e doubted that the
bodies constituting the flight are graded down in size from larger to
smaller and still smaller until the fragments are mere blocks and bits
of world-dust floating in space. Possibly there may be enough of such
matter to constitute a sort of planetary band that may illumine a
little (as seen from a distance) the zone where it circulates.

As to the origin of this seemingly fragmentary matter, we know
nothing, and conjectures are of little use in scientific exposition.
It may be true that a large planet once occupied the asteroidal space,
and that the same has been rent by some violence into thousands of
fragments. It may be observed that the period of rotation of the
inferior planets corresponds in general with that of our earth, while
the corresponding period of the superior or outside planets is less
than one-half as great. The forces which produced this difference in
the period of rotation may have contended for the mastery in that part
of our solar system where the asteroids are found; and the disruption
may have resulted from such conflict of forces.

Or again, it may be that a large planet is now in process of formation
in the asteroidal space. Possibly one of the greater fragments may
gain in mass by attracting to itself the nearer fragments, and thus
continue to wax until it shall have swept clean the whole pathway of
the planetary matter, except such small fragments as may after aeons of
time continue to fall upon the master body, as our meteorites now at
intervals rush into our atmosphere and sometimes reach the earth.

Some astronomers have given and are still giving their almost
undivided attention to asteroidal investigation. The discoveries have
been mostly made by a few principal explorers. The astronomer, Palisa,
from the observatory of Pola and that of Vienna, has found no fewer
than seventy-five of the whole group. The observer, Peters, at
Clinton, New York, has found forty-eight asteroids; Luther, of
Duesseldorf, twenty-four; Watson, of Ann Arbor, twenty-two; Borrelly,
of Marseilles, fifteen; Goldschmidt, of Paris, fourteen, and Charlois,
of Nice, fourteen. The English astronomers have found only a few.
Among such, Hind of London, who has-discovered ten asteroids, is the
leader.

The Italian, German and American astronomers are first in the interest
and success which they have shown in this branch of sky-lore. Their
investigations have made us acquainted with the dim group of li