I9I0.] RESEARCHES IN COSMICAL EVOLUTION. 2ir 



The work of Stratton, implying planetary inversion, is shown to be 

 inapplicable to the solar system, because based on a false premise. 



10. As the satellites have all been captured, but were once inde- 

 pendent planets, it will not seem strange that a few of them have 

 retrograde motions ; the capture theory explains this in a simple and 

 easy manner, and it is in accord with the latest researches on the 

 celebrated problem of three bodies, the treatment of which has been 

 much improved by Jacobi, Hill, Poincare, Darwin and other mathe- 

 maticians. 



11. As the planetary rotations are due to the capture and ab- 

 sorption of satellites, theory shows that the larger planets, as Jupiter 

 and Saturn, ought to rotate most rapidly. This is in accordance 

 with observation, and the nature of the cause at work shows that the 

 earth never could have rotated much if any more rapidly than at 

 present. 



12. The cause of the secular acceleration of the moon's mean 

 motion has been one of the leading problems of astronomy for over 

 two centuries. In spite of all the researches of the greatest mathe- 

 maticians, there remains an outstanding inequality of about 2." 

 which cannot be accounted for by gravitational or other definite 

 theory. This anomaly is now explained by the fact that the moon 

 is a captured planet, and therefore slowly nearing the earth, owing- 

 to the action of a resisting medium, in the nature of cosmical dust 

 pervading the regions where the planets move. 



13. The roundness of the orbits of the planets and satellites has- 

 been remarked from the earliest ages of science, and this phe- 

 nomenon, which led Plato, Aristotle and other Greek sages to de- 

 clare that the heavenly motions are perfect because they are circu- 

 lar, is now shown to be due to the secular action of a resisting me- 

 dium which has reduced the size of the planetary orbits and well- 

 nigh obliterated their eccentricities ; and not at all to these bodies 

 having been detached by rotation and set revolving in orbits which 

 were originally nearly circular, as incorrectly held by Laplace. 



14. Around each planet there circulates a vortex of cosmical 

 dust, of which the satellites alone are large enough and bright 

 enough to be visible in our telescopes. The descent of this material' 



