In view of the above comparison of the two cases--added as a complement
to what we believe we have demonstrated in a former part of our
work--we shall adopt the second as being most in harmony with the
laws of attraction, and of nature in general, and shall endeavour to
describe in some detail, the construction of the nebula out of the
matter belonging to the domains of the sun, as we have marked them out.
We have already said that on account of being at the greatest distance
from the main body, and at the same time nearer than all other parts
of it, to the attractive force in the domains of the neighbouring
stars or nebulæ--which attraction continues to be exerted upon the
solar system up to the present day--the matter in the high peaks which
we have shown would form part of the sun's domains, would come to be
completely separated from the rest of the nebulous matter. We shall
now assume this to have come about, the detached pieces, somewhat in
the shape of cones, occupying positions distant from the main body, in
some sort of proportion to their altitudes and masses. This separation
would naturally make some alteration on the centre of gravity of the
remaining mass. It would come to be nearer to the deep hollows, made
in the mass by the attraction of the most powerful of the nearest
neighbouring stars; and as we have seen that the hollows made by Sirius
and [Greek: a] Centauri would be the deepest, and also for greater
simplicity in description, we shall suppose that the centre of gravity
would come to be nearer to these hollows than it had been before. Then,
as the condensation and contraction proceeded, the tendency would be
to fill up these hollows, and, as a consequence, the matter at the
opposite side of the nebula would at the same time tend to lag behind
in approaching the centre--for the same reasons we have given in the
case of the peaks--and might easily come to be detached from the main
body altogether, first in the form of shreds, then in larger masses,
and afterwards in concave segments of hollow spheres, as contraction
advanced; and the whole seen from a sufficient distance, would have
the appearance of a nebula with crescents, perhaps almost rings, of
nebulous matter and detached masses on one side of it; all very much
like what we know to be the figures presented by some nebulæ.
When contraction had continued till the hollows caused by Sirius
and [Greek: a] Centauri were filled up, we might suppose that the
nebula had come to be somewhat of a spherical form, although far from
being very pronounced, and we have now to consider what its internal
structure might be and most probably was.
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