*** was among the thick boughs. All the fowls of Heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. *** The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut-trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty." "Yes!" one will reply, "that truly were a goodly scheme, and a grand unity, but were it not a better thought, productive of a grander unity, and as likely to be the true one, that that starry universe is no one flowered cedar unvaried in its beauty, but such a tree of life as the Daniel and Ezekiel of the New Testament, the beloved apostle, saw, which bare twelve manner of fruit,' and 'whose leaves were for the healing of the nations ?" " "And were it not," a third will say, "grandest still, and most likely, that that midnight sky shows us no Lebanon with its single cedar, however stately, nor any one tree, however different its flowers, but a whole Garden of God,' with its oaks, and its elms, and its fir-trees; its myrtles and its roses: ay, and its lilies of the valley, its daisies and violets too? Yes! stars are like stars, as flowers are like flowers, but they do not resemble each other as roses do roses, or lilies lilies; but as the rose does the lily, or the dark violet the star-eyed daisy." Our Chancellor, caught like Absalom in the branches of his own metaphor, shall say no more on the matter in dispute, but content himself with pressing for a conclusion. And thereupon the twelve, various in their unity, shall stand up with uncovered heads in the stillness of night, and lift their unanimous voices to heaven. "" By thee only, Judge of all the earth, and all the universe, can this cause be decided, and to the judgment of thy supreme court do we refer it for final issue. But, in the meanwhile, we are free to give our verdict according to the evidence laid before us, and it runs thus: There are celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glorg of the moon, and another glory of the stars: star differeth from star in glory." To which verdict, we, for our part, understanding the words in their widest sense, will append our heartiest amen. The "fullness of him that filleth all in all," is of its essence inexhaustible, as we perhaps VOL. XIX. NO. IL best realize when all metaphor is set aside, and we reflect on the one quality that belongs to God's attributes; namely, that they are Infinite. It is part of his kindness to us, that he never lets us lose sight of this great prerogative of his nature, but, alike by suns and by atoms, teaches us that his power and his wisdom have no bounds. It cannot be that he reveals himself otherwise in the oceans of space. Were we privileged to set sail among the shining archipelagoes and starry islands that fill these seas, we should search like marveling but adoring children for wonder upon wonder, and feel a cold chill of utter disappointment if the widest diversity did not everywhere prevail. The sense of Unity is an over-ruling power which never lays aside the sceptre, and will not be disobeyed. We should not fear that it would fade away, nay, we know that it would stand forth mightiest when its kingdom seemed to have sunk under overwhelming diversity. Unity is in nature often nearest us exactly when variety seems to have put it furthest away. We are like the sailors of Magellan who first rounded the globe. Every day they sailed further as they reckoned from the place of their departure, and ploughed what seemed to them a straight line of increasing length, which had all to be retraced before their first harbor could be gained: but, behold, when they had sailed longest, and seemed farthest from home, they had the least to sail over, and were nearest to port. Exactly when hope of return was faintest were they called on to exclaim, like the Ancient Mariner "Oh dream of joy! is this indeed A voyage through space would in like manner turn out to be a circumnavigation. We should set sail from Unity, and traverse the great circle of a universe's variety till we came round to Unity again. The words on our lips as we dropt anchor would be, "There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.” Our readers may be disposed to think, that in all that has been said we have evasively begged the question. A phantomjury of men, professedly unlettered, but in reality bearing the same relation to the ma 12 jority of the different classes they represent, [ Direct telescopic observation, moreover, that the pedlar of Wordsworth's Excursion has also supplied the astronomer with some does to ordinary pedlars, have disposed of information concerning the physical constituthe problem under discussion, apparently tion of the heavenly bodies, the chief points unanimously enough. But if their verdict of which we condense here, mainly from were submitted to the revision of a tribunal Herschel's minute descriptions of the characof men of science, it may be thought doubt- teristic features of each of the members of ful whether it would be ratified. Let us the solar system. transfer, then, the question of the terrestrial. or non-terrestrial character of the heavenly bodies, from the "outer court of the gentiles," in which we have hitherto heard it argued, to the "inner court of the priests," even of the high priests of Nature, who serve at her altar, the philosophers properly 80 called. Our space will not permit us to put on record the judgments of all of them, but we may find roon to chronicle the opinions of three of the priestly dignitaries, the Astronomer, the Chemist, and the Physiologist, or Biologist. A quotation from Sir John Herschel will show the judgment of astronomy on the question we are discussing, so far as the planets are concerned. "Three features principally strike us as necessarily productive of extraordinary diversity in the provisions by which, if they be, like our earth, inhabited, animal life must be supported. These are, first, the difference in their respective supplies of light and heat from the sun; secondly, the differences in the intensities of the gravitating forces which must subsist at their surfaces, or the different ratios which on their several globes the inertia of bodies must bear to their weights; and, thirdly, the difference in the nature of the materials of which, from what we know of their mean density, we have every reason to believe they consist.”Outlines of Astronomy, p. 310. The two first points of diversity noted, refer to differences in the intensity of certain influences, which, however, we shall presently find are, of themselves, sufficient to make terrestrial life as we see it, impossible upon at least the majority of the planets. The third is a most explicit reference to a difference in the kind of materials of which the several planets consist, which their difference in density betrays. "The density of Saturn," for example, "hardly exceeds oneeighth of the mean density of the earth, so that it must consist of materials not much heavier than cork."