The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1903-02-26
A MELANGE OF LIVE TOPICS
Penned for Journal Readers
by a Local Scribe.
COMETS.

see fit all untrammeled by such a
power as. the attraction of gravita-
ton. These bodies are really the
mystery of the heavens, for they
act altogether differently from the
lother celestial bodies with which
weaare acquainted Instead of le-
volving around our sun in clip
ses as do the planets, comets APP
lproach the Gun from points far
beyond the orbit Of the utmost
planet Of the solar system-Nep-
tune; rushing with inconceivable
speed towards the sun as though
to throw themselves into it, they
pass very hear It's surface and then
fly away INTO the unfathomed
abysses Of space The writer be-
lieves that this popularity of
these wandering bodies IS an evil
dence Of the falsity of La Places
nehula hypothesis, often SO glibly
| cited in support of Darwin the
DRY of evolution.
La Place supposed that the en-
tire universe was evolved by the
original atoms of space being at
tracted TO one another forming a.
first gaseous mass to which was
impaired rotary motion OH its
axis, and afterwards the great
heat generated by this motion and
the action of the particles of the
mass upon one another, having
subsidized the mass contracted and
solidihed. The rotary motion
threw off rings which after break
ing into fragments became planets
such as Mercury, Venus, the
Earth, Mars, etc, and these plan
cts also rotating like the original
mass which afterwards became the
sun, also threw off rings which
breaking became satellites or
moons to the planets, such as our
moon, the moons Of Jupiter, Sat
urn, etc. The rings of Saturn are
claimed TO be feature which
once accompanied all the planets,
and it is said that those of Saturn
will ultimately give that planet
moremoons in addition to those
which it already has. Another
theory is that the original mass
broke into a number of fragments
by centrifugal force while rotating
upon it's axis and the fragments
became planets, and the planets
burst in the same way forming
satellites or moons.
1t seems evident, if we adopt
the rationalistic view Of the orr
gin of the universe, that all ma
ture is a unit, that the same cause
that produced the planets and
their satellites must also have
created the comets. Suppose the
latter were THROWN off from the
GENITAL mass of the sun, either in
the form of ring or a fragment.
If the inertia thus produced was
sufficient to carry the body infin-
itely beyond the orbit of Neptune,
the most remote planet of the So
lar system, the sun could never
have drawn the comet back again
to itself; the force of gravity is
inversely as the square of the dis
lance, at million miles from the
sun the latter would attract with
certain force, at two millions
with one-fourth that much, at
three millions with one-ninth and
four millions with one-sixteenth
Of that force, At Neptune the
sun looks to be as small as one of
the large fixed stars appear to us.
Comets go so far beyond Neptune
as to require (some of them) 2000
years to return to our vision.
Neptune described its orbit around
the sui in i04 years,
If we suppose THAI accidentally
q comet after being thrown off by
the suh ana passing beyond the
limits of our sun s attractive pow
er met in space another sun and
instead of falling into it as it
ought to have done skirted around
its borders with an inconceivable
velocity due TO the other suns at
fractions and to inertia, the CEN
trifugsl force thus created thus
preventing it from colliding with
the other sun, and the Inertia
sending it back to our sun, how
does it happen that there are
many comets which have our sun
as one of the foci of the ellipses
which they describe? 1t is hardly
possible that one such accident
should have happened, but practi-
ically out of the range of possibll-
ity that two should have occurred
simultaneously. 1t is a mathe-
NAUTICAL principle that the con-
current happening of two probable
things 10 unavoidable the imDrob-