Vindication of Judge Advocate General Holt, from the foul slanders of traitors, their aiders, abettors, and sympathizers, acting in the interest of Jefferson Davis

To be sure, from within the Earth-Moon sys tem, the simplest way of picturing the situation is to have the Moon revolve about the Earth; but if you were to draw a picture of the orbits of the Earth and Moon about the Sun exactly to scale, you would see that the Moon's orbit is everywhere concave toward the Sun. It is always "falling" toward the Sun. All the other satellites, without exception, "fall" away from the Sun through part of their orbits, caught as they are by the superior puR of their pri.rnary-but not the Moon. And consider this-the Moon does not revolve about the Earth in the plane of Earth's equator, as would be ex pected of a true satellite. Rather it revolves about the Earth in a plane quite close to that of the ecliptic; that is, to the plane in which the planets, generally, rotate about the Sun. This is just what would be expected of a planet! Is it possible then, that there is an intermediate point between the situation of a massive planet far distant from the Sun, which, develops about a single core, with numer ous satellites formed, and that of a small planet near the Sun which develops about a single core with no satellites? Can there be a boundary condition, so to speak, in which there is condensation about two major cores so that a double planet is formed? Maybe Earth just hit the edge of the permissible mass and distance; a little too small, a little too close ...»