114 SCIENCE IK SHORT CHAPTERS. 



increasing with the subdivision of masses, and becomes an 

 important fraction in the case of the smaller bodies of the solar 

 system. A zone of meteorites travelling around the sun would 

 be broken up, sifted, and sorted into different orbits, according 

 to their diameters, if this superficial repulsion operated against 

 gravitation without any compensating agency. Gravitation 

 would be opposed in various degrees, neutralized, and, in the 

 case of cosmic dust, even reversed. Comets presenting so 

 large a surface in proportion to their mass would either be 

 driven away altogether or forced to move in orbits utterly 

 disobedient to present calculations. This would occur if the 

 interplanetary spaces were as nearly vacuous as the torsion 

 instrument with which Mr. Crookes made his measurements. 



Regarding the properties of our atmosphere only in the light 

 of experimental data, irrespective of imaginary molecules, and 

 their supposed gyrations or oscillations, we see at once that an 

 interplanetary or inter-stellar vacuum must act like a Sprengel 

 pump upon our atmosphere, upon the atmosphere of other 

 planets, and upon those of the sun and the stais, and would 

 continue such action until an equilibrium between the repulsive 

 energy of the gas and the gravitation of the solid orbs had 

 been established. Atmospheric matter would thus be univer- 

 sally diffused, with special accumulations around solid orbs, 

 varying in quantity with their respective gravitating energy. 

 Such a universal atmosphere would accelerate oibital motion, 

 and this acceleration would vary with the surface of bodies. 

 Its action being thus exactly opposed to that of radiant repul- 

 sion, it must, at a certain density, exactly neutralize it. That 

 it d^es this is evident from the obedience of all the elements 

 of the solar system to the calculated action of gravitation ; and 

 thus Mr. Crookes's researches not only confiim the idea of 

 universal atmospheric diffusion, but they afford a means by 

 which we may ultimately measure the actual density of the 

 universal atmosphere. If, as I have endeavored to show in my 

 1 essay on " The Fuel of the Sun," the initial radiant energy of 

 every star depends upon its mass, and its consequent condensa- 

 tion of atmospheric matter, the density of interplanetary 

 atmosphere sufficient to neutralize the radiant mechanical energy 

 of our sun may be the same as is demanded to perform the 

 same function for all the stars of the universe, and all their 

 attendant worlds, comets, and meteors. 



In order to prevent misunderstanding of the above, I must 

 add that I have therein studiously assumed a negative position 



