aith, ariseth to that great luminary's being inhabited; vegetation
may obtain there as well as with us. There may be water and dry land,
hills and dales, rain and fair weather; and as the light, so the season
must be eternal, consequently it may easily be conceived to be by far
the most blissful habitation of the whole system!" The Recorder,
nevertheless, objected that if an extravagant hypothesis were to be
adduced as proof of insanity, the same might hold good with regard to
some other speculators, and desired Dr. Simmons to tell the court what
he thought of the theories of Burnet and Buffon.[147]

Eight years later, this same "extravagant hypothesis," backed by the
powerful recommendation of Sir William Herschel, obtained admittance to
the venerable halls of science, there to abide undisturbed for nearly
seven decades. Individual objectors, it is true, made themselves heard,
but their arguments had little effect on the general body of opinion.
Ruder blows were required to shatter an hypothesis flattering to human
pride of invention in its completeness, in the plausible detail of
observations by which it seemed to be supported, and in its
condescension to the natural pleasure in discovering resemblance under
all but total dissimilarity.

Sir John Herschel included among the results of his multifarious labours
at the Cape of Good Hope a careful study of the sun-spots conspicuously
visible towards the end of the year 1836 and in the early part of 1837.
They were remarkable, he tells us, for their forms and arrangement, as
well as for their number and size; one group, measured on the 29th of
March in the latter year, covering (apart from what may be called its
outlying dependencies) the vast area of five square minutes or 3,780
million square miles.[148] We have at present to consider, however, not
so much these observations in themselves, as the chain of theoretical
suggestions by which they were connected. The distribution of spots, it
was pointed out, on two zones parallel to the equator, showed plainly
their intimate connection with the solar rotation, and indicated as
their cause fluid circulations analogous to those producing the
terrestrial trade and anti-trade winds.

"The spots, in this view of the subject," he went on to say,[149] "would
come to be assimilated to those regions on the earth's surface where,
for the moment, hurricanes and tornadoes prevail; the upper stratum
being temporarily carried downwards,