120 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
place, but would tend to diminish rather than increase the intensity. How 
inadequate combustion would be is shown by the fact that a pound weight 
would develope about forty million units of heat in falling upon the sun, and 
the combustion of a pound of mixed oxygen and hydrogen would only 
develope about 4000 units. And again, in either case the chief luminosity 
must be from the fused material; a continuous spectrum would then result, 
which in the last star at least is altogether contrary to observation. The 
precipitation of a body upon the surface of a dead sun is much more 
probable; so likewise is the meteoric theory; but in the former case if 
sufficient heat could be developed a fused mass would almost certainly 
result, and in the latter case nothing short of a marvellous combination 
would prevent its resulting. The latter hypothesis Proctor bases on the 
bright monientary light once observed on the face of the sun; he assumes 
that the gaseous photosphere was temporarily raised to a high luminosity 
by meteors. I think this of itself is very improbable. I cannot conceive 
how it is possible that if the atmosphere were raised to incandescence it 
could cool again in so short a time as two minutes. I think it far more 
probable that that most wonderful phenomenon (affecting as it did the 
entire earth) was due to the collision of two bodies revolving in approxi- 
mately opposite directions around the sun. Such a pair of bodies would have 
their temperature raised to about one hundred million degrees Centigrade. 
' I need not say that such a temperature would quickly volatilize such small 
bodies and produce an intense light, the phenomenon is in this way 
explained without any assumption other than known laws. The basis of 
the meteoric hypothesis is thus shown to be in the highest degree 
improbable, and even if it were admitted it would require an inconceivable 
number of meteors to raise the atmosphere of a dark body to such a 
temperature as to produce a luminosity as great as our sun’s and of some 
months’ duration. Still more inconceivable does it appear that the body 
upon which they impinge should only have its atmosphere raised to such a 
luminosity, whilst the body itself yemained non-luminous. Altogether the 
theory of Meyer and Klein appears the only possible one, but it is oniy when 
both bodies are of such stupendous dimensions as to produce complete 
volatilization that the hypothesis agrees with spectroscopic observation ; 
and such a case does not appear to be contemplated by the authors or they 
would scarcely have suggested a planet. Complete dissipation into space 
could not take place by the entire coalescence of two bodies however large, 
unless they had a higher initial velocity than observations of the proper 
motion of stars render probable. No one of these hypotheses, therefore, 
appears to be a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. 
An hypothesis that agrees better with observation would be one of 
partial impact. If two immense bodies moving in qued come well within 
