ASTRONOMY 
 
QB43 
 i& 
 
 IX 
 
 POPULAR ASTRONOMY. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR U. S. NATAL OBSERVATORY, AUTHOR OF " THE A B C OF FINANCE." 
 
 With One Hundred and Ticdve Engraving*, and Five Maps 
 of the Wars. 
 
 8vo. Oloth, $4 GO. 
 
 The grpo't reputation which the author of this work has merited and 
 enjoys, both in this country and hi Europe, is a sufficient guarantee of its 
 excellence. * * * He has dwelt especially upon those topics which have 
 just now a popular and philosophic interest, carefully employing such lan- 
 guage and such simple explanations as will be intelligible without labori- 
 ous study. Technical terms have as much as possible been avoided. Such 
 as were employed of necessity, and many that occur elsewhere, have been 
 fully explained in a copious glossary at the end of the book. With its 
 abundant aid, the reader cannot fail to derive both pleasure and entertain- 
 ment from the study of what is the most ancient as well as the most ele- 
 vating and inspiring of all the natural sciences. * * * Professor Newcomb, 
 thro^hlWtrthi^^ltqfe' Volume, preserves his well-known character as a 
 writer who, in treating of scientific subjects, fully understands the art of 
 bringing them within the range of popular comprehension. Although his 
 book is a valuable addition to scientific literature, it is fully calculated to 
 hold the attention of the general reader. N. Y. Times. 
 
 The problem of adapting the facts and principles of a most intricate 
 science to the understanding of the ordinary reader has been earnestly 
 undertaken and successfully solved in this work. * * * The entire volume 
 bespeaks the well-known ability of its author, and furnishes a new title to 
 his world-wide reputation. Boston Transcript. 
 
 
 M298784 
 
NewcomVs Popular Astronomy. 
 
 Professor Newcomb carefully avoids the temptation held out to him bj 
 many parts of the subject to write for effect ; he keeps always faithfully 
 to his purpose, setting forth, with respect to every subject discussed, the 
 history of the investigations made, the positive, certain results attained, 
 and the conjectures which astronomers have founded upon these results, 
 together with the reasoning on which each conjecture rests and the objec- 
 tions that exist to its acceptance. He is, in a word, singularly conscien- 
 tious and perfectly frank ; but the subject itself is so full of wonders that 
 even when treated in this calm, scientific spirit, its discussion is entran- 
 cingly interesting; and Professor Newcomb's work, written as it is in a 
 perfectly clear, simple, and direct style, > likely, we think, to become more 
 than ordinarily popular. N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 The book has the great merit of a simplicity that never wearies the 
 reader's attention. It presents the newest as well as the old discoveries, 
 and is free from the errors which mar most of the treatises on astronomy 
 that are designed for non-professional use. Ordinary readers will appre- 
 ciate the circumstance that no mathematical formulas are employed. * * * 
 In each division of the work the history of discovery is made to subserve 
 the purpose of explanation. * * * Step by step the reader is led toward the 
 theories of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, and is shown why and how 
 their hypotheses best explained the facts of observation, which have been 
 already detailed. A great advantage is thereby gained o^er ordinary trea- 
 tises of astronomy, which present the recent knowledge first, and either 
 give the facts unsupported, or press their acceptance by means of the 
 stern logic of geometry. In Professor Newcomb's work the great truths 
 grow slowly, and can be measured as they grow. N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 The author is a master of all the theories and lore of his beloved sci- 
 ence, and he has at command the unrivalled instruments of the United 
 States Naval Observatory at Washington. He is an unwearied investiga- 
 tor and professional enthusiast (in the best sense of the word), and writes 
 an English which all people can understand. Parade and pedantry are 
 wholly absent from this work. jV. Y. Journal of Commerce. 
 
 Any person of average intelligence can take this volume, and in a month 
 or two become an intelligent observer of the worlds around us. Christian 
 Intelligencer, N. Y. 
 
NewcomUs Popular Astronomy. 
 
 This is one of those books which deserve and are sure to receive a hearty 
 welcome : a full and accurate resume of the subject treated, prepared and 
 brought down to date by one who is a master of the science, and at the 
 same time a clear and vigorous writer. It is a book which ought to be in 
 the library of every intelligent person as a standard authority, safely to be 
 referred to on any topic within its scope ; and yet it is not heavy or dull, 
 but, for the most part, as readable and interesting as a work of fiction. 
 * * * The work is neither abstruse and dry, nor, on the other hand, is it 
 puerile and fanciful, as sometimes happens when savans attempt to popu- 
 larize their favorite sciences, and write down to what they conceive to be 
 the level of the common intelligence. The plan is logical, the due propor- 
 tions of different portions of the subject are observed, and the style is 
 clear, forcible, and sufficiently picturesque and stimulating to keep the 
 attention without effort. Professor CHARLES A. YOCNG, in tfie Independent, 
 N. Y. 
 
 It is only rarely that a great mathematical astronomer condescends to 
 write books for the people ; and if he does, in four cases out of five, what 
 he writes is unintelligible to all but a very few. Investigators seldom have 
 either the disposition or ability to communicate what they know to the 
 world in general. To this rule, however, there are happy exceptions ; and 
 among them must be counted Professor Xewcomb, whose Popular Astron- 
 omy is undoubtedly the best work of its kind in the English language. 
 Its arrangement is logical, its statements are accurate, its reasonings clear, 
 and its style simple, perspicuous, and sufficiently picturesque. Through- 
 out the book it is everywhere evident that great care has been taken to 
 secure exact and perfect truthfulness of representation: facts are kept 
 distinct from fancies, and theories and speculations stand for just what 
 they are. Sunday School Times, Philadelphia. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of tJie Untied States, on 
 receipt of $4 00. 
 
THI YXHI 
 
 THI AFAnHTHI 
 
 ASTPACTOYSHI 
 
 KAI 
 
 ISAITEAQI 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ALL sciences are making an advance, but Astronomy 
 is moving at the double-quick. Since the principles of 
 this science were settled by Copernicus, four hundred 
 years ago, it has never had to beat a retreat. It is re- 
 written not to correct material errors, but to incorporate 
 new discoveries. 
 
 Once Astronomy treated mostly of tides, seasons, and 
 telescopic aspects of the planets; now these are only 
 primary matters. Once it considered stars as mere fixed 
 points of light ; now it studies them as suns, determines 
 their age, size, color, movements, chemical constitution, 
 and the revolution of their planets. Once it considered 
 space as empty ; now it knows that every cubic inch of 
 it quivers with greater intensity of force than that which 
 is visible in Niagara. Every inch of surface that can be 
 conceived of between suns is more wave-tossed than the 
 ocean in a storm. 
 
 The invention of the telescope constituted one era in 
 Astronomy ; its perfection in our day, another ; and the 
 discoveries of the spectroscope a third no less impor- 
 tant than either of the others. 
 
 While nearly all men are prevented from practical 
 experimentation in these high realms of knowledge, few 
 
viii PREPACK 
 
 have so little leisure as to be debarred from intelligently 
 enjoying the results of the investigations of others. 
 
 This book has been written not only to reveal some 
 of the highest achievements of the human mind, but 
 also to let the heavens declare the glory of the Divine 
 Mind. In the author's judgment, there is no gulf that 
 separates science and religion, nor any conflict where 
 they stand together. And it is fervently hoped that 
 any one who comes to a better knowledge of God's 
 works through reading this book, may thereby come to 
 a more intimate knowledge of the Worker. 
 
 I take great pleasure in acknowledging my indebted- 
 ness to J. M. Van Yleck, LL.D., of the U. S. Nautical 
 Almanac staff, and Professor of Astronomy at the Wes- 
 leyan University, for inspecting some of the more im- 
 portant chapters ; to Dr. S. S. White, of Philadelphia, 
 for telescopic advantages ; to Professor Henry Draper, 
 for furnishing, in advance of publication, a photograph 
 of the sun's corona in 1878 ; and to the excellent work 
 on "Popular Astronomy," by Professor Simon New- 
 comb, LL.D., Professor U. S. Naval Observatory, for 
 some of the most recent information, and for the use of 
 the unequalled engravings of Jupiter, Saturn, and the 
 great nebula of Orion. 
 
THE CONSTELLATIONS 
 
 ORION AND TAURUS, 
 
 NOTES. Star a in Taurus is red, has eight metals ; moves east (page 22T). At o 
 above tip of right horn is the Crab Nebula (page 219). In Orion, a is variable, 
 hao five metals ; recedes 22 miles per second. /3, 3, e, f , p, etc., are double stars, 
 the component parts of various colors and magnitudes (page 212, note). X and 
 are triple ; <r, octuple; 0, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula (page 218). 
 
RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY 
 
 WITH 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS 
 AND TELESCOPIC WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 HEXRY WHITE WARREK, D.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS; OR, KNOWLEDGE BY TRAVEL," ETC. 
 
 WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. CREATIVE PROCESSES 1 
 
 II. CREATIVE PROGRESS 15 
 
 Constitution of Light 24 
 
 Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light 28 
 
 Creative Force of Light 30 
 
 III. ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS 41 
 
 The Telescope 43 
 
 The Reflecting Telescope 44 
 
 The Spectroscope 46 
 
 IV. CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS 55 
 
 Celestial Movements 58 
 
 How to Measure 60 
 
 V. THE SUN 75 
 
 What the Sun does for us 94 
 
 VI. THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE 97 
 
 The Outlook from the Earth 108 
 
 VII. SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS 117 
 
 Aerolites 122 
 
 Comets 126 
 
 Famous Comets 128 
 
 Of what do Comets consist? 131 
 
 Will Comets strike the Earth ? 133 
 
 VIII. THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS 135 
 
 Vulcan 138 
 
 Mercury 138 
 
 Venus 139 
 
 The Earth 141 
 
 The Aurora Borealis 143 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 VIII. THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS Continued. 
 
 The Delicate Balance of Forces ................................... 144 
 
 Tides ..................................................................... 146 
 
 The Moon ............................................................... 151 
 
 Telescopic Appearance ............................................... 155 
 
 Eclipses .................................................................. 157 
 
 Mars ...................................................................... 159 
 
 Satellites of Mars ...................................................... 161 
 
 Asteroids ................................................................ 162 
 
 Jupiter ................... ................................................ 164 
 
 Satellites of Jupiter ................................................... 165 
 
 Saturn .................................................................... 167 
 
 Rings of Saturn ........................................................ 169 
 
 Satellites of Saturn .................................................... 172 
 
 Uranus. .................................................................. 173 
 
 Neptune ................................................................. 175 
 
 IX. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS .......................................... 179 
 
 X. THE STELLAR SYSTEM ................................................. 193 
 
 The Open Page of the Heavens .................................... 195 
 
 Equatorial Constellations ............................................ 202 
 
 Characteristics of the Stars .......................................... 209 
 
 Number .................................................................. 210 
 
 Double and Multiple Stars .......................................... 210 
 
 Colored Stars ........................................................... 214 
 
 Clusters of Stars ........ , .............................................. 215 
 
 Nebulae ................................................................... 217 
 
 Variable Stars ......................................................... 220 
 
 Temporary, New, and Lost Stars .................................. 223 
 
 Movements of Stars ................................................... 226 
 
 XI. THE WORLDS AND THE WORD ..................................... 229 
 
 XII. THE ULTIMATE FORCE ................................................ 247 
 
 SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS ............... 268 
 
 SOME ELEMENTS or THE SOLAR SYSTEM ................................. 274 
 
 EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS ............................... 275 
 
 Signs of the Zodiac ................................................... 275 
 
 Other Abbreviations Used in the Almanac ..... ................. 275 
 
 Greek Alphabet Used Indicating the Stars ...................... 275 
 
 CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOK STUDENTS ..................................... 276 
 
 GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX .............. , ....... 279 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FIG. PAGE 
 
 The Constellations of Orion and Taurus Frontispiece 
 
 1. An Orbit resulting from Attraction and Projection 8 
 
 2. The Moon's Orbit about the Earth 10 
 
 3. Changes of Orbit by Mutual Attraction 11 
 
 4. Velocity of Light measured by Jupiter's Satellites 22 
 
 5. Velocity of Light measured by Fizeau's Toothed Wheel 23 
 
 6. White Light resolved into Colors 25 
 
 7. Showing amount of Light received by Different Planets 37 
 
 8. Measuring Intensities of Lights 37 
 
 9. Reflection and Diffusion of Light 38 
 
 10. Manifold Reflections 39 
 
 11. Refraction by Water 40 
 
 12. Atmospherical Refraction 40 
 
 13. Refracting Telescope 43 
 
 14. Reflecting Telescope 44 
 
 15. The Cambridge Equatorial Refractor 46 
 
 16. The new Reflecting Telescope at Paris 47 
 
 17. Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms 49 
 
 18. Spectra of Glowing Hydrogen and of the Sun 50 
 
 19. Illustrating Arcs and Angles 59 
 
 20. Measuring Objects by observing Angles ."9 
 
 21. Mural Circle 61 
 
 22. Scale to measure Hundredths of an Inch 63 
 
 23. Spider-lines to determine Star Transits 65 
 
 24. Illustrating Triangulation 66 
 
xii ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FIG. PAGE 
 
 25. Measuring Distance to an Inaccessible Object 67 
 
 26. Measuring Elevation of an Inaccessible Object 67 
 
 27. Illustrating Parallax 69 
 
 28. Illustrating Stellar Parallax 71 
 
 29. Mode of Ascertaining Longitude 72 
 
 30. Relative Size of Sun, as seen from Different Planets 79 
 
 31. Zodiacal Light 80 
 
 32. Corona of the Sun in 1858 Brazil 82 
 
 33. Corona of the Sun in 1878 Colorado 83 
 
 34. Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen 85 
 
 35. Changes in Solar Cavities during Rotation 90 
 
 36. Solar Spot 92 
 
 37. Holding Telescope to see the Sun-spots 96 
 
 38. Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets 100 
 
 39. Orbit of Earth, illustrating Seasons 103 
 
 40. Inclination of Planes of Planetary Orbits 107 
 
 41. Inclination of Orbits of Earth and Venus 107 
 
 42. Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars 110 
 
 43. Passage of the Sun by Star Regulus Ill 
 
 44. Apparent Path of Jupiter among the Stars 112 
 
 45. Illustrating Position of Planets 112 
 
 46. Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet. 113 
 
 47. Apparent Movements of a Superior Planet 114 
 
 47a. A Swarm of Meteors meeting the Earth 118 
 
 48. Explosion of a Bolide 120 
 
 49. Flight of Bolides 121 
 
 50. The Santa Rosa Aerolite 122 
 
 51. Orbit of November Meteors and the Comet of 1866 125 
 
 52. Aspects of Remarkable Comets 127 
 
 53. Phases and Apparent Dimensions of Venus 140 
 
 54. The Earth and Moon in Space 142 
 
 55. Aurora as Waving Curtains 143 
 
 56. Tide resulting from Centrifugal Motion 147 
 
 57. Lunar Landscape , 150 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 
 
 FIG. PAGE 
 
 58. Telescopic View of the Moon 154 
 
 59. Illumination of Lunar Craters and Peaks 155 
 
 60. Lunar Crater "Copernicus" 156 
 
 61. Eclipses: Shadows of Earth and Moon 157 
 
 62. Apparent Sizes of Mars, seen from the Earth 160 
 
 63. Jupiter 164 
 
 64. Various Positions of Jupiter's Satellites 166 
 
 65. View of Saturn and his Rings 168 
 
 66. Perturbations of Uranus 176 
 
 67. Map: Circumpolar Constellations 201 
 
 68. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in December 202 
 
 .69. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in January 203 
 
 70. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in April 204 
 
 71. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in June 205 
 
 72. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in September.... 206 
 
 73. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in November. 207 
 
 74. Southern Circumpolar Constellations 208 
 
 75. Aspects of Double Stars 213 
 
 76. Sprayed Star Cluster below i\ in Hercules 216 
 
 77. Globular Star Cluster in the Centaur 216 
 
 78. Great Nebula about 6 Orionis 218 
 
 79. The Crab Nebula above Tauri 219 
 
 80. The Ring Nebula in Lyra 220 
 
 81. Showing Place of Ring Nebula 221 
 
 82. The Horizontal Pendulum .. 272 
 
 COLORED PLATE REPRESENTING VARIOUS SPECTRA 50-52 
 
 MAPS TO FIND THE STARS .. At the End. 
 
I. 
 
 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the 
 earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the 
 deep." Genesis i. 1,2. 
 
 1 
 
"Not to the domes, where crumbling arch and column 
 
 Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, 
 But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, 
 
 Which God hath planned, 
 To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, 
 
 Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply , 
 Its chdr the winds and waves, its organ thunder, 
 
 Its dome the sky." HOHACK SMITH. 
 
 ' The heavens are a point from the pen of His perfection ; 
 The world is a rose-bud from the bower of His beauty ; 
 The sun is a spark from the light of His wisdom ; 
 And the sky a bubble on the sea of His power." 
 
 SIR W. JOXES. 
 
RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY. 
 
 I. 
 
 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 DURING all the ages there has been one bright and 
 glittering page of loftiest wisdom unrolled before the 
 eye of man. That this page may be read in every part, 
 man's whole world turns him before it. This motion 
 apparently changes the eternally stable stars into a mov- 
 ing panorama, but it is only so in appearance. The 
 sky is a vast, immovable dial-plate of " that clock whose 
 pendulum ticks ages instead of seconds," and whose 
 time is eternity. The moon moves among the illumi- 
 nated figures, traversing the dial quickly, like a second- 
 hand, once a month. The sun, like a minute-hand, goes 
 over the dial once a year. Various planets stand for 
 hour-hands, moving over the dial in various periods 
 reaching up to one hundred and sixty-four years ; while 
 the earth, like a ship of exploration, sails the infinite 
 azure, bearing the observers to different points where 
 they may investigate the infinite problems of this 
 mighty machinery. 
 
