e we see a world that has died, though its death
from an astronomical point of view is comparatively recent, while this
little Pallas has been dead longer, being probably chilled through and
through. From this I conclude that all bodies in the solar system had
one genesis, and were part of the same nebulous mass. But this does
not include the other systems and nebulae; for, compared with them, our
sun, as we have seen, is itself advanced and small beside such stars as
Sirius having diameters of twelve million miles."

As they left Pallas between themselves and the sun, it became a
crescent and finally disappeared.

Two days later they sighted another asteroid exactly ahead. They
examined it closely, and concluded it must be Hilda, put down in the
astronomies as No. 153, and having almost the greatest mean distance of
any of these small bodies from the sun.

When they were so near that the disk was plainly visible to the unaided
eye, Hilda passed between them and Jupiter, eclipsing it. To their
surprise, the light was not instantly shut off, as when the moon
occults a star, but there was evident refraction.

"By George!" said Bearwarden, "here is an asteroid that HAS an
atmosphere."

There was no mistaking it. They soon discovered a small ice-cap at one
pole, and then made out oceans and continents, with mountains, forests,
rivers, and green fields. The sight lasted but a few moments before
they swept by, but they secured several photographs, and carried a
vivid impression in their minds. Hilda appeared to be about two
hundred miles in diameter.

"How do you account for that living world," Bearwarden asked Cortlandt,
"on your theory of size and longevity?"

"There are two explanations," replied Cortlandt, "if the theory, as I
still believe, is correct. Hilda has either been brought to this
system from some other less matured, in the train of a comet, and been
captured by the immense power of Jupiter, which might account for the
eccentricity of its orbit, or some accident has happened to rejuvenate
it here. A collision with another minor planet moving in an orbit that
crossed its own, or with the head of a large comet, would have
reconverted it into a star, perhaps after it had long been cold. A
comet may first have so changed the course of one of two small bodies
as to make them collide. This seems to me the most plausible theory.
Over a hundred years ago the English astronomer, Chambers, wrote of
hav