A descriptive treatise on COMETS and METEORS may properly be preceded by a brief general view of the _planetary_ system to which these bodies are related, and by which their motions, in direction and extent, are largely influenced. THE SOLAR SYSTEM consists of the sun, together with the planets, comets, and meteors which revolve around it as the centre of their motions. The sun is the great controlling orb of this system, and the source of light and heat to its various members. Its magnitude is one million three hundred thousand times greater than that of the earth, and it contains more than seven hundred times as much matter as all the planets put together.…
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