 This dial not only shows present movements, but it 
 keeps the history of uncounted ages past ready to be 
 
4 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 read backward in proper order ; and it has glorious vol- 
 umes of prophecy, revealing the far-off future to any 
 man who is able to look thereon, break the seals, and 
 read the record. Glowing stars are the alphabet of 
 this lofty page. They combine to form words. Mete- 
 ors, rainbows, auroras, shifting groups of stars, make 
 pictures vast and significant as the armies, angels, and 
 falling stars in the Revelation of St. John changing 
 and progressive pictures of infinite wisdom and power. 
 
 Men have not yet advanced as far as those who saw 
 the pictures John describes, and hence the panorama is 
 not understood. That continuous speech that day af- 
 ter day uttereth is not heard ; the knowledge that night 
 after night showeth is not seen ; and the invisible 
 things of God from the creation of the world, even his 
 eternal power and Godhead, clearly discoverable from 
 things that are made, are not apprehended. 
 
 The greatest triumphs of men's minds have been in 
 astronomy and ever must be. We have not learned 
 its alphabet yet. We read only easy lessons, with as 
 many mistakes as -happy guesses. But in time we shall 
 know all the letters, become familiar with the combi- 
 nations, be apt at their interpretation, and will read 
 with facility the lessons of wisdom and power that are 
 written on the earth, blazoned in the skies, and pictured 
 by the flowers below and the rainbows above. 
 
 In order to know how worlds move and develop, we 
 must create them ; we must go back to their begin- 
 ning, give their endowment of forces, and study the 
 laws of their unfolding. This we can easily do by that 
 faculty wherein man is likest his Father, a creative im- 
 agination. God creates and embodies; we create, but 
 
FORCE OF ATTRACTION. 5 
 
 it remains in thought only. But the creation is as 
 bright, strong, clear, enduring, and real, as if it were em- 
 bodied. E\ 7 ery one of us would make worlds enough 
 to crush us, if we could embody as well as create. Our 
 ambition would outrun our wisdom. Let us come into 
 the high and ecstatic frame of mind which Shakspeare 
 calls frenzy, in the exigencies of his verse, when 
 
 "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
 And, as imagination bodies forth 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 la the supremacy of our creative imagination let us 
 make empty space, in order that we may therein build 
 up a new universe. Let us wave the wand of our pow- 
 er, so that all created things disappear. There is no 
 world under our feet, no radiant clouds, no blazing sun, 
 no silver moon, nor twinkling stars. We look up, there 
 is no light ; down, through immeasurable abysses, there 
 is no form; all about, and there is no sound or sign 
 of being nothing save utter silence, utter darkness. It 
 cannot be endured. Creation is a necessity of mind 
 even of the Divine mind. 
 
 We will now, by imagination, create a monster world, 
 every atom of which shall be dowered with the single 
 power of attraction. Every particle shall reach out 
 its friendly hand, and there shall be a drawing to- 
 gether of every particle in existence. The laws gov- 
 erning this attraction shall be two. When these parti- 
 cles are associated together, the attraction shall be in 
 proportion to the mass. A given mass will pull twice 
 
G CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 as much as one of half the size, because there is twice 
 as much to pull. And a given mass will be pulled 
 twice as much as one half as large, because there is 
 twice as much to be pulled. A man who weighed one 
 hundred and fifty pounds on the earth might weigh a 
 ton and a half on a body as large as the sun. That 
 shall be one law of attraction; and the other shall be 
 that masses attract inversely as the square of distances 
 between them. Absence shall affect friendships that 
 have a material basis. If a body like the earth pulls a 
 man one hundred and fifty pounds at the surface, or 
 four thousand miles from the centre, it will pull the 
 same man one -fourth as much at twice the distance, 
 one-sixteenth as much at four times the distance. That 
 is, he will weigh by a spring balance thirty-seven and a 
 half pounds at eight thousand miles from the centre, 
 and nine pounds six ounces at sixteen thousand miles 
 from the centre, and he will weigh or be pulled by the 
 earth V of a pound at the distance of the moon. But 
 the moon would be large enough and near enough to 
 pull twenty-four pounds on the same man, so the earth 
 could not draw him away. Thus the two laws of at- 
 traction of gravitation are 1, Gravity is proportioned 
 to the quantity of matter ; and 2, The force of gravity 
 varies inversely as the square of the distance from the 
 centre of the attracting l)ody. 
 
 The original form of matter is gas. Almost as I 
 write comes the announcement that Mr. Lockyer has 
 proved that all the so-called primary elements of mat- 
 ter are only so many different sized molecules of one 
 original substance hydrogen. Whether that is true 
 or not, let us now create all the hydrogen we can 
 
FORCE OF ATTRACTION. 7 
 
 imagine, either in differently sized masses or in com- 
 bination with other substances. There it is ! We can- 
 not measure its bulk ; we cannot fly around it in any 
 recordable eons of time. It has boundaries, to be sure, 
 for we are finite, but we cannot measure them. Let it 
 alone, now ; leave it to itself. What follows ? It is 
 dowered simply with attraction. The vast mass begins 
 to shrink, the outer portions are drawn inward. They 
 rush and swirl in vast cyclones, thousands of miles in 
 extent. The centre grows compact, heat is evolved by 
 impact, as will be explained in Chapter II. Dull red 
 light begins to look like coming dawn. Centuries go 
 by ; contraction goes on ; light blazes in insufferable 
 brightness ; tornadoes, whirlpools, and tempests scarcely 
 signify anything as applied to such tumultuous tossing. 
 
 There hangs the only world in existence ; it hangs in 
 empty space. It has no tendency to rise ; none to fall ; 
 none to move at all in any direction. It seethes and 
 flames, and holds itself together by attractive power, and 
 that is all the force with which we have endowed it. 
 
 Leave it there alone, and withdraw millions of miles 
 into space: it looks smaller and smaller. We lose sight 
 of those distinctive spires of flame, those terrible move- 
 ments. It only gives an even effulgence, a steady un- 
 flickering light. Turn one quarter round. Still we see 
 our world, but it is at one side. 
 
 Now in front, in the utter darkness, suddenly create 
 another world of the same size, and at the same distance 
 from you. There they stand two huge, lone bodies, in 
 mpty space. But we created them dowered with at- 
 traction. Each instantly feels the drawing influence of 
 the other. They are mutually attractive, and begin to 
 
8 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 move toward each other. They hasten along an uncle- 
 viating straight line. Their speed quickens at every 
 mile. The attraction increases every moment. They 
 fly swift as thought. They clash their flaming, seething 
 foreheads together. 
 
 And now we have one world again. It is twice as 
 large as before, that is all the difference. There is no 
 variety, neither any motion ; just simple flame, and noth- 
 ing to be warmed thereby. Are our creative powers 
 exhausted by this effort ? 
 
 No, we will create another world, and add another 
 power to it that shall keep them apart. That power 
 
 D 
 
 Fig. 1. Orbit A D, resultiug from attraction, A C, and projectile force, A B. 
 
 shall be what is called the force of inertia, which is 
 literally no power at all ; it is an inability to originate 
 or change motion. If a body is at rest, inertia is that 
 quality by which it will forever remain so, unless acted 
 upon by some force from without ; and if a body is in 
 motion, it will continue on at the same speed, in a 
 straight line, forever, unless it is quickened, retarded, 
 or turned from its path by some other force. Suppose 
 our newly created sun is 860,000 miles in diameter. Go 
 away 92,500,000 miles and create an earth eight thou- 
 sand miles in diameter. It instantly feels the at- 
 tractive power of the sun drawing it to itself twenty- 
 
FORCES OF ATTRACTION AND INERTIA. 9 
 
 four miles the first hour. Now, just as it starts, give 
 this earth a push in a line at right angles with line of 
 fall to the sun, that shall send it 66,168 miles every 
 hour thereafter. It obeys both forces. The result is 
 that the world moves constantly forward at the same 
 speed by its inertia from that first push, and attraction 
 momentarily draws it from its straight line, so that the 
 new world circles round the other to the starting-point. 
 Continuing under the operation of both forces, the 
 worlds can never come together or fly apart. 
 
 They circle about each other as long as these forces 
 endure ; for the first world does not stand still and 
 the second do all the going ; both revolve around the 
 centre of gravity common to both. In case the worlds 
 are equal in mass, they will both take the same orbit 
 around a central stationary point, midway between the 
 two. In case their mass be as one to eighty-one, as in 
 the case of the earth and the moon, the centre of grav- 
 ity around which both turn will be -gV of the distance 
 from the earth's centre to the moon's centre. This 
 brings the central point around which both worlds 
 swing just inside the surface of the earth. It is like 
 an apple attached by a string, and swung around the 
 hand ; the hand moves a little, the apple very much. 
 
 Thus the problem of two revolving bodies is readily 
 comprehended. The two bodies lie in easy beds, and 
 swing obedient to constant forces. "When another body, 
 however, is introduced, with its varying attraction, first 
 on one and then on the other, complications are intro- 
 duced that only the most masterly minds can follow. 
 Introduce a dozen or a million bodies, and complica- 
 tions arise that only Omniscience can unravel. 
 
 1* 
 
10 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 Let the hand swing an apple by an elastic cord. 
 When the apple falls toward the earth it feels another 
 force besides that derived from the hand, which greatly 
 lengthens the elastic cord. To tear it away from the 
 earth's attraction, and make it rise, requires additional 
 force, and hence the string is lengthened ; but when it 
 passes over the hand the earth attracts it downward, 
 and the string is very much shortened : so the moon, 
 held by an elastic cord, swings around the earth. From 
 its extreme distance from the earth, at A, Fig. 2, it 
 rushes with increasing speed nearly a 
 
 O quarter of a million of miles toward 
 c the sun, feeling its attraction increase 
 with every mile until it reaches B; 
 then it is retarded in its speed, by the 
 same attraction, as it climbs back its 
 quarter of a million of miles away 
 from the sun, in defiance of its pow- 
 er, to C. All the while the invisi- 
 ble elastic force of the earth is un- 
 weariedly maintained ; and though the moon's dis- 
 tances vary over a range of 31,355 miles, the moon 
 is always in a determinable place. A simple revolu- 
 tion of one world about another in a circular orbit 
 would be a problem of easy solution. It would always 
 be at the same distance from its centre, and going with 
 the same velocity. But there are over sixty causes that 
 interfere with such a simple orbit in the case of the 
 moon, all of which causes and their disturbances must 
 be considered in calculating such a simple matter as an 
 eclipse, or predicting the moon's place as the sailors' 
 guide. One of the most puzzling of the irregularities 
 
FORCES OF ATTRACTION AND INERTIA. 11 
 
 of our night-wandering orb has just been explained by 
 Professor Hansen, of Gotha, as a curious result of the 
 attraction of Venus. 
 
 Take a single instance of the perturbations of Jupiter 
 and Saturn which can be rendered evident. The times 
 of orbital revolution of Saturn and Jupiter are nearly as 
 five to two. Suppose the orbits 
 of the planets to be, as in Fig. 3, 
 both ellipses, but not necessarily 
 equally distant in all parts. The 
 planets are as near as possible 
 at 1,1. Drawn toward each oth- 
 er by mutual attraction, Jupi- 
 ter's orbit bends outward, and Fig . 3 ._c^f^f orbit by 
 Saturn's becomes more nearly mutual attraction, 
 straight, as shown by the dotted lines. A partial cor- 
 rection of this difficulty immediately follows. As Jupi- 
 ter moves on ahead of Saturn it is held back retarded 
 in its orbit by that body ; and Saturn is hastened in its 
 orbit by the attraction of Jupiter. Now greater speed 
 means a straighter orbit. A rifle-ball flies nearer in a 
 straight line than a thrown stone. A greater velocity 
 given to a whirled ball pulls the elastic cord far enough 
 to give the ball a larger orbit. Hence, being hastened, 
 Saturn stretches out nearer its proper orbit, and, retard- 
 ed, Jupiter approaches the smaller curve that is its true 
 orbit. 
 
 But if they were always to meet at this point, as they 
 would if Jupiter made two revolutions to Saturn's one, 
 it would be disastrous. In reality, when Saturn has 
 gone around two-thirds of its orbit to 2, Jupiter will 
 have gone once and two-thirds around and overtaken 
 
12 CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 Saturn ; and they will be near again, be drawn togeth- 
 er, hastened, and retarded, as before ; their next con- 
 junction would be at 3, 3, etc. 
 
 Now, if they always made their conjunction at points 
 equally distant, or at thirds of their orbits, it would cause 
 a series of increasing deviations; for Jupiter would 
 be constantly swelling his orbit at three points, and 
 Saturn increasingly contracting his orbit at the same 
 points. Disaster would be easily foretold. But as their 
 times of orbital revolutions are not exactly in the ratio 
 of five and two, their points of conjunction slowly travel 
 around the orbit, till, in a period of nine hundred years, 
 the starting-point is again reached, and the perturba- 
 tions have mutually corrected one another. 
 
 For example, the total attractive effect of one planet 
 on the other for 450 years is to quicken its speed. The 
 effect for the next 450 years is to retard. The place of 
 Saturn, when all the retardations have accumulated for 
 450 years, is one degree behind what it is computed if 
 they are not considered ; and 450 years later it w r ill be 
 one degree before its computed place a perturbation 
 of two degrees. When a bullet is a little heavier or 
 ragged on one side, it will constantly swerve in that di- 
 rection. The spiral groove in the rifle, of one turn in 
 forty-five feet, turns the disturbing weight or raggedness 
 from side to side makes one error correct another, and 
 so the ball flies straight to the bull's-eye. So the place of 
 Jupiter and Saturn, though further complicated by four 
 moons in the case of Jupiter, and eight in the case of 
 Saturn, and also by perturbations caused by other plan- 
 ets, can be calculated with exceeding nicety. 
 
 The difficulties would be greatly increased if the or* 
 
FORCES OF ATTRACTION AND INERTIA. 13 
 
 bits of Saturn and Jupiter, instead of being 400,000,000 
 miles apart, were interlaced. Yet there are the orbits 
 of one hundred and ninety-two asteroids so interlaced 
 that, if they were made of wire, no one could be lifted 
 without raising the whole net-work of them. Never- 
 theless, all these swift chariots of the sky race along the 
 course of their intermingling tracks as securely as if 
 they were each guided by an intelligent mind. They 
 are guided Try an intelligent tnind and an almighty 
 arm. 
 
 Still more complicated is the question of the mutual 
 attractions of all the planets. Lagrange has been able 
 to show, by a mathematical genius that seems little short 
 of omniscience in his single department of knowledge, 
 that there is a discovered system of oscillations, affect- 
 ing the entire planetary system, the periods of which 
 are immensely long. The number of these oscillations 
 is equal to that of all the planets, arid their periods 
 range from 50,000 to 2,000,000 years. 
 
 Looking into the open page of the starry heavens wo 
 see double stars, the constituent parts of which must re- 
 volve around a centre common to them both, or rush to 
 a common ruin. Eagerly we look to see if they revolve, 
 and beholding them in the. very act, we conclude, not 
 groundlessly, that the same great law of gravitation 
 holds good in distant stellar spaces, and that there the 
 same sufficient mind plans, and the same sufficient 
 power directs and controls all movements in harmony 
 and security. 
 
 When we come to the perturbations caused by the 
 mutual attractions of the sun, nine planets, twenty 
 moons, one hundred and ninety-two asteroids, millions 
 
14: CREATIVE PROCESSES. 
 
 of comets, and innumerable meteoric bodies swarming 
 in space, and when we add to all these, that belong to 
 one solar system, the attractions of all the systems of 
 the other suns that sparkle on a brilliant winter night, 
 we are compelled to say, " As high as the heavens are 
 above the earth, so high above our thoughts and ways 
 must be the thoughts and ways of Him who compre- 
 hends and directs them all." 
 
II. 
 
 CREATIVE PROGRESS, 
 
 "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Genesis 
 i., 3. 
 
 " God is light." 1 John, i., 5. 
 
" Hail! holy light, offspring of Heaven first born, 
 Or of the eternal, co-eternal beam, 
 May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light, 
 And never but in unapproached light 
 Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 
 Bright effluence of bright essence increate." 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 " A million torches lighted by Thy hand 
 Wander unwearied through the blue abyss : 
 They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, 
 All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss. 
 What shall we call them ? Piles of crystal light 
 A glorious company of golden streams 
 Lamps of celestial ether burning bright 
 Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams ? 
 But Thou to these art as the noon to night." 
 
 DERZHAVIN, trans, by BOWRING, 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 17 
 
 II. 
 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 WORLDS would be very imperfect and useless when 
 simply endowed with attraction and inertia, if no time 
 were allowed for these forces to work out their legiti- 
 mate results. We want something more than swirling 
 seas of attracted gases, something more than compacted 
 rocks. We look for soil, verdure, a paradise of beauty, 
 animal life, and immortal minds. Let us go on with 
 the process. 
 
 Light is the child of force, and the child, like its fa- 
 ther, is full of power. We dowered our created world 
 with but a single quality a force of attraction. It not 
 only had attraction for its own material substance, but 
 sent out an all-pervasive attraction into space. By the 
 force of condensation it flamed like a sun, and not only 
 lighted its own substance, but it filled all space with 
 the luminous outgoings of its power. A world may be 
 limited, but its influence cannot ; its body may have 
 bounds, but its soul is infinite. Everywhere is its mani- 
 festation as real, power as effective, presence as actual, 
 as at the central point. He that studies ponderable 
 bodies alone is not studying the universe, only its skel- 
 eton. Skeletons are somewhat interesting in themselves, 
 but far more so when covered with flesh, flushed with 
 beauty, and inspired with soul. The universe has bones, 
 
18 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 flesh, beauty, soul, and all is one. It can be understood 
 only by a study of all its parts, and by tracing effect to 
 cause. 
 
