254 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



During all this time the pull of the star was oblique to the 

 normal ascensive lines of the sun's greater eruptions, and the 

 sun and star worked at cross-purposes; but, as the star curved 

 into the critical part of its path, where it made its closest ap- 

 proach, it passed directly over the belt of the sun's most effec- 

 tive eruptions, and not only the most favorable co-operation of 

 sun and star were realized, but nearly the maximum mutual at- 

 traction. It is assumed that the greatest eruptive bolts were 

 then shot forth, and that they were projected with the greatest 

 velocity. It is taken for granted that the stimulus of vigorous ac- 

 tion on the side toward the star would react as stimulus to erup- 

 tion on the other side, and that nearly simultaneous bolts would 

 issue from the proximate and from the distal side of the sun. 

 It is supposed that the action would be most effective when the 

 first eruptive belt was crossed, for then the projectile forces drew 

 on the fullest stores of eruptive potency in the sun. The second 

 pair of great eruptions are assigned to the stage when the second 

 belt of solar eruptions, on the farther side of the solar equator, 

 was crossed. These two pairs of eruptive projectiles of the first 

 order are assumed to have been the parents of the four great 

 planets, the two outermost with the peculiarities of the first- 

 born growing later into Neptune and Uranus ; the two follow- 

 ing, favored by the pulsations set up by the previous great erup- 

 tions and by greater facilities for growth, but lacking the fullness 

 of eruptive resources that favored the first pair, consituted the 

 knots that grew into Saturn and Jupiter. 



Criticism of the Planetesimal Hypothesis 



If Newton's theory of tidal production is objectively 

 false, as Darwin, Young, Kelvin and a host of others who 

 have made a physical investigation of the tides reluc- 

 tantly report it to be, and as I think I have deductively 

 demonstrated it to be, of course the Planetesimal hypoth- 

 esis is false also, and it would seem that nothing more 

 need be said. The tenacity of inherited opinions, how- 

 ever, is unfortunately often far more powerful in mold- 

 ing human opinion than truth itself, and so it becomes 

 necessary to subject the theory in question to a test by 

 the standards generally recognized, whether those stand- 

 ards be, in fact, genuine or spurious. 



In a former place it was pointed out that, according 

 to Newton's Corollary, the height of the tide is a function 

 of the thickness of the equatorial ring, and that where no 



