METEORS. 173 



the smoke ? If we accept this view, and certainly the 

 constitution of the prominences favours the supposition, 

 we should decide that there can be scarcely any com- 

 parison between the velocity with which the matter of 

 the prominences is projected from the sun's interior 

 and that which would carry a projectile in a vacuum 

 to the observed height of the prominences. 



Now the largest prominence yet seen had the enor- 

 mous height of 160,000 miles; and a projectile from 

 the sun would require a velocity of 200 miles per 

 second at starting to attain, even through vacant 

 space, to this vast height. It will scarcely be thought 

 too daring to assert that the matter of. this prominence 

 must have had at least twice this velocity at starting, 

 under the actual circumstances of resistance to which 

 its motion was exposed. Here, then, we have evidence 

 of a propelling force in the sun fully equal to the dis- 

 charge of meteoric matter in such sort as never to 

 return either actually to his globe or on an orbital path 

 close by him. If the same discharge which propelled 

 the gaseous substance of the great prominence to a 

 height of 160,000 miles carried some denser substance 

 along with it (which seems not only credible, but ex- 

 ceedingly likely), and if that substance by virtue of its 

 density passed with much less loss of velocity through 

 the solar atmosphere (as a cannon-ball retains much 

 more of its velocity than the gases propelled along 

 with it), then, unquestionably, the sun rejected that 

 matter for ever from his substance on the day that the 

 great prominence was formed. The gas of the promi- 



