March 9, 1882 | 
NATURE 
441 
ts existence as a luminary would be prolonged by calling 
into requisition a limited, though may be large, store of 
energy in the form of separated matter. The true solution 
of the problem will be furnished by a theory, according to 
which the radiant energy which is now supposed to be 
dissipated into space and irrecoverably lost to our solar 
system, could be arrested and brought back in another 
form to the sun itself, there to continue the work of'solar 
radiation. 
Some years ago it occurred to me that such a solution 
of the solar problem might not lie beyond the bounds of 
possibility, and although I cannot claim intimate acquain- 
tance with the intricacies of solar physics, I have watched 
its progress, and have engaged also in some physical ex- 
periments bearing upon the question, all of which have 
served to strengthen my confidence and ripened in me the 
determination to submit my views, not without some mis- 
giving, to the touchstone of scientific criticism. 
For the purposes of my theory, stellar space is supposed 
| to be filled with highly rarefied gaseous bodies, including 
| hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and their compounds, 
| besides solid materials in the form of dust. This being 
| the case, each planetary body would attract to itself au 
atmosphere depending for its density upon its relative 
attractive importance, and it would not seem unreasonable 
to suppose that the heavier and less diffusible gases would 
form the staple of these atmospheres ; that, in fact, they 
would consist mostly of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbonic 
anhydride, whilst hydrogen and its compounds would 
predominate in space. 
But the planetary system, as a whole, would exercise an 
attractive influence upon the gaseous matter diffused 
through space, and would therefore be surrounded by an 
interplanetary atmosphere, holding an intermediate posi- 
tion between the planetary atmospheres and the extremely 
rarefied stellar space. 
In support of this view it may be urged, that in follow- 
ing out the molecular theory of gases as laid down by 
Clerk Maxwell, Clausius, and Thomson, it would be 
difficult to assign a limit to a gaseous atmosphere in 
space and, further, that some writers, among whom I will | 
here mention only Grove, Humboldt, Zoellner and | 
Mattieu Williams, have boldly asserted the existence of a 
space filled with matter, and that Newton himself,as Dr. 
Sterry Hunt tells us in an interesting paper which has 
only just reached me, has expressed views in favour of 
such an assumption. Further than this, we have the 
facts that meteorolites whose flight through stellar, or at 
all events through interplanetary space, is suddenly 
arrested by being brought into collision with our earth, 
are known to contain as much as six times their own 
volume of gases taken at atmospheric pressure ; and Dr. 
Flight has only very recently communicated to the Royal 
Society the analysis of the occluded gases of one of 
these metorolites taken immediately after the descent to 
be as follows :-— 
100700 
It appears surprising that there was no aqueous vapour, 
considering there was much hydrogen and oxygen in 
combination with carbon, but pe rhaps the vapour escaped 
observation, or was expelled to a greater extent than the 
other gases by external heat when the meteorolite passed 
through our atmosphere. Opinions concur that the gases 
found occluded in meteorolites cannot be supposed to 
have entered into their composition during the very short 
period of traversing our atmosphere, but if any doubt 
should exist on this head, it ought to be set at rest by the 
fact that the gas principally occluded is hydrogen, which 
