216 SEE— RESULTS OF RECENT [April 23, 



the planets about which they now revolve as satellites. Thus the 

 satellites are in no sense of the word children of the planets and 

 grandchildren of the sun, as we have been so long taught ; but were 

 formed in outer parts of the solar nebula, and simply survive out of 

 a much vaster number of small bodies which have been swallowed up 

 in laying the foundations of the sun and principal planets. 



5. The best surviving illustration of the primordial condition 

 of our system is afforded by the asteroids. The system was once 

 quite filled with these satellites, and they revolved in orbits which 

 were so eccentric that they crossed the paths of several of the 

 planets. In time they have been largely absorbed in the sun and 

 planets, and what remain have been thrown within the orbit of 

 Jupiter, where they now revolve in comparative stability. 



6. That our moon, likewise, was originally a planet which neared 

 the earth and was finally captured and made a satellite. It was no 

 part of the terrestrial globe detached by rapid rotation, as has been 

 generally believed since the time of Anaxagoras, B. C. 500-428, and 

 more recently taught by Laplace, Lord Kelvin, Sir George Darwin, 

 Poincare and other eminent writers. 



7. The theories long current in geology and astronomy that the 

 earth once rotated in two or three hours, so rapidly that it threw off 

 a layer of peripheral matter now collected into the moon, are shown 

 to be quite devoid of foundation. The effect of this advance will 

 be to show that the globe never was highly oblate, and to correct the 

 theories of geology, and greatly improve the science of astronomy. 



8. The rotations of the planets on their axes have been pro- 

 duced by the capture and absorption of satellites. It is shown in the 

 theory of the restricted problem of three bodies that most of the 

 satellites should move direct, and it is by the capture and absorption 

 of millions of these small masses that the planets have been given 

 direct rotations on their axes. 



9. The modification of the original obliquities of the planets is 

 shown to depend on the capture and absorption of satellites. It is 

 shown that in this way the obliquity of Jupiter was practically ob- 

 literated. If Saturn's mass were to be augmented till it became 

 equal to that of Jupiter, his obliquity likewise would disappear.-'* 



» Cf. A. N., 4367- 