 But how can condensation cause light? Power can- 
 not be quiet. The mighty locomotive trembles with its 
 own energy. A smitten piece of iron has all its infini- 
 tesimal atoms set in vehement commotion ; they surge 
 back and forth among themselves, like the waves of a 
 storm-blown lake. Heat is a mode of motion. A heat- 
 ed body commences a vigorous vibration among its par- 
 ticles, and communicates these vibrations to the sur- 
 rounding air and ether. "When these vibrations reach 
 396,000,000,000,000 per second, the human eye, fitted 
 to be affected by that number, discerns the emitted un- 
 dulations, and the object seems to glow with a dull red 
 light ; becoming hotter, the vibrations increase in rapid- 
 ity. When they reach 765,000,000,000,000 per second 
 the color becomes violet, and the eye can observe them 
 no farther. Between these numbers are those of differ- 
 ent rapidities, which affect the eye as orange, yellow, 
 green, blue, indigo, in an almost infinite number of 
 shades according to the sensitiveness of the eye. 
 
 We now see how our dark immensity of attractive 
 atoms can become luminous. A force of compression 
 results in vibrations within, communicated to the ether, 
 discerned by the eye. Illustrations are numerous. If 
 we suddenly push a piston into a cylinder of brass, the 
 force produces heat enough to set fire to an inflam- 
 mable substance within. Strike a half -inch cube of 
 iron a moderate blow and it becomes warm ; a sufficient 
 blow, and its vibrations become quick enough to be seen 
 it is red-hot. Attach a thermometer to an extended 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 19 
 
 arm of a whirling wheel ; drive it against the air five 
 hundred feet per second, the mercury rises 16. The 
 earth goes 98,000 feet per second, or one thousand miles 
 a minute. If it come to an aerolite or mass of metallic 
 rock, or even a cloudlet of gas, standing still in space, 
 its contact with our air evolves 600,000 of heat. And 
 when the meteor comes toward the world twenty -six 
 miles a second, the heat would become proportionally 
 greater if the meteor could abide it, and not be con- 
 sumed in fervent heat. It vanishes almost as soon as 
 seen. If there were meteoric masses enough lying in 
 our path, our sky would blaze with myriads of flashes 
 of light. Enough have been seen to enable a person 
 to read by them at night. If a sufficient number were 
 present, we should miss their individual flashes as they 
 blend their separate fires in one sea of insufferable 
 glory. The sun is 326,800 as heavy as our planet ; its 
 attraction proportionally greater; the aerolites more 
 numerous; and hence an infinite hail of stones, small 
 masses and little worlds, makes ceaseless trails of light, 
 whose individuality is lost in one dazzling sea of glory? 
 On the 1st day of September, 1859, two astronomers, 
 independently of each other, saw a sudden brightening 
 on the surface of the sun. Probably two large meteoric 
 masses were travelling side by side at two or three hun- 
 dred miles per second, and striking the sun's atmos- 
 phere, suddenly blazed into light bright enough to be 
 seen on the intolerable light of the photosphere as a 
 background. The earth responded to this new cause 
 of brilliance and heat in the sun. Yivid auroras ap- 
 peared, not only at the north and south poles, but even 
 where such spectacles are seldom seen. The electro- 
 
20 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 magnetic disturbances were more distinctly marked. 
 " In many places the telegraphic wires struck work. In 
 Washington and Philadelphia the electric signalmen re- 
 ceived severe electric shocks; at a station in Norway, 
 the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to ; and at Boston 
 a flame of tire followed the pen of Bain's electric tele- 
 graph." There is the best of reason for believing that 
 a continuous succession of such bodies might have gono 
 far toward rendering the earth uncomfortable as a place 
 of residence. 
 
 Of course, the same result of heat and light would 
 follow from compression, if a body had the power of 
 contraction in itself. We endowed every particle of our 
 gas, myriads of miles in extent, with an attraction for 
 every other particle. It immediately compressed itself 
 into a light-giving body, which flamed out through the 
 interstellar spaces, flushing all the celestial regions with 
 exuberant light. 
 
 But heat exerts a repellent force among particles, and 
 soon an equilibrium is reached, for there comes a time 
 when the contracting body can contract no farther. But 
 heat and light radiate away into cold space, then contrac- 
 tion goes on evolving more light, and so the suns flame 
 on through the millions of years unquenched. It is es- 
 timated that the contraction of our sun, from filling im- 
 mensity of space to its present size, could not afford 
 heat enough to last more than 18,000,000 years, and 
 that its contraction from its present density (that of 
 a swamp) to such rock as that of which our earth is 
 composed, could supply heat enough for 17,000,000 
 years longer. But the far-seeing mind of man knows 
 a time must come when the present force of attraction 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 21 
 
 shall liave produced all the heat it can, and a new force 
 of attraction must be added, or the sun itself will be- 
 come cold as a cinder, dead as a burned-out char. 
 
 Since light and heat are the product of such enor- 
 mous cosmic forces, they must partake of their nature, 
 and be force. So they are. The sun has long arms, 
 and they are full of unconquerable strength ninety-two 
 millions, or any other number of millions, of miles 
 away. All this light and heat comes through space 
 that is 200 below zero, through utter darkness, and ap- 
 pears only on the earth. So the gas is darkness in the 
 underground pipes, but light at the burner. So the 
 electric power is unfelt by the cable in the bosom of the 
 deep, but is expressive of thought and feeling at the 
 end. Having found the cause of light, we will com- 
 mence a study of its qualities and powers. 
 
 Light is the astronomer's necessity. "When the sub- 
 lime word was uttered, " Let there be light !" the study 
 of astronomy was made possible. Man can gather but 
 little of it with his eye ; so he takes a lens twenty-six 
 inches in diameter, and bends all the light that passes 
 through it to a focus, then magnifies the image and 
 takes it into his eye. Or he takes a mirror, six feet in 
 diameter, so hollowed in the middle as to reflect all the 
 rays falling upon it to one point, and makes this larger 
 eye fill his own with light. By this larger light-gath- 
 ering he discerns things for which the light falling 
 on his pupil one-fifth of an inch in diameter would not 
 be sufficient. We never have seen any sun or stars; 
 we have only seen the light that left- them a few min- 
 utes or years ago, more or less. Light is the aerial 
 sprite that carries our measuring-rods across the infinite 
 
22 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 spaces ; light spreads out the history of that far-off be- 
 ginning ; brings us the measure of stars a thousand times 
 brighter than our sun ; takes up into itself evidences of 
 the very constitutional elements of the far-off suns, and 
 spreads them at our feet. It is of such capacity that 
 the Divine nature, looking for an expression of its own 
 omnipotence, omniscience, and power of revelation, was 
 content to say, " God is Light." We shall need all our 
 delicacy of analysis and measurement when we seek to 
 determine the activities of matter so fine and near to 
 spirit as light. 
 
 We first seek the velocity of light. In Fig. 4 the 
 earth is 92,500,000 miles from the sun at E; Jupiter 
 is 480,000,000 miles from the sun at J. It has four 
 
 Fig. 4. Velocity of Light measured by Eclipses of Jupiter's Moons. 
 
 moons : the inner one goes around the central body 
 in forty-two hours, and is eclipsed at every revolution. 
 The light that went out from the sun to M ceases to be 
 reflected back to the earth by the intervention of the plan- 
 et Jupiter. We know to a second when these eclipses 
 take place, and they can be seen witli a small telescope. 
 But when the earth is on the opposite side of the sun 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 23 
 
 from Jupiter, at E', these eclipses at J' take place sixteen 
 and a half minutes too late. What is the reason? Is 
 the celestial chronometry getting deranged ? No, indeed ; 
 these great worlds swing never an inch out of place, nor 
 a second out of time. By going to the other side of the 
 sun the earth is 18^,000,000 miles farther from Jupiter, 
 and the light that brings the intelligence of that eclipse 
 consumes the extra time in going over the extra distance. 
 Divide one by the other and we get the velocity, 185,000 
 miles per second. That 
 is probably correct to 
 within a thousand miles. 
 Methods of measurement 
 by the toothed wheel of 
 Fizeau confirm this re- 
 sult. Suppose the wheel, 
 Fig. 5, to have one thou- 
 sand teeth, making five 
 revolutions to the second. 
 Five thousand flashes of 
 light each second will 
 
 dart out. Let each flash travel nine miles to a mirror 
 and return. If it goes that distance in i ioo of a sec- 
 ond, or at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, the next 
 tooth will have arrived before the eye, and each return- 
 ing ray be cut off. Hasten the revolutions a little, and 
 the next notch will then admit the ray, on its return, that 
 went out of each previous notch : the eighteen miles hav- 
 ing been traversed meanwhile. The result of experi- 
 ments by Lieut. Michelson, as given Sept., 1879, is 186,305 
 miles per second, which cannot be fifty miles from correct. 
 When we take instantaneous photographs by the ex- 
 
 Fig. 5. Measuring the Velocity of Light. 
 
24: CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 posure of the sensitive plate -jimnr P ai *t of a second, a 
 stream of light nine miles long dashes in upon the plate 
 in that very brief period of time. 
 
 The highest velocity we can give a rifle-ball is 2000 
 feet a second, the next second it is only 1500 feet, and 
 soon it comes to rest. We cannot compact force enough 
 behind a bit of lead to keep it flying. But light flies 
 unweariedly and without diminution of speed. When. 
 it has come from the sun in eight minutes, Alpha Cen- 
 tauri in three years, Polaris in forty -five years, other 
 stars in one thousand, its wings are in nowise fatigued, 
 nor is the rapidity of its flight slackened in the least. 
 
 It is not the transactions of to-day that we read in 
 the heavens, but it is history, some of it older than the 
 time of Adam. Those stars may have been smitten out 
 of existence decades of centuries ago, but their poured- 
 out light is yet flooding the heavens. 
 
 It can go both ways at once in the same place, without 
 interference. We see the light reflected from the new 
 moon to the earth ; reflected back from the house-tops, 
 fields, and waters of earth, to the moon again, and from 
 the moon to us once more three times in opposite di- 
 rections, in the same place, without interference, and 
 thus we see " the old moon in the arms of the new." 
 
 Constitution of Light. 
 
 Light was once supposed to be corpuscular, or con- 
 sisting of transmitted particles. It is now known to be 
 the result of undulations in ether. Reference has been 
 made to the minuteness of these undulations. Their 
 velocity is equally wonderful. Put a prism of glass 
 into a ray of light coming into a dark room, and it is 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 
 
 25 
 
 instantly turned out of its course, some parts more and 
 some less, according to the number of vibrations, and ap- 
 pears as the seven colors on different parts of the screen. 
 Fig. 6 shows the arrangement of colors, and the number 
 of millions of millions of vibrations per second of each. 
 
 V, 716 to 765 
 I, 667 to 699 
 B, 653 to 658 
 G, 562 to 610 
 Y, 510 to 549 
 O, 478 to 510 
 R, 396 to 470 
 
 Fig. 6. White Light resolved into Colors. 
 
 But the different divisions we call colors are not colors 
 in themselves at all, but simply a different number of 
 vibrations. Color is all in the eye. Violet has in dif- 
 ferent places from 716 to 765,000,000,000,000 of vibra- 
 tions per second ; red has, in different places, from 396 
 to 470,000,000,000,000 vibrations per second. None of 
 these in any sense are color, but affect the eye different- 
 ly, and we call these different effects color. They are 
 simply various velocities of vibration. An object, like 
 one kind of stripe in our flag, which absorbs all kinds 
 of vibrations except those between 396 and 470,000,000,- 
 000,000, and reflects those, appears red to us. The field 
 for the stars absorbs and destroys all but those vibra- 
 tions numbering about 653,000,000,000,000 of vibra- 
 
 2 
 
26 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 tions per second. A color is a constant creation. Light 
 makes momentary color in the flag. Drake might have 
 written, in the continuous present as well as in the past, 
 
 " Freedom mingles with its gorgeous dyes 
 The milky baldrick of the skies, 
 And stripes its pure celestial white 
 With streakings of the morning light." 
 
 Every little pansy, tender as fancy, pearled with eva- 
 nescent dew, fresh as a new creation of sunbeams, has 
 power to suppress in one part of its petals all vibrations 
 we call red, in another those we call yellow, and pur- 
 ple, and reflect each of these in other parts of the same 
 tender petal. "Pansies are for thoughts," even more 
 thoughts than poor Ophelia knew. A cloud of smoke 
 that is dense enough to absorb all the faster and weaker 
 vibrations, leaving only the stronger to come through, 
 will show the sun as red ; because the vibrations that 
 produce the impression we have so named are the only 
 ones that have vigor enough to get through. It is like 
 an army charging upon a fortress. Under the deadly 
 fire and fearful obstructions six-sevenths go down, but 
 one-seventh comes through with the glory of victory 
 upon its face. 
 
 Light comes in undulations to the eye, as tones of 
 sound to the ear. Must not light also sing? The lowest 
 tone we can hear is made by 16.5 vibrations of air per 
 second ; the highest, so shrill and "fine that nothing lives 
 'twixt it and silence," is made by 38,000 vibrations per 
 second. Between these extremes lie eleven octaves ; C 
 of the G clef having 25S-J vibrations to the second, and 
 its octave above 517^. Not that sound vibrations cease 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 27 
 
 at 38,000, but our organs are not fitted to hear beyond 
 those limitations. If our ears were delicate enough, we 
 could hear even up to the almost infinite vibrations of 
 light. In one of those semi -inspirations we find in 
 Shakspeare's works, he says 
 
 " There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim. 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
 But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 
 
 And that older poetry which is always highest truth 
 says, "The morning stars sing together." We miscon- 
 strued another passage which we could not understand, 
 and did not dare translate as it was written, till science 
 crept up to a perception of the truth that had been stand- 
 ing there for ages, waiting a mind that could take it 
 in. Now we read as it is written " Thou makest the 
 out-goings of the morning and evening to sing." Were 
 our senses fine enough, we could hear the separate key- 
 note of every individual star. Stars differ in glory and 
 in power, and so in the volume and pitch of their song. 
 Were our hearing sensitive enough, we could hear not 
 only the separate key-notes but the infinite swelling 
 harmony of these myriad stars of the sky, as they pour 
 their mighty tide of united anthems in the ear of God : 
 
 " In reason's ear i\\zy all rejoice, 
 And utter forth a glorious voice. 
 Forever singing, as they shine, 
 The hand that made us is divine." 
 
 This music is not monotonous. Stars draw near each 
 other, and make a light that i$ unapproachable by mor- 
 
28 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 tals; then the music swells beyond our ability to en- 
 dure. They recede far away, making a light so dim 
 that the music dies away, so near to silence that only 
 spirits can perceive it. No wonder God rejoices in his 
 works. They pour into his ear one ceaseless tide of 
 rapturous song. 
 
 Our senses are limited we have only five, but there 
 is room for many more. Some time we shall be taken 
 out of " this muddy vesture of decay," no longer see 
 the universe through crevices of our prison-house, but 
 shall range through wider fields, explore deeper mys- 
 teries, and discover new worlds, hints of which have 
 never yet been blown across the wide Atlantic that 
 rolls between them and men abiding in the flesh. 
 
 Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light. 
 
 "When we examine the assemblage of colors spread 
 from the white ray of sunlight, we do not find red sim- 
 ple red, yellow yellow, etc., but there is a vast number 
 of fine microscopic lines of various lengths, parallel 
 here near together, there far apart, always the same 
 number and the same relative distance, when the same 
 light and prism are used. What new alphabets to new 
 realms of knowledge are these ! Remember, that what 
 we call colors are only various numbers of vibrations of 
 ether. Remember, that every little group in the infinite 
 variety of these vibrations may be affected differently 
 from every other group. One number of these is bent 
 by the prism to where we see what we call the violet, 
 another number to the place we call red. All of the 
 vibrations are destroyed when they strike a surface we 
 call black. A part of them are destroyed when they 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 29 
 
 strike a substance we call colored. The rest are reflect- 
 ed, and give the impression of color. In one place on 
 the flag of our nation all vibrations are destroyed ex- 
 cept the red ; in another, all but the blue. Perhaps on 
 that other gorgeous flag, not of our country but of our 
 sun, the flag we call the solar spectrum, all vibrations 
 are destroyed where these dark lines appear. Perhaps 
 this effect is not produced by the surface upon which 
 the rays fall, but by some specific substance in the sun. 
 This is just the truth. Light passing through vapor of 
 sodium has the vibrations that would fall on two nar- 
 row lines in the yellow utterly destroyed, leaving two 
 black spaces. Light passing through vapor of burning 
 iron has some four hundred numbers or kinds of vibra- 
 tions destroyed, leaving that number of black lines; 
 but if the salt or iron be glowing gas, in the source of 
 the light itself the same lines are bright instead of 
 dark. 
 
 Thus we have brought to our doors a readable rec- 
 ord of the very substances composing every world hot 
 enough to shine by its own light. Thus, while our flag 
 means all we have of liberty, free as the winds that kiss 
 it, and bright as the stars that shine in it, the flag of the 
 sun means all that it is in constituent elements, all that 
 it is in condition. 
 
