Page:In the high heavens.djvu/348

 at least in the initial stages of their flight. The whole is projected aloft in such a way that the missiles moving upwards are surrounded by gases or vapours moving perhaps just as fast. In such a case the atmospheric resistance, so far as the missile is concerned, is reduced to a mere nothing.

In considering the objections arising from the resistance of the air to the terrestrial theory of meteorites, observations on the sun are very instructive. It is known that our great luminary is surrounded by a prodigious atmosphere which would expose to missiles projected through it a resistance enormously in excess of that which any bodies projected from the surface of the earth would encounter in their passage through our atmosphere. And yet we find that in some of the great solar eruptions in which metallic vapours are projected outwards, a prodigious elevation is frequently reached by these gaseous masses, notwithstanding the resistance of the medium through which they have to force their way. Indeed, observations have been made which seem to show that the velocities thus attained are frequently sufficient to force the emitted gaseous volumes completely through the encompassing atmospheric envelope, and even then leave them at the exterior of the solar atmosphere with sufficient speed to carry them entirely away from the sun on a voyage through space. Here, then, we see that the explosive forces on one body of our system are amply tufficientsufficient [sic], not alone to overcome the retardation due to shethe [sic] resistance of its atmosphere, but to allow the missile to depart from its precincts with a speed which is nearly a hundred times as great as that which would be required to expel a projectile from our earth.