IN considering how the formation of our solar system was brought about, we naturally first enquire as to the material of which this superb scheme is constructed. What were the materials already to hand from which, in pursuance of the laws of Nature, the solar system was evolved?
See the robust and solid nature of this earth of ours, and the robust and solid nature of the moon and the planets. It might at first sight be concluded that the primitive materials of our earth had also been in the solid state. But such is not the case. The primitive material of the solar system was not solid, it was not even liquid. What we may describe as the mother-substance of the universe must have been of quite a different nature; we can give an illustration of the physical character of that substance.
The lover of Nature delights to look at the mountains and the trees, the lakes and the rivers. But he will not confine his regard merely to the objects on the earth’s surface. He, no less than the artist and the poet, delights to gaze at that enchanting scenery which, day by day, is displayed in infinite beauty overhead; that scenery which is not wholly withheld even from observers whose lives may be passed amid the busy haunts of men, that scenery which is so often displayed on fine days at all seasons. We are alluding to those clouds which add the charm of infinite variety to the sky above us.
It is necessary for us now to think of matter when it possesses neither the density of a solid, nor the qualities of a liquid, but rather when it has that delicate texture which the clouds exhibit. The primæval material from which the solar system has been evolved is of a texture somewhat similar to that of the clouds. This primæval material is neither solid nor liquid; it is what we may describe as vapour.
But having pointed to the clouds in our own sky as illustrating, in a sense, the texture of this original mother-substance of the solar system, we can carry the analogy no further. Those dark and threatening masses which forbode the thunderstorm, or those beautiful fleecy clouds which enhance the loveliness of a summer’s day, are, of course, merely the vapours of water. But the vapours in the mother-substance from which systems have been evolved were by no means the vapours of water. They were vapours of a very different character—vapours that suggest the abodes of Pluto rather than the gentle rain that blesses the earth. In the mother-substance of the solar system vapours of a great variety of substances were blended. For in the potent laboratory of Nature every substance, be it a metal or any other element, or any compound, no matter how refractory, will, under suitable circumstances, be dissolved into vapour.