Bodies of co-ordinate mass are, however, exempted from the prohibitive rule against mutual approach. No analytical veto is imposed upon the origin by fission of double stars, or upon the subsistence of stellar Siamese twins. The inequalities of their mutual attractions avail to distort, not to disrupt, such embryo globes. Their individuality, therefore, once created, is in a manner indestructible. It tends, in fact, to become more pronounced as the orbital span gradually widens through the reactive effects of tidal friction. The 'dumb-bell' condition may then be regarded as in a manner transitory. Nor can we be assured of its actuality otherwise than by the peculiar nature of the eclipses attending upon it, taken in connection with correlated spectroscopic observations proving eclipses of the kind veritably to take place. The disclosure, by such means, of systems so strangely conditioned promises to afford a deeper insight than would else have been possible into the cosmical order, and fills a blank page in the marvellous history of sidereal birth and growth.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Acta Mathematica, vol. vii., Stockholm, 1885.
[35] Proceedings Royal Society, vols. xlii., lxxi.; Philosophical Transactions, vols. cxcviii., cxcix., Series A.
[36] J. H. Jeans, Philosophical Transactions, vol. cxcix., Series A, p. 1.
[37] Figures d'Équilibre d'une Masse Fluide, p. 172.
[38] Proceedings Royal Society, vol. lxxi., p. 183.
[39] J. H. Jeans, Astrophysical Journ., vol. xxii., p. 93.
[40] Astrophysical Journal, vol. vii., p. 1.
[41] Astrophysical Journal, vol. viii., p. 163.