The Sun 291 



The pent-up gases, escaping as they do in these 

 catastrophic cases from under a hydrostatic pressure of 

 millions of atmospheres, in tearing their way through 

 the superincumbent 25,000-mile shell naturally carry with 

 them billions upon billions of tons of solar magma in 

 various stages of metallurgical reduction, according to 

 the solar level from which they respectively emanate. 

 No doubt the major part of this upheaved material falls 

 back upon the sun, but a vast amount of it is carried on 

 outward past Mercury, past Venus, past the earth, on 

 even to Neptune, the outermost planet spreading itself 

 into a disc-shaped nebula as it goes ; disc-shaped because 

 the sun-spots are known to seek the solar equator. In- 

 deed, some of these ejecta do not even remain within the 

 system, but forge onward into space, distancing the solar 

 gravity, as it were, and finally cross the border line of 

 neighboring systems, there to become the cometary and 

 meteoric vassals of other suns and stars. Inasmuch as 

 the disruptive force is single, and the ether of space op- 

 poses no resistance, we should naturally expect that the 

 outer planets would be fed proportionately more of the 

 lighter materials of the solar carcass, and vice versa as 

 to the planets nearer him. At any rate, this accords well 

 with the physical facts, for the superior planets are by 

 far the least dense. 



The violence of the ordeal ended, the nuclei origi- 

 nally, and now the matured planets, under the gyratory 

 rule of the Prime Resultant, continue on in the even tenor 

 of their way and proceed to sweep up by their gravita- 

 tional suctions the nebular material littering their re- 

 spective orbital zones. It is quite true that the nebula, 

 under the principle of systemal equilibrium, tends from 

 the first to accomodate itself to the Keplerian law of 

 areas, in which case, if that goal were immediately 

 realized, the ingathering process would be defeated; but 

 it is also true that this adaptation requires a long period, 

 during which the differentiation of orbital speed between 

 the coursing planets and the relatively stagnant medium 

 immensely facilitates the gleaning process. In spite of 