 We find in our sun many substances known to exist 
 in the earth, and some that we had not discovered when 
 the sun wrote their names, or rather made their mark, 
 in the spectrum. Thus, also, we find that Betelguese 
 and Algol are without any perceivable indications of 
 hydrogen, and Sirius has it in abundance. What a sense 
 of acquaintanceship it gives us to look up and recognize 
 
30 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 the stars whose very substance we know ! If we were 
 transported thither, or beyond, we should not be alto- 
 gether strangers in an unknown realm. 
 
 But the stars differ in their constituent elements; 
 every ray that flashes from them bears in its very be- 
 ing proofs of what they are. Hence the eye of Omni- 
 science, seeing a ray of light anywhere in the universe, 
 though gone from its source a thousand years, would be 
 able to tell from what orb it originally came. 
 
 Creative Force of Light. 
 
 Just above the color vibrations of the nnbraided sun- 
 beam, above the violet, which is the highest number 
 our eyes can detect, is a chemical force ; it works the 
 changes on the glass plate in photography ; it transfig- 
 ures the dark, cold soil into woody fibre, green leaf, 
 downy rose petals, luscious fruit, and far pervasive 
 odor ; it flushes the wide acres of the prairie with grass 
 and flowers, fills the valleys with trees, and covers the 
 hills with corn, a single blade of which all the power 
 of man could not make. 
 
 This power is also fit and able to survive. The en- 
 gineer Stephenson once asked Dr. Buckland, " What 
 is the power that drives that train?" pointing to one 
 thundering by. " Well, I suppose it is one of your big 
 engines." " But what drives the engine ?" " Oh, very 
 likely a canny Newcastle driver." " No, sir," said the 
 engineer, " it is sunshine." The doctor was too dull to 
 take it in. Let us see if we can trace such an evident 
 effect to that distant cause. Ages ago the warm sun- 
 shine, falling on the scarcely lifted hills of Pennsylvania, 
 caused the reedy vegetation to grow along the banks of 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 31 
 
 shallow seas, accumulated vast amounts of this vegeta- 
 tion, sunk it beneath the sea, roofed it over with sand, 
 compacted the sand into rock, and changed' this vegeta- 
 ble matter the products of the sunshine into coal; 
 and when it was ready, lifted it once more, all garnered 
 for the use of men, roofed over with mighty mountains. 
 AYe mine the coal, bring out the heat, raise the steam, 
 drive the train, so that in the ultimate analyses it is sun- 
 shine that drives the train. These great beds of coal are 
 nothing but condensed sunshine the sun's great force, 
 through ages gone, preserved for our use to-day. And 
 it is so full of force that a piece of coal that will weigh 
 three pounds (as big as a large pair of fists) has as much 
 power in it as the average man puts into a day's work. 
 Three tons of coal will pump as much water or shovel 
 as much sand as the average man will pump or shovel 
 in a lifetime ; so that if a man proposes to do nothing 
 but work with his muscles, he had better dig three tons 
 of coal and set that to do his work and then die, be- 
 cause his work will be better done, and without any cost 
 for the maintenance of the doer. 
 
 Come down below the color vibrations, and we shall 
 find that those which are too infrequent to be visible, 
 manifest as heat. Katurally there will be as many dif- 
 ferent kinds of heat as tints of color, because there is as 
 great a range of numbers of vibration. It is our priv- 
 ilege to sift them apart and sort them over, and find 
 what kinds are best adapted to our various uses. 
 
 Take an electric lamp, giving a strong beam of light 
 and heat, and with a plano-convex lens gather it into a 
 single beam and direct it upon a thermometer, twenty 
 feet away, that is made of glass and filled with air. The 
 
32 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 expansion or contraction of this air will indicate the 
 varying amounts of heat. Watch your air-thermometer, 
 on which the beam of heat is pouring, for the result. 
 There is none. And yet there is a strong current of 
 heat there. Put another kind of test of heat beyond 
 it and it appears ; coat the air-thermometer with a bit 
 of black cloth, and that will absorb heat and reveal it. 
 But why not at first ? Because the glass lens stops all 
 the heat that can affect glass. The twenty feet of air 
 absorbs all the heat that affects air, and no kind of heat 
 is left to affect an instrument made of glass and air ; 
 but there are kinds of heat enough to affect instruments 
 made of other things. 
 
 A very strong current of heat may be sent right 
 through the heart of a block of ice without melting the 
 ice at all or cooling off the heat in the least. It is done 
 in this way : Send the beam of heat through water in 
 a glass trough, and this absorbs all the heat that can 
 affect water or ice, getting itself hot, and leaving all 
 other kinds of heat to go through the ice beyond ; and 
 appropriate tests show that as much heat comes out on 
 the other side as goes in on this side, and it does not 
 melt the ice at all. Gunpowder may be exploded by 
 heat sent through ice. Dr. Kane, years ago, made this 
 experiment. He was coming down from the north, 
 and fell in with some Esquimaux, whom he was anx- 
 ious to conciliate. He said to the old wizard of the 
 tribe, "I am a wizard; I can bring the sun down out 
 of the heavens with a piece of ice." That was a good 
 deal to say in a country where there was so little sun. 
 " So," he writes, " I took my hatchet, chipped a small 
 piece of ice into the form of a double - convex lens, 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 33 
 
 smoothed it with my warm hands, held it up to the sun, 
 and, as the old man was blind, I kindly burned a blister 
 on the back of his hand to show him I could do it." 
 
 These are simple illustrations of the various kinds of 
 heat. The best furnace or stove ever invented con- 
 sumes fifteen times as much fuel to produce a given 
 amount of heat as the furnace in our bodies consumes 
 to produce a similar amount. We lay in our supplies 
 of carbon at the breakfast, dinner, and supper table, and 
 keep ourselves warm by economically burning it with 
 the oxygen we breathe. 
 
 Heat associated with light has very different quali- 
 ties from that which is not. Sunlight melts ice in the 
 middle, bottom, and top at once. Ice in the spring-time 
 is honey-combed throughout. A piece of ice set in the 
 summer sunshine crumbles into separate crystals. Dark 
 heat only melts the surface. 
 
 Nearly all the heat of the sun passes through glass 
 without hinderance ; but take heat from white-hot plat- 
 inum and only seventy-six per cent, of it goes through 
 glass, twenty -four per cent, being so constituted that 
 it cannot pass with facility. Of heat from copper at 
 752 only six per cent, can go through glass, the other 
 ninety-four per cent, being absorbed by it. 
 
 The heat of the sunbeam goes through glass without 
 any hinderance whatever. It streams into the room 
 as freely as if there were no glass there. But what if 
 the furnace or stove heat went through glass with equal 
 facility ? We might as well try to heat our rooms with 
 the window-panes all out, and the blast of winter sweep- 
 ing through them. 
 
 The heat of the sun, by its intense vibrations, comes 
 
 2* 
 
M CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 to the earth dowered with a power which pierces the 
 miles of our atmosphere, but if our air were as pervious 
 to the heat of the earth, this heat would fly away every 
 night, and our temperature would go down to 200 be- 
 low zero. This heat comes with the light, and then, 
 dissociated from it, the number of its vibrations lessen- 
 ed, it is robbed of its power to get away, and remains 
 to work its beneficent ends for our good. 
 
 Worlds that are so distant as to receive only -foVff ^ 
 the heat we enjoy, may have atmospheres that retain it 
 all. Indeed it is probable that Mars, that receives but 
 one-quarter as much heat as the earth, has a tempera- 
 ture as high as ours. The poet drew on his imagination 
 when he wrote : 
 
 " Who there inhabit must have other powers, 
 Juices, and veins, and sense and life than ours ; 
 One moment's cold like theirs would pierce the bone, 
 Freeze the heart's blood, and turn us all to stone." 
 
 The 'power that journeys along the celestial spaces 
 in the flashing sunshine is beyond our comprehension. 
 It accomplishes with ease what man strives in vain to 
 do with all his strength. At West Point there are some 
 links of a chain that was stretched across the river to 
 prevent British ships from ascending; these links were 
 made of two-and-a-quarter-inch iron. A powerful loco- 
 motive might tug in vain at one of them and not stretch 
 it the thousandth part of an inch. But the heat of a 
 single gas-burner, that glows with the preserved sun- 
 light of other ages, when suitably applied to the link, 
 stretches it with ease ; such enormous power has a little 
 heat. There is a certain iron bridge across the Thames 
 at London, resting on arches. The warm sunshine, act- 
 
FORCES OF THE SUNBEAM. 35 
 
 ing upon the iron, stations its particles farther and far- 
 ther apart. Since the bottom cannot give way the 
 arches must rise in the middle. As they become long- 
 er they lift the whole bridge, and all the thundering 
 locomotives and miles of goods-trains cannot bring that 
 bridge down again until the power of the sunshine has 
 been withdrawn. There is Bunker Hill Monument, 
 thirty-two feet square at the base, with an elevation of 
 two hundred and twenty feet. The sunshine of every 
 summer's day takes hold of tbat mighty pile of granite 
 with its aerial fingers, lengthens the side affected, and 
 bends the whole great mass as easily as one would bend 
 a whipstock. A few years ago we hung a plummet from 
 the top of this monument to the bottom. At 9 A.M. it 
 began to move toward the west; at noon it swung 
 round toward the north ; in the afternoon it went east 
 of where it first was, and in the night it settled back to 
 its original place. 
 
 The sunshine says to the sea, held in the grasp of 
 gravitation, " Rise from your bed ! Let millions of tons 
 of water fly on the wings of the viewless air, hundreds 
 of miles to the distant mountains, and pour there those 
 millions of tons that shall refresh a whole continent, 
 and shall gather in rivers fitted to bear the commerce 
 and the navies of nations." Gravitation says, " I will 
 hold every particle of this ocean as near the centre of 
 the earth as I can." Sunshine speaks with its word of 
 power, and says, " Up and away !" And in the wreath- 
 ing mists of morning these myriads of tons rise in the 
 air, fly away hundreds of miles, and supply all the Ni- 
 agaras, Mississippis and Amazons of earth. The sun 
 says to the earth, wrapped in the mantle of winter, 
 
36 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 " Bloom again ;" and the snows melt, the ice retires, 
 and vegetation breaks forth, birds sing, and spring is 
 about us. 
 
 Thus it is evident that every force is constitutional- 
 ly arranged to be overcome by a higher, and all by the 
 highest. Gravitation of earth naturally and legitimate- 
 ly yields to the power of the sun's heat, and then the 
 waters fly into the clouds. It as naturally and legiti- 
 mately yields to the power of mind, and the waters of 
 the Ked Sea are divided and stand " upright as an heap." 
 Water naturally bursts into flame when a bit of potas- 
 sium is thrown into it, and as naturally when Elijah 
 calls the right kind of fire from above. What seems 
 a miracle, and in contravention of law, is only the con- 
 stitutional exercise of higher force over forces organ- 
 ized to be swayed. If law were perfectly rigid, there 
 could be but one force ; but many grades exist from 
 cohesion to mind and spirit. The highest forces are 
 meant to have victory, and thus give the highest order 
 and perfectness. 
 
 Across the astronomic spaces reach all these powers, 
 making creation a perpetual process rather than a single 
 act. It almost seems as if light, in its varied capacities, 
 were the embodiment of God's creative power; as if, 
 having said, " Let there be light," he need do nothing 
 else, but allow it to carry forward the creative processes 
 to the end of time. It was Newton, one of the earliest 
 and most acute investigators in this study of light, who 
 said, " I seem to have wandered on the shore of Truth's 
 great ocean, and to have gathered a few pebbles more 
 beautiful than common ; but the vast ocean itself rolls 
 before me undiscovered and unexplored." 
 
EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 37 
 
 EXPERIMENTS WITH LIGHT. 
 
 A light set in a room is seen from every place ; hence light streams in 
 every possible direction. If put in the centre of a hollow sphere, every 
 point of the surface will be equally illumined. If put in a sphere of 
 twice the diameter, the same light will fall on all the larger surface. The 
 surfaces of spheres are as the squares of their diameters ; hence, in the 
 larger sphere the surface is illumined only one -quarter as much as the 
 smaller. The same is true of large and small rooms. In Fig. 7 it is ap- 
 
 Fig. 7. 
 
 parent that the light that falls on the first square is spread, at twice the 
 distance, over the second square, which is four times as large, and at three 
 times the distance over nine times the surface. The van-ing amount of 
 light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above each world, 
 the amount received by the earth being 1. 
 
 Fig. 8. Measuring Intensities of Lights. 
 
 The intensity of light is easily measured. Let two lights of different 
 brightness, as in Fig. 8, cast shadows on the same screen. Arrange them 
 as to distance so that both shadows shall be equally dark. Let them fall 
 side by side, and study them carefully. Measure the respective distances. 
 Suppose one is twenty inches, the other forty. Light varies as the square 
 
38 CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 of the distance : the square of 20 is 400, of 40 is 1600. Divide 1600 by 
 400, and the result is that one light is four times as bright as the other. 
 
 Light can be handled, directed, and bent, as well as iron bars. Darken 
 a room and admit a beam of sunlight through a shutter, or a ray of lamp- 
 light through the key-hole. If there is dust in the room it will be observed 
 that light goes in straight lines. Because of this men are able to arrange 
 houses and trees in rows, the hunter aims his rifle correctly, and the as- 
 tronomer projects straight lines to infinity. Take a hand-mirror, or bet- 
 
 Fig. 9 Reflection and Diffusion of Ligh 
 
 ter, a piece of glass coated on one side with black varnish, and you can 
 send your ray anywhere. By using two mirrors, or having an assistant 
 and using several, you can cause a ray of light to turn as many corners 
 as you please. I once saw Mr. Tyndall send a ray into a glass jar filled 
 with smoke (Fig. 9). Admitting a slender ray through a small hole in a 
 card over the mouth, one ray appeared ; removing the cover, the whole 
 jar was luminous ; as the smoke disappeared in spots cavities of dark- 
 ness appeared. Turn the same ray into a tumbler of water, it becomes 
 
EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 39 
 
 faintly visible ; stir into it a teaspoonful of milk, then turn in the ray of 
 sunlight, and it glows like a lamp, illuminating the whole room. These 
 experiments show how the straight rays of the sun are diffused in every 
 direction over the earth. 
 
 Set a small light near one edge of a mirror ; then, by putting the eye 
 near the opposite edge, you see almost as many flames as you please from 
 the multiplied reflections. How can this be accounted for ? 
 
 Into your beam of sunlight, admitted through a half-inch hole, put the 
 mirror at an oblique angle ; you can arrange it so as to throw half a dozen 
 bright spots on the opposite wall. 
 
 In Fig. 10 the sunbeam enters at A, and, striking the mirror m at a, 
 is partly reflected to 1 on the wall, and partly enters the glass, passes 
 
 Fig. 10. Mauifold Reflections. 
 
 through to the silvered back at B, and is totally reflected to 6, where it 
 again divides, some of it going to the wall at 2, and the rest, continuing 
 to make the same reflections and divisions, causes spots 3, 4, 5, etc. The 
 brightest spot is at No. 2, because the silvered glass at B is the best re- 
 flector and has the most light. 
 
 When the discovery of the moons of Mars was announced in 1877, it 
 was also widely published that they could be seen by a mirror. Of course 
 this is impossible. The point of light mistaken for the moon in this sec- 
 ondary reflection was caused by holding the mirror in an oblique position. 
 
 Take a small piece of mirror, say an inch in surface, and putting under 
 it three little pellets of wax, putty, or clay, set it on the wrist, with one of 
 the pellets on the pulse. Hold the mirror steadily in the beam of ligM, 
 and the frequency and prominence of each pulse-beat will be indicated by 
 the tossing spot of light on the Avail. If the operator becomes excited 
 the fact will be evident to all observers. 
 
 Place a coin in a basin (Fig. 11), and set it so that the rim will con- 
 ceal the coin from the eye. Pour in water, and the coin will appear 
 
CREATIVE PROGRESS. 
 
 Fig. 11. 
 
 to rise into sight. When light passes 
 from a medium of one density to a 
 medium of another, its direction is 
 changed. Thus a stick in water seems 
 bent. Ships below the horizon are 
 sometimes seen above, because of the 
 
 different density of the layers of air. 
 
 Thus light coming from the interstellar spaces, and entering our atmos- 
 phere, is bent down more and more by its increasing density. The effect 
 is greatest when the sun or star is near the horizon, none at all in the 
 zenith. This brings the object into view before it is risen. Allowance 
 for this displacement is made in all delicate astronomical observations. 
 
 Fig. 12. Atmospherical Refraction. 
 
 Notice on the floor the shadow of the window-frames. The glass of 
 almost every window is so bent as to turn the sunlight aside enough to 
 obliterate some of the shadows or increase their thickness. 
 
 DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT. 
 
 Admit the sunbeam through a slit one inch long and one-twentieth of 
 an inch wide. Pass it through a prism. Either purchase one or make it 
 of three plain pieces of glass one and a half inch wide by six inches long, 
 fastened together in triangular shape fasten the edges with hot wax and 
 fill it with water ; then on a screen or wall you will have the colors of the 
 rainbow, not merely seven but seventy, if your eyes are sharp enough. 
 
 Take a bit of red paper that matches the red color of the spectrum. 
 Move it along the line of colors toward the violet. In the orange it is 
 dark, in the yellow darker, in the green and all beyond, black. That is 
 because there are no more red rays to be reflected by it. So a green ob- 
 ject is true to its color only in the green rays, and black elsewhere. All 
 these colors may be recombined by a second prism into white light. 
 
III. 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 The eyes of the Lord are in every place." Proverbs xv. 
 
"Man, having one kind of an eye given him by his Maker, proceeds to 
 construct two other kinds. He makes one that magnifies invisible objects 
 thousands of times, so that a dull razor-edge appears as thick as three 
 fingers, until the amazing beauty of color and form in infinitesimal ob- 
 jects is entrancingly apparent, and he knows that God's care of least 
 things is infinite. Then he makes the other kind four or six feet in di- 
 ameter, and penetrates the immensities of space thousands of tines be- 
 yond where his natural eye can pierce, until he sees that God s immensi- 
 ties of worlds are infinite also." BISHOP FOSTER. 
 
