THE ERUPTIVE ENERGY OF THE SUN. 113 



copper, hydrogen, vanadium, strontium, aluminum, sulphur (?), oxygen, 

 lithium, tin, and carbon. 



The question whether it would be possible for meteorites to be derived 

 from the sun by their being thrown off from it by eruptive agencies, is a 

 problem for physicists ; if it can be shown that the sun's constitution is such 

 as to render it not improbable that meteorites could have this origin. The 

 immense velocities of the eruptive prominences — from 100 to 200 miles 

 per second, or, according to Proctor, 500 miles — indicates, with their great 

 height of sometimes from 150,000 to 350,000 miles, a violence of eruption 

 tending to hurl solid materials far away from the sun into space. The ele- 

 ments seen in the spectrum of these prominences, iron, sodium, magnesium, 

 titanium, calcium, chromium, manganese, and probably sulphur, are with 

 one exception, common ingredients in meteorites.* 



If the above-mentioned velocity may, on investigation, be deemed siiffi- 

 cient to project matter into space, the prevailing view of astronomers that 

 the sun as a whole is gaseous, and neither liquid nor solid, would certainly 

 be opposed to the solar origin of meteorites. As before stated, their con- 

 stitution would, so far as we are acquainted with tlie action of gaseous 

 substances, demand that the meteorites should be derived from a hot liquid. 

 The body from which they came might be for the most part solid, or 

 gaseous, or both, but that the portion from which they came should be 

 liquid seems a necessity. The liquid condition of the sun is also the best 

 explanation of the eruptive phenomena now observed upon it.f 



Should it be shown that meteorites might come from the sun, its eruptive 

 energy being sufficient, it would be rendered probable then that meteorites 

 might have been thrown from the sun when larger, as well as from the 

 planets and their satellites during their condensation — if the nebular hypo- 

 thesis is accepted. It would certainly seem that the present view of the 

 partial or entire meteoric constitution of the corona, the zodiacal light, the 

 Gegcnschcin, of Saturn's rings, and of comets, bears directly on this question. 

 If our sun may do this, is it not consistent to suppose that other suns may do 

 the same, and thus account for the comets, their varied orbits, as well as for 

 the supposed diverse constitution of the August and November meteors. 



The theory that meteorites come from the sun is by no means a new one, 



* Young, The Sun, 18S1, pp. 202, 207-212. 

 f Young, I. <?., p. 211. 

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