If the elementary substances composing a group of
cosmical bodies of different magnitudes be identical, why should they not
likewise, in obeying the laws of mutual attraction, blend together under
definite relations of mixture, composing the white glittring snow and ice in
the polar zones of the planet Mars, or constituting in the smaller cosmical
masses mineral bodies inclosing crystals of olivine, augite, and
labradorite? Even in the domain of pure conjecture we should not suffer
ourselves to be led away by unphilosophical and arbitrary views devoid of
the support of inductive reasoning.
Remarkable obscurations of the sun's disk, during which the stars have been
seen at mid-day (as, for instance, in the obscuration of 1547, which
continued for three days, and occurred about the time of the eventful battle
of M??hlberg), can not be explained as arising from volcanic ashes or mists,
and were regarded by Kepler as owing either to a 'materia cometica', or to a
black cloud formed by the sooty exhalations of the solar body. The shorter
obscurations of 1090 and 1203, which continued, the one only three, and the
other six
p 133
hours, were supposed by Chladni and Schnurrer to be occasioned by the
passage of meteoric masses before the sun's disk.
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