which we have chosen for our motto; words which ought to be written in letters of gold in every language under the sun. Descartes, by considering the mechanical impulse of the ether sufficient to explain the planetary motions, failed to detect the force of gravity in the heavens. Newton, on the other hand, feeling that his law was sufficient to explain them, and requiring a vacuum for its mathematical accuracy, rejected the notion of an ethereal medium. His successors, following too closely in his footsteps, and forgetting the golden law, have forced themselves into a position by no means enviable. The short-period comet has driven them to a resisting medium, which, while according to Encke’s hypothesis of increasing density around the sun, it explains the anomalies of one periodical comet, requires a different law of density for another, and a negative resistance for a third.

OUTLINES OF THE PROBLEM.

From the position we now occupy, we can see the outlines of the problem before us, viz.: To reconcile the existence of an ethereal medium with the law of gravitation, and to show the harmony between them. We shall thus occupy the middle ground, and endeavor to be just to the genius of Descartes, without detracting from the glory of Newton, by demonstrating the reality of the Cartesian vortices, and by showing that the ether is not affected by gravitation, but on the other hand is least dense in the centre of our system. But what (it may be asked) has this to do with the theory of storms? Much every way. And we may so far anticipate our subject as to assert that every phenomenon in meteorology where force is concerned, is dependent on the motions of the great sea of electric fluid which surrounds us, in connection with its great specific, caloric. If we are chargeable with overweening pretensions, let it be attributed to the fact that for the last fifteen years we have treated the weather as an astronomical phenomenon, calculated by simple formulæ, and that the evidence of its truth has been almost daily presented to us, so as to render it by this time one of the most familiar and palpable of all the great fundamental laws of nature. True, we have neither had means nor leisure to render the theory as perfect as we might have done, the reason of which we have already communicated.

MOTIONS OF THE STARS.

In investigating the question now before us, we shall first take the case of an ethereal vortex without any reference to the ponderable bodies which it contains, considering the ether to possess only inertia. If there be a vortex around the sun, it is of finite extent; for if the ether be co-extensive with space, and the stars likewise suns with surrounding vortices, the solar vortex cannot be infinite. That there is an activity in the heavens which the mere law of attraction is incompetent to account for, is an admitted fact. The proper motions of the fixed stars have occupied the attention of the greatest names in astronomy, and motions have been detected, which according to the theory of gravity, requires the admission of invisible masses of matter in their neighborhood, compared with which the stars themselves are insignificant. But this is not the only difficulty. No law of arrangement in the stars can exist that will save the Stellar system from ultimate destruction. The case assumed by Sir John Herschel, of a cluster, wherein the periods shall be equal, cannot be made to fulfil the conditions of being very numerous, without infringing the other condition—the non-intersection of their orbits; while the outside stars would have to obey another law of gravitation, and consequently would be still more liable to derangement from their ever-changing distances from each other, and from those next outside; in brief, the stability of those stars composing the cluster would necessarily depend on the existence of outside stars, and plenty of them. But those outside stars would follow the common law of gravity, and must ultimately bring ruin on the whole. We know such clusters do exist in the heavens, and that the law of gravity alone must bring destruction upon them. This is a case wherein modern science has been instrumental in drawing a veil over the fair proportions of nature. That such collections of stars are not designed thus to derange the order of nature, proves à priori, that some other conservative principle must exist; that the medium of space must contain many vortices—eddies, as it were, in the great ethereal ocean, whose currents are sweeping along the whole body of stars. We shall consider, (as a faint shadowing of the glorious empire of Omnipotence,) that the whole infinite extent of space is full of motion and power to its farthest verge; and it may be an allowable stretch of the imagination to conceive that the whole comprises one infinite cylindrical vortex, whose axis is the only thing in the universe in a state of absolute unchangeableness.

VORTICOSE MOTION.

Let us for a moment admit the idea of an infinite ocean of fluid matter, having inertia without gravity, and rotating around an infinite axis, in this case there is nothing to counteract the effect of the centrifugal force. The elasticity of the medium would only oppose resistance in a vortex of finite diameter. Where it is infinite, each cylindrical layer is urged outward by its own motion, and impelled also by those behind. The result would be that all the fluid would at last have left the axis, around which would exist an absolute and eternal void; into which neither sound, nor light, nor aught material, could enter. The case of a finite vortex is very different. However great the velocity of rotation, and the tendency of the central parts to recede from the axis, there would be an inward current down either pole, and meeting at the equatorial plane to be thence deflected in radii. But this radiation would be general from every part of the axis, and would be kept up as long as the rotation continued, if the polar currents can supply the drain of the radial stream, that is, if the axis of the vortex is not too long for the velocity of rotation and the elasticity of the ether, there will be no derangement of the density, only a tendency. And in this case the periodic times of the parts of the vortex will be directly as the distances from the axis, and the absolute velocities will be equal.

FORMATION OF VORTICES.

There is reason to suspect that Newton looked at this question with a jaundiced eye. To do it justice, we must consider the planetary matter in a vortex, as the exponent of its motion, and not as originating or directing it. If planetary matter becomes involved in any vortex, it introduces the law of gravitation, which counteracts the expulsive force of the radial stream, and is thus enabled to retain its position in the centre. A predominating mass in the centre will, by its influence, retain other masses of matter at a distance from the centre, even when exposed to the full power of the radial stream. If the power of the central mass is harmoniously adjusted to the rotation of the vortex, (and the co-existence of the phenomena is itself the proof that such an adjustment does obtain,) the two principles will not clash or interfere with each other. Or in other words, that whatever might have been the initial condition of the solar vortex, the ultimate condition was necessarily one of equilibrium, or the system of the planets would not now exist. With this view of its constitution, we must consider that the periodic times of the planets approximately correspond to the times of the contiguous parts of the vortex. Consequently, in the solar vortex,