ORIGIN OF COMETS AND METEORS. 59 



(a three-inch telescope shows a million stars), and ten orbs of various 

 size depending (on the average) on each, then we have a grand total of 

 10 X 1,000,000 X 1,000,000,000 X 10 = 100,000 millions of millions of 

 meteor flights, as representing the total number of bodies ejected from 

 the various orbs peopling space, including those now sun-like, and also 

 those which, though now in the fiery stage, or further advanced still 

 in planetary life, were once as surely suns as the stars are now. 



When we remember that with so many millions of millions of 

 flights of bodies, each flight to be counted probably by millions of 

 millions, our earth must from time to time be saluted by some of 

 these, while we know that during all the years over which observation 

 has continued, absolutely nothing has reached our earth from outside 

 except the various orders of meteors, while no flights of bodies can be 

 recognized as ever visiting us from interplanetary space except the 

 various orders of comets, we are justified in concluding that these 

 represent products of ejection. We infer this on the safe ground of 

 the argument that if these bodies do not, no other bodies exist which 

 can represent the product of the ejective processes we have certainly 

 recognized. It would have been a rather bold thought, yet not want- 

 ing in reasonableness, and certainly ingenious, to have said that there- 

 fore comets and meteors are but different appearances of the same 

 objects. This, though it might have been shown to be probable, 

 could not have been shown to be certain ; for the simple reason that 

 the ejected bodies might have been only discernible when any of them 

 entered our atmosphere, in which case only meteors would have been 

 required by the facts or accounted for by the theory of ejection. But 

 now that we know comets to be but flights of meteors, and meteors to 

 be but attendants on comets, we see that one of the prettiest discov- 

 eries of modern astronomy, Schiaparelli's recognition of the connection 

 between comets and meteors,* is implicitly associated with the results 

 of inquiry applied to the sun's power of volcanic ejection. We might 

 further have inferred the discoveries of Tschermak, Daubree, Sorby, 

 Graham, and others, as to the structure of meteorites, even though 

 none of these bodies had ever reached our earth from interplanetary 

 space seeing that our earth's interior, beneath the regions now re- 

 lieved by volcanic outbursts, would afford good information as to the 

 nature of bodies ejected from such deep-seated regions of her interior, 

 or of the interior of other celestial orbs. 



A theory which could not be true except in its most generalized 

 form, but which in that form (1) agrees with every one of the known 

 facts, (2) accounts for many of them, (3) alone accounts for some of 



* I take some pleasure in noting that I was the original proposer, and an intimate 

 friend of mine the seconder, of the proposition that the Council of the Astronomical 

 Society should bestow their gold medal on Signor Schiaparelli for this discovery. If we 

 must have the prize-pig system of rewarding scientific research, let us at least, according 

 to the good old English saying, " catch the right pig by the tail." 



