But as the sun does not extend out to earth let us see how deeply the moon’s volume would cover a globe one million miles in diameter having a surface of three trillions of square miles. Spread the moon’s volume upon this and we find it would cover the sun about nine feet deep. This being for one year it would be only at the rate of nine inches per month, or one-third of an inch per day. Snow would cover earth to that depth in half an hour, while a mist or dew could cover it in about twenty-four hours. Thus a constant deposit of meteoric dust even like dew would give to the sun a volume equal to the moon’s in about one year. With these facts before us let us notice what is actually observed about the sun’s corona, so plainly seen when the sun is totally eclipsed; for can that corona be less than the dew that falls upon earth if it is thus visible at a distance of more than ninety millions of miles? We are told, “The corona is a vast shell of unknown vapors in a highly attenuated state many thousands of miles thick, and observed to extend at least one-half a degree from what is ordinarily taken to be the visible edge of the sun.” Is it, then, too much to believe it is helping to keep up the light and heat of the sun? It is further asserted that its depth is nearly 100,000 miles and “consists of reflected light, sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids giving new densities and rarities that cause the changeful light. Whether they are there by constant projection, and fall again to the sun, or are held by electric influence, or by force of orbital revolution, we do not know.”[20] The same author quotes from Professor Pierce: “The heat which the earth receives directly from meteors is the same in amount which it receives from the sun by radiation, and that the sun receives five-sixths of its heat from the meteors that fall upon it.” Prof. Langley has stated that no more than half the sun’s radiant force reaches earth, the remainder being absorbed by the atmosphere and dust which floats it; and that much of the absorption must be accomplished by the cosmic matter existing beyond the atmosphere, while that matter must be more accumulative in the neighborhood of the sun. Is it not reasonable then, to suppose that the meteoric, or cosmic dust, falling into the sun is equivalent to a dew that would cover it one-third of an inch in 24 hours; for why should not the sun attract this little amount of matter when it has power to draw worlds eighty times larger than earth and nearly 3,000 million miles distant? Astronomers do not question the power of this attraction, then if the sun can draw in one meteor may it not easily draw all that are needed to supply its heat? for the earth’s orbit around the sun is like a thread. In that orbit it passes swarms of meteors, and thus of the number that may exist in the vast circumference about our sun we have little real knowledge.