a 



0) 



planet 

 mass 



(U). 



CERTAIN HARMONIES OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 31 



succeeding term,, which will, here, decrease very slowly, but regularly, in the pro- 

 gress inward. 



(44) With respect, then, to this recombination — 



The value of the 1st, or Neptune-term of the series, closely corresponds to that 

 in Table (B) of the completed arrangement of the Planetary System in (14). 



For the 2d term of the series — 



r Whole r (a). The mass of Saturn being reduced to that of i^ — to furnish 

 the material for the half-planet gi — that half-planet must then be 

 regarded as being restored to its appropriate place [as the same is 

 <; exhibited in Table (B)]. 



(h). The two half-planets, Uranus and S^■, must then be regarded 

 as combined around their centre of gyration to form the loliole- 

 ^ planet mass (U). 

 Whole f 



^ i The mass of ft will then be left at a whole-planet distance. 



mass I 



h- I 



Then, (c). — The whole ])lanet mass (U), accumulated anew (as 



already indicated), must be combined with the mass >^ to form from 



both, around tJieir centre of gyration, a quasi double-planet mass 



[(U) 1^] ; to furnish the 2d term, required. 



Jupiter will itself, in its mean distance from the sun, furnish the 3cZ term. 



Mars and the Asteroid mass (A) will, in the quasi douhle-planet arrangement, 

 at their centre of gyration, furnish the 4:th term ; designated as that of [J* (A)].^ 



The Earth and "Fe/m-s, now existing as separate half-planets, will, in a whole- 

 planet arrangement, furnish (at their centre of gyration) the 5th term very near, 

 (39), to the already recognized limit (®?). This bth term is then designated as 

 that of [© 9 ]. 



Mercury, in its mean distance from the sun, furnishes the Qth term."^ 



» In the coraputatiou of this 4th terra, sach a value has, of necessity, been attributed to the aste- 

 roid-mass as would make that 4th term in the column of Fact, absolutely the same with the corre- 

 sponding term in the column of Law. But the value of the asteroid-mass thus determined, is con- 

 firmed in a way wrhich cannot but be regarded as extraordinary. [See Article (46).] 



^ Neither the aphelion nor the perihelion distance appearing; though the one is found at a whole- 

 planet distance, and the other at an exterior half-planet distance, in Table (B), in (14). Mercury, 

 then, at a distance the mean of these two (but in another arrangement) has thus characteristics 

 approaching to those of a double-planet [as was intimated, though not explained in (9)] ; and this 

 with an appropriate place in the series in which the double-planet arrangement appears ; the difference 

 between this and the otherwise analogous terms of the arrangement being, that whereas, in the other 

 cases, the material of the two planetary bodies (with reference to its more ancient state) is regarded 

 as accumulated anew, and, as it were, in some measure, reconstructed about the centre of gyration 

 of those bodies; the actual combination, in an analogous position, seeins to be found in the existing 

 planet, Mercury itself. 