* We shall refer to this question more particularly presently, when discussing the testimony of Chemistry as to the components of the Spheres. * Op. Cit. p. 811. In So far as the sun is concerned, it may suffice our present purpose to say, that nothing certain is known regarding its constitution. It is supposed to have a kind of triple atmosphere, one portion of which is luminous; the second consists of highly reflective clouds, which float below the first, and throw off its light and heat. The third is a mass of gaseous matter, believed to include the luminous and cloudy portions, and to envelop the solid sphere of the sun. what condition the last is, either as to temperature or to illumination, is quite uncertain; nor is anything known in relation to its composition. Observations, however, on the transit of Venus over the sun's disc, have enabled astronomers to infer, that the sun has not an atmosphere of the same nature as the earth's; and this may be said to be the only matter tolerably certain concerning solar chemistry. Mercury is too near the sun, Uranus and Neptune too distant from it; Vesta, Ceres, Juno, Pallas, and the other minor planets, too small to permit observations as to the condition of their surfaces. Venus is thought to have an atmosphere, and some have conceived they saw hills on its disc, but the existence of these is doubtful. Mars most resembles the earth of all the planets. The outlines of what are considered continents are very distinct, and what seem to be seas are equally visible. The polar regions, too, present appearances strongly favoring the idea, that snow or ice is collected at them, thawing in the Martial summer, and becoming more abundant in its winter. This is by far the most interesting fact, as in truth it is the only positive one, so far as we know, which the telescope has supplied in relation to planetary chemistry. To have good reasons for suspecting, that so characteristic and important an earthly ingredient as water occurs in Mars, is assuredly a matter of great interest. The more abundant element of that fluid (oxygen) is also the most important constituent of air, and may perhaps exist free around the planet. A globe which had water, and an oxygen atmosphere, might certainly put in some chemical claim to be a sister of the Earth's. But such speculation is premature. The presence of water does not justify the inference that free oxygen is also existent; nor does it warrant the conclusion, that more than fifty other elements must be there also. It may further be noticed, that the atmosphere of Mars is less distinct and abundant, and much less opaque and cloudy, than we should have expected, in the case of a planet thought to possess a great body of water. Astronomers, however, appear to be by no means agreed, either as to the nature or to the extent of the Martial atmosphere. Some deny that there is one at all. The strange fiery-red light of this star, also, implies a peculiar condition of its whole uncovered surface, very unlike what our Earth's exterior exhibits, and forbids any conclusion as to the general identity of their superficial condition, or component ingredients. It still more forbids rash inferences as to terrestrial plants and animals existing on a body of unknown composition." Nothing is known concerning the surface of Jupiter, which his cloudy atmosphere conceals from inspection; but observations on the eclipses of his moons have shown that that atmosphere does not sensibly refract light. It therefore differs from that of the earth; but we have at present no means of ascertaining what its constituents are. The disc of Saturn is also hidden from us by a gaseous or vaporous covering, the nature of which is unknown. His rings are perhaps naked, but they are rarely objects of full telescopic observation, and the state of their surfaces has not been minutely described. restrial in the existence of myriads of gigantic volcanic craters, without an atmosphere floating round the sphere containing them, or water existing at its surface; for all the active earthly volcanoes pour out volumes of steam and other vapors and gases, which would soon re-clothe our globe with an atmosphere, if it were deprived of its present one. It does not appear, then, that the telescope favors the idea that a telluric or terrestrial character is common to the members of the solar system. On the other hand, at the sun, the moon, and Jupiter, it brings into view, phenomena which, so far as we can observe them, are so marked and peculiar, as to imply a state of their surfaces quite unlike that of our planet. To the consideration of this we shall return more fully, when referring to the judgment of Biology on the Stars as Theatres of Life. Meanwhile, we proceed to inquire what decision Chemistry gives, on the problem before us. It is to this part of the discussion that we are most anxious to direct the reader's attention, not because it is intrinsically more important than the points already gone over, but because of its comparative novelty, and the erroneous interpretation which has been put upon it. It might seem, at first sight, as if chemistry could have nothing to say on the matter: yet for ages she has hankered