The interesting paper in the Times of Thursday on "A
Sheaf of Astronomical Discoveries," appears to show that a great many rocky islets, as we may call them,—planetary fragments of a minute kind,—are travelling about within no great distance of the earth's orbit. Five of these fragments were discovered on one and the same day, September ith. Since the first year of this century there has been reason to believe that some planet has come to grief, and broken into atoms in the region between Mars and Jupiter. But since Dr. Olbers first suggested this hypothesis, so many more minute planetary frag- ments have been discovered, that if it be possible to make some rough computation of their total weight, and if they all belong to the region where a planet appears to be missing,—between Mars and Jupiter,—we might learn of what size the exploded planet was. These bite of planets correspond precisely to the great boulders which all large mountains scatter on various stages of their slope, only that the boulders still belong to the mountain from which they were separated, while these planetoids have set up separate orbits for themselves.
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