The planets might have
been formed by the gradual accretion of such discrete bodies. On the
view that the material of the condensing solar system consisted of
separate particles or masses, we had no longer the fluid pressure
which was an essential part of Laplace's theory. Faye, in his theory
of evolution from meteorites, had to throw over his fundamental idea
of the nebular hypothesis, and formulated instead a different
succession of events of which the outer planets were formed last, a
theory which had difficulties of its own. Professor George Darwin had
recently shown, from an investigation of the mechanical conditions of
a swarm of meteorites, that on certain assumptions a meteoric swarm
might behave as a coarse gas, and in this way bring back the fluid
pressure exercised by one part of the system on the other, which was
required by Laplace's theory. One chief assumption consisted in
supposing that such inelastic bodies as meteoric stones might attain
the effective elasticity of a high order which was necessary to the
theory through the sudden volatilization of a part of their mass at an
encounter, by which what was virtually a violent explosive was
introduced between the two colliding stones.
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