OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 201 



VI. 



PROPOSITIONS IX COSMICAL PHYSICS. 

 By Benjamin Peirce. 



Presented October 8, 1879. 



1. Aix stellar light emanates from super-heated gas. Henco the 

 Bun and stars are gaseous bodies. 



2. Gaseous bodies, in the process of radiating light and heat, con- 

 dense, and become hotter throughout their mass. 



3. It is probable that their surfaces would become colder if there 

 were not an external supply of heat from the collision of meteors. 



4. Large celestial bodies are constantly deriving superficial heat 

 from the collision of meteors, till at length the surface becomes super- 

 heated gas, which constitution must finally extend through the mass. 



5. Small celestial bodies are constantly cooling till they become 

 invisible solid meteors. 



6. The heat of space consists of two parts : first, that of radiation 

 principally from the stars, which is small, except in the immediate 

 vicinity of the stars ; the second portion is derived from the velocity 

 with which the meteors strike the planet at which the observation is 

 taken ; and this velocity partly depends upon the mass of the star by 

 which the orbit of the planet is defined, and partly upon the mass of 

 the planet itself. 



7. If the planets were originally formed by the collision of meteors, 

 it is difficult to account for an initial heat sufficient to liquefy them, 

 and at the same time to account for their subsequent cooling, without 

 a great change in the number and nature of the meteors ; and any 

 such hypothesis seems to invalidate the meteoric theory. 



8. If the planets were not originally formed by the collision of 

 meteors, their common direction of rotation becomes difficult of 

 explanation. 



