64 



The sun, as I said, is a burning planet. The oxygen 

 which it requires for maintaining combustion it receives 

 from its own planets; but if its furnace fires were not 

 supplied with fuel from outside they would of course 

 burn out, and the sun would become itself a cloudspot. 

 But nature in her wisdom has provided for this. To 

 maintain the life of the sun she has supplied worlds of 

 cosmic nourishment in the form of comets. At the same 

 time look at the marvellous ingenuity revealed by the 

 method in which this solar food is caught ! 



If the sun remained alone, its hot rays would rather 

 repulse than attract approaching matter, the force exer- 

 cised by these rays being as it is a force of repulsion 

 and not of attraction. In the calm movement of the 

 worlds the comets would float past the sun, and only 

 those of them whose course lay in a straight line with 

 the sun's might collide with it, and, yield their substance 

 as a prey. But the sun is not alone. It is surrounded 

 with its thousands of solar agents, and taking Neptune 

 as the remotest at a distance of 4,170 million versts, we 

 have a circle the diameter of which is no less than 8340 

 million versts, while the circumference involved is 

 8340000000 X 22 /, - - i. e. 26,211,428,573 versts. Of such 

 enormous dimensions it the network shown in our se- 

 cond diagram ! Evidently all that is seized within the 

 expansive limits of this net serves as solar food, or as. 

 food for the sun's satellites. This explains the appea- 

 rance of oerolites on our earth, it accounts for the for- 

 mation of the ring round Saturn, while Jupiter the most, 

 powerful of the planets has evident ly a special in fluence 

 since comets passing its orbits are visibly affected and 

 their course is not infrequently diverted. Diagram 3. 

 presents a view of the comets in their course. 



As soon as any comet or cloudspot falls within the 

 orbit ot any of the planets it at once changes its drift 

 and surrenders to the stream of cosmic gas flowing to- 

 wards the disc of the sun. It is very easy to under- 



