(a three-inch telescope shows a million stars), and ten orbs of various size depending (on the average) on each, then we have a grand total of 10 × 1,000,000 × 1,000,000,000 × 10 = 100,000 millions of millions of meteor flights, as representing the total number of bodies ejected from the various orbs peopling space, including those now sun-like, and also those which, though now in the fiery stage, or further advanced still in planetary life, were once as surely suns as the stars are now.
When we remember that with so many millions of millions of flights of bodies, each flight to be counted probably by millions of millions, our earth must from time to time be saluted by some of these, while we know that during all the years over which observation has continued, absolutely nothing has reached our earth from outside except the various orders of meteors, while no flights of bodies can be recognized as ever visiting us from interplanetary space except the various orders of comets, we are justified in concluding that these represent products of ejection. We infer this on the safe ground of the argument that if these bodies do not, no other bodies exist which can represent the product of the ejective processes we have certainly recognized. It would have been a rather bold thought, yet not wanting in reasonableness, and certainly ingenious, to have said that therefore comets and meteors are but different appearances of the same objects. This, though it might have been shown to be probable, could not have been shown to be certain; for the simple reason that the ejected bodies might have been only discernible when any of them entered our atmosphere, in which case only meteors would have been required by the facts or accounted for by the theory of ejection. But now that we know comets to be but flights of meteors, and meteors to be but attendants on comets, we see that one of the prettiest discoveries of modern astronomy, Schiaparelli's recognition of the connection between comets and meteors,[1] is implicitly associated with the results of inquiry applied to the sun's power of volcanic ejection. We might further have inferred the discoveries of Tschermak, Daubrée, Sorby, Graham, and others, as to the structure of meteorites, even though none of these bodies had ever reached our earth from interplanetary space—seeing that our earth's interior, beneath the regions now relieved by volcanic outbursts, would afford good information as to the nature of bodies ejected from such deep-seated regions of her interior, or of the interior of other celestial orbs.
A theory which could not be true except in its most generalized form, but which in that form (1) agrees with every one of the known facts, (2) accounts for many of them, (3) alone accounts for some of
- ↑ I take some pleasure in noting that I was the original proposer, and an intimate friend of mine the seconder, of the proposition that the Council of the Astronomical Society should bestow their gold medal on Signor Schiaparelli for this discovery. If we must have the prize-pig system of rewarding scientific research, let us at least, according to the good old English saying, "catch the right pig by the tail."
