Note N. 86 — SECTION IV.

Note 86, p. 27. In the same manner that the excentricity of an elliptical orbit may be increased or diminished by the action of the disturbing forces, so a circular orbit may acquire less or more ellipticity from the same cause. It is thus that the forms of the orbits of the first and second satellites of Jupiter oscillate between circles and ellipses differing very little from circles.