THE TELESCOPE. 43 
 
 III. 
 THE TELESCOPE. 
 
 FREQFEXT allusion has been made in the previous 
 chapter to discovered results. It is necessary to under- 
 stand more clearly the process by which such results 
 have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments 
 are of the simplest character, some most delicate and 
 complex. "Vyhen a man smokes a piece of glass, in or- 
 der to see an eclipse of the sun, he makes a simple 
 instrument. Ferguson, lying on his back and slipping 
 beads on a string at a certain distance above his eye, 
 measured the relative distances of the stars. The use 
 of more complex instruments commenced when Galileo 
 applied the telescope to the heavens. He cannot be said 
 to have invented the telescope, but he certainly con- 
 structed his own without a pattern, and used it to good 
 purpose. It consists of a lens, O B (Fig. 13), which 
 
 ^ 
 
 B 
 
 Fig. 13. Refracting Telescope. 
 
 acts as a multiple prism to bend all the rays to one 
 point at R. Place the eye there, and it receives as 
 much light as if it were as large as the lens O B. The 
 rays, however, are convergent, and the point difficult to 
 
44 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 find. Hence there is placed at R a concave lens, pass- 
 ing through which the rays emerge in parallel lines, and 
 are received by the eye. Opera-glasses are made upon 
 precisely this principle to-day, because they can be made 
 conveniently short. 
 
 If, instead of a concave lens at R, converting the con- 
 verging rays into parallel ones, we place a convex or 
 magnifying lens, the minute image is enlarged as much 
 as an object seems diminished when the telescope is 
 reversed. This is the grand principle of the refracting 
 telescope. Difficulties innumerable arise as we attempt 
 to enlarge the instruments. These have been over- 
 come, one after another, until it is now felt that the 
 best modern telescope, with an object lens of twenty-six 
 inches, has fully reached the limit of optical power. 
 
 The Reflecting Telescope. 
 
 This is the only kind of instrument differing radi- 
 cally from the refracting one already described. It re- 
 ceives the light in a concave mirror, M (Fig. 14), which 
 
 Fig. 14. Reflecting Telescope. 
 
 reflects it to the focus F, producing the same result as 
 the lens of the refracting telescope. At B a mirror 
 may be placed obliquely, reflecting the image at right 
 angles to the eye, outside the tube, in which case it is 
 called the Newtonian telescope ; or a mirror at R may 
 be placed perpendicularly, and send the rays through 
 
THE REFLECT IX <r TELESCOPE. 45 
 
 an opening in the mirror at M. This form is called the 
 Gregorian telescope. Or the mirror M may be slightly 
 inclined to the coining rays, so as to bring the point F 
 entirely outside the tube, in which case it is called the 
 Herschelian telescope. In either case the image may 
 be magnified, as in the refracting telescope. 
 
 Reflecting telescopes are made of all sizes, up to the 
 Cyclopean eye of the one constructed by Lord Rosse, 
 which is six feet in diameter. The form of instru- 
 ment to be preferred depends on the use to which it is 
 to be put. The loss of light in passing through glass 
 lenses is about two -tenths. The loss by reflection is 
 often one-half. In view of this peculiarity and many 
 others, it is held that a twenty-six-inch refractor is fully 
 equal to any six-foot reflector. 
 
 The mounting of large telescopes demands the high- 
 est engineering ability. The whole instrument, with 
 its vast weight of a twenty-six-inch glass lens, with its 
 accompanying tube and appurtenances, must be pointed 
 as nicely as a rifle, and held as steadily as the axis of 
 the globe. To give it the required steadiness, the foun- 
 dation on which it is placed is sunk deep in the earth, 
 far from rail or other roads, and no part of the observ- 
 atory is allowed to touch this support. When a star is 
 once found, the earth swiftly rotates the telescope away 
 from it, and it passes out of the field. To avoid this, 
 clock-work is so arranged that the great telescope fol- 
 lows the star by the hour, if required. It will take a 
 star at its eastern rising, and hold it constantly in view 
 while it climbs to the meridian and sinks in the west 
 iFig. 15). The reflector demands still more difficult en- 
 gineering. That of Lord Rosse has a metallic mirror 
 
4:6 
 
 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 Fig. 15, Cambridge Equatorial. 
 
 weighing six tons, a tube fifty-six feet long, which, with 
 its appurtenances, weighs seven tons more. It moves 
 between two walls only 20 east and west. The new 
 Paris reflector (Fig. 16) has a much wider range of 
 movement 
 
 The Spectroscope. 
 
 A spectrum is a collection of the colors which are 
 dispersed by a prism from any given light. If it is sun- 
 light, it is a solar spectrum; if the source of light is a 
 
Fiji. 16. New Paris Reflector. 
 
THE SPECTROSCOPE. 49 
 
 star, candle, glowing metal, or gas, it is the spectrum of 
 a star, candle, glowing metal, or gas. An instrument 
 to see these spectra is called a spectroscope. Consider- 
 ing the infinite variety of light, and its easy modifica- 
 tion and absorption, we should expect an immense 
 number of spectra. A mere prism disperses the light 
 so imperfectly that different orders of vibrations, per- 
 ceived as colors, are mingled. No eye can tell where 
 one commences or ends. Such a spectrum is said to 
 be impure. What we want is that each point in the 
 spectrum should be made of rays of the same number 
 of vibrations. As we can let only a small beam of light 
 pass through the prism, in studying celestial objects with 
 a telescope and spectroscope we must, in every instance, 
 contract the aperture 
 of the instrument un- 
 til we get only a small 
 beam of light. In or- 
 der to have the colors 
 thoroughly dispersed, 
 the best instruments 
 pass the beam of light 
 through a series of 
 prisms called a bat- 
 tery, each one spread- 
 ing farther the colors 
 which the previous 
 ones had spread. In 
 Fig. 17 the ray is seen 
 
 . . . Fig. 17 Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms. 
 
 entering through the 
 
 telescope A, which renders the rays parallel, and pass- 
 ing through the prisms out to telescope B, where the 
 
 3 
 
50 
 
 ASTR GNOMICAL IN8TR UMENTS. 
 
 spectrum can be examined on the retina of the eye for 
 a screen. In order to still farther disperse the rays, 
 some batteries receive the ray from the last prism at 
 upon an oblique mirror, send it up a little to another, 
 which delivers it again to the prism to make its journey 
 back again through them all, and come out to be ex- 
 amined just above where it entered the first prism. 
 
 Attached to the examining telescope is a diamond- 
 ruled scale of glass, enabling us to fix the position of 
 any line with great exactness. 
 
 In Fig. 18 is seen, in the lower part, a spectrum of 
 the sun, with about a score of its thousands of lines 
 
 D 
 
 II h O F c ft E DCBA 
 
 Fig. IS. Spectra of glowing Hydrogen nnd the Sun. 
 
 made evident. In the upper part is seen the spectrum 
 of bright lines given by glowing hydrogen gas. These 
 lines are given by no other known gas; they are its 
 autograph. It is readily observed that they precisely 
 correspond with certain dark lines in the solar spec- 
 trum. Hence we easily know that a glowing gas gives 
 the same bright lines that it absorbs from the light of 
 another source passing through it that is, glowing 
 gas gives out the same rays of light that it absorbs 
 when it is not glowing. 
 
 The subject becomes clearer by a study of the chro- 
 molithic plate. No. 1 represents the solar spectrum, 
 with a few of its lines on an accurately graduated scale. 
 
THE SPECTROSCOPE. 51 
 
 No. 3 shows the bright line of glowing sodium, and, 
 corresponding to a dark line in the solar spectrum, shows 
 the presence of salt in that body. No. 2 shows that 
 potassium has some violet rays, but not all ; and there 
 being, no dark line to correspond in the solar spectrum, 
 we infer its absence from the sun. No. 6 shows the 
 numerous lines and bands of barium several red, 
 orange, yellow, and four are very bright green ones. 
 The lines given by any volatilized substances are al- 
 ways in the same place on the scale. 
 
 A patient study of these signs of substances reveals 
 richer results than a study of the coniform characters 
 engraved on Assyrian slabs; for one is the handwri- 
 ting of men, the other the handwriting of God. 
 
 One of the most difficult and delicate problems solved 
 by the spectroscope is the approach or departure of a 
 light-giving body in the line of sight. Stand before a 
 locomotive a mile away, you cannot tell whether it ap- 
 proaches or recedes, yet it will dash by in a minute. 
 How can the movements of the stars be comprehended 
 when they are at such an immeasurable distance? 
 
 It can best be illustrated by music. The note C of 
 the G clef is made by two hundred and fifty-seven vi- 
 brations of air per second. Twice as many vibrations 
 per second would give us the note C an octave above. 
 Sound travels at the rate of three hundred and sixty- 
 four yards per second. If the source of these two hun- 
 dred and fifty -seven vibrations could approach us at 
 three hundred and sixty-four yards per second, it is ob- 
 vious that twice as many waves would be put into a 
 given space, and we should hear the upper C when only 
 waves enough were made for the lower C. The same 
 
52 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 result would appear if we carried our ear toward the 
 sound fast enough to take up twice as many waves as 
 though we stood still. This is apparent to every ob- 
 server in a railway train. The whistle of an approach- 
 ing locomotive gives one tone; it passes, and we in- 
 stantly detect another. Let two trains, running at a 
 speed of thirty-six yards a second, approach each oth- 
 er. Let the whistle of one sound the note E, three 
 hundred and twenty -three vibrations per second. It 
 will be heard on the other as the note G, three hun- 
 dred and eighty- eight vibrations per second; for the 
 speed of each train crowds the vibrations into one-tenth 
 less room, adding 32 + vibrations per second, making 
 three hundred and eighty-eight in all. The trains pass. 
 The vibrations are put into one -tenth more space by 
 the whistle making them, and the other train allows 
 only nine-tenths of what there are to overtake the ear. 
 Each subtracts 32+ vibrations from three hundred and 
 twenty-three, leaving only two hundred and fifty-eight, 
 which is the note C. Yet the note E was constantly 
 uttered. 
 
 If a source of light approach or depart, it will have a 
 similar effect on the light waves. How shall we detect 
 it ? If a star approach us, it puts a greater number of 
 waves into an inch, and shortens their length. If it re- 
 cedes, it increases the length of the wave puts a less 
 number into an inch. If a body giving only the num- 
 ber of vibrations we call green were to approach suf- 
 ficiently fast, it would crowd in vibrations enough to 
 appear what we call blue, indigo, or even violet, accord- 
 ing to its speed. If it receded sufficiently fast, it would 
 leave behind it only vibrations enough to fill up the 
 
1. Solar Spectrum. 
 
 2. Spectrum of Potassium 
 
 3. Spectrum, 
 4 Spectrum o 
 
 Harper fc-Brotli 
 
of Sodium 
 of Strontium.. 
 
 .tiers .Kew York, 
 
 5. Spectrum of Calcium 
 
 6. Spectrum, of Barium 
 
THE SPECTROSCOPE. 53 
 
 space with what we call yellow, orange, or red, accord- 
 ing to its speed ; yet it would be green, and green only, 
 all the time. But how detect the change? If red waves 
 are shortened they become orange in color; and from 
 below the red other rays, too far apart to be seen by the 
 eye, being shortened, become visible as red, and we can- 
 not know that anything has taken place. So, if a star 
 recedes fast enough, violet vibrations being lengthened 
 become indigo ; and from above the violet other rays, 
 too short to be seen, become lengthened into visible vio- 
 let, and we can detect no movement of the colors. The 
 dark lines of the spectrum are the cutting out of rays 
 of definite wave-lengths. If the color spectrum moves 
 away, they move with it, and away from their proper 
 place in the ordinary spectrum. If, then, we find them 
 toward the red end, the star is receding ; if toward the 
 violet end, it is approaching. Turn the instrument on 
 the centre of the sun. The dark lines take their appro- 
 priate place, and are recognized on the ruled scale. Turn 
 it on one edge, that is approaching us one and a quarter 
 miles a second by the revolution of the sun on its axis, 
 the spectral lines move toward the violet end ; turn the 
 spectroscope toward the other edge of the sun, it is re- 
 ceding from us one and a quarter miles a second by 
 reason of the axial revolution, and the spectral lines 
 move toward the red end. Turn it near the spots, and 
 it reveals the mighty up -rush in one place and the 
 down-rush in another of one hundred miles a second. 
 We speak of it as an easy matter, but it is a problem of 
 the greatest delicacy, almost defying the mind of man 
 to read the movements of matter. 
 
 It should be recognized that Professor Young, of 
 
54 ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 Princeton, is the most successful operator in this recent 
 realm of science. He already proposes to correct the 
 former estimate of the sun's axial revolutions, derived 
 from observing its spots, by the surer process of observ- 
 ing accelerated and retarded light. 
 
 Within a very few years this wonderful instrument, 
 the spectroscope, has made amazing discoveries. In 
 chemistry it reveals substances never known before ; 
 in analysis it is delicate to the detection of the mill- 
 ionth of a grain. It is the most deft handmaid of 
 chemistry, the arts, of medical science, and astronomy. 
 It tells the chemical constitution of the sun, the move- 
 ments taking place, the nature of comets, and nebulae. 
 By the spectroscope we know that the atmospheres of 
 Venus and Mars are .like our own ; that those of Jupi- 
 ter and Saturn are very unlike ; it tells us which stars 
 approach and which recede, and just how one star dif- 
 fereth from another in glory and substance. 
 
 In the near future we shall have the brilliant and 
 diversely colored flowers of the sky as well classified 
 into orders and species as are the flowers of the earth. 
 
CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted 
 out heaven with the span ? Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of 
 the earth, and my rigni hand hath spanned the heavens." Isa. xl. 12; 
 xlviii. 13. 
 
6 * Go to yon tower, where busy science plies 
 Her vast antennae, feeling thro 1 the skies ; 
 That little vernier, on whose slender lines 
 The midnight taper tremhles as it shines, 
 A silent index, tracks the planets' inarch 
 In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch, 
 Tells through the mist whd'd cazzled Mercury burns, 
 And marks the spot where Uranus returns. 
 
 " So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, 
 The living index which thy Maker traced 
 Kepeats the line each starry virtue draws 
 Through the wide circuit of creation's laws : 
 Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray 
 Where the dark shadows of temptation stray ; 
 But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, 
 And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night." 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 57 
 
 IY. 
 
 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 WE know that astronomy lias what are called practi- 
 cal uses. If a ship had been driven by Euroclydon ten 
 times fourteen days and nights without sun or star ap- 
 pearing, a moment's glance into the clear sky from the 
 heaving deck, by a very slightly educated sailor, would 
 tell within one hundred rods where he was, and de- 
 termine the distance and way to the nearest port. We 
 know that, in all final and exact surveying, positions 
 must be fixed by the stars. Earth's landmarks are un- 
 certain and easily removed ; those which we get from, 
 the heavens are stable and exact. 
 
 In 1878 the United States steam -ship Enterprise 
 was sent to survey the Amazon. Every night a " star 
 party" went ashore to fix the exact latitude and lon- 
 gitude by observations of the stars. Our real land- 
 marks are not the pillars we rear, but the stars millions 
 of miles away. All our standards of time are taken 
 from the stars ; every railway train runs by their time 
 to avoid collision ; by them all factories start and stop. 
 Indeed, we are ruled by the stars even more than the 
 old astrologers imagined. 
 
 Man's finest mechanism, highest thought, and broad- 
 est exercise of the creative faculty have been inspired 
 by astronomy. No other instruments approximate in 
 delicacy those which explore the heavens; no other 
 
58 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 system of thought can draw such vast and certain con- 
 clusions from its premises. " Too low they build who 
 build beneath the stars ;" we should lay our foundations 
 in the skies, and then build upward. 
 
 We have been placed on the outside of this earth, in- 
 stead of the inside, in order that we may look abroad. 
 We are carried about, through unappreciable distance, 
 at the inconceivable velocity of one thousand miles a 
 minute, to give us different points of vision. The 
 earth, on its softly-spinning axle, never jars enough to 
 unnest a bird or wake a child ; hence the foundations 
 of our observatories are firm, and our measurements ex- 
 act. Whoever studies astronomy, under proper guid- 
 ance and in the right spirit, grows in thought and feel- 
 ing, and becomes more appreciative of the Creator. 
 
 Celestial Movements. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that a mastery of mathematics 
 and a finished education are necessary to understand the 
 results of astronomical research. It took at first the 
 highest power of mind to make the discoveries that 
 are now laid at the feet of the lowliest. It took sublime 
 faith, courage, and the results of ages of experience in 
 navigation, to enable Columbus to discover that path to 
 the New World which now any little boat can follow. 
 Ages of experience and genius are stored up in a loco- 
 motive, but quite an unlettered man can drive it. It 
 is the work of genius to render difficult matters plain, 
 abstruse thoughts clear. 
 
