PROBABLE ORIGIX OF XEBUEE. 303 



greatest concussion), and would continue there while 

 the blocks retained their solid condition. It is difficult 

 in imagination to realize what the temperature of the 

 surfaces would be at this moment. For, supposing 

 the heat were uniformly distributed through the 

 entire mass, each pound, as we have already seen, 

 would possess 100,000,000,000 foot-pounds of heat. 

 But as the greater part of the heat would at this 

 instant be concentrated on the outer layers of the' 

 blocks, these layers would be at once transformed into 

 the gaseous condition, thus enveloping the blocks and 

 filling the interspaces. The temperature of the incan- 

 descent gas, owing to this enormous concentration of 

 heat, would be excessive, and its expansive force 

 inconceivably great. As a consequence the blocks 

 would be separated from each other, and driven in all 

 directions with a velocity far more than sufficient to 

 carry them to an infinite distance against the force of 

 gravity were no opposing obstacle in their way. The 

 blocks, by their mutual impact, would be shivered into 

 smaller fragments, each of which would consequently 

 become enveloped in incandescent gas. These smaller 

 fragments would in a similar manner break up into 

 still smaller pieces, and so on until the whole came to 

 assume the gaseous state. The general effect of the 

 explosion, however, would be to disperse the blocks in 

 all directions, radiating from the centre of the mass. 

 Those towards the outer circumference of the mass, 

 meeting with little or no obstruction to their onward 

 progress, would pass outwards into space to indefinite 

 distances, leaving in this manner a free path for the 

 layers of blocks behind them to follow in their track. 

 Thus eventually a space, perhaps twice or even thrice 

 that included within the orbit of Neptune, might be 

 filled with fragments by the time the whole had 

 a-sumed the gaseous condition. 



