Page:A Voyage in Space (1913).djvu/225

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THE SUN
205

in words. On a ship when there is a head wind, the bows will sometimes hit a wave with a resounding smack, and a shower of spray is tossed into the air; the wind catches the spray, carries it down the boat, and dashes it in your face perhaps though you may be far away from the bows. Fig 61. In some such way I suppose Saturn and his Ring to hit the wave of Leonids: a shower of spray from the Leonids, or from Saturn's Ring, or from both, is tossed up; so to speak; is caught, not by the wind, but by the Sun's attraction, and is carried down to hit the Sun in the face, though he may be a long way from the scene of collision.

Let me tell you frankly that other astronomers have not as yet looked with a very friendly eye on