 A brief explanation of a few terms will make the prin- 
 ciples of world inspection easily understood. Imagine 
 a perfect circle thirty feet in diameter that is, create 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 59 
 
 one (Fig. 19). Draw through it a diameter horizontally, 
 another perpendicularly. The angles 
 made by the intersecting lines are each 
 said to be ninety degrees, marked thus . 
 The arc of a circle included between any 
 two of the lines is also 90. Every cir- 
 cle, great or small, is divided into these 
 360. If the sun rose in the east and 
 came to the zenith at noon, it would have passed 90. 
 When it set in the west it would have traversed half the 
 circle, or 180. In Fig. 20 the angle of the lines meas- 
 
 
 Fig. 20. Illustration of Angles. 
 
 ured on the graduated arc is 10. The mountain is 10 
 high, the world 10 in diameter, the comet moves 10 a 
 day, the stars are 10 apart. The height of the moun- 
 tain, the diameter of the world, the velocity of the 
 comet, and the distance between the stars, depend on the 
 distance of each from the point of sight. Every degree 
 is divided into 60 minutes (marked '), and every minute 
 into 60 seconds (marked "). 
 
 Imagine yourself inside a perfect sphere one hundred 
 feet in diameter, with the interior surface above, around, 
 and below studded with fixed bright points like stars. 
 The familiar constellations of night might be blazoned 
 there in due proportion. 
 
 If this star-sprent sphere were made to revolve once 
 in twenty-four hours, all the stars would successively 
 
60 . CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 pass in review. How easily we could measure distances 
 between stars, from a certain fixed meridian, or the 
 equator! How easily we could tell when any particular 
 star would culminate ! It is as easy to take all these 
 measurements when our earthly observatory is steadi- 
 ly revolved within the sphere of circumambient stars. 
 Stars can be mapped as readily as the streets of a great 
 city. Looking down on it in the night, one could trace 
 the lines of lighted streets, and judge something of its 
 extent and regularity. But the few lamps of even- 
 ing would suggest little of the greatness of the public 
 buildings, the magnificent enterprise and commerce of 
 its citizens, or the intelligence of its scholars. Looking 
 up to the lamps of the celestial city, one can judge 
 something of its extent and regularity ; but they sug- 
 gest little of the magnificence of the many mansions. 
 
 Stars are reckoned as so many degrees, minutes, and 
 seconds from each other, from the zenith, or from a giv- 
 en meridian, or from the equator. Thus the stars called 
 the Pointers, in the Great Bear, are 5 apart ; the near- 
 est one is 29 from the Pole Star, which is some 40 
 above the horizon at Philadelphia. In going to Eng- 
 land you creep up toward the north end of the earth, 
 till the Pole Star is 54 high. It stays near its place 
 among the stars continually, 
 
 "Of whose true-fixed and resting quality 
 There is no fellow in the firmament." 
 
 How to Measure. 
 
 Suppose a telescope, fixed to a mural circle, to revolve 
 on an axis, as in Fig. 21 ; point it horizontally at a star ; 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 
 
 61 
 
 turn it up perpendicular to another star. Of course 
 the two stars are 90 apart, and the graduated scale, 
 which is attached to the outer edge of the circle, shows 
 a revolution of a quarter circle, or 90. But a perfect 
 accuracy of measurement must be sought ; for to mis- 
 take the breadth of a hair, seen at the distance of one 
 hundred and twenty-five feet, would cause an error of 
 3,000,000 miles at the distance of the sun, and iru- 
 
 Fig. 521. Mural Circle. 
 
 mensely more at the distance of the stars. The cor- 
 rection of an inaccuracy of no greater magnitude than 
 that has reduced our estimate of the distance of our 
 sun 3,000,000 miles. 
 
 Consider the nicety of the work. Suppose the grad- 
 uated scale to be thirty feet in circumference. Divided 
 into 360, each would be one inch long. Divide each 
 degree into 60', each one is ^ of an inch long. It takes 
 good eyesight to discern it. But each minute must be 
 
62 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 divided into 60", and these must not only be noted, but 
 even tenths and Irundredths of seconds must be discern- 
 ed. Of course they are not seen by the naked eye; 
 some mechanical contrivance must be called in to assist. 
 A watch loses two minutes a week, and hence is unrelia- 
 ble. It is taken to a watch-maker that every single sec- 
 ond may be quickened -rnrliru P ai 't of itself. Now YTroinr 
 part of a second would be a small interval of time to 
 measure, but it must be under control. ' If the tempera- 
 ture of a summer morning rises ten or twenty degrees 
 we scarcely notice it ; but the magnetic tasimeter meas- 
 ures -soVo- of' a degree. 
 
 Come to earthly matters. In 1874, after nearly 
 twenty -eight years' work, the State of Massachusetts 
 opened a tunnel nearly five miles long through the 
 Iloosac Mountains. In the early part of the work the 
 engineers sunk a shaft near the middle 1028 feet deep. 
 Then the question to be settled was where to go so as 
 to meet the approaching excavations from the east and 
 west. A compass could not be relied on under a moun- 
 tain. The line must be mechanically fixed. A little 
 divergence at the starting-point would become so great, 
 miles away, that the excavations might pass each other 
 without meeting; the grade must also rise toward the 
 central shaft, and fall in working away from it ; but the 
 lines were fixed with such infinitesimal accuracy that, 
 when the one going west from the eastern portal and 
 the one going east from the shaft met in the heart of 
 the mountain, the western line was only one-eighth of 
 an inch too high, and three-sixteenths of an inch too far 
 north. To reach this perfect result they had to trian- 
 gulate from the eastern portal to distant mountain 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 
 
 63 
 
 peaks, and thence down the valley to the central shaft, 
 and thus fix the direction of the proposed line across 
 the mouth of the shaft. Plumb-lines were then drop- 
 ped one thousand and twenty-eight feet, and thus the 
 line at the bottom was fixed. 
 
 Three attempts were made in 1867, 1870, and 1872 
 to fix the exact time-distance between Greenwich and 
 Washington. These three separate efforts do not differ 
 one-tenth of a second. Such demonstrable results on 
 earth greatly increase our confidence in similar measure- 
 ments in the skies. 
 
 A scale is frequently affixed to a pocket -rule, by 
 which we can easily measure one-hundredth of an inch 
 (Fig. 22). The upper and lower line is 
 divided into tenths of an inch. Ob- 
 serve the slanting line at the right hand. 
 It leans from the perpendicular one- 
 tenth of an inch, as shown by noticing 
 where it reaches the top line. When 
 it reaches the second horizontal line it 
 has left the perpendicular one-tenth of that tenth that 
 is, one-hundredth. The intersection marks -?& of an 
 inch from one end, and one-hundredth from the other. 
 
 When division-lines, on measures of great nicety, get 
 too fine to be read by the eye, we use the microscope. 
 By its means we are able to count 112,000 lines ruled 
 on a glass plate within an inch. The smallest object 
 that can be seen by a keen eye makes an angle of 40", 
 but by putting six microscopes on the scale of the tel- 
 escope on the mural circle, we are able to reach an 
 exactness of 0".l, or -g-g-Vo of an inch. This instru- 
 ment is used to measure the declination of stars, or an- 
 
 Fig. 22. 
 
G4 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 gular distance north or south of the equator. Thus a 
 star's place in two directions is exactly fixed. "When 
 the telescope is mounted on two pillars instead of the 
 face of a wall, it is called a transit instrument. This 
 is used to determine the time of transit of a star over 
 the meridian, and if the transit instrument is provided 
 with a graduated circle it can also be used for the same 
 purposes as the mural circle. Man's capacity to meas- 
 ure exactly is indicated in his ascertainment of the 
 length of waves of light. It is easy to measure the 
 three hundred feet distance between the crests of 
 storm-waves in the wide Atlantic ; easy to measure the 
 different wave-lengths of the different tones of musical 
 sounds. So men measure the lengths of the undula- 
 tions of light. The shortest is of the violet light, 154.84 
 ten-millionths of an inch. By the horizontal pendulum 
 Professor Eoot has made rainnnnnF ^ an mc ^ a PP arent - 
 The next elements of accuracy must be perfect time 
 and perfect notation of time. As has been said, we 
 get our time from the stars. Thus the infinite and 
 heavenly dominates the finite and earthly. Clocks are 
 set to the invariable sidereal time. Sidereal noon is 
 when we have turned ourselves under the point where 
 the sun crosses the equator in March, called the vernal 
 equinox. Sidereal clocks are figured to indicate twenty- 
 four hours in a day : they tick exact seconds. To map 
 stars we wish to know the exact second when they cross 
 the meridian, or the north and south line in the celestial 
 dome above us. The telescope (Fig. 21, p. 61) swings ex- 
 actly north and south. In its focus a set of fine threads 
 of spider-lines is placed (Fig. 23). The telescope is set 
 just high enough, so that by the rolling over of the earth 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 
 
 65 
 
 Fig. -23. Transit of a Star noted. 
 
 the star will come into the field jnst above the horizon- 
 tal thread. The observer 
 notes the exact second and 
 tenth of a second when the 
 star reaches each vertical 
 thread in the instrument, 
 adds together the times and 
 divides by five to get the 
 average, and the exact time 
 is reached. 
 
 But man is not reliable 
 enough to observe and record 
 with sufficient accuracy. Some, in their excitement, an- 
 ticipate its positive passage, and some cannot get their 
 slow mental machinery in motion till after it has made 
 the transit. Moreover, men fall into a habit of esti- 
 mating some numbers of tenths of a second oftener 
 than others. It will be found that a given observer 
 will say three tenths or seven tenths oftener than four 
 or eight. He is falling into ruts, and not trustworthy. 
 General O. M. Mitchel. who had been director of the 
 Cincinnati Observatory, once told one of his staff -offi- 
 cers that he was late at an appointment. " Only a 
 few minutes," said the officer, apologetically. "Sir," 
 said the general, "where I have been accustomed to 
 work, hundredths of a second are too important to be 
 neglected." And it is to the rare genius of this astron- 
 omer, and to others, that we owe the mechanical accu- 
 racy that we now attain. The clock is made to mark its 
 seconds on paper wrapped around a revolving cylinder. 
 Under the observer's fingers is an electric key. This 
 he can touch at the instant of the transit of the star 
 
66 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 over eacli wire, and thus put his observation on the same 
 line between the seconds dotted by the clock. Of course 
 these distances can be measured to minute fractional 
 parts of a second. 
 
 But it has been found that it takes an appreciable 
 time for every observer to get a thing into his head and 
 out of his finger-ends, and it takes some observers longer 
 than others. A dozen rnen, seeing an electric spark, are 
 liable to bring down their recording marks in a dozen 
 different places on the revolving paper. Hence the 
 time that it takes for each man to get a thing into his 
 head and out of his fingers is ascertained. This time is 
 called his personal equation, and is subtracted from all 
 of his observations in order to get at the true time; so 
 willing are men to be exact about material matters. 
 Can it be thought that moral and spiritual matters have 
 no precision? Thus distances east or west from any 
 given star or meridian are secured ; those north and 
 south from the equator or the zenith are as easily fixed, 
 and thus we make such accurate maps of the heavens 
 that any movements in the far-off stars so far that it 
 may take centuries to render the swiftest movements 
 appreciable may at length be recognized and account- 
 ed for. 
 
 We now come to a little study of the modes of 
 measuring distances. Create a perfect 
 square (Fig. 24); draw a diagonal line. 
 The square angles are 90, the divided 
 angles give two of 45 each. Now the 
 base A B is equal to the perpendicu- 
 
 lar A C. Now any point C, where a F\S. 24. 
 
 perpendicular, A C, and a diagonal, B C, meet will be 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 
 
 67 
 
 as far from A as B is. It makes no difference if a river 
 
 flows between A and C, and we cannot go over it; we 
 
 can measure its distance as easily as 
 
 if we could. Set a table four feet by ff/? 
 
 eight out-doors (Fig. 25) ; so arrange it / 
 
 that, looking along one end, the line / 
 
 of sight just strikes a tree the other / 
 
 side of the river. Go to the other 
 
 end, and, looking toward the tree, you 
 
 find the line of sight to the tree falls 
 
 an inch from the end of the table on 
 
 the farther side. The lines, therefore, 
 
 approach each other one inch in every 
 
 four feet, and will come together at a 
 
 tree three hundred and eighty -four ._jii 
 
 feet away. 
 
 The next process is to measure the Fig. 25. Measuring Dis- 
 height or magnitude of objects at an 
 ascertained distance. Put two pins in a stick half an 
 inch apart (Fig. 26). Hold it up two feet from the eye, 
 
 Fig. 26. Measuring Elevations. 
 
 and let the upper pin fall in line with your eye and the 
 top of a distant church steeple, and the lower pin in 
 line with the bottom of the church and your eye. If 
 the church is three-fourths of a mile away, it must be 
 eighty-two feet high ; if a mile away, it must be one 
 hundred and ten feet high. For if two lines spread 
 
68 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 one-half an inch going two feet, in going four feet they 
 will spread an inch, and in going a mile, or five thou- 
 sand two hundred and eighty feet, they will spread out 
 one -fourth as many inches, viz., thirteen hundred and 
 twenty that is, one hundred and ten feet. Of course 
 these are not exact methods of measurement, and would 
 not be correct to a hair at one hundred and twenty-five 
 feet, but they perfectly illustrate the true methods of 
 measurement. 
 
 Imagine a base line ten inches long. At each end 
 erect a perpendicular line. If they are carried to in- 
 finity they will never meet : will be forever ten inches 
 apart. But at the distance of a foot from the base line 
 incline one line toward the other TiminnroTr of an inch, 
 and the lines will come together at a distance of three 
 hundred miles. That new angle differs from the for- 
 mer right angle almost intinitesimally, but it may be 
 measured. Its value is about three-tenths of a second. 
 If we lengthen the base line from ten inches to all the 
 miles we can command, of course the point of meet- 
 ing will be proportionally more distant. The angle 
 made by the lines where they come together will be 
 obviously the same as the angle of divergence from a 
 right angle at this end. That angle is called the parallax 
 of any body, and is the angle that would be made by 
 two lines coming from that body to the two ends of 
 any conventional base, as the semi-diameter of the earth. 
 That that angle would vary according to the various dis- 
 tances is easily seen by Fig. 27. 
 
 Let O P be the base. This would subtend a greater 
 angle seen from star A than from star E. Let B be far 
 enough away, and O P would become invisible, and B 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 69 
 
 would have no parallax for that base. Thus the moon 
 has a parallax of 57' with the semi-equatorial diameter 
 of the earth for a base. And the sun has a parallax 
 8".85 on the same base. It is not necessary to confine 
 ourselves to right angles in these measurements, for the 
 same principles hold true in any angles. Now, suppose 
 two observers on the equator 
 should look at the moon at the 
 same instant. One is on the top 
 of Cotopaxi, on the west coast of 
 South America, and one on the 
 west coast of Africa. They are 
 90 apart half the earth's diam- 
 eter between them. The one on 
 Cotopaxi sees it exactly overhead, 
 at an angle of 90 with the earth's 
 diameter. The one on the coast 
 of Africa sees its angle with the 
 same line to be 89 3' that is, 
 its parallax is 57'. Try the same 
 
 experiment on the sun farther away, as is seen in Fig. 
 27, and its smaller parallax is found to be only 8".85. 
 
 It is not necessary for two observers to actually sta- 
 tion themselves at two distant parts of the earth in 
 order to determine a parallax. If an observer could go 
 from one end of the base-line to the other, he could 
 determine both angles. Every observer is actually car- 
 ried along through space by two motions : one is that 
 of the earth's revolution of one thousand miles an hour 
 around the axis ; and the other is the movement of 
 the earth around the sun of one thousand miles in a 
 minute. Hence we can have the diameter not only of 
 
70 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 the earth (eight thousand miles) for a base-line, but the 
 diameter of the earth's orbit (184,000,000 miles), or any 
 part of it, for such a base. Two observers at the ends 
 of the earth's diameter, looking at a star at the same in- 
 stant, would find that it made the same angle at both 
 ends ; it has no parallax on so short a base. We must 
 seek a longer one. Observe a certain star on the 21st 
 
 o 
 
 of March ; then let us traverse the realms of space for 
 six months, at one thousand miles a minute. We come 
 round in our orbit to a point opposite where we were 
 six months ago, with 184,000,000 of miles between the 
 points. Now, with this for a base-line, measure the an- 
 gles of the same stars : it is the same angle. Sitting 
 in my study here, I glance out of the window and dis- 
 cern separate bricks, in houses five hundred feet away, 
 with my unaided eye ; they subtend a discernible an- 
 gle. But one thousand feet away I cannot distinguish 
 individual bricks ; their width, being only two inches, 
 does not subtend an angle apprehensible to my vision. 
 So at these distant stars the earth's enormous orbit, if 
 lying like a blazing ring in space, with the world set on 
 its edge like a pearl, and the sun blazing like a diamond 
 in the centre, would all shrink to a mere point. ]S"ot 
 quite to a point from the nearest stars, or we should 
 never be able to measure the distance of any of them. 
 Professor Airy says that our orbit, seen from the nearest 
 star, would be the same as a circle six-tenths of an inch 
 in diameter seen at the distance of a mile: it would 
 all be hidden by a thread one-twenty-fifth of an inch in 
 diameter, held six hundred and fifty feet from the eye. 
 If a straight line could be drawn from a star, Sirius in 
 the east to the star Vega in the west, touching our 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 71 
 
 earth's orbit on one side, as T K A (Fig. 28), and a line 
 were to be drawn six 
 months later from 
 
 same stars, touching our B ~~-^ 
 
 earth's orbit on the oth- ^"^"^n 
 
 erside,asKBT,sucha Fi -- 28 - 
 
 line would not diverge sufficiently from a straight line 
 for us to detect its divergence. ^Numerous vain at- 
 tempts had been made, up to the year 1835, to detect 
 and measure the angle of parallax by which we could 
 rescue some one or more of the stars from the inconceiv- 
 able depths of space, and ascertain their distance from 
 us. .We are ever impelled to triumph over what is de- 
 clared to be unconquerable. There are peaks in the 
 Alps no man has ever climbed. They are assaulted 
 every year by men zealous of more worlds to conquer. 
 So these greater heights of the heavens have been as- 
 saulted, till some ambitious spirits have outsoared even 
 imagination by the certainties of mathematics. 
 
