Excerpt from The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 26: April, 1908, to April, 1911, Numbers 601-624 Mr. Moulton says' Let us assume provisionally that the meteors are moving around the sun in sensibly parabolic orbits, like the orbits of the comets, and let us find the greatest and least velocities with which they can encounter the earth's atmosphere. If it were not for the earth's attraction they would pass the earth's orbit at the rate of twenty-five miles per second, the velocity being independent of the angle at which they crossed. The earth's attraction would generate a velocity of nearly seven miles per second in a body falling from an infinite distance into its atmosphere, whether the sun were at tracting it or not. The greatest relative velocity will be when the earth and meteor meet, which is 50 miles per-second. The least will be when the meteor overtakes the earth, which is 25 7 18 14 miles per second. Now the velocities due to the Sun s attraction and to the earth's upon a particle falling to the latter under the action of both cannot be added in this simple manner. To solve the problem we shall make use of a rotating field of force. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.