Since space is believed to be filled with some sort of ethereal medium, curious consequences are seen to follow from the motions that have been described.  A solid globe like the earth rushing at great speed through such a medium will encounter some resistance.  If the medium be exceedingly rare, as it must be in fact, the resistance will be correspondingly small, but still there will be resistance.  If the sun stood still, the earth, owing to the inclination of its axis to the plane of its orbit, around the sun, would encounter the resistance of the ether principally on its northern hemisphere from summer to winter, and on its southern hemisphere from winter to summer.  But in consequence of the motion of the sun shared by the earth, this law of distribution is changed, and from summer to winter the earth plows through the ether with its north pole foremost, while from winter to summer, although the resistance of the ether is encountered more evenly by the two hemispheres, yet it is still felt principally in the northern hemisphere, and the south pole remains practically protected.  It follows that the southern hemisphere, and particularly the south polar regions are more or less completely sheltered the whole year around.  It might then be supposed that the impact of the particles of the ether shouldered aside by the earth in its swift flight and the compression produced in front of the advancing globe would tend to raise the temperature of the northern hemisphere as compared with the southern hemisphere, while the south pole, being more or less directly in the wake of the earth, and in a region of rarefaction of the ether, would constantly possess a remarkably low temperature.

Now, it is known that the south polar regions are more covered with ice and snow than those of the north, and that the temperature there the year around is lower.  Whether this difference is owing to the effects of the earth’s journey through the ether, is a question.

The sun, too, moves with his northern hemisphere foremost, and it is worthy of remark that it has been suspected that the northern hemisphere of the sun radiates more heat than the southern.

But whatever effect it may or may not have upon the meteorological condition of the earth, the fact that the solar system is thus voyaging through space is in itself exceedingly interesting.  Not the wildest traveler’s dream presents to the imagination such a voyage as this on which every inhabitant of the earth is bound.  A glance at a star map shows that the direction in which we are going is carrying us toward a region of the heavens exceedingly rich in stars, many, and perhaps most, of which are greater suns than ours.  There can be little doubt that when the sun arrives in the neighborhood of those stars, he will be surrounded by celestial scenery very different from and much more brilliant than that of the region of space in which he now is.  The inhabitants of the globe at that distant period will certainly behold new and far more glorious heavens, though the earth may be unchanged.—­N.Y.  Sun.