A stone thrown into the air soon regains the earth. A rifle bullet fired vertically upwards will ascend higher and higher, until at length its motion ceases, it begins to return, and falls to the ground. Let us for the moment suppose that we had a rifle of infinite strength and gunpowder of unlimited power. As we increase the charge we find that the bullet will ascend higher and higher, and each time it will take a longer period before it returns to the ground. The descent of the bullet is due to the attraction of the earth. Gravitation must necessarily act on the projectile throughout its career, and it gradually lessens the velocity, overcomes the upward motion, and brings the bullet back. It must be remembered that the efficiency of the attraction decreases when the height is increased. Consequently when the body has a prodigiously great initial velocity, in consequence of which it ascends to an enormous height, its return is retarded by a twofold cause. In the first place, the distance through which it has to be recalled is greatly increased, and in the second place the efficiency of gravitation in effecting its recall has decreased. The greater the velocity, the feebler must be the capacity of gravitation for bringing back the body. We can conceive the speed to be increased to that point at which the gravitation, constantly declining as the body ascends, is never quite able to neutralise the velocity, and hence we have the remarkable case of a body projected away never to return. It is possible to exhibit this reasoning in a numerical form, and to show that a velocity of six or seven miles a second directed upwards would suffice to convey a body entirely away from the gravitation of the earth. This speed is far beyond the utmost limits of our artillery. It is, indeed, at least a dozen times as swift as a cannon shot; and even if we could produce it, the resistance of the air would present an insuperable difficulty. Such reflections, however, do not affect the conclusion that there is for each planet a certain specific velocity appropriate to that body, and depending solely upon its size and mass, with which we should have to discharge a projectile, in order to prevent the attraction of that body from pulling the projectile back again. It is a simple matter of calculation to determine this "critical velocity" for any celestial body. The greater the body the greater in general must be the initial speed which will enable the projectile to forsake for ever the globe from which it has been discharged. As we have already indicated, this speed is about seven miles per second on the earth. It would be three on the planet Mercury, three and a half on Mars, twenty-two on Saturn, and thirty-seven on Jupiter; while for a missile to depart from the sun without prospect of return, it must leave the brilliant surface at a speed not less than 391 miles per second.