6.1. And these are not isolated facts. Comparisons of the same kind,
and leading to identical conclusions, were made by Prof. Eastman at
Washington in 1889 (Phil. Society Bulletin, vol. xii, p. 143;
Proceedings Amer. Association, 1889, p. 71).

What meaning can we attribute to them? Uncritically considered, they
seem to assert two things, one reasonable, the other palpably absurd.
The first--that the average angular velocity of the stars varies
inversely with their distance from ourselves--few will be disposed to
doubt; the second--that their average apparent luster has nothing to
do with greater or less remoteness--few will be disposed to admit.
But, in order to interpret truly, well ascertained if unexpected
relationships, we must remember that the sensibly moving stars used to
determine the solar translation are chosen from a multitude sensibly
fixed; and that the proportion of stationary to traveling stars rises
rapidly with descent down the scale of magnitude. Hence a mean struck
in disregard of the zeros is totally misleading; while the account is
no sooner made exhaustive than its anomalous character becomes largely
modified. Yet it does not wholly disappear. There is some warrant for
it in nature. And its warrant may perhaps consist in a preponderance,
among suns endowed with high _physical_ speed, of small or slightly
luminous over powerfully radiative bodies. Why this should be so, it
would be futile, even by conjecture, to attempt to explain.--_Nature._

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ANIMAL ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM AND PARAFFIN.