but never a lump of butter would come till a sign of the cross, made with a sprig of broom, hunted the witch away who sat, unseen, upon the churn. And another day one of the carters would come in with his tale: how he had been out in the wood and met Gotton de la Rue, whom they all knew to be a witch, picking up fallen wood and furze for her fire; and he drove her away, setting the dogs at her; and lo! when he started to drive his load of hay, Gotton was there, and she did something, and all of a sudden the horses stopped, and never a turn could the wheels take, though he beat his horses and pushed at the wheel for hours; and the horses jibbed and sweated with fear, for they saw the witch before them, invisible to his eyes! Another ensorcellement she actually witnessed, for it so happened that when she was in the kitchen one day a certain fishwife, of evil repute, came with a basketful of fish to the back door, offering it for sale. The cook, who had just received a large consignment of fish and meat from the town, turned upon her sharply. "Eh! here is master just come from town and has sent in I know not how many pounds of meat. I don't know how we shall get through it. Just look there, that immense piece of beef; what are we ever going to do with it? And we had already," &c. &c. And she pointed to a fresh juicy sirloin reposing on the kitchen table. "Take my fish, all the same," urged the fishwife. mistress, and I know she will take some from me!" "Call the "No, then, I shan't !" snapped the worried cook. "Va-t-en!" "Ah!" said the woman, with emphasis; "it is so, is it? Tu ne veux pas de mon pison?" "Nenni; va-t-en, je te dis!" "C'est bien!" answered the woman, shouldering her basket to depart; "you have a fine piece of beef there, it is true, butyou will not eat any of it!" And sure enough, when the maids turned back to the table, a seething mass of maggots lay where that "fine piece of beef" had been a moment before. One scarcely wonders that island records tell of "nine women and two men" burnt alive for sorcery between the years 1596 and 1634; or that disappointed and baffled housewives should, in more modern times, brew a certain antidote called "une buiderie," much dreaded by the witch sisterhood, but how administered I am unable to say. Legend and spell, wise saw or darkly mystic rhyme, too many there are for these overcrowded pages; from the midday spells at midsummer, which I have known to come oddly true, to the ghostly stories attached to le jour de St. Thomas, in December, and to the surveille de Noël, or Christmas Eve. "On this evening," my mother writes, among her memories of girlhood, "all water is turned into wine at the midnight hour, just as the clock strikes. No one likes to sit up so late in the country; but I remember one night, being unusually delayed, the clock struck. I immediately expressed a great desire to pump and see the wine, when I was forcibly prevented, and assured that a woman did so once, saying, as she drank the water, 'Toute eau est vin.' 'Oui, mais tu es près de ta fin,' a voice answered, and she dropped down dead!" But I prefer to close with the happier reminiscences of la longue veille, or eve of the Eve of Christmas, December 23, when "poor indeed must be the cottage which has not a cup of vin brûlé, a piece of cheese, and a Guernsey galette!" Each family is gathered round its hearth, the steaming cups (coffee cups, not glasses) are handed round amid laughter, song, and story. The etiquette of the occasion is strict in its prescription of one cup for young people, two to married women, and three, or at the most four, to men. The spicy, steaming odour pervades alike kitchen and parlour, and grandparents recall their youth with garrulous chat, while the children sip, bright-eyed and eager, the hot sweet beverage, and cast awed glances at the window, lest the Evil One should lurk too visibly abroad. But, in the words of one of our old songs, J'nen finirais pas si j'contais tout l'gnolin,* Qui s'y dit, qui s'y fait durant tout l'annaie, * Gnolin = nonsense. T. L. L. TEELING. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. THE HE origin of the solar system has always formed a subject of interest to the human mind, from the earliest ages to the present time. The question which naturally suggests itself is whether the system was originally created in its present form, or whether it has been evolved and developed in the course of ages from some pre-existent form of matter. The account of the creation of the world given in the first chapter of the book of Genesis throws no light on the point at issue. The opening words of that remarkable and graphic narrative are, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void.” This clearly refers to the state of the earth before the appearance of life on its surface, but gives us no information with reference to its condition prior to that epoch, except that it was "without form and void." With exception of the sun and moon, no other members of the solar system are referred to. The account, therefore, leaves it an open question as to how the system acquired its present form and constitution, and we seem justified in considering any theory admissible, or at least provisionally acceptable, which will explain satisfactorily in what manner the sun, planets, and satellites which compose the solar system came to exist in their present relative positions. Of course, on the theory of creation by the direct will of the Almighty, we might assume at once that the system was created as it stands, (or rather moves); but such a theory is highly improbable, and in view of recent discoveries a hypothesis of this kind would be repugnant to the scientific mind, and indeed, we might say, opposed to observed facts. The Nebular Hypothesis of the origin of the solar system