Meteorites and What they Teach us. — Hensoldt. 29 
This new hypothesis may be termed the dust-hypothesis. It 
assumes that the universe, or a great part of it, is full of mi- 
nute, dust-like particles of heterogeneous character, floating 
about in the ether or travelling in definite courses, that if one 
of these particles happens to come in contact with another, or 
very near it there is mutual attraction and adhesion, that the 
joined particles will travel onward with their attracting force 
thus increased, drawing other particles to them, one here, and 
one there, and form the nucleus of a body which keeps grow- 
ing as it travels into new regions of space, exhausting them of 
the materials within its reach. The more it grows, the more 
its sphere of attraction increases the more rapid the accumu- 
lation, which is unlimited, till we have a mass a foot in diame- 
ter, a planet like our earth, a vast body like the sun or some 
still grander one, like that distant giant which compels our 
sun to travel in its unknown course. 
This new hypothesis, which deserves our closest attention,as 
it throws a new light on the origin and character of our own 
planet, and which is calculated to revolutionize our present 
conceptions of geological research, is the outcome of the study 
of meteorites, — those remarkable bodies of extra-terrestrial 
origin, which are now so eagerly collected and so highly val- 
ued although less than a hundred years ago they were barely 
noticed or at best regarded merely as curiosities by the learned 
or as objects of evil portent by the superstitious. 
It may seem incredible to those who hear it for the first 
time that a globe like the earth, with its diameter of eight 
thousand miles, should be a mere accumulation of particles, 
gathered around a nucleus of cosmic dust, as it travelled on 
its way through cold and pathless oceans of space. But we 
have the fact of our earth constantly attracting to its surface 
substances from the inter-planetary regions, from the most 
impalpable dust to meteoric masses weighing tons, a process 
which has been going on year by year through the geological 
ages of a duration probably incomprehensible by us. The 
earth is increasing in weight thousands of tons annually 
through the fall of meteorites alone, but this is as nothing 
compared with the aggregate weight of the dust-like particles 
attracted to its surface during a like period. Prof. Norden- 
skjold, on his various expeditions to Greenland, as well as on 
his famous Vega expedition, frequently observed the snow or 
