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material as half a dozen suits of clothes made from the same bolt of cloth.  And hence our-brother-the-comet must be made of just such matter as our earth is made of.  And hence, if a comet did strike the earth and deposited its ground-up and triturated material upon the earth’s surface, we should find nothing different in that material from earth-substance of the same kind.

But, says another: 

“If the Drift fell from a comet, why would not this clay-dust and these pebbles have been consumed before reaching the earth by the friction of our atmosphere just as we have seen the meteoroids consumed; or, if not entirely used up, why would these pebbles not show a fused surface, like the iron aërolites? "

Here is the difference:  a meteorite, a small or large stone, is detached, isolated, lone-wandering, lost in space; it comes within the tremendous attractive power of our globe; it has no parental attraction to restrain it; and it rushes headlong with lightning-like rapidity toward the earth, burning itself away as it falls.

But suppose two heavenly bodies, each with its own center of attraction, each holding its own scattered materials in place by its own force, to meet each other; then there is no more probability of the stones and dust of the comet flying to the earth, than there is of the stones and dust of the earth flying to the comet.  And the attractive power of the comet, great enough to bold its gigantic mass in place through the long reaches of the fields of space, and even close up to the burning eye of the awful sun itself, holds its dust and pebbles and bowlders together until the very moment of impact with the earth.  In short, they, the dust and stones, do not continue to follow the comet, because the earth has got in their way and arrested them.  It was this terrific force of the

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comet’s attraction, represented in a fearful rate of motion, that tore and pounded and scratched and furrowed our poor earth’s face, as shown in the crushed and striated rocks under the Drift.  They would have gone clean through the earth to follow the comet, if it had been possible.

If we can suppose the actual bulk of the comet to have greatly exceeded the bulk of the earth, then the superior attraction of the comet may have shocked the earth out of position.  It has already been suggested that the inclination of the axis of the earth may have been changed at the time of the Drift; and the Esquimaux have a legend that the earth was, at that time, actually shaken out of its position.  But upon this question I express no opinion.

But another may say: 

“Your theory is impossible; these dense masses of clay and gravel could not have fallen from a comet, because the tails of comets are composed of material so attenuated that sometimes the stars are seen through them.”