X Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Tlie relation of comets to meteor streams is now pretty 

 firmly established, but exactly what that relation is, still 

 remains to be determined. Meteor streams in distant parts 

 of their orbits have been seen as comets, but whether all 

 comets themselves are an aggregation of meteors, or meteor 

 streams disintegrated comets, is yet a matter for speculation. 

 Mr. Lockyer has lately propounded a new hypothesis of the 

 heavenly bodies, which may probably lead to new directions 

 of enquiry, and further knowledge in this respect. His idea 

 is that space is a plenum of meteoric particles, mostly 

 moving in groups or swarms in regular orbits. These orbits 

 sometimes intersect, giving rise to collision of particles, and 

 to the formation of new and lesser orbits, and so forming 

 a rotating agglomeration of meteoric matter, with evolution 

 of heat and lio-ht, becomino- visible as a nebula or nebulous 

 star, and perhaps eventually as a concrete star itself Nebulae, 

 comets, and nebulous stars are considered all of the same 

 kind of matter under different conditions of motion of 

 constituent particles, and consequently under different 

 temperatures, as shown by spectroscopic characteristics. If 

 Mr. Lockyer's great hypothesis be correct, we must conclude 

 that all the heavenly bodies are made of the same stufij 

 under different conditions of sparseness of distribution, 

 motion of constituent particles, and temperature. A comet, 

 a nebula, or the planet Saturn for instance, would be of 

 similar matter under differing conditions. 



There has been a good deal written about the discovery of 

 strange appearances in Mars, and we have read sensational 

 articles of canals, martial inundations, &c., with all the flights 

 of imagination of clever newspaper writers, who dress up the 

 bare cold facts of the astronomer in a tempting garb for 

 the popular reader. The facts are briefly as follows : — 

 Several veteran observers with large telescopes, liave 

 recently spent much time in a continuous scrutiny of the 

 planet Mars, during the periods of his nearest approach to 

 the earth, and more especially at the approach in the early 

 months of ] 888. The appearances of a network of dark 



