you
can have by walking rapidly or riding on horseback on a rainy day, in
which case more drops will strike your chest than your back. The same
rule applies to bodies in space, while the meteorites encountered have
more effect than those following, since in one case it is the speed of
the meteor minus that of the planet, and in the other the sum of the
two velocities. With this checking of the forward motion, the
centrifugal force decreases, and the attraction of the central body has
more effect. When this takes place the planet or satellite falls
slightly towards the body around which it revolves, thereby increasing
its speed till the centrifugal force again balances the centripetal.
This would seem to make it descend by fits and starts, but in reality
the approach is nearly constant, so that the orbits are in fact
slightly spiral. What is true of the planets and satellites is also
true of the stars with reference to Cosmos; though many even of these
have subordinate motions in their great journey. Though the satellites
of the moons revolve about the primaries in orbits inclined at all
kinds of angles to the planes of the ecliptics, and even the moons vary
in their paths about the planets, the planets themselves revolve about
the stars, like those of this system about the sun, in substantially
the same plane; and what is true of the planets is even more true of
the stars in their orbits about Cosmos, so that when, after
incalculable ages, they do fall, they strike this monster sun at or
near its equator, and not falling perpendicularly, but in a line
varying but slightly from a tangent, and at terrific speed, they cause
the colossus to rotate more and more rapidly on its own axis, till it
must become greatly flattened at the poles, as the earth is slightly,
and as Jupiter and Saturn are a good deal. Even though not all the
stars are exactly in the plane of Cosmos's equator, as you can see they
are not there are as many above as below it, so that the general
average will be there; and as all are moving in the same direction, it
is not necessary for all to strike the same line, those striking nearer
the poles, where the circles are smaller, and where the surface is not
being carried forward so fast by the giant's rotation, will have even
more effect in increasing its speed, since it will be like attaching
the driving-rods of a locomotive near the axle instead of near the
circumference, and with enough power will pr