90 HISTOEY OF ASTKONOMY. 



section of all the asteroid orbits must have occurred, if, 

 indeed, such an intersection ever took place. The dis- 

 covery of many of these bodies is so recent that, as yet, 

 there has not been sufficient time for such a computa- 

 tion ; but, from what we already know, we hazard little 

 in venturing the opinion that, when this computation 

 shall be made, it will appear, that if the asteroid planets 

 ever composed a single body which exploded, as Gibers 

 supposed, such explosion must have occurred myriads of 

 years ago. Indeed, the discovery of such a host of aster- 

 oids seems to have stripped the theory of Olbers of 

 nearly all the plausibility it possessed when it was orig- 

 inally proposed ; and it would seem hardly less reason- 

 able to suppose that the Earth and Yenus originally con- 

 stituted one body, than to admit the same for the forty 

 asteroids. 



But if we reject the theory of Olbers, what do we 

 conclude ? That the asteroids bear no special relation- 

 ship to each other ? Do they not all clearly indicate a 

 family resemblance ? And if so, how do we account for 

 this relationship? 



There are several reasons for believing in some pe- 

 culiar relationship between the asteroids. 



1. Unlike the other planets of our system, they are 

 all of diminutive size the largest of them hardly ex- 

 ceeding one or two hundred miles in diameter. M. Le 

 Yerrier, after a close examination of the nature and 

 amount of the. influences exerted by the entire group 

 of asteroids upon the nearer planets, Mars and the Earth, 