after an alliance with astronomy, and has chronicled the fact in her nomenclature. The alchemist was an astro-chemist, and twin-brother to the astrologer. Gold was Sol; Silver, Luna; Iron, Mars; Lead, Saturn, &c.; and we still The earth's satellite is the only moon which speak of lunar caustic, and martial and saturhas been carefully examined; and we can nine preparations, when referring to certain say more concerning its superficial condition of the medicinal compounds of silver, iron, and than that of any other of the heavenly bodies. lead. One of the most important of the metals It is the least terrestrial, to appearance, of every day reminds us, by its name, Mercury, of them all. The moon has no atmosphere, no the affinity which was once thought to connect air, no clouds, no rain, nor dew, nor lakes, it with its namesake, the planet. The astrolnor rivers, nor seas! It has great plains and ogist, however, long ago became an astronovalleys, but, to appearance, barren as the mer, and the alchemist a chemist; and for a Zahara, for the lunar seasons produce no lengthened period they had no dealings tochange on them; nor have traces of vege-gether. It has been otherwise latterly. The table or animal life been detected on any extension of both sciences has led to their part of its unfruitful surface. It has gigantic meeting again, and this in a somewhat sinmountains, nearly every one an active or gular way. extinct volcano, with craters of an enormous depth; but their summits and edges, relieved from the wearing and disintegrating action of air and water, and unclothed with verdure, I am monarch of all I survey." Toward are in all cases rugged and sharp, unlike the the far distant stars, however, he cast wistworn, or covered, and everywhere rounded ful eyes. They were almost all suns, the outlines of our hills. To this astronomical astronomer told him, which for ages had description of the moon we add the remark, evolved light and heat, and spread it through that there is something altogether non-ter-space. Can chemistry, then, which for cen His own little Juan Fernandez island of an earth, was apparently the only spot in the universe of which the chemist could declare, turies has been explaining-always more and more successfully-the evolution of heat and light on this earth, give no information concerning their production at the sun? It seems that perhaps it may. When a ray of sunlight is passed through a prism, certain "fixed lines" or dark spaces are seen in the resulting spectrum, unlike those which the spectra of terrestrial flames exhibit. Sirius and Castor exhibit peculiar spectra also. "Now a very recent discovery of Sir D. Brewster," as Professor Graham observes," has given to these observations an entirely chemical character. He has found that the white light of ordinary flames requires merely to be sent through a certain gaseous medium, (nitrous acid vapor,) to acquire more than a thousand dark lines in its spectrum. He is hence led to infer, that it is the presence of certain gases in the atmosphere of the sun which occasions the observed deficiencies in the solar spectrum. We may thus have it yet in our power to study the nature of the combustion which lights up the suns of other systems."* Such is one example of the way in which chemistry has sought to extend her dominion into space. Another is furnished by the conclusions which Wollaston drew as to the quality of the atmospheres of the Sun and Jupiter, referred to already in this paper, and detailed more fully in the notice of that philosopher's works previously published in this journal. It has recently, however, been found possible to apply chemical analysis directly to certain of the heavenly bodies, so that, without extravagance, we can now declare that there is a Chemistry of the Stars as well as of the Earth. The oft-quoted Oriental proverb, which teaches, that since the "mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain," has in this case, for once, been reversed; for when the chemist could find no way of traveling to the spheres, behold! certain bright particular stars have come to him and submitted to analysis; we refer to the aërolites, meteorites, or meteoric stones, which, according to the most generally adopted of many theories, at one time were thought to have been projected from volcanoes in the moon. They are now almost universally acknowledged to have been true stars before they reached our earth. For a statement of the reasons which have led astronomers to this conclusion, we must refer our readers to *Elements of Chemistry, Second Edition, p. 106. † Vol. iii. p. 85. Humboldt's Cosmos, where the whole subject is discussed at great length. It may suffice to say, that many considerations justify the conclusion, that multitudes of asteroids, starlets, or, as Sir John Herschel calls them, "meteor-planets," revolve in definite orbits round the sun, and some also as invisible, or momentarily visible, minute moons round the earth. The orbits of some of the former are believed to resemble that of the earth, but to be in a different plane, so that in the course of their revolutions round the sun, these tiny planets come, at certain periods, within the sphere of the earth's attraction, and are precipitated as meteoric stones upon its surface, as weary and forlorn birds of passage, far out at sea, are entangled in the rigging of vessels, and fall helpless on deck. This modern theory of meteorites reads like a bald rendering of the poetical myth of the angels, whom earthly loves induced to forfeit forever their places in the heavens, but it has invested the strange fallen stars, to which it refers, with a new interest. The largest of them is but a microscopic grain of the stardust scattered over the sky, but it is none the less of celestial origin, and may be submitted to analysis. The meteorites have accordingly been put upon the rack by the chemist, and all their secrets have been tortured out of them, but they have revealed fewer marvels than at one time was expected. No new chemical element or primary ingredient