The proofs
of the telluric and atmospheric origin of aUerolites, which it is attempted
to base upon the oryctognostic analogies presented by these bodies, do not
appear to me to possess any great weight.
Recalling to mind the remarkable interview between Newton and Conduit at
Kensington,* I would ask why the elementary substances that compose one
group of cosmical bodies, or one planetary system, may not, in a great
measure, be identical?
[footnote] * "Sir Isaac Newton said he took all the planets to be composed
of the same matter with the Earth, viz., earth, water, and stone, but
variously connected." -- Turner, 'Collections for the History of Grantham,
containing authentic Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton', p. 172.
Why should we not adopt this view, since we may conjecture that these
planetary bodies, like all the larger or smaller agglomerated masses
revolving round the sun, have been thrown off from the once far more
expanded solar atmosphere, and been formed from vaporous rintgs describing
their orbits round the central body? We are not, it appears to me, more
justified in applying the term telluric to the nickel and iron, the olivine
and pyroxene (augite), found in meteoric stones, than in indicating the
German plants which I found beyond the Obi as European species of the flora
of Northern Asia.
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