“I have noted a paper by A. A. Newton (see _Observatory_ for 1894, page 250), in which he says, that out of 1,000 million comets approaching the sun, 126 comets will have periods reduced to 6 years, 839 to 12 years, 1,701 to 18 years, and 2,670 to 24 years. Further, of the 839 no less than 203, or a quarter of the whole, will have retrograde orbits after perturbation. I think these results go very strongly against the capture hypothesis. There would only be one short-period comet in something like 2 million years; whereas the experience of Biela’s, Brorsen’s (and perhaps also Tempel 1 and Holmes), suggests that several of them have become extinct in a century, so an equal number of new ones is required to keep up the supply. It is a matter of surprise to me that the difficulty is not more generally recognized.” The following brief abstract, condensed from an article written by Professor W. W. Payne, for _Popular Astronomy_, April, 1906, page 221, regarding “Jupiter’s Family of Comets,” with accompanying chart, may be of interest in connection with the matter under discussion in this chapter: “This notable family of comets is more and more of a wonder, the further its study is pursued. It is remarkable on account of its size, and—if the capture theory be correct—of the power of Jupiter to capture comets and make them members of his family, if they, in their wild flights through space, happen to come too near to him as they sometimes do in certain parts of his orbital path around the sun. But a close study of the chart showing the paths of Jupiter’s family of comets would seem to indicate that nearly all the farthest points of the comet’s orbits from the sun are on one side of Jupiter’s orbit. These points are marked by short cross lines. Now if Jupiter obtained his family by capture, why should he be more successful on one side of the orbit than the other? Moreover, the motions of all these bodies about the sun, and about Jupiter, are direct, that is, contrary to those of the hands of a watch. Does not this fact of the comets traveling in the same direction, point to the supposition that they were originally ejected from the planet rather than that they were captured by Jupiter?” CHAPTER EIGHT METEOR STREAMS Whence come these uncounted millions of bodies, rushing through space with inconceivable velocity? What purpose do they fulfill in the economy of the solar system? Are they the chips in the great workshop of Nature, the sparks which have flown from the mighty grindstone, the shreds of clay which the giant potters, Attraction and Repulsion, have cast aside as useless? —R. A. PROCTOR.