“In this lecture on comets and meteors, I promised to give some account of what is expelled from the sun when great explosions take place. If I were to say that the comets were shot out from the sun you might be startled, or if I asserted that they were also thrown out of Jupiter and Saturn. But the evidence in connection therewith is very curious. In the first place, we know that matter is shot out from the sun, with a velocity so great as to be carried away from him altogether and so would travel into space. That has only been observed a few times, but the occurrence is probably very frequent. The matter which was expelled, if it struck the earth at all, would strike in the daytime. The side of the earth facing the sun will be the illuminated side. The meteoric matter coming from the sun can only strike the illuminated part, and this can only happen in the daytime. You throw a stone at any object, and it must strike the side of the object you aim at, that is turned toward you. Humboldt affirmed that the largest number of meteoric masses had fallen in the daytime. The larger aërolites have been examined and their microscopic structure studied. Sorby of Sheffield, who examined some of them, says they consist of a number of small globules and were originally in a vaporous state before assuming their present condition. Then came a chemical analysis by Professor Graham and Chandler Roberts of London. They found in the iron of the meteoric mass more hydrogen than iron in a natural condition. Professor Graham said that in his opinion meteors certainly contained iron, and that probably they had been expelled from one of the stars that people space. He drew attention to the fact that stars contained hydrogen in their atmosphere. These are some of the facts concerned with the larger meteoric masses. “How shall we account for those meteoric streams which travel close to the path of Jupiter? All comets of short period have paths closely approaching some of the large planets. The comet of 1680 went close to Jupiter, long before the explosive power of the sun was noticed. I call them Jupiter’s family of comets. Sir John Herschel said that it was very curious that they had that relation. If we put forward the theory that Jupiter expelled these comets, we have a very startling theory, but many of the theories which have been propounded, some of the most important character and which have been proved to be true, have been the most startling. It is said that as Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus go along their paths, they draw in the comets which travel close to them, and capture them.