See, then, the contrast between the two hypotheses. That of Laplace, looking probable while there were only four planetoids, but decreasing in apparent likelihood as the planetoids increase in number, until, as they pass through the hundreds on their way to the thousands, it becomes obviously improbable, is, at the same time, otherwise objectionable. It pre-supposes a nebulous ring of a width so enormous that it would have overlapped the ring of Mars. This ring would have had differences between the angular velocities of its parts quite inconsistent with the Nebular Hypothesis. The average eccentricities of the orbits of its parts must have differed greatly from those of adjacent orbits; and the average inclinations of the orbits of its parts must similarly have differed greatly from those of adjacent orbits. Once more, the orbits of its parts, confusedly interspersed, must have had varieties of eccentricity and inclination unaccountable in portions of the same nebulous ring; and, during concentration into planetoids, each must have had to maintain its course while struggling through the assemblage of other small nebulous masses, severally moving in ways unlike its own. On the other hand, the hypothesis of an exploded planet is supported by every increase in the number of planetoids discovered; by the greater numbers of the smaller sizes; by the thicker clustering near the inferred place of the missing planet; by the occurrence of the greatest mean distances among the smallest members of the assemblage; by the occurrence of the greatest eccentricities in the orbits of these smallest members; and by the entanglement of all the orbits. Further support for the hypothesis is yielded by aerolites, so various in their kinds, but all suggestive of a planet's crust; by the streams of shooting stars having their radiant points variously placed in the heavens; and also by the solitary shooting stars visible to the naked eye, and the more numerous ones visible through telescopes. Once more, it harmonizes with the discovery of a family of comets, twelve out of thirteen of which have mean distances falling within the zone of the planetoids, have similarly associated periods, have all the same direct motions, and are connected with swarms of meteors and with meteoric streams. May we not, indeed, say, that if there once existed a planet between Mars and Jupiter which burst, the explosion must have produced just such clusters of bodies and classes of phenomena as we actually find? And what is the objection? Merely that if such an explosion occurred it must have occurred many millions of years ago--an objection which is in fact no objection; for the supposition that the explosion occurred many millions of years ago is just as reasonable as the supposition that it occurred recently.