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THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



Aet. I. — Ujpon the relation which the former Orbits of those 

 Meteorites that a/re in our collections, and that were seen to 

 fall, had to the Earth's Orbit; by H. A. JSTewton. 



[Read before the National Academy of Sciences, April 19, 1888.] 



My studies have led me to the following three propositions : 



1. The meteorites which we have in our cabinets and which 

 were seen to fall were originally (as a class, and with a very 

 small number of exceptions), moving about the sun in orbits 

 that had inclinations less than 90° ; that is, their motions were 

 direct, not retrograde. 



2. The reason why we have only this class of stones in our 

 collections is not one wholly or even mainly dependent on the 

 habits of men ; nor on the times when men are out of doors ; 

 nor on the places where men live ; nor on any other principle 

 of selection acting at or after the arrival of the stones at the 

 ground. Either the stones which are moving in the solar sys- 

 tem across the earth's orbit move in general in direct orbits ; 

 or else for some reason the stones which move in retrograde 

 orbits do not in general come through the air to the ground 

 in solid form. 



3. The perihelion distances of nearly all the orbits in which 

 these stones moved were not less than 0'5 nor more than 1*0, the 

 earth's radius vector being unity. 



Am. Jour. Sol— Third Series.— Vol. XXXYI, No. 211.— July, 1888. 

 1 



