Our Astronomical Column

Abstract

METEORS AND METEORITES.—The Nineteenth Century for September contains an interesting article by Mr. A. R. Hinkg on meteors and meteorites, suggested, as he says, by Prof. Olivier's recent book on the subject. The book regards large and small meteors as members of the same class, but Mr. Hinks gives reasons for his dissent from this view. He recalls with approval Sir Robert Ball's suggestion that the larger meteors may have been expelled from terrestrial volcanoes in long past ages. Their orbits would continue to lie near that of the earth, so that an eventual return to it would not be improbable. He also regards as inconceivable the idea that meteors of the complicated ‘plum-pudding’ structure could have originated either in the sun or in interplanetary space; they must have been formed on some planetary body, and the earth is the most obvious suggestion. His argument might also be used to support Proctor's view that the comets of short period had been expelled from Jupiter and the other giant planets.