealing with its existences in the detail, the idea is vindicated from the charge of vain conceit, that an analogical law operated in the construction of the globe itself, and the various worlds that compose the system, with those of other sidereal schemes, supported as the theory is by the nebular varieties that meet us in space, from matter in extreme diffusion to matter crowding to a central point, gathered up into spherical hazy masses, and forming stellar nebulæ. Laplace, avoiding dogmatism, yet open to the force of evidence, inferred the nebula to indicate, with extreme probability, their future transformation into stars, and the anterior nebulous condition of the stars which now exist. Let us advert to the case of our own central orb, the sun. We are acquainted with the dimensions of that great globe, with its real diameter of 880,000 miles. We know, too, from observation of the solar spots, that the solar material is a solid opaque substance like the crust of the earth. It may be startling, therefore, to our conceptions to identify such a body with a primitive gaseous nebula. Yet, when we cast a glance into space, and meet with such an object as the nebula of Orion, we have there a storehouse of material sufficient, probably, for the construction of many millions of such globes as the sun; and, as for the transference from a gaseous to a solid condition, we see, in the laboratory of every chemist, matter passing by sure processes through solid, liquid, and gaseous states, under the superintendence of a human artificer, a puny inquisitor of nature, who, confessedly, knows nothing of the substance upon which he operates. us to an idea which at first shocks our conceptions. Light speaks significantly upon the point before us. surrounding the sun, and extending to the orbit of still sustains a somewhat nebulous character.

These are facts which may reconcile
The phenomenon of the Zodiacal
That lenticular-shaped atmosphere,
Venus, is evidence that the central

There is not the slightest foundation for the allegation, that the nebular theory is based on atheistical principles, and no uneasy feeling need disturb the religious mind concerning it. It is an entire misconception, to regard the theory as substituting Growth for Creation, and putting Material Necessity in the place of Eternal Providence. In assigning the organisation of the worlds of space to the gradual operation of physical laws, there is a Supreme First Cause, an Acting Operator, by whose will those laws were appointed, and by whose power they are influential, as necessarily implied, as in the contrary supposition that the mighty framework of universal nature transpired by Divine volition in the twinkling of an eye. Why should gravitation be an attribute of matter? Why should change occur in the disposition of material elements? Why should a diffused, gaseous, and luminous nebulosity condense, and become in the sweep of ages a solid globe, adapted for the sustenance of animal life, and the gratification of intellectual natures? Or why should there have been a germal nebula at all? The answer to these questions refers us to a wise and eternal Potentate, whose free volition originated the primitive substance, placed it under the action of laws adapted to accomplish His design; and those laws are but the tools with which the great Artificer is pleased to work. They are dependent and not self-acting powers. They are links in the chain of causal influences, but not the first links. Upon this subject Dr. Pye Smith says: "What was the condition or constitution of the first created matter? Certainly it falls within the province of general physics to examine this question and if the investigation be conducted in the true spirit of philosophy, which is modest, reverential, and cautious—in a word, the spirit of genuine religion - though it may not be demonstratively answered in the present life, yet valuable approximations may be made to it. The nebular hypothesis, ridiculed as it has been by persons whose

ignorance cannot excuse their presumption, is regarded as in a very high degree probable by some of the finest and most Christian minds. If I may venture to utter my own impressions, I must profess it as the most reasonable supposition, and the correlate of the nebular theory, that God originally gave being to the primordial elements of things, the very small number of simple bodies, endowing each with its own wondrous properties. Then, that the action of those properties in the ways which His wisdom ordained, and which we call laws, produced and is still producing all the forms and changes of organic and inorganic natures; and that the series is by Him destined to proceed in combinations and multiplications ever new, without limit of space or end of duration, to the unutterable admiration and joy of all holy creatures, and to the eternal display of His glory who fixed the wondrous frame." We have no more occasion to stumble at the idea that our world dates its origin from a few primordial elements, endowed with properties to complete the structure, than a colony of ants, at a tree root, would have cause to start at the fact, could they be made cognisant of it, that leaves, branches, and trunk proceeded from a single seed. The pine is as mighty and majestic to the insects invisible to the naked eye that cluster on its rind, as the globe to us. The primal germ to which vegetable physiology assigns it is as insignificant to its full-grown form, as the simple elements of the nebular philosophers to the planetary spheroids. The thousand years, in which its arms may have embraced the gale, bear about the same proportion to the hour in which the ephemeron lives amidst its branches, as the antiquity claimed by physics for the earth, does to man's age, threescore years and ten.

With these notices, the view proposed to be taken of the SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS concludes. It cannot close more appropriately than with the advice to Adam, which Milton puts into the mouth of the angel:

GEOGRAPHY -a description of the earth, as the term imports is a science of early cultivation, but only in very recent times has maritime and inland discovery been conducted upon such a scale as to furnish enlarged and accurate knowledge of the features of the terrestrial globe. The enterprise of the commercialist, the career of the warrior, and professedly scientific expeditions, have each contributed to extend the acquaintance of man with the earth he occupies. The first cause came into operation the earliest, and has been the most influential. Difference of climate yielding diverse productions gave rise to the desire in one district to possess what was only to be obtained in another, upon this the mutual intercourse of inhabitants by land expeditions for the purpose of traffic was grafted, which became subservient to the expansion of geographical knowledge. In