RECENT COSMOGONIES 221 



In the first place, we must remember that the planets 

 do not revolve around the sun with equal velocities, but 

 with velocities varying greatly with their central dis- 

 tances. Thus Mercury, the nearest planet to the sun, 

 travels some eight times faster than Neptune, the outer- 

 most. Doctor Chamberlin assumes that all the planets 

 alike simultaneously acquired their tangential motions 

 from the gravitational attraction of the passing star. If 

 this were so, why did they not all start out with prac- 

 tically the same speed! In order to make clear how the 

 planets acquired their Keplerian velocities, Doctor 

 Chamberlin ought to show us just the spot where the 

 strange star might have been with reference to the string 

 of planets, just how large it might have been, and just 

 how far from the sun, in order to bring about the present 

 planetary scheme. Had our author succeeded in figuring 

 out any such combination, he would doubtless have men- 

 tioned the fact in his book; but he doesn't. Nor shall I 

 consume the reader's time by mathematically demon- 

 strating the impossibility of any such combination exist- 

 ing. This much, at least, should be plain, that inasmuch 

 as Mercury travels faster than any other planet, the star 

 would have to be predicated as quite close to the sun and 

 certainly not as far away as Venus, else the latter should 

 possess the higher velocity; which it doesn't. 



Inasmuch as only terrestrial tides have come within 

 our daily experience, the question has never specifically 

 arisen as to what effect, if any, the mass of the ~body af- 

 fected has on the heights of its tides. For example, sup- 

 pose the sun were an exact duplicate of the earth, save in 

 the one respect of mass, and that the two were equi-dis- 

 tant from each other and from the moon, would the lunar 

 tides on the sun be then exactly as high as those on the 

 earth, or would they be directly proportional to their 

 mass, or would they be inversely proportional, or just 

 what rule would obtain? In the absence of any surer 

 guide, let us assume the tidal heights to Toe, inversely, 

 functions of the masses of the bodies affected, and that 

 the star, in order to raise upon the sun tides commensu- 

 rate with our terrestrial tides, had to exceed the size of the 