 It is obvious that if one star were three times as far 
 from us as another, the nearer one would seem to be 
 displaced by our movement in our orbit three times as 
 much as the other ; so, by comparing one star with an- 
 other, we reach a ground of judgment. The ascertain- 
 ment of longitude at sea by means of the moon affords 
 a good illustration. Along the track where the moon 
 sails, nine bright stars, four planets, and the sun have 
 been selected. The nautical almanacs give the distance 
 of the moon from these successive stars every hour in the 
 night for three years in advance. The sailor can measure 
 the distance at any time by his sextant. Looking from 
 the world at D (Fig. 29), the distance of the moon and 
 
72 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 star is A E, which is given in the almanac. Looking 
 from C, the distance is only B E, which enables even the 
 uneducated sailor to find the distance, C D, on the earth, 
 or his distance from Greenwich. 
 
 Fig. 29. Mode of Ascertaining Longitude. 
 
 So, by comparisons of the near and far stars, the ap- 
 proximate distance of a few of them has been deter- 
 mined. The nearest one is the brightest star in the 
 Centaur, seldom visible in our northern latitudes, which 
 has a parallax of about one second. The next nearest is 
 No. 61 in the Swan, or 61 Cygni, having a parallax of 
 0".34:. Approximate measurements have been made on 
 Sirius, Capella, the Pole Star, etc., about eighteen in all. 
 The distances are immense : only the swiftest agents 
 can traverse them. If our earth were suddenly to dis- 
 solve its allegiance to the king of day, and attempt a 
 flight to the North Star, and should maintain its flight 
 of one thousand miles a minute, it would fly away to- 
 ward Polaris for thousands upon thousands of years, till 
 a million years had passed away, before it reached that 
 northern dome of the distant sky, and gave its new alle- 
 giance to another sun. The sun it had left behind it 
 would gradually diminish till it was small as Arcturus, 
 then small as could be discerned by the naked eye, 
 until at last it would finally fade out in utter darkness 
 long before the new sun was reached. Light can trav- 
 erse the distance around our earth eight times in one 
 second. It comes in eight minutes from the sun, but 
 it takes three and a quarter years to come from Alpha 
 
USES OF ASTRONOMY. 73 
 
 Centauri, seven and a quarter years from 61 Cygni, and 
 forty-five years from the Polar Star. 
 
 Sometimes it happens that men steer along a lee 
 shore, dependent for direction on Polaris, that light- 
 house in the sky. Sometimes it has happened that 
 men have traversed great swamps by night when that 
 star was the light-house of freedom. In either case the 
 exigency of life and liberty was provided for forty-five 
 years before by a Providence that is divine. 
 
 We do not attempt to name in miles these enormous 
 distances ; we must seek another yard-stick. Our astro- 
 nomical unit and standard of measurement is the dis- 
 tance -of the earth from the sun 92,500,000 miles. 
 This is the golden reed with which we measure the 
 celestial city. Thus, by laying down our astronomi- 
 cal unit 226,000 times, we measure to Alpha Centauri, 
 more than twenty millions of millions of miles. Doubt- 
 less other suns are as far from Alpha Centauri and 
 each other as that is from ours. 
 
 Stars are not near or far according to their brightness. 
 61 Cygni is a telescopic star, while Sirius, the brightest 
 star in the heavens, is twice as far away from us. One 
 star differs from another star in intrinsic glory. 
 
 The highest testimonies to the accuracy of these ce- 
 lestial observations are found in the perfect predictions 
 of eclipses, transits of planets over the sun, occultation 
 of stars by the moon, and those statements of the Nau- 
 tical Almanac that enable the sailor to know exactly 
 where he is on the pathless ocean by the telling of the 
 stars : " On the trackless ocean this book is the mariner's 
 trusted friend and counsellor ; daily and nightly its 
 revelations bring safety to ships in all plirts of the 
 
74 CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 world. It is something more than a mere book ; it is 
 an ever-present manifestation of the order and harmony 
 of the universe." 
 
 Another example of this wonderful accuracy is found in 
 tracing the asteroids. Within 200,000,000 or 300,000,000 
 miles from the sun, the two hundred and one (Sep- 
 tember, 1879,) minute bodies that have been already 
 discovered move in paths very nearly the same indeed 
 two of them traverse the same orbit, being one hundred 
 and eighty degrees apart ; they look alike, yet the eye 
 of man in a few observations so determines the curve 
 of each orbit, that one is never mistaken for another. 
 But astronomy has higher uses than fixing time, estab- 
 lishing landmarks, and guiding the sailor. It greatly 
 quickens and enlarges thought, excites a desire to know, 
 leads to the utmost exactness, and ministers to adora- 
 tion and love of the Maker of the innumerable suns. 
 
THE SUN. 
 
 "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, 
 and the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars also. " Gen. i. 16. 
 
'* It is perceived that the sun of the world, with all its essence, which is 
 heat and light, flows into every tree, and into every shrub and flower, and 
 into every stone, mean as well as precious ; and that every object takes 
 its portion from this common influx, and that the sun does not divide its 
 light and heat, and dispense a part to this and a part to that. It is simi- 
 lar with the sun of heaven, from which the Divjne love proceeds as heat, 
 and the Divine wisdom as light; these two flow into human minds, as 
 the heat and light of the sun of the world into bodies, and vivify them ac- 
 cording to the quality of the minds, each of which takes from the com- 
 mon influx as much as is necessary." SWEDENBORG. 
 
THE SUN. 77 
 
 Y. 
 
 THE SUN. 
 
 SUPPOSE we had stood on the dome of Boston State- 
 house November 9th, 1872, on the night of the great 
 conflagration, and seen the fire break out; seen the en- 
 gines dash through the streets, tracking their path by 
 their sparks; seen the fire encompass a whole block, 
 leap the streets on every side, surge like the billows of 
 a storm-swept sea ; seen great masses of inflammable gas 
 rise like dark clouds from an explosion, then take fire 
 in the air, and, cut off from the fire below, float like 
 argosies of flame in space. Suppose we had felt the 
 wind that came surging from all points of the compass 
 to fan that conflagration till it was light enough a mile 
 away to see to read the finest print, hot enough to de- 
 compose the torrents of water that were dashed on it, 
 making new fuel to feed the flame. Suppose we had 
 seen this spreading fire seize on the whole city, extend 
 to its environs, and, feeding itself on the very soil, lick 
 up Worcester with its tongues of flame Albany, New 
 York, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati and crossing the 
 plains swifter than a prairie fire, making each peak of 
 the Kocky Mountains hold up aloft a separate torch of 
 flame, and the Sierras whiter with heat than they ever 
 were with snow, the waters of the Pacific resolve into 
 their constituent elements of oxygen and hydrogen, and 
 
78 ^ SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 burn with unquenchable fire! We withdraw into the 
 air, and see below a world on fire. All the prisoned 
 powers have burst into intensest activity. Quiet breezes 
 have become furious tempests. Look around this flam- 
 ing globe on fire above, below, around there is noth- 
 ing but fire. Let it roll beneath us till Boston comes 
 round again. No ember has yet cooled, no spire of 
 flame has shortened, no surging cloud has been quiet- 
 ed. Not only are the mountains still in flame, but 
 other ranges burst up out of the seething sea. There is 
 no place of rest, no place not tossing with raging flame ! 
 Yet all this is only a feeble figure of the great burn- 
 ing sun. It is but the merest hint, a million times too 
 insignificant. 
 
 The sun appears small and quiet to us because we are 
 so far away. Seen from the various planets, the rela- 
 tive size of the sun appears as in Fig. 30. Looked for 
 from some of the stars about us, the sun could not be 
 seen at all. Indeed, seen from the earth, it is not al- 
 ways the same size, because the distance is not always 
 the same. If we represent the size of the sun by one 
 thousand on the 23d of September or 21st of March, it 
 would be represented by nine hundred and sixty-seven 
 on the 1st of July, and by one thousand and thirty-four 
 on the 1st of January. 
 
 We sometimes speak of the sun as having a diameter 
 of 860,000 miles. We mean that that is the extent of 
 the body as seen by the eye. But that is a small part 
 of its real diameter. So we say the earth has an equa- 
 torial diameter of 7925 miles, and a polar one of 7899. 
 But the air is as much a part of the earth as the rocks 
 are. The electric currents are as much a part of the 
 
THE SUN. 
 
 79 
 
 earth as the ores and mountains they traverse. What 
 the diameter of the earth is, including these, no man can 
 tell. We used to say the air extended forty-five miles, 
 but we now know that it reaches vastly farther. So of 
 
 . 30. Relative Size of Sun as seen from Different Planets. 
 
 the sun, we might almost say that its diameter is infi- 
 nite, for its light and heat reach beyond our measure- 
 ment. Its living, throbbing heart sends out pulsations, 
 keeping all space full of its tides of living light. 
 
80 
 
 A SOL Alt SYSTEM. 
 
 i. 31. Zodiacal Light. 
 
 We might say with evident truth that the far-off 
 planets are a part of the sun, since the space they trav- 
 erse is filled with the power of that controlling king; 
 not only with light, but also with gravitating power. 
 
 But come to more ponderable matters. If we look 
 
THE SUN. 81 
 
 into our western sky soon after sunset, on a clear, moon- 
 less night in March or April, we shall see a dim, soft 
 light, somewhat like the milky- way, often reaching, 
 well defined, to the Pleiades. It is wedge-shaped, in- 
 clined to the south, and the smallest star can easily be 
 seen through it. Mairan and Cassini affirm that they 
 have seen sudden sparkles and movements of light in it. 
 All our best tests show the spectrum of this light to be 
 continuous, and therefore reflected : which indicates that 
 it is a ring of small masses of meteoric matter surround- 
 ing the sun, revolving with it and reflecting its light. 
 One bit of stone as large as the end of one's thumb, in 
 a cubic mile, would be enough to reflect what light we 
 see looking through millions of miles of it. Perhaps 
 an eye sufficiently keen and far away would see the sun 
 surrounded by a luminous disk, as Saturn is -with his 
 rings. As it extends beyond the earth's orbit, if this 
 be measured as a part of the sun, its diameter would 
 be about 200,000,000 miles. 
 
 Come closer. When the sun is covered by the disk 
 of the moon at the instant of total eclipse, observers are 
 startled by strange swaying luminous banners, ghostly 
 and weird, shooting in changeful play about the central 
 darkness (Fig. 32). These form the corona. Men have 
 usually been too much moved to describe them, and 
 have always been incapable of drawing them in the 
 short minute or two of their continuance. But in 1878 
 men travelled eight thousand miles, coining and return- 
 ing, in order that they might note the three minutes of 
 total eclipse in Colorado. Each man had his work as- 
 signed to him, and he was drilled to attend to that and 
 nothing else. Improved instruments were put into his 
 
82 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 hands, so that the sun was made to do his own drawing 
 and give his own picture at consecutive instants. Fig. 
 33 is a copy of a photograph of the corona of 1878, by 
 
 Fig. 32. The Corona in 1858, Brazil. 
 
 Mr. Henry Draper. It showed much less changeability 
 that year than common, it being very near the time of 
 least sun-spot. The previous picture was taken near the 
 time of maximum sun-spot. 
 
 It was then settled that the corona consists of re- 
 flected light, sent to us from dust particles or meteor- 
 oids swirling in the vast seas, giving new densities and 
 
THE SUN. 83 
 
 rarities, and hence this changeful light. "Whether they 
 are there by constant projection, and fall again to the 
 sun, or are held by electric influence, or by force of or- 
 bital revolution, we do not know. That the corona can- 
 not be in any sense an atmosphere of any continuous 
 gas, is seen f rom the fact that the comet of 1843, pass- 
 ing within 93,000 miles of the body of the sun, was not 
 burned out of existence as a comet, nor in any percepti- 
 
 i. 33. The Corona iu 1S78, Colorado. 
 
 ble degree retarded in its motion. If the sun's diameter 
 is to include the corona, it will be from 1,260,000 to 
 1,460,000 miles. 
 
84 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Come closer still. At the instant of the totality of 
 the eclipse red flames of most fantastic shape play along 
 the edge of the moon's disk. They can be seen at any 
 time by the use of a proper telescope with a spectro- 
 scope attached. I have seen them with great distinct- 
 ness and brilliancy with the excellent eleven-inch tele- 
 scope of the Wesleyan University. A description of their 
 appearance is best given in the language of Professor 
 Young, of Princeton College, who has made these flames 
 the object of most successful study. On September 
 7th, 1871, he was observing a large hydrogen cloud by 
 the sun's edge. This cloud was about 100,000 miles 
 long, and its upper side was some 50,000 miles above the 
 sun's surface, the lower side some 15,000 miles. The 
 whole had the appearance of being supported on pillars 
 of fire, these seeming pillars being in reality hydrogen 
 jets brighter and more active than the substance of the 
 cloud. At half -past twelve, when Professor Young 
 chanced to be called away from his observatory, there 
 were no indications of any approaching change, except 
 that one of the connecting stems of the southern extrem- 
 ity of the cloud had grown considerably brighter and 
 more curiously bent to one side ; and near the base of 
 another, at the northern end, a little brilliant lump had 
 developed itself, shaped much like a summer thunder- 
 head. 
 
 But when Professor Young returned, about half an 
 hour later, he found that a very wonderful change had 
 taken place, and that a very remarkable process was act- 
 ually in progress. "The whole thing had been literally 
 blown to shreds," he says, " by some inconceivable up- 
 rush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had 
 
Fig. 34. Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen. 
 
THE SUN. 87 
 
 left, the air if I may use the expression was filled 
 with the flying debris, a mass of detached vertical fusi- 
 form fragments, each from ten to thirty seconds (i. e., 
 from four thousand five hundred to thirteen thousand 
 five hundred miles) long, by two or three seconds (nine 
 hundred to thirteen hundred and fifty miles) wide- 
 brighter, and closer together where the pillars had for- 
 merly stood, and rapidly ascending. When I looked, 
 some of them had already reached a height of nearly 
 four minutes (100,000 miles); and while I watched 
 them they arose with a motion almost perceptible to 
 the eye, until, in ten minutes, the uppermost were more 
 than 200,000 miles above the solar surface. This was 
 ascertained by careful measurements, the mean of three 
 closely accordant determinations giving 210,000 miles 
 as the extreme altitude attained. I am particular in 
 the statement, because, so far as I know, chromato- 
 spheric matter (red hydrogen in this case) has never 
 before been observed at any altitude exceeding five 
 minutes, or 135,000 miles. The velocity of ascent, also 
 one hundred and sixty -seven miles per second is 
 considerably greater than anything hitherto recorded. 
 * * * As the filaments arose, they gradually faded away 
 like a dissolving cloud, and at a quarter past one only 
 a few filmy wisps, with some brighter streamers low 
 down near the chromatosphere, remained to mark the 
 place. But in the mean while the little ' thunder-head' 
 before alluded to had grown and developed wonder- 
 fully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing flame, 
 to speak according to appearances. First, it was crowd- 
 ed down, as it were, along the solar surface ; later, it 
 arose almost pyramidally 50,000 miles in height ; then 
 
88 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 its suriimit was drawn down into long filaments and 
 threads, which were most curiously rolled backward and 
 forward, like the volutes of an Ionic capital, and finally 
 faded away, and by half-past two had vanished like the 
 other. The whole phenomenon suggested most forcibly 
 the idea of an explosion under the great prominence, 
 acting mainly upward, but also in all directions out- 
 ward ; and then, after an interval, followed by a corre- 
 sponding in-rush." 
 
 No language can convey nor mind conceive an idea 
 of the fierce commotion we here contemplate. If we 
 call these movements hurricanes, we must remember 
 that what we use as a figure moves but one hundred 
 miles an hour, while these move one hundred miles a 
 second. Such storms of fire on earth, " coming down 
 upon us from the north, would, in thirty seconds after 
 they had crossed the St. Lawrence, be in the Gulf of 
 Mexico, carrying with them the whole surface of the 
 continent in a mass not simply of ruins but of glowing 
 vapor, in which the vapors arising from the dissolution 
 of the materials composing the cities of Boston, New 
 York, and Chicago would be mixed in a single indis- 
 tinguishable cloud." In the presence of these evident 
 visions of an actual body in furious flame, we need hes- 
 itate no longer in accepting as true the words of St. 
 Peter of the time " in which the [atmospheric] heav- 
 ens shall pass away with a great noise, and the ele- 
 ments shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also, and 
 the works that are therein, shall be burned up." 
 
 This region of discontinuous flame below the corona 
 is called the chromosphere. Hydrogen is the principal 
 material of its upper part ; iron, magnesium, and other 
 
THE SUX. 89 
 
 metals, soine of them as yet unknown on earth, but hav- 
 ing a record in the spectrum, in the denser parts below. 
 If these fierce fires are a part of the sun, as they as- 
 suredly are, its diameter would be from 1,060,000 to 
 1,260,000 miles. 
 
 Let us approach even nearer. AVe see a clearly recog- 
 nized even disk, of equal dimensions in every direction. 
 This is the photosphere. We here reach some definite- 
 ly measurable data for estimating its visible size. We 
 already know its distance. Its disk subtends an angle 
 of 32' 12".6, or a little more than half a degree. Three 
 hundred and sixty such suns, laid side by side, would 
 span the celestial arch from east to west with a half 
 circle of light. Two lines drawn from our earth at the 
 angle mentioned would be 860,000 miles apart at the 
 distance of 92,500,000 miles. This., then, is the diameter 
 of the visible and measurable part of the sun. It would 
 require one hundred and eight globes like the earth in 
 a line to measure the sun's diameter, and three hundred 
 and thirty-nine, to be strung like the beads of a neck- 
 lace, to encircle his waist. The sun has a volume equal 
 to 1.245,000 earths, but being only one-quarter as dense, 
 it has a mass of only 326.800 earths. It has seven hun- 
 dred times the mass of all the planets, asteroids, and 
 satellites put together. Thus it is able to control them 
 all by its greater power of attraction. 
 
