Although the great chasm which occurs between Mars and Jupiter,--a chasm of more than three hundred millions of miles,--suggested long ago the idea of other planetary bodies occupying that part of the solar system, yet the discovery of the asteroids does not entirely satisfy expectation since they are bodies so dissimilar to the other members of the series in size, in appearance, and in the form and inclinations of their orbits. Hence, Dr. Olbers, the discoverer of three of these bodies, held that they were fragments of a single large planet, which once occupied that place in the system, and which exploded in different directions by some internal violence. Of the fragments thus projected into space, some would be propelled in such directions and with such velocities, as, under the force of projection and that of the solar attraction would make them revolve in regular orbits around the sun. Others would be so projected among the other bodies in the system, as to be thrown in very irregular orbits, apparently wandering lawless through the skies. The larger fragments would receive the least impetus from the explosive force, and would therefore circulate in an orbit deviating less than any other of the fragments from the original path of the large planet; while the lesser fragments, being thrown off with greater velocity, would revolve in orbits more eccentric, and more inclined to the ecliptic. Dr. Brewster, editor of the 'Edinburgh Encyclopedia,' and the well-known author of various philosophical works, espoused this hypothesis with much zeal; and, after summing up the evidence in favor of it, he remarks as follows: "These singular resemblances in the motions of the greater fragments, and in those of the lesser fragments, and the striking coincidences between theory and observation in the eccentricity of their orbits, in their inclination to the ecliptic, in the position of their nodes, and in the places of their perihelia, are phenomena which could not possibly result from chance, and which concur to prove, with an evidence amounting almost to demonstration, that the four new planets have diverged from one common node, and have therefore composed a single planet."