10 H. A. Newton — Relation of the Orbits of 



and place, are divided by a vertical circle into two halves ; and 

 suppose that this vertical circle is at right angles to the plane 

 containing the zenith and the earth's quit and goal. That half 

 of the visible heavens that lies towards the earth's goal may be 

 called the goal-half, the other half may be called the quit- half 

 of the visible heavens. In any given period there should evi- 

 dently be, under the several hypotheses stated, many more 

 stones coming into the air and reaching the ground directed 

 from the goal-half than there should be directed from the quit- 

 half of the visible heavens. Still further, since this proposi- 

 tion applies to any epoch whatever, we may apply it to 116 

 periods covering the times of the 116 stone-falls, that is, to the 

 116 stone-falls themselves. Many more of these should (under 

 the hypotheses stated) have come from the goal-half than from 

 the quit-half of the visible heavens. 



If, then, the relative quit of each of these 116 stones is sup- 

 posed to be carried around in azimuth 180°, the altitude being 

 unchanged, the 116 distances from each new place of the quit 

 to the earth's quit for the epoch of the fall should, in the aver- 

 age, be decidedly less than the corresponding 116 distances 

 from the actual relative quits to the earth's quit. This should 

 hold true (under the hypotheses stated) no matter what causes 

 below the air may have occasioned the selection of the 116 

 epochs. The fact that more persons are abroad in the evening 

 hours from 6 h to 10 h P. M., than in the corresponding morning 

 hours, 2 h to 6 h A. M., may well cause that more stones should 

 be secured in the evening than in the morning hours. In the 

 evening hours the earth's quit is above the horizon ; in the 

 morning hours the earth's goal. It might easily be that we 

 should for this reason get more stones of direct than of retro- 

 grade motions. But the above criterion is entirely independ- 

 ent of any such principle of selection of the epochs. A change 

 of the azimuth of the quits through 180° should cause a larger 

 number of them (under the hypothesis stated) to approach the 

 earth's quit than to recede from it. 



I have marked off upon the working sheets the position 180° 

 in azimuth from each of 115 relative quits, the altitude being 

 unchanged, and measured the several distances from the earth's 

 quit. (One fall, Nedagolla, was unavailable.) The following 

 is the result. In 44 cases the meteor's quit by the change 

 approaches the earth's quit ; in 70 cases it approaches the 

 earth's goal ; in one it remains unchanged. That is, instead of 

 a very large majority of the quits moving towards the earth's 

 quit we have nearly two-thirds of them moving the other way. 

 In the reversed position, moreover, we should have had 38 ab- 

 solute quits in the G-hemisphere instead of 7. These numbers 

 show very decidedly that the hypotheses made above are not 



