[1] Her mountains by some have been calculated nine miles high; but Dr. Herschell’s telescopes, which magnify 6500 times, have reduced her highest hills to about _two_ miles. Mr. Shroeter apprehends that the mountain _Leibnitz_ is not less than 25,000 feet high. The Craters of the Moon are from 4 to 15 miles diameter. He discovers some new spots on the Moon, and calculates her atmosphere to be 5376 feet high, an height so inconsiderable that it might escape our best telescopes or most minute observations.
[2] It is rather curious how the antients saw so much of him as that his period was tolerably guessed, at least so far back as the days of Cicero.—_De Nat. Deor. II._ 20. They knew it to be less than the Earth’s: which, though far from accurate, was a nearer calculation than could be then expected. And this is the more remarkable if Cicero had it from Plato, and he from Ægypt and Syria.
[3] If the Earth turned round its axis in 84 minutes and 43 seconds, the centrifugal _force_ would be equal to the power of gravity at the equator; and all bodies there would entirely lose their weight. If the Earth revolved quicker, they would all fly off and leave it.
[4] The velocity of a cannon-ball is about eight miles per minute.
Of the Comet in its perihelion 14,600 Of Light 12,000,000
[5] Perhaps the inhabitants of one system may be destined successively to pass from planet to planet, and from systems to other systems. This would answer, on an immense scale, to the analogy existing on Earth. It is stated as a conjecture with much energy and beauty in a late work. Illustrat. of Proph. T. II. p. 557, _Anno_ 1796.
So perfect are the laws by which this wonderful system is regulated, and so effectual that Self-physic which the Almighty has instituted through all his works, that if any seeming disorder happens in the system, there requires no immediate interposition to prevent or cure the mischief: each body carrying within itself the principles of preservation and cure; an argument of wisdom and foresight worthy of the Deity!
The Planet Jupiter was attracted out of his orbit by the enormous Comet which appeared in the year 1680. The Comet coming across the plane of his track, had a temporary influence upon him; and it is observable, he has not travelled by the same fixed stars since that period which he did before it; and no doubt but his usual motion was momentarily retarded, and the shape of his orbit altered. Now if Jupiter consists of land and water (and by the spots seen on his face it is more than probable) it is possible he might experience a revolution something similar to our flood; for that our flood was occasioned by the near approach of a Comet, is a most natural supposition, and in no wise militates against the scriptural doctrine of that event: it being as easy, and as consistent for the Almighty, to render justice by a secondary cause, as by an immediate interposition. Nor is his attribute of mercy arraigned by the promiscuous destruction the deluge occasioned; for it is evident, by reasoning from his works, that he governs the universe by “general, not by partial laws.”