Excerpt from The Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1859: Or Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art The greater part of the celestial phenomena are comprised in the movements of the heavenly bodies and the configuration depending on them; and they are for the most part reducible to the same law of gravity which governs the planetary motions. But there are appear ances which indicate the operation of other forces, and which, there fore, demand the attention of the physicist - although, from their na ture, they must probably long remain subjects of speculation. Of these, the spiriform nebulae, discovered by Lord Rosse, indicate changes in the more distant regions of the universe, to which there is nothing en tirely analogous in our own system. T hcse appearances are accounted for, by an able. Anonymous writer, by the action' of gravitating forces combined with the effects of a resisting medium - the resistance being supposed to bear a sensible preportion to the gravitating action. The constitution of the central body of our own system presents a nearer and more interesting subject of speculation. Towards the close of the last century many hypotheses were advanced regarding the nature and constitution of the sun, all of which agreed in considering it to be an opaque body, surrounded at some distance by a luminous envelop. But the only certain fact which has been added to science in this de partment is the proof given by Arago that the light of the sun ema nated (not from an incandescent solid, but) from a gaseous atmosphere. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.