have also recovered a good many of those which had been lost sight of
owing to an insufficiency of observations.

On the 13th of August, 1898, Herr G. Witt, of the observatory of Urania
in Berlin, discovered a new asteroid by the photographic method. This
object was at first regarded merely as forming an addition of no special
importance to the 432 asteroids whose discovery had preceded it. It
received, as usual, a provisional designation in accordance with a
simple alphabetical device. This temporary label affixed to Witt's
asteroid was "D Q." But the formal naming of the asteroid has now
superseded this label. Herr Witt has given to his asteroid the name of
"Eros." This has been duly accepted by astronomers, and thus for all
time the planet is to be known.

The feature which makes the discovery of Eros one of the most remarkable
incidents in recent astronomy is that on those rare occasions when this
asteroid comes nearest to the earth it is closer to the earth than the
planet Mars can ever be. Closer than the planet Venus can ever be.
Closer than any other known asteroid can ever be. Thus we assign to Eros
the exceptional position of being our nearest planetary neighbour in the
whole host of heaven. Under certain circumstances it will have a
distance from the earth not exceeding one-seventh of the mean distance
of the sun.

Of the physical composition of the asteroids and of the character of
their surfaces we are entirely ignorant. It may be, for anything we can
tell, that these planets are globes like our earth in miniature,
diversified by continents and by oceans. If there be life on such
bodies, which are often only a few miles in diameter, that life must be
something totally different from anything with which we are familiar.
Setting aside every other difficulty arising from the possible absence
of water and from the great improbability of finding there an atmosphere
of a density and a composition suitable for respiration, gravitation
itself would prohibit organic beings adapted for this earth from
residing on a minor planet.

Let us attempt to illustrate this point, and suppose that we take the
case of a minor planet eight miles in diameter, or, in round numbers,
one-thousandth part of the diameter of the earth. If we further suppose
that the materials of the planet are of the same nature as the
substances in the earth, it is easy to prove that the gravity on the
surface of the planet will be only one-thousan