170 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



stances the great velocities of meteoric bodies may be 

 due to the proper motions of those stars from whose 

 domains the meteors have reached our earth, yet it is 

 difficult to regard this explanation as altogether suffi- 

 cient. In the first place, there are few stars whose 

 motions are large enough to avail for our purpose. 

 Sirius has a rate of motion altogether exceptional ; and 

 it is probable that the average rate of stellar motion 

 does not exceed four or five miles per second. And 

 again, only a small proportion of the meteoric bodies 

 coming from the domain of one star to that of another 

 would show traces of the kind of motion we have been 

 considering. Certainly very few would show an excess 

 of velocity, corresponding to the rate of seventy or 

 eighty miles per second, with which meteors have been 

 observed to traverse our atmosphere. 



The second explanation of which I have spoken 

 seems required to interpret what still remains un- 

 accounted for. This explanation is so startling that at 

 first sight few would be disposed to admit it as even a 

 possibility. However, when theories so surprising as 

 Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis of seedbearing meteorites 

 are submitted to the gravest scientific assemblies, I 

 need not fear to present even so startling a theory as 

 the one I am about to deal with, more especially as 

 I shall be able to exhibit certain very singular evi- 

 dences in its favour. 



The second explanation is simply this : that a large 

 portion of our meteoric visitants have been expelled or 

 erupted from the stars including our own sun. 



