William Bower Taylor

“ Now if we apply to the perturbation the maximum value which the observations allow, when they have been corrected for the known acceleration due to the variation of the eccentricity of the terrestrial orbit, we find the velocity of the attractive force to amount to fifty millions of times the velocity of light. ”

“ A luminous impulse emanating from the sun requires about 8 1⁄4 minutes to reach the earth. Were the gravitative influence supposed to be so much swifter than light as to require but a single minute to pass through this distance, there would still be a corresponding gravity "aberration" of 2.4" of angle. The effect of this slight obliquity of traction would be an acceleration of the earth's orbital velocity which would become measurable in a single year. ”

“ It no more lags on a comet approaching the sun at the inconceivable speed of two hundred miles in one second than on a body at the lowest rate of motion, or than on the same comet receding 'from the sun at the same velocity. ”