450 M. Haidinger on the Original Formation of Aerolites. 



where probably more than one planet, and certainly comets, are 

 pursuing their course, the solar distance of Neptune being itself 

 only r qU o^ n °f the interval between the Sun and the nearest fixed 

 star*. During the period which the Earth takes to accomplish 

 her annual revolution round the Sun, the latter, together with 

 the whole solar system, has progressed (at the rate of about seven 

 German miles a second) through a space of which the Earth's 

 distance from the Sun is only the eleventh partf. Professor 

 KoppeJ says, "All circumstances agree in confirming the sup- 

 position that, for a period of 3300 years, the average tempera- 

 ture of Palestine has not undergone any notable change." 

 During this period our globe has run in length some 36,300 

 times its own distance from the Sun — a course not to be achieved 

 by light itself in less than 209 days, though this enormous di- 

 stance is small indeed compared with the unlimited range of 

 space itself ! 



Taking for granted that the weight of meteorites falling upon 

 our earth's surface amounts yearly to 450,000 lbs. (Vienna 

 weight), if not more§, and consequently to 450 millions of 

 pounds in a millennial period, Baron Reichenbach has brought 

 under consideration the question, whether in the course of ages 

 such an increase of ponderable matter would not be without 

 notable influence on other as well as physical correlations con- 

 nected with our globe in the solar system ||. The length of such 

 periods as are here taken into account is after all almost too enor- 

 mous for our imagination to grasp : to accomplish the formation 

 of a meteoric agglomeration equal in size to our globe would 

 require 3000 trillions of years. 



Another consideration, however, may here find appropriate 

 notice. We may ask, if then our globe in the course of one solar 

 revolution can thus admit of an increase of matter to the amount 

 of 450,000 lbs., what would have ensued if it had followed a dif- 

 ferent path through space ? Might not the increase have been 

 nearly similar in amount in describing any orbit of equal length ? 



Mr. Greg's elaborate comparisons, indeed, prove meteoric falls 

 to be less frequent at the time of perihelion than at the time of 



* See Madler's " Astronomie " in Badeker's ' Collective Publication,' 

 vol. hi. p. 595. 



t See Madler, loc. cit. p. 62.9. According to Arago and Herschel, the 

 velocity of our sun in stellar space is only five English miles, or one Ger- 

 man mile. — R. P. G. 



X " Physik und Meteorologie," in Badeker's ' Collective Publication,' 

 vol. i. p. 169. 



§ Probably too large an estimate by three-fourths. See Note at the end 

 of this paper. — R. P. G. 



|| See Noggerath's " Geologie und Geognosie," in Badeker's ' Collective 

 Publication,' p. 110. 



