* * * * * Originally printed in a Supplement of THE ATLAS Newspaper of August 30 and December 20, 1845. * * * * * 1846....

* * * * * The following tractate first appeared in the form of a literary review in a supplement of the ATLAS; but two impressions of that journal having been long since exhausted, and inquiries still continuing numerous and urgent, the proprietor has granted permission for the article to be reprinted in a separate, more convenient, and perhaps enduring vehicle than that of a newspaper. Few works of a scientific import have been published that so promptly and deeply fixed public attention as the

The author opens his subject with a brief but luminous outline of the arrangement and formation of the astral and planetary systems of the heavens. He first describes the solar system, of which our earth is a member, consisting of the sun, planets, and satellites with the less intelligible orbs termed comets, and taking as the uttermost bounds of this system the orbit of Uranus, it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. The mind cannot

It is among the gaseous bodies just described, in the outer boundary of Nature, which neither telescope nor geometry can well reach, that speculation has laid its venue , and commenced its aerial castles. LAPLACE was the first to suggest the nebular hypothesis, which he did with great diffidence, not as a theory proved, or hardly likely, but as a mathematical possibility or illustration. His range of creation, moreover, was not so vast as that of our author, which assumes to compass the entire u

Our globe is somewhat less than 8,000 miles in diameter; it is of a spheroidal form, the equatorial exceeding the polar axis in the proportion of 300 to 299, and which slight inequality, in consequence of its diurnal revolution, is necessary to preserve the land near the equator from inundation by the sea. The mean density or average weight of the earth is, in proportion to that of distilled water, as 5.66 to 1. So that its specific gravity is considerably less than that of tin, the lightest of

The first of the series is the Gneis and Mica Slate System , of which examples are exposed to view in the Highlands of Scotland and the west of England. These earliest stratified rocks contain no matters which are not to be found in the primitive granite. They are the same in material—silica, mica, quartz, or hornblende—but changed into new forms and combinations, and hence called by Mr. LYELL metamorphic rocks. Some of them are composed exclusively of one of the materials of granite; the mica s

The interior of the earth reveals wonders not less impressive than those of the skies. We have seen in the last section how the crust of our globe is composed of successive layers or tiers of strata, rising upward, terrace upon terrace, till we reach the present vegetable mould or superficial platform of animated existence. In the aggregate these formations or systems, marking the several epochs in nature's development, may extend to a depth, as Dr. BUCKLAND conjectures, of ten or fifteen miles

In the two last sections we have gone through the earth's geological history, first of the changes in its physical structure, next of the mutations in the organic forms that have, in serial order, appeared in the successive strata of its external envelope, from the period of that far distant crisis when it was a molten globe on which its primitive granitic covering was just beginning to concrete, in consequence of abating heat, until we have arrived at the first prognostic signs of approaching h

A General Family Newspaper and Journal of Literature. * * * * * This Periodical, which may be justly called a Weekly Cyclopædia of Politics, Literature, Arts, and Science, is published every Saturday afternoon, in time for the post, containing the News of Saturday. * * * * * And these are subdivided and classified with care and industry into heads of easy reference, so that each particular subject is preserved distinct and entire. The dimensions of the sheet, which folds into sixteen large quart

The Contributions to this department are from the pens of Professors and Gentlemen of acknowledged reputation, and are classified under the following heads:— 1.—ORIGINAL ESSAYS ON MEN AND THINGS, embodying a lively commentary on passing events and men and manners. 2.—THEATRICAL CRITICISMS upon the written and acted Drama, in which both are reviewed in a spirit of truth and perfect candour. 3.—REVIEWS of all new works of ability, with numerous extracts. Independent and free from all literary and

Chap. I.—General Views—Modern Theories of Society—Effect and Paramount Importance of Moral Causes. Chap. II.—Economical Causes—Population—Theory of Malthus. Chap. III.—Economical Causes, continued—Revolution in the Course of Industry effected by Machinery—Extension of Manufactures—Factory System, &c. Chap. IV.—Foreign Competition....

Chap. I.—Free Trade, Corn Laws. Chap. II.—Free Trade, continued—New Tariff, Provisions, Sugar, &c. Reciprocity System—Commercial Treaties. Chap. III.—Taxation. Chap. IV.—Currency and Banking. Chap. V.—Emigration. Chap. VI.—Poor Laws. Chap. VII.—Sanitary and Building Regulations, &c. Chap. VIII.—Education. Chap. IX.—Conclusion. * * * * * Published by Longman and Co.; Simpkin and Marshall; And Whittaker and Co. also, At the Atlas Office, 6, Southampton-street, Strand....