130 Transacttons,—Miscellancous. 
clearly not admissible in such a case as I have suggested, and the relative 
positions of the planets would influence the second. Or if this be con- 
sidered to be insufficient, it is only necessary to assume that the destruction 
took place before the whole of the gas had been absorbed by the sun. 
Altogether, I think from the great eccentricity of the orbits of these bodies, 
from their positions, from the varying inclinations of the planes of their 
several ecliptics, from their varying intensity, and their small size, the only 
conceivable explanation of their formation is by a violent explosion. This 
would account for all their peculiarities. I am unacquainted with any force 
in nature that could produce such an explosion except the one here 
suggested. 
Saturn’s Rings. 
It would appear also that the rings of Saturn cannot be considered to be 
a primary phenomeuon ; they may have been developed by the blowing to 
pieces of a moon, or by Saturn's atmosphere entrapping a train of meteors. 
This latter suggestion hardly appears so reasonable as the former. If the 
destroyed moon was brought to a very high temperature, mere liquid spray 
might have been produced, which would quickly cool and become a mass of 
solid particles revolving around in all eccentricities. 
Comets and Meteors. 
It is a necessity of this hypothesis that there should be large numbers 
of bodies travelling in space. Groups of these bodies may frequently have 
& common direction. Of these bodies it is probable that some may be very 
large, and even come within the solar system, yet remain invisible except 
as meteors. But it is conceivable that in some cases of collision bodies may 
leave, consisting chiefly of carbonie acid ; which at certain stages of a body's 
heat, may form an important part of its atmosphere. It is not difficult to 
imagine that a portion of the atmosphere of such a body may have taken a 
common direction in space, and in its path become attracted by our system. 
Ifits nucleus, when near the sun, were volatilized carbon, and its atmosphere 
carbonie acid, the result of the sun's radiation on such an athermic sub- 
stance as carbonic acid might certainly decompose it. Might it not be the 
case that the temperature of dissociation of carbonic acid may be lower 
than the temperature of the volatilization of carbon? There are certain 
peculiarities in the electric light supporting this. Thus the carbon might 
be liberated as a sublimate away from the sun, but in the direction towards 
the sun, the temperature may be sufficiently high to volatilize the carbon. 
This, or some other radiation theory, as Tyndall has suggested, seems the 
only one possible to explain the stupendous velocity of the growth of the 
tails, amounting in some cases to as much as 5,000 miles a second, a velocity 
which the energy of the sun would be incompetent to give to matter, Again; 
