Tribune Extras Pamphlet Scries. 



remote. In fact, there Is every reason to believe than 

 there Is so grout a gathering of cometary matter follow- 

 ing these meteor trucks, that when we see tUe turn in ;iu 

 eclipwe \vu ehould see a gathering tliere, as we do see iu 

 the coroua. 



EVIDENCE THAT MISTEORS ARE EXPELLED FUOM TUE 

 LA.KGER PLANETS. 



In this lecture I promised to give some account of 

 what was expelled iu those great explosions from the 

 BUII. If I was to .-ay that the com -ts were sljot out of 

 the sun, you ini^bt be startled, or if I asserted that they 

 were also thrown from Jupiter and Saturn. But tlie 

 evidence of that is very curious. In the first pi, ice, wo 

 know that matter is shot out from the sun, with a velo- 

 city 60 great as to bo carried tar away 

 from him. and eo would travel forevwr away 

 into space. That has only been observed a few times, 

 but It is probably very frequent. Tno matter which was 

 expelled, it it struck the o.irth at nil, would strike in the 

 daytime. If the sun is over there and the earth is here, 

 the side of the ear h t>,v;ird the suu will bo the illu mi- 

 iiatrd side. Tne m.-t>'i>rie mat tcr coming from the sun 

 can only strike the illuminated part, which is the day- 

 time. You throw a stone at any object, it must 

 strike the side of the object you aim at, that is turued 

 toward you. Ilumboldt mentioned that the largjst 

 n timber of meteoric masses had fallen in the day-time. 

 But then this is scarcely sufficient. The larger aero- 

 Jiies have been examined and their microscopic struc- 

 ture studied. Sorby of Sheffield has examined them, 

 and says they consist of a number of small glob- 

 ules, and were evidently originally iu a va- 

 porous st;tto beloro assuming their present 

 Plate, or were at one time iu that 

 condition. Then came a chemical analysis by Prof. 

 Graham and Chandler Roberts of London. They 

 found in the iron of the meteoric mass more hydrogen 

 than iron contains in a natural condition. Prof. Gra- 

 11:1111, v,- ;n was a very good chemist indeed, said that in 

 Lis op.uion certainly that meteor, that iron, had been 

 u< d Irom one of the stars that people space. Ho 

 p(,ii.tcd out that there were stars that contained 

 iiydrogcn in their atmosphe.re. These are some, 

 of the fads connected with the larger meteoric 

 masses. JIow shall we account for thesn meteoric 

 streams (,f which I have been speaking! I have men- 

 tioned OIK- a.s traveling close to the path of Jupiter. All 

 < i mi t.s <,f i-lioit period have paths closely approaching 

 those oi Mime of the large planets. That particular one 

 Vent elc.M- to Jupiter, about seven years ago, long be- 

 fore the explosive pouerof the sun was noticed, i call 

 them Jupiter'.- com, t family. Sir John IIiTschol said that 

 It was very curious that they had that relation. If we 

 put forward tin; theory that Juuiter expelled those. 

 comets, we have a very Marl ling theory, but many of 

 th<> them -II-M which have b 'en propounded, some of the 

 mo.t Important diameter, and which have proved to bo 

 true, have been the most startling. It is said that as 

 Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus go 0:1 their paths, they 

 draw in the emiiets which travel cius: to them, and cap- 

 ture them. I made a calculation a'toiit the November 

 meteors to eco how close they must go to the path of 



Uranus Iu order to be captured, and found that they 

 mu.-t approach nearly aa close as the nearest satellite. 

 Only those which came almost iu contact with the planet 

 could be captured. Now, if they were shut out when 

 Uranus was as a smaller sun, then it would be explained, 

 whereas we Had gre.it difficulty in imagining that a 

 comet coming out of tpace would be cap- 

 tured bodily by a planet like Uranus. Let 

 us consider thus: if comets are expelled from a 

 planet, tbey will be carried along with the forward 

 motion. If it could appear that some of them went 

 backward, then wo would have no evidence of the the- 

 ory I have been advancing. If most of them travel for- 

 ward, then we should have some evidence for the tne- 

 civ. Now thero is this curious fact that all the comets 

 of shori periods, the whole of Jupiter's comet family, 

 travel forward. They do .not travel in all directions 

 of slope; all uas-e a very moderate slope to the path of 

 the planet. They do not have the slope even of some of 

 the asteroids. That is precisely what wo notict tba. 

 tliey travel very much with Jupiter. Talcing the bal- 

 ance between the two theories that of expulsion and 

 that of capture it seems to be in tne favor of the more 

 ttartliugone that Jupiter has had the power to expel 

 these cbjects. 



The comets that are eomimg from interstellar space 

 have some of them tasen eight millions of years to 

 make their journey, and we have no reason to think 

 that it is tneir flrsc visit to our solar system. They seem 

 to be floating from sun to suu. During these immense 

 periods of time our sun and the whole of the solar 

 .vsiem have, undergone changes. Donati's comet 

 8 an illustration of one of tbese long periods The facts 

 must be remembered, that while showers of meteors ara 

 unusual phenomena, meteorites fall every day nud 

 every hour of the day. Our earth is absolutely growing 

 by these falls. The time is uclually past whou the earth 

 is growing visibly, but yet immense amounts 

 of matter are added to it in thia 

 way. And not only the earth, but the 11100:1 and Mer 

 cury, and we may say all the planets are growing unde 

 this meteoric downfall. How are wo protected from 

 this downfall, with 400,030,030 or them every day 1 The 

 rate at which they arrive is very much more rapid than 

 that of a bullet. If there \vas no protection 

 we should certainly be destroyed. Tnat protection is 

 the atmosphere. When a meteor encounters the atmo.-v- 

 phore its velocity is tirst reduced, and then it is con- 

 sumed through the heat wlii"h is generated, auJ falls iu 

 the shape of a vaporous dust. On the tops of moun- 

 tains the material of these nr.'teors has been found. 



[A di icrarn of the appearance of the siia'.s coron.i was 

 shown.] It would appear here as if there was an airirro- 

 iration iu the sun's neighborhood of the matter thrown 

 off from the sun with the aggiegatod gathering of the 

 in i*u uric uiaMsch. These appearances of changes taking 

 plaee, not merely in the present but ill all past 

 time, teach us the reality of the. truth of 

 those words of the Psalmist, "The heavens 

 declare the glory of Go. I." They seem to 

 have a real meanintr. " The heavens declare tlie glory 

 o: (,i <J ; ;,i d tie li. n ;.n t i.t tJ\.t;h Lis 



