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294 Recent contributions to Astro- Meteorology. 
For facility of reasoning, the original position of the supposed 
spherical group was placed at the aphelion of a long ellipse. 
But results similar in kind, and comparable in degree, would re- 
sult, had the group been supposed at any point of a conic sec: 
tion of very great length. 
(see this vol., p. 86). Yet the probable size of these bodies 
is so small that Mr. Schiaparelli’s reasoning is stil] conclusive. 
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He then shows that a spherical group of bodies, each body 
weighing one gram, whatever be the dimensions of the group, 
must have at a distance from the sun equal to the earth’s mean 
distance, a density such that the mutual distances of the mem- 
bers shall be less than 1:86 meters (2 yards), in order that the at — 
traction of the sun shall not dissolve the group. If the mutual 
distances of the members exceed 1:86™, the sun acts to separale 
the rom each other, not at the surface simply, 
throughout the whole extent of the system. : 
* The corresponding mean distance from each other of the members of the > 
vember group, where we crossed it last year, is 30 or 49 miles. ' 
