The Sentinel=record., 1909-11-28

or higher. and the bright rays from the craters were due 10 the spattering
 of highly heated matter.
 The blazing flash seen in target practice when shot hits the target was familiar to officers of the mill tary service, and the fattening and spreading of the projectile was such as to give peak in the center of the mashed shell, while at the same time the rim is formed around it, just like that seen about the craters on the moon. But the shot fired in the
 mightiest target practice on the earth
 is as nothing compared to that in the
 heavens, where satellites from 20 to 50 miles in diameter had been hurled against the lunar surface with a velo- l city of over mile second, and thus produced blazing conhagrations some
 times covering the whole side of the moon.
 Professor See pointed out that
 many of the creators are largely GOV
 cred with cosmica dust, kind of me tallic or xiithic rain, which had fallen
 from such confiagrationsA There is
 no air about the moon in which it
 could long remain suspended. He said
 the moon had never had any seas or
 smaller bodies of water, and that the . | lunar mountains were entirely due to impast of satellites against the sur face; but thought that most of tno
 great collisions had occurred before
 the moon was captured by the earth, and, therefore, while the moon wu~ still revolving in the region now oc-
 cupied by the Asteroids. The smaller asteroids are about the size of the
 falling bodies which have produced
 the larger lunar craters-from twenty
 to sixty miles across. This is abous
 the size of the planet Eros, which ap-
 breaches nearer the earth than any
 other known planet.
 "The roughness of the surface Of
 
 our moon shows how many hard knocks it has received in the past Every planet has gone through simi- lar experience, but those having at
 mosphere and oceans, like the earth, have suffered such great geological changes that they have long since lost all trace of ancient battering while these fluctuations have surviv ed on the airless and waterless moon to show us the terrific process by
 which worlds are former" declared
 Professor See.
 Tn second paper presented to- night. Dr. See explained the obliqui- l ties of the planets by the impact of 1 satellites against their surfaces He said he had discovered the cause of the obliqufties from the case of Jupi- ter, whose axis is nearly perpendicu- lar to the plane of his orbit. At one time. Jupiter's obliquity yas larger
 than that of the earth. or even Sat urn, 2S degrees; but as the greatest of the greatest of the planets had gathered in satellites moving about
 the sun in planes having the average position of the Jovian orbit the equa- tor had been tilted down almost into coincidence with it. In this way. had
 arisen the small obliquity of Jupiter. and a similar influence had acted upon
 the other planets. Saturns obliquits
 would practically disappear if that planet could gather in enough satelli- 1 tes to make the mass as large as that
 of Jupiter. The obliquity of our
 earth. on which theeseasons depend. | is smaller than that of Mars; and | Professor See said that the obiquity ] of Venus probably was smaller yet.
 not exceeding twenty degrees. He
 ascribed the high obiquity of the systems of Uranus and Neptune to the original positions of those planets, their equators never having been
 greatly tilted over by the capture of satellites.
 i The small obliquity of Jupiter gave the true clue to the cause at work, I and the face of the moon showed how all planets had been pelted by fall ing satellites during the immensur-
 able ages involved in the develop ment of our solar system. which was