22 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



by the gravitational suction emanating from the stars and 

 drawing us toward the true pole of the ecliptic ; and the 

 same explanation applies equally to the rotations of the 

 subordinate systems around their respective primaries. 



11. The earth is a simple object in the act of falling, 

 forever poised on its lowest center of gravity. Its 

 heavier, or lower, hemisphere is, of course, the northern, 

 as the position of the continents sufficiently testifies. 



12. The sun (a typical star) is essentially a hollow 

 sphere normally undergoing every instant multitudinous 

 minor explosions all over his vast surface. His periodic- 

 al " spots " are due to this cause, only on a larger scale, 

 and their periodicity, it will be found, is susceptible of 

 ready explanation. Morever, every 100,000 years or so 

 the sun explodes centrally, with such extreme violence as 

 to become what is technically known as a "temporary" 

 or "new" star, giving rise, by the same token, to a "neb- 

 ula", or cloud of molten debris, which the circulating 

 planets, ever spinning in their orbits, gradually sweep up, 

 and eventually clear away, save for some lingering vesti- 

 ges of impalpable dust that we perceive on dark nights as 

 the "zodiacal light" and " gegenschein. " 



13. Comets are fragments injected into our system 

 by neighboring stars, and their peculiarities are all trace- 

 able to the circumstance of their advent having been too 

 recent to allow time for their complete assimilation. 

 Asteroids, or at least some of them, are what may be 

 termed domesticated comets. 



14. The Milky Way is a vortical ring of stars re- 

 volving under the influence of the resultant of the attrac- 

 tions of an immeasurably greater "universe" than itself. 

 However, be the material universe finite or infinite in 

 fact, there is nothing in my theory inconsistent with 

 either hypothesis. 



15. Viewing the physical universe in its broad 

 philosophical aspect as the creation of a Designer, I in- 

 cline toward the conclusion that the organization of the 



