Geological Papers. 75 



In the American Encyclopedia, vol. XV, page 471, it is stated 

 that our sun moves in space, and that it is moving from v^est 

 to east at the rate of more than 150,000,000 miles per annum. 

 And concerning the same subject Mr. Todd says that the sun 

 is moving in space from a point midway between Sirius and 

 Canopus toward the constellation Vega (New Astronomy, 

 p. 431) ; and another astronomer says (see an astronomical 

 article in the July number of McClure's Magazine for 1899) 

 that though our center has been known to be moving in space 

 since the early days of the Chaldeans, yet it is not known 

 whither he is gong or where he is transporting his entire 

 family of planets, satellites, and comets. 



Now, since astronomers have proved that the sun moves in 

 space it evidently, therefore, must have an orbit, because all 

 bodies moving in space, whose courses can be traced out at the 

 present time, have orbits, and the sun, like all other bodies in 

 space, is composed of matter and does move, and consequently 

 must obey some attractive law. It therefore has an orbit, but 

 one of immense size, for Mr. Todd says (see above) : 



"So vast is this orbit of the sun that no deviation from a 

 straight line is as yet ascertained, although our motion along 

 that orbit is about twelve miles per second." 



Now if the sun has an orbit, as Mr. Todd and all of our 

 leading astronomers say it has, and which the very facts in 

 the case indicate, it must have a central attractive center the 

 same as all other bodies so far as known which have orbits. 

 This attractive center, most likely, is a central sun, as was 

 a favorite hypothesis in the middle of the nineteenth century; 

 or, if not a central sun, it is at least a great central magnetic 

 center, whose attractive influence controls not only our sun, 

 with his attendants, but all matters throughout limitless space. 



Just where this attractive center is located is unknown, but 

 it is easy to conjecture with a great deal of accuracy that it is 

 located in the northern heavens, in the vicinity of or beyond 

 the dippers, or in the opposite heavens, because not only our 

 earth, but all the brother planets and even the sun himself 

 have their axis inclined toward the plane of their respective 

 orbits toward a point in the northern heavens (American 

 Encyclopedia, vol. XV, p. 471) . Now, if this center be positive 

 it is located in the northern sky, because the north magnetic 

 pole of our earth is negative, but if negative it is situated in the 



