ASTRO-METEOROLOGY. 335 



temperament, and must be dealt with soothingly. Agiin, if I see one 

 with a large blue, watery eye, and its accompanying complexion, I say 

 to myself that all Mount Sinai could not wake that man up. I have 

 seen men of that stamp, whom you could no more stimulate to action, 

 than you could a lump of dough by blowing a resurrection-trump 



over it. 



Men are like open books, if looked at properly. Suppose I attempt 

 to analyze a man's deeds ; I can do it with comparative facility, be- 

 cause I have in my eye the general outline of the man's disposition 

 and mental tendencies. A deed is like a letter stamped from a die. 

 The motive that directs the deed is like the matrix that moulds the 

 stamp. You may know the mould from the impression made by the 

 stamp. You must know what men are in order to reach them, and 

 that is a part of the science of preaching. If there is any profession in 

 the world that can afford to be without this practical knowledge of 

 human nature, it certainly is not the profession of a preacher. 

 Abridged from the Christian Union. 







ASTRO- ME TEOEOLOGY. 



By Prof. DANIEL KIRK WOOD, LL. D. 



THE theory that shooting-stars, meteoric stones, and even comets, 

 consist of matter, which has been expelled with enormous force 

 from the solar surface, was proposed by Prof. Hackley, as long since as 

 I860. 1 A similar hypothesis in regard to comets has also been ad- 

 vanced by Prof. William A. Norton. 2 In the present paper, it is 

 proposed to consider, first, the evidence derived from recent discover- 

 ies in favor of this theory ; 8 and, secondly, the indications afforded by 

 observed phenomena in regard to the history of certain meteoric 

 streams : 



1. The observations of Zollner, Respighi, and others, have indi- 

 cated the operation of stupendous eruptive forces beneath the solar 

 surface. The rose-colored prominences, which Janssen and Lockyer 

 have shown to be masses of incandescent hydrogen, are regarded by 

 Prof. Respighi as phenomena of eruption. "They are the seat of 

 movements of which no terrestrial phenomenon can afford any idea ; 

 masses of matter, the volume of which is many hundred times greater 

 than that of the earth, completely changing their position and form 



1 Proc. Am. Assoc, for the Advancement of Science, Fourteenth Meeting, 1860. 

 8 Treatise on Astronomy, fourth edition. Appendix, p. 437. 



3 The view that the fixed stars, as well as the sun, expel meteoric matter to the inter- 

 Btellar spaces, may be regarded as merely an extension of the theory here stated. 



