Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ THE EVOLUTION OF WORLDS FROM NEBULAE BY LEE PARKER DEAN. Who formed the countless worlds on high, Who gave to them their speed, Who keeps them all within their bounds, Who guides each fiery steed; Who plans for them their distances, Moves them in mighty space, Revealing wisdom and not chance;— Whose hand but God’s there trace? For what seems chance at simple gaze The impress bears of thought, When studied close in all their ways Worlds cannot spring from naught. BRIDGEPORT, CONN.: THE MARIGOLD PRINTING COMPANY. 1894. Copyright. LEE PARKER DEAN. 1894. TO THE LOVED PARENTS AND AUNT WHO WATCHED OVER US IN THE DAYS OF OUR CHILDHOOD, AND ARE NOW CHANGED FROM MORTAL TO IMMORTAL, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. L. P. D. TO THE READER. THE AUTHOR SENDS OUT THIS LITTLE BOOK FEELING THAT IF THEREBY HE HAS MADE MORE CLEAR THE UNSEEN HAND THAT EVOLVED AND STILL CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE HE WILL BE AMPLY REWARDED. L. P. D. BRIDGEPORT, JUNE, 1894. THE EVOLUTION OF WORLDS FROM NEBULAE. INTRODUCTION. The theory of world-formation as conceived by the Nebular hypothesis has been briefly stated by Dr. H. W. Warren in the following words: “All the matter composing all the bodies of the sun, planets, and their satellites, once existed in an exceedingly diffused state; rarer than any gas with which we are acquainted, filling a space larger than the orbit of Neptune. Gravitation gradually contracted this matter into a condensing globe of immense extent. Some parts would naturally be denser than others, and in the course of contraction a rotary motion, it is affirmed, would be engendered. Rotation would flatten the globe somewhat in the line of its axis. Contracting still more, the rarer gases, aided by centrifugal force, would be left behind as a ring that would ultimately be separated, like Saturn’s ring, from the retreating body. There would naturally be some places in this ring denser than others; these would gradually absorb all the ring into a planet, and still revolve about the central mass, and still rotate on its own axis, throwing off rings from itself.