of the corn laws in England, which extended over many years, during which organized efforts were made to influence Parliament. A permanent commission was established, with official head-quarters permanently located in London, with clerks, secretaries, higher officers, and all the paraphernalia of a first-class establishment. The purpose of this institution was to act in behalf of the popular interests upon Parliament by every available means to secure this great reform. After years of effort, he says, a clerk one day rushed, breathless, into the office from the House of Commons and shouted, in accents of despair, "We are ruined; the bill has passed!" The nebular hypothesis, while generally accepted in lieu of a better one, has no actual primary basis beyond that of mere assumption. Of it Professor Ball says, "The nebular theory ... seems, from the nature of the case, to be almost incapable of receiving any direct testimony." We have already quoted from Professor Newcomb that it must be accepted, with all its difficulties, until a different and sufficient explanation of solar energy shall be presented. As set forth in Appleton's Cyclopædia, the theory is as follows: "Assuming, for the sake of the argument, a rare, homogeneous, nebulous matter, widely diffused through space, the following successive changes will, on physical principles, take place in it: 1, mutual gravitation of its atoms; 2, atomic repulsion; 3, evolution of heat by overcoming this repulsion; 4, molecular combination at a certain stage of condensation; followed by, 5, sudden and great disengagement of heat; 6, lowering of temperature by radiation and consequent precipitation of binary atoms, aggregating into irregular flocculi and floating in the rarer medium, just as water when precipitated from air collects into clouds; 7, each flocculus will move towards the common center of gravity of all; but, being an irregular mass in a resisting medium, this motion will be out of the rectilinear,--that is to say, not directly towards the common center of gravity, but towards one or the other side of it,--and thus, 8, a spiral movement will ensue, which will be communicated to the rarer medium through which the flocculus is moving; and, 9, a preponderating momentum and rotation of the whole mass in some one direction, converging in spirals towards the common center of gravity. Certain subordinate actions are to be noticed also. Mutual attraction will tend to produce groups of flocculi concentrating around local centers of gravity and acquiring a subordinate vortical movement. These conclusions are shown to be in entire harmony with the observed phenomena. In this genetic process, when the precipitated matter is aggregating into flocculi, there will be found here and there detached portions, like shreds of cloud in a summer sky, which will not coalesce with the larger internal masses, but will slowly follow without overtaking them. These fragments will