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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ly inferior to the mass of a primary planet, the 

 notion of a ring of worlds traveling between 

 Mars and Jupiter was presently entertained as 

 according fairly with the facts already discovered. 



Olbers himself was fully satisfied that other 

 planets travel in the region between Mars and 

 Jupiter. He was struck by the remarkable feat- 

 ures of the orbit of the planet he had discovered. 

 It was inclined more than three times as much as 

 that of Ceres to the plane in which the earth 

 travels, or to that medial plane near which lie the 

 tracks of all the single planets. So greatly is the 

 path of Pallas inclined to this track that, even as 

 seen from the sun, its range on either side gave 

 to the planetary highway a width of 69°, or 

 nearly four times the width of the zodiac (the 

 conventional highway assigned by the ancients to 

 the planets) as determined by the range of Venus, 

 viewed from the earth, on either side of the me- 

 dial track. The range of Pallas, as seen from 

 the earth, is still greater ; so great, indeed, that 

 this planet may actually be seen at times among 

 the polar constellations. Moreover, the path of 

 Pallas is markedly eccentric, insomuch that her 

 greatest distance from the sun exceeds her least 

 in the proportion of about 5 to 3. Olbers was 

 led by these peculiarities to the belief that 

 Ceres and Pallas are the fragments of a planet 

 which formerly traveled between the paths of 

 Mars and Jupiter, but had been shattered to 

 pieces by a tremendous explosion. If our earth, 

 as she travels along her present path, could by 

 some violent internal action be shattered into 

 fragments, the greater number of these would no 

 longer travel in the plane in which lies the earth's 

 present path. Those which chanced to be driven 

 outward in that plane would continue to travel in 

 it, though on a changed path ; for their original 

 motion and their imparted motion both lying in 

 that plane, so also of necessity would that motion 

 which would result from the combination of these. 

 But fragments which were driven away at an 

 angle to that plane would no longer travel in it. 

 Hence the great inclination of the path of Ceres 

 and the monstrous inclination of the path of Pal- 

 las might be explained by supposing that the 

 former was a fragment which had been driven 

 away at a considerable angle to the ecliptic, while 

 Pallas was a fragment driven away on a path 

 nearly square to that plane. 



To show more clearly how Olbers accounted 

 for the peculiar motions of the new planets, sup- 

 pose our earth to explode on or about March 

 20th, at noon, Greenwich time. Then the greater 

 part of South America would be driven forward ; 



it would therefore travel on a course not far from 

 the original track of the earth, but more quickly ; 

 our Indian Empire would be driven backward ; 

 and though the advancing motion previously pos- 

 sessed by this part of the earth, in common with 

 the rest, would still carry it forward, this motion 

 would be greatly reduced. The central parts of 

 Africa aud the Atlantic around Ascension Island 

 and St. Helena would be driven sunward — an im- 

 pulse which, combined with the previous advan- 

 cing motion of this region, would cause this part 

 of their new track to cross their former nearly 

 circular track at a sharp angle, passing athwart 

 that track inward. The part opposite to the last- 

 named, that is, in the middle of the Pacific, would 

 be driven directly from the sun ; and this impulse, 

 combined with advance, would cause this part of 

 the new track of the scattered fragments from 

 the Pacific to cross the original track at a sharp 

 angle, passing outward. All these regions, and 

 all lying on the zone passing through them, would 

 continue to move in or near the former plane of 

 the earth's motion ; some more quickly than be- 

 fore, some more slowly, some passing outward at 

 that portion of their course to return eventually 

 inward till they came to it again, and some pass- 

 ing inward for awhile, to return, however, after a 

 complete circuit, to the scene of the catastrophe. 

 But England and other European countries would 

 be impelled partly sunward, partly upward and 

 northward, from the plane of their former mo- 

 tion, and would therefore travel on a track large- 

 ly inclined to their former course ; that is, to the 

 earth's present track. The same would happen, 

 so far as upward motion was concerned, to the 

 United States, and to all the northern parts of 

 Asia. The fragments from all these regions would 

 thenceforward travel on inclined paths crossing 

 their original track ascendingly at the place where 

 the explosion occurred. On the other hand, Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the 

 southern parts of South America, would be driven 

 somewhat downward or southward, and the frag- 

 ments of this zone of the earth would according- 

 ly travel on paths crossing the original track of 

 the earth descendingly at the place of the ex- 

 plosion. The north-polar regions, especially the 

 parts north of the American Continent, would be 

 driven more directly upward by the explosion ; 

 while the south-polar regions, especially the parts 

 south of the Indian Ocean, would be driven di- 

 rectly downward ; the fragments from these re- 

 gions then would travel on paths most largely in- 

 clined to the original track of the earth. 



Regarding the two planets hitherto discovered 



