“If you take two revolvers exactly alike, firing the old-fashioned lead bullets, and so place and fix them that when fired their respective bullets will traverse the same line exactly, at the end of which is an iron-plate target, and arrange for them to be fired simultaneously, one would be inclined to think that the instant the bullet has left the end of the one barrel, it will strike and coalesce with that from the other barrel and travel along the same line as a single globule of molten lead, striking the target as one, for only one splash will be seen. If now, the experiment is repeated and arrangements made by which the bullet shall be photographed during the whole of its flight, you will find that both bullets leave simultaneously and approach each other instantly, but instead of colliding, they then _separate_, and travel together to the target side by side, but the instant they reach the iron plate—a mere breath before impact on it—they coalesce, and the actual impact on the plate takes place as one drop composed of two bullets _already_ united, their union causing them to expend their energy in coalescence into a single globule of liquid lead. If you now increase or diminish the distance by placing the plate further back, or drawing it nearer, the result is the same. The bullets will not coalesce till the actual destination is reached, but will repel one another from the straight line till that time, though they are but a breath apart—from which we may infer that heavenly bodies cannot collide, but must be drawn definitely and irresistibly by some more powerful agency to the actual surface of another world before a union is possible, like a comet flying into the sun.” “In the case of the bullet experiment,” said Godfrey, “if one followed the other, the latter at greater speed, it would overtake and absorb the former?” “Naturally, for its energy would be the greater.” “And if one went immediately behind the other, almost touching, I suppose there would be two impacts on the target; one would not hasten or retard the other?” “There would be a slight influence, but not an appreciable one; there would be two impacts on the plate, in rapid succession, the first, naturally, striking the plate before that which followed.” “Are there other ways in which suns could be formed, without the energy called into being by the shock of contact?”