The view which I have long entertained respecting the growth of the solar system—viz., that it had its origin, not in contraction only or chiefly, but in combined processes of contraction and accretion—seems to me to be very strongly confirmed by Dr. Draper’s discovery. This would not be the place for a full discussion of the reasons on which this opinion is based. But I may remark that I believe no one who applies the laws of physics, _as at present known_, to the theory of the simple contraction of a great nebulous mass formerly extending far beyond the orbit of Neptune, till, when planet after planet had been thrown off, the sun was left in his present form and condition in the centre, will fail to perceive enormous difficulties in the hypothesis, or to recognize in Dr. Draper’s discovery a difficulty added to those affecting the hypothesis _so presented_. Has it ever occurred, I often wonder, to those who glibly quote the nebular theory as originally propounded, to inquire how far some of the processes suggested by Laplace are in accordance with the now known laws of physics? To begin with, the original nebulous mass extending to a distance exceeding the earth’s distance from the sun more than thirty times (this being only the distance of Neptune), if we assign to it a degree of compression making its axial diameter half its equatorial diameter, would have had a volume exceeding the sun’s (roughly) about 120,000,000,000 times, and in this degree its mean density would have been less than the sun’s. This would correspond to a density equal (roughly) to about one-400,000th part of the density of hydrogen gas at atmospheric pressure. To suppose that a great mass of matter, having this exceedingly small mean density, and extending to a distance of three or four thousand millions of miles from its centre, could under any circumstances rotate as a whole, or behave in other respects after the fashion attributed to the gaseous embryon of the solar system in ordinary descriptions of the nebular hypothesis, is altogether inconsistent with correct ideas of physical and dynamical laws. It is absolutely a necessity of any nebular hypothesis of the solar system, that from the very beginning a central nucleus and subordinate nuclei should form in it, and grow according to the results of the motions (at first to all intents and purposes independent) of its various parts. Granting this state of things, we arrive, by considering the combined effects of accretion and contraction, at a process of development according fully as well as that ordinarily described with the general relations described by Laplace, and accounting also (in a general way) for certain peculiarities which are in no degree explained by the ordinary theory. Amongst these may specially be noted the arrangement and distribution of the masses within the solar system, and the fact that so far as spectroscopic evidence enables us to judge, a general