has been found in any of them. In other words, they contain no ultimate chemical component which the earth does not contain. This remarkable fact has seemed to many to justify the belief, that other worlds have been constructed out of the same materials as our own. thus, for example, turned to account by the author of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." After stating that the elements, or simplest chemical constituents of the globe, are those sixty or more substances which have hitherto resisted all attempts to reduce them to simpler forms of matter, he proceeds thus:* 66 46 It is Analogy would lead us to conclude that the modifications of the primordial matter forming our so-called elements, are as universal, or as liable to take place everywhere as are the laws of grav *The exact number of chemical elements, or simple bodies, is uncertain, as recent researches still incomplete have revealed the existence of several, whose chemical relations have not yet been fully ascertained. We use the integer 60 as sufficiently ncar the true number for our present purpose. itation and centrifugal force. We must therefore presume that the gases, the metals, the earths, and other simple substances, (besides whatever more of which we have no acquaintance,) exist, or are liable to come into existence under proper conditions, as well in the Astral system, which is thirty-five thousand times more distant than Sirius, as within the bounds of our own solar system, or our own globe."-Vestiges, Fifth Edition, p. 30. We leave unnoticed, till we proceed with our discussion, the baseless assumption contained in the passage just quoted, that the earth, considered as an aggregate of chemical substances, is a type of the chemistry of the universe. It is thus justified by a refer ence to the meteoric stones : "What is exceedingly remarkable, and particularly worthy of notice as strengthening the argument that all the members of the solar system, and perhaps of other systems, have a similar constitution, no new elements are found in these bodies [meteorites]; they contain the ordinary materials of the earth, but associated in a manner altogether new, and unlike anything known in terrestrial mineralogy."-Vestiges, Fifth Edition, p. 42. The clause of this sentence which we have marked by italics, contrives, by an unwarrantable concealment, to convey a very false impression of the true nature of meteoric stones. They are said to "contain the ordinary materials of the earth," which no doubt they do; but it should have been added, that they contain only some of them; so far as we know, but the smaller part. We have not on record a great number of analyses of meteoric stones, for they are comparatively rare; it would be premature, therefore, to decide that we know all their constituents. But so far as our knowledge extends, it does not appear that a third of our earthly elements has been found in these bodies. Humboldt, in his Cosmos, enumerates only thirteen of the sixty elements as occurring in them. Prof. Shepard counts nineteen as certain, and adds two more as doubtful. It is to be observed, on the other hand, that not only are the majority of the terrestrial elements, including many of the most important among them, totally wanting from meteoric stones, but those which are present are not mingled (as the quotation indeed acknowledges) in earthly proportions. Our globe consists, speaking generally, of two opposite classes of ingredients-namely, metals and non-metallic bodies, some of which, as oxygen in the one division and the precious metals in the other, occur free, but the greater number in combination with some body or bodies of the unlike class. There are many more kinds of metals than of non-metallic substances, but the latter, taken as a whole, occur in much larger quantities than the former. One non-metallic body alone, oxygen, is computed to form a third of the weight of the crust of the earth. In meteoric stones, on the other hand, whilst non-metallic elements are the less numerous constituents, (only a half of those occurring in the earth being found in them,) they also occur in much smaller quantities than the metals. Of some of them, indeed, traces only are found. Many of the best marked aërolites are masses of nearly pure metal, chiefly iron, with a small proportion of nickel. Others contain cobalt, manganese, chromium, copper and arsenic diffused through them in minute quantities, associated with a small per centage of oxygen, sulphur, chlorine, &c. The stony meteorites consist chiefly of silica and metallic oxides. Whilst thus, meteoric stones contain only a portion of the elements of the earth, that portion is made up, (in the greater number of meteorites,) so far as the relative quantities of its components are concerned, almost entirely of metals. A meteoric stone represents, therefore, only a third of the whole constituents of the earth so far as number is concerned, and except to a small extent, but one class of them so far as nature. A globe so constituted could never, by any process of development, (unless its so-called elements suffered transmutation,) become possessed of water, or an atmosphere, or give birth to terrestrial plants or animals. It may make the matter clearer to those not minutely conversant with chemistry, who may suspect us of hypercriticism, if we illustrate the force of our argument thus: The conclusion in which we are asked to acquiesce is this strange one, that an aggregate of nineteen, or at the utmost twenty-one ingredients is the same thing as an aggregate of sixty. According to this view, a double flageolet of two tubes should be the same thing as a pan-pipe of seven, or an organ with scores of them; and a village fife and * *Twenty-one is the aggregate number of chemical elements found in meteoric stones, but no one meteoric contains so many. Some of the best known consist almost entirely of one ingredient. We state the case, therefore, in the way most disadvantageous for our argument when we speak of the meteoric elements as twenty one in number. 1 |