METE01UC ASTKOXOAIY. 153 



matter ejected from the sun by the same forces as those pro- 

 ducing the solar prominences. For my own part I shall not be 

 at all surprised if we find that, ere long, these two apparently 

 conflicting hypotheses are fully reconciled. 



The progress of solar discovery has been so great since Janu- 

 ary, 1870, when my ejection theory was published, that I may 

 now carry it out much further than I then dared, or was justi- 

 fied in daring, to venture. Actual measurement of the pro- 

 jectile forces displayed in some of the larger prominences 

 renders it not merely possible, but even very probable, that 

 some of the exceptionally great eruptive efforts of the sun may 

 be sufficiently powerful to eject solar material beyond the 

 reclaiming reach of his own gravitating power. 



In such a case the banished matter must go on wandering 

 through the boundless profundity of space until it reaches the 

 domain of some other sun, which will clutch the fragment with 

 its gravitating energies, and turn its straight and ever-onward 

 course into a curved orbit. Thus the truant morsel from our 

 sun will become the subject of another sun a portion of 

 another solar sytem. 



What one sun may do, another and every other may do like- 

 wise, and, if so, there must be a mutual bombardment, a 

 ceaseless interchange of matter between the countless suns of 

 the universe. This is a startling view of our cosmical rela- 

 tions, but we are driving rapidly toward a general recognition 

 of it. 



The November star showers have perpetrated some irregu- 

 larities this year. They have been very unpunctual, and have 

 not come from their right place. We have heard something 

 from Italy, but not the tidings of the Leonides that were 

 expected. Instead of the great display of the month occurring 

 on the 13th and 14th, it was seen on the 27th. We have 

 accounts from different parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, 

 and Wales, also from Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc. 



Mr. Slinto, in a letter to the Times, estimates the number 

 seen at Suez as reaching at least 30,000, while in Italy and 

 Athens about 200 per minute were observed. They were not, 

 however, the Leonides that is, they did not radiate from a 

 point in the constellation Leo, but from the region of Andro- 

 meda. Therefore they were distinct from that system of 

 small wanderers usually designated the " November meteors," 

 were not connected with Tempel's comet (comet 1, 1866), 

 but belong to quite another set. 