has been supposed by some shallow-minded and ignorant people to be in opposition to revealed religion. But this is not the case. On the contrary such a hypothesis should tend to exalt our ideas of the great Creator. As Herbert Spencer has well said, "Creation by manufacture is a much lower thing than creation by evolution. A man can put together a machine; but he cannot make a machine develop itself.” This is evidently true, and the hypothesis of evolution from matter previously created should increase our wonder and admiration for the power of the Almighty Creator. The hypothesis of the formation of the solar system from a mass of gaseous matter-usually ascribed to the famous French mathematician Laplace-seems to have been first suggested by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In the year 1755 this great thinker published a work on the construction of the heavens, in the second part of which he deals with the origin of the solar system, and suggests that it might have been formed by the condensation of gaseous matter scattered through space. He supposed that these scattered portions of gas were drawn together by the force of gravitation, and that, slowly consolidating, they eventually became solid bodies which now form the sun and planets. Kant's views are sometimes rather vague and unsatisfactory, and lack the unity we find in Laplace's hypothesis. To Kant, however, seems certainly due the credit of having first advanced the bold hypothesis of the evolution of worlds from a primitive mass of gas. But his primitive mass differs essentially from Laplace's nebula, both in its properties and in the character of its motion, and his views are frequently in direct opposition to those of Laplace. In dealing therefore with the Nebular Hypothesis we will only consider the views propounded by Laplace with reference to this remarkable and interesting theory. Laplace's hypothesis was first published towards the close of the eighteenth century in a work entitled "Exposition du Système du Monde." The fundamental idea of Laplace's hypothesis is very simple and easily understood. He supposed that the matter which now forms the sun, planets, and satellites originally existed in the state of gas, and that this gaseous mass formed a vast globe, which extended from the sun's present position as a centre out to and beyond the orbit of Neptune. Laplace does not attempt to explain how this gaseous mass originated. He merely assumed its existence, and uses it as a starting-point from which the Solar System was eventually evolved by condensation and solidification. We might conjecture that this enormous mass of gas of nearly globular shape was possibly formed by the collision of two dark bodies in space, but at present we will assume, as Laplace did, that the gaseous mass existed, and examine the consequences which will follow. To suit his theory, Laplace was obliged to make another assumption, and this was that the gaseous mass was endowed with a motion of rotation on itself, in the same way that the earth rotates on its axis. This assumption was clearly necessary, for if we suppose the gaseous globe to have had no rotation, it would, when its particles began to fall towards the centre, eventually consolidate into a single body or sun without planets or satellites. To account, therefore, for the existence of planets and satellites in the Solar System we must suppose that the original gaseous mass had a motion of rotation on an axis. For what will be the result of such a rotation? Rotating and revolving bodies develop what is called centrifugal force. A stone whirled round in a sling is an example. The stone constantly tends to escape from the sling by the centrifugal force produced by the rapid revolution of the stone round the head. A similar tendency is produced in any rotating body. It exists on the earth's surface, but is restrained by the force of the earth's attraction. If the earth rotated seventeen times faster than it does (or in 1 hour 25 minutes) bodies at the equator would have no weight. The attraction of the earth would just be counterbalanced by the centrifugal force. With a slightly more rapid velocity of rotation they would be shot into space, never to return. That is, of course, loose bodies lying on its surface. The solid rock would not, of course, move, as the force of cohesion would prevent it from being disturbed. In the gaseous mass supposed by Laplace the power of cohesion would be of course very weak, so that a slight motion of rotation would be sufficient to detach portions from its surface. The tenuity of such a mass is almost inconceivable. It has been computed that if the total mass of matter contained in the Solar System could be reduced to a gas of such rarity that it would fill a sphere of a diameter equal to that of the orbit of Neptune its density would be over sixteen million times less than that of hydrogen gas! It may be easily imagined that the force of cohesion in such an attenuated gas would be very small indeed, and that a very small motion of rotation would be necessary to produce disruption at the external surface. Further, the gaseous mass would soon begin to consolidate, owing to the gravitation of its particles towards the centre of the sphere, and this condensation and reduction of volume would-according to a well-known law-increase the velocity of rotation. A point would then be reached when, according to Laplace's hypothesis, some of the gaseous matter would be detached from the parent mass in the form of a ring. This ring would probably break up into separate globular masses, and if one of these masses was very much larger than the others it would gradually gather them in by the force of its attraction, and eventually form a spherical gaseous mass which would afterwards consolidate into a |