PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 723 



cesses of combination, between different parts of our globe, may- 

 have repeatedly happened before the earth attained its present 

 magnitude, and that luxuriant vegetation may, at different periods, 

 have been buried and destroyed under the fiery debris resulting 

 from th ' conflict of its now component masses. And if so, the idea 

 of the possibility of a shifting of the poles of the earth, suggested 

 by some, is not altogether absurd ; however, it must be observed 

 that if this shifting happened by the fall of enormous masses, it 

 was long before our earth had its present surface, and any product 

 of anterior life must, by necessity, have utterly disappeared, and 

 all traces of it destroyed by such a terrible concussion. 



We have an illustration in the heavens of a number of very 

 large meteoric masses not yet united to a single planet, namely : 

 in the asteroids, where some 100 bodies move about the orbit, evi- 

 dently destined for the planet between Mars and Jupiter. The 

 existence of so many planets in this orbit in place of a single one, 

 was at first explained by the hypothesis, that the planet had burst 

 like a bombshell or steamboiler, and the pieces propelled about ; 

 others have supposed that it was simply a ring like the one around 

 Saturn, which, by losing its cohesion, broke up in pieces, which, 

 by their centrifugal force, were projected into space ; all those 

 ideas are but remnants of the notion that the planetary systems 

 originated by masses projected from centres. I have attempted 

 to show that the planets and sun are formed by meteoric masses 

 fallino; too;ether from a condensino- nebula, and the number of 

 asteroids will, of course, go on diminishing as long as some of 

 them come within the sphere of mutual attraction ; before the end 

 of the planetary system they all may be united to one single globe. 

 There is no doubt that Kepler was right in saying that there are 

 more comets and other mtfsses floating al)out in space than fishes 

 in the ocean, and after the idea of Olivers, the meteorites are 

 almost everywhere moving in all possible planes and directions ; 

 those moving in the plane and direction of the planetary system 

 are the least retarded, the others are continually retarded by the 

 resisting medium, which transmits the luminous and caloric waves, 

 and, therefore, they must ultimately fall in the sun. Newton 

 already had the idea that the comets v/ould ultimately fall in the 

 sun and raise its temperature, and Mayer thinks that the fall of 

 meteorites in the sun is continually taking place, forming as it 

 were its natural food, and by the heat developed by the fall, 

 retard its cooling and prolong its manner of existence as a fiery ocean. 



