Such facts are simply dumbfounding for anyone who
will bestow sufficient thought upon them, for these are suns, though
they may be small ones; and what a birth is that for a sun!
Look now again at the glowing spirals. We observe that hardly have
they left the central mass before they begin to coagulate. In some
places they have a ``ropy'' aspect; or they are like peascods filled
with growing seeds, which eventually will become stars. The great
focus itself shows a similar tendency, especially around its
circumference. The sense that it imparts of a tremendous shattering
force at work is overwhelming. There is probably more matter in that
whirling and bursting nebula than would suffice to make a hundred
solar systems! It must be confessed at once that there is no
confirmation of the Laplacean hypothesis here; but what hypothesis
will fit the facts? There is one which it has been claimed does so,
but we shall come to that later. In the meanwhile, as a preparation,
fix in the memory the appearance of that second spiral mass spinning
beside its master which seems to have spurned it away.
For a second example of the spiral nebul? look at the one in the
constellation Triangulum. God, how hath the imagination of puny man
failed to comprehend Thee! Here is creation through destruction with a
vengeance! The spiral form of the nebula is unmistakable, but it is
half obliterated amid the turmoil of flying masses hurled away on all
sides with tornadic fury.
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