 Concerning the condition of the surface of the sun 
 many opinions are held. That it is hot beyond all esti- 
 mate is indubitable. Whether solid or gaseous we are 
 not sure. Opinions differ: some incline to the first 
 theory, others to the second ; some deem the sun com- 
 posed of solid particles, floating in gas so condensed 
 
90 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 by pressure and attraction as to shine like a solid. It 
 has no sensible changes of general level, but has pro- 
 digious activity in spots. These spots have been the 
 objects of earnest and almost hourly study on the part 
 of such men as Secchi, Lockyer, Faye, Young, and oth- 
 ers, for years. But it is a long way off to study an ob- 
 ject. No telescope brings it nearer than 200,000 miles. 
 Theory after theory has been advanced, each one satis- 
 factory in some points, none in all. The facts about the 
 spots are these : They are most abundant on the two 
 sides of the equator. They are gregarious, depressed 
 below the surface, of vast extent, black in the centre, 
 usually surrounded by a region of partial darkness, be- 
 yond which is excessive light. They have motion of 
 their own over the surface motion rotating about an 
 axis, upward and downward about the edges. They 
 change their apparent shape as the sun carries them 
 
 Fig. 35. Change in Spots as rotated across the Disk, showing Cavities. 
 
 across its disk by axial revolution, being narrow as they 
 present their edges to us, and rounder as we look per- 
 pendicularly into them (Fig. 35). 
 
 These spots are also very variable in number, some- 
 times there being none for nearly two hundred days, and 
 again whole years during which the sun is never with- 
 out them. The period from maximum to maximum 
 
THE SUN. 91 
 
 of spots is about eleven years. We might look for 
 them again and again in vain this year (1878). They 
 will be most numerous in 1882 and 1893. The cause 
 of this periodicity was inferred to be the near approach 
 of the enormous planet Jupiter, causing disturbance by 
 its attraction. But the periods do not correspond, and 
 the cause is the result of some law of solar action to us 
 as yet unknown. 
 
 These spots may be seen with almost any telescope, 
 the eye being protected by deeply colored glasses. 
 
 Until within one hundred years they were supposed 
 to be islands of scoriae floating in the sea of molten 
 matter. But they were depressed below the surface, 
 and showed a notch when on the edge. Wilson origi- 
 nated and Herschel developed the theory that the sun's 
 real body was dark, cool, and habitable, and that the 
 photosphere was a luminous stratum at a distance from 
 the real body, with openings showing the dark spots 
 below. Such a sun would have cooled off in a week, 
 but would previously have annihilated all life below. 
 
 The solar spots being most abundant on the two 
 sides of the equator, indicates their cyclonic character; 
 the centre of a cyclone is rarefied, and therefore colder, 
 and cold on the sun is darkness. M. Faye says : " Like 
 our cyclones, they are descending, as I have proved by 
 a special study of these terrestrial phenomena. They 
 carry down into the depths of the solar mass the cooler 
 materials of the upper layers, formed principally of 
 hydrogen, and thus produce in their centre a decided 
 extinction of light and heat as long as the gyratory 
 movement continues. Finally, the hydrogen set free 
 at the base of the whirlpool becomes reheated at this 
 
92 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 great depth, and rises up tmnultuously around the whirl- 
 pool, forming irregular jets, which appear above the 
 chromosphere. These jets constitute the protuberances. 
 The whirlpools of the sun, like those on the earth, are 
 of all dimensions, from the scarcely visible pores to the 
 enormous spots which we see from time to time. They 
 
 Fig. 36. Solar Spot, by Langley. 
 
 have, like those of the earth, a marked tendency, first to 
 increase and then to break up, and thus form a row of 
 spots extending along the same parallel." 
 
 A spot of 20,000 miles diameter is quite small ; there 
 was one 74,816 miles across, visible to the naked eye 
 for a week in 1843. This particular sun-spot somewhat 
 
THE SUN. 93 
 
 helped the Millerites. On the day of the eclipse, in 
 1858, a spot over 107,000 miles in extent was clearly 
 seen. In such vast tempests, if there were ships built 
 as large as the whole earth, they would be tossed like 
 autumn leaves in an ocean storm. 
 
 The revolution of the sun carries a spot across its 
 face in about fourteen days. After a lapse of as 
 much more time, they often reappear on the other side, 
 changed but recognizable. They often break out or 
 disappear under the eye of the observer. They divide 
 like a piece of ice dropped on a frozen pond, the pieces 
 sliding off in every direction, or combine like separate 
 floes driven together into a pack. Sometimes a spot 
 will last for more than two hundred days, recognizable 
 through six or eight revolutions. Sometimes a spot 
 will last only half an hour. 
 
 The velocities indicated by these movements are in- 
 credible. An up-rush and down-rush at the sides has 
 been measured of twenty miles a second ; a side-rush or 
 whirl, of one hundred and twenty miles a second. These 
 tempests rage from a few days to half a year, traversing 
 regions so wide that our Indian Ocean, the realm of 
 storms, is too small to be used for comparison ; then, 
 as they cease, the advancing sides of the spots approach 
 each other at the rate of 20,000 miles an hour; they 
 strike together, and the rising spray of fire leaps thou- 
 sands of miles into space. It falls again into the in- 
 candescent surge, rolls over mountains as the sea over 
 pebbles, and all this for eon after eon without sign of 
 exhaustion or diminution. All these swift succeeding 
 Himalayas of lire, where one hundred worlds could be 
 buried, do not usually prevent the sun's appearing to 
 our far-off eyes as a perfect sphere. 
 
94 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 What the Sun does for us. 
 
 To what end does this enormous power, this central 
 source of power, exist? That it could keep all these 
 gigantic forces within itself could not be expected. It 
 is in a system where every atom is made to affect every 
 other atom, and every world to influence every other. 
 The Author of all lives only to do good, to send rain 
 on the just and unjust, to cause his sun to rise on the 
 evil and the good, and to give his spirit, like a perpet- 
 ually widening river, to every man to profit withal. 
 
 The sun reaches his unrelaxing hand of gravitation 
 to every other world at every instant. The tendency 
 of every world is to fly off in a straight line. This ten- 
 dency must be momentarily curbed, and the planet held 
 in its true curve about the sun. These giant worlds 
 must be perfectly handled. Their speed, amounting to 
 seventy times as fast as that of a rifle -ball, must be 
 managed. Each and every world ma} 7 be said to be 
 lifted momentarily and swung perpetually at arm's- 
 length by the power of the sun. 
 
 The sun warms us. It would convey but a small 
 idea of the truth to state how many hundreds of mill- 
 ions of cubic miles of ice could be melted by the sun 
 every second without quenching its heat; but, if any 
 one has any curiosity to know, it is 287,200,000 cubic 
 miles of ice per second. 
 
 We journey through space which has a temperature 
 of 200 below zero ; but we live, as it were, in a con- 
 servatory, in the midst of perpetual winter. We are 
 roofed over by the air that treasures the heat, floored 
 under by strata both absorptive and retentive of heat, 
 
THE SUN. 95 
 
 and between the earth and air violets grow and grains 
 ripen. The sun has a strange chemical power. It 
 kisses the cold earth, and it blushes with flowers and 
 matures the fruit and grain. We are feeble creatures, 
 and the sun gives us force. By it the light winds move 
 one-eighth of a mile an hour, the storm tifty miles, the 
 hurricane one hundred. The force is as the square of 
 the velocity. It is by means of the sun that the mer- 
 chant's white-sailed ships are blown safely home. So 
 the sun carries off the miasma of the marsh, the pollu- 
 tion of cities, and then sends the winds to wash and 
 cleanse themselves in the sea-spray. The water-falls of 
 the earth turn machinery, and make Lowells and Man- 
 chesters possible, because the sun lifted all that water 
 to the hills. 
 
 Intermingled with these currents of air are the cur- 
 rents of electric power, all derived from the sun. These 
 have shown their swiftness and willingness to serve 
 man. The sun's constant force displayed on the earth 
 is equal to 543,000,000,000 engines of 400-horse power 
 each, working day and night; and yet the earth receives 
 on b T 2 3 s i 0*0 o o o o P a rt of the whole force of the sun. 
 
 Besides all this, the sun, with provident care, has 
 made and given to us coal. This omnipotent worker 
 has stored away in past ages an inexhaustible reservoir 
 of his power which man may easily mine and direct, 
 thus releasing himself from absorbing toil. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 Any one may see the spots on the sun who has a spy-glass. Darken 
 the room and put the glass through an opening toward the sun, as shown 
 in Fig. 37. The eye-piece should be drawn out about half an inch be- 
 
96 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 yond its usual focusing for distant objects. The farther it is drawn, the 
 nearer must \ve hold the screen for a perfect image. 
 
 By holding a paper near the eye-piece, the proper direction of the instru- 
 ment may be discovered without injury to the eyes. By this means the 
 sun can be studied from day to day, and its spots or the transits of Mer- 
 cury and Venus shown to any number of spectators. 
 
 Fig. 37. Holding Telescope to see the Sim's Spots. 
 
 First covering the eyes with very dark or smoked glasses, erect a disk 
 of pasteboard four inches in diameter between you and the sun ; close 
 one eye; stand near it, and the whole sun is obscured. Withdraw from 
 it till the sun's rays just shoot over the edge of the disk on every side. 
 Measure the distance from the eye to the disk. You will be able to de- 
 termine the distance of the sun by the rule of three: thus, as four inches 
 is to 860,000 miles, so is distance from eye to disk to distance from disk 
 to the sun. Take such measurements at sunrise, noon, and sunset, and 
 see the apparently differing sizes due to refraction. 
 
VI, 
 
 THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 
 
 "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." Job xxvi. 7. 
 
 5 
 
"Let a power be delegated to a finite spirit equal to the projection of 
 the most ponderous planet in its orbit, and, from an exhaustless magazine, 
 let this spirit select his grand central orb. Let him with puissant arm 
 locate it in space, and, obedient to his mandate, there let it remain forever 
 fixed. He proceeds to select his planetary globes, which he is now re- 
 quired to marshal in their appropriate order of distance from the sun. 
 Heed well this distribution ; for should a single globe be misplaced, the 
 divine harmony is destroyed forever. Let us admit that finite intelligence 
 mav at length determine the order of combination ; the mighty host is 
 arrayed in order. These worlds, like fiery coursers, stand waiting the 
 command to fly. But, mighty spirit, heed well the grand step, ponder 
 well the direction in which thou wilt launch each waiting world ; weigh 
 well the mighty impulse soon to be given, for out of the myriads of direc- 
 tions, and the myriads of impulsive forces, there comes but a single com- 
 bination that will secure the perpetuity of your complex scheme. In vain 
 does the bewildered finite spirit attempt to fathom this mighty depth. In 
 vain does it seek to resolve the stupendous problem. It turns away, and 
 while endued with omnipotent power, exclaims, ' Give to me infinite wis- 
 dom, or relieve me from the impossible task!'" O. M. MITCHEL, LL.D. 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 99 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 
 
 IF we were to go out into space a few millions of 
 miles from either pole of the sun, and were endowed 
 with wonderful keenness of vision, we should perceive 
 certain facts, viz : That space is frightfully dark except 
 when we look directly at some luminous body. There 
 is no air to bend the light out of its course, no clouds 
 or other objects to reflect it in a thousand directions. 
 Every star is a brilliant point, even in perpetual sun- 
 shine. The cold is frightful beyond the endurance of 
 our bodies. There is no sound of voice in the absence 
 of air, and conversation by means of vocal organs being 
 impossible, it must be carried on by means of mind 
 communication. We see below an unrevolving point 
 on the sun that marks its pole. Ranged round in order 
 are the various planets, each with its axis pointing in 
 very nearly the same direction. All planets, except pos- 
 sibly Venus, and all moons except those of Uranus and 
 Neptune, present their equators to the sun. The direc- 
 tion of orbital and axial revolution seen from above the 
 North Pole would be opposite to that of the hands of a 
 watch. 
 
 The speed of this orbital revolution must be propor- 
 tioned to the distance from the sun. The attraction oi 
 the sun varies inversely as the square of the distance. 
 
100 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 38. Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets. 
 
 It holds a planet with a certain power ; one twice as far 
 off, with one-fourth that power. This attraction must be 
 counterbalanced by centrifugal force ; great force from 
 great speed when attraction is great, and small from less 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 101 
 
 speed when attractive power is diminished by distance. 
 Hence Mercury must go 29.5 miles per second seven- 
 ty times as fast as a rifle-ball that goes two-fifths of a 
 mile in a second or be drawn into the sun; while 
 Neptune, seventy -five times as far off, and hence at- 
 tracted only 3-5^ as much, must be slowed down to 3.4 
 miles a second to prevent its flying away from the fee- 
 bler attraction of the sun. The orbital velocity of the 
 various planets in miles per second is as follows : 
 
 Mercury 29.55 
 
 Venus 21.61 
 
 Earth 18.38 
 
 Mars..., .. 14.90 
 
 Jupiter 8.06 
 
 Saturn 5.95 
 
 Uranus 4.20 
 
 Neptune 3.36 
 
 Hence, while the earth makes one revolution in its 
 year, Mercury has made over four revolutions, or pass- 
 ed through four years ; the slower Neptune has made 
 only y^f of one revolution. 
 
 The time of axial rotation which determines the 
 length of the day varies with different planets. The 
 periods of the four planets nearest the sun vary only 
 half an hour from that of the earth, while the enor- 
 mous bodies of Jupiter and Saturn revolve in ten and 
 ten and a quarter hours respectively. This high rate of 
 speed, and its resultant, centrifugal force, has aided in 
 preventing these bodies from becoming as dense as they 
 would otherwise be Jupiter being only 0.24 as dense as 
 the earth, and Saturn only 0.13. This extremely rapid 
 revolution produces a great flattening at the poles. If 
 Jupiter should rotate four times more rapidly than it 
 does, it could not be held together compactly. As it is, 
 the polar diameter is five thousand miles less than the 
 equatorial : the difference in diameters produced by the 
 
102 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 same cause on the earth, owing to the slower motion 
 and smaller mass, being only twenty -six miles. The 
 effect of this will be more specifically treated here- 
 after. 
 
 The difference in the size of the planets is very -no- 
 ticeable. If we represent the sun by a gilded globe 
 two feet in diameter, we must represent Vulcan and 
 Mercury by mustard-seeds; Venus, by a pea ; Earth, by 
 another ; Mars, by one-half the size ; Asteroids, by the 
 motes in a sunbeam ; Jupiter, by a small-sized orange ; 
 Saturn, by a smaller one ; Uranus, by a cherry ; and 
 Neptune, by one a little larger. 
 
 Apply the principle that attraction is in proportion 
 to the mass, and a man who weighs one hundred and 
 fifty pounds on the earth weighs three hundred and 
 ninety-six on Jupiter, and only fifty-eight on Mars; 
 while on the Asteroids he could play with bowlders for 
 marbles, hurl hills like Milton's angels, leap into the 
 fifth- story windows with ease, tumble over precipices 
 without harm, and go around the little worlds in seven 
 jumps. 
 
 The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination 
 of its axis to the plane of its orbit. In Fig. 39 the ro- 
 tating earth is seen at A, with its northern pole turning 
 in constant sunlight, and its southern pole in constant 
 darkness ; everywhere south of the equator is more dark- 
 ness than day, and hence winter. Passing on to B, the 
 world is seen illum'inated equally on each side of the 
 equator. Every place has its twelve hours' darkness 
 and light at each revolution. But at C the axis of the 
 earth always preserving the same direction the north- 
 ern pole is shrouded in continual gloom. Every place 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 105 
 
 north of the equator gets more darkness than light, and 
 hence winter. 
 
 The varying inclination of the axes of the different 
 planets gives a wonderful variety to their seasons. The 
 sun is always nearly over the equator of Jupiter, and 
 every place has nearly its five hours day and five hours 
 night. The seasons of Earth, Mars, and Saturn are so 
 much alike, except in length, that no comment is nec- 
 essary. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are ob- 
 served to enlarge and contract, according as it is win- 
 ter or summer there. Saturn's seasons are each seven 
 and a half years long. The alternate darkness and light 
 at the poles is fifteen years long. 
 
 But the seasons of Venus present the greatest anom- 
 aly, if its assigned inclination of axis (75) can be relied 
 on as correct, which is doubtful. Its tropic zone extends 
 nearly to the pole, and at the same time the winter at 
 the other pole reaches the equator. The short period 
 of this planet causes it to present the south pole to the 
 sun only one hundred and twelve days after it has been 
 scorching the one at the north. This gives two win- 
 ters, springs, summers, and autumns to the equator in 
 two hundred and twenty-five days. 
 
 If each whirling world should leave behind it a trail 
 of light to mark its orbit, and our perceptions of form 
 were sufficiently acute, we should see that these curves 
 of light are not exact circles, but a little flattened into 
 an ellipse, with the sun always in one of the foci. Hence 
 each planet is nearer to the sun at one part of its orbit 
 than another; that point is called the perihelion, and 
 the farthest point aphelion. This eccentricity of orbit, 
 or distance of the sun from the centre, is very small. 
 
106 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 In the case of Venus it is only .007 of the whole, and in 
 no instance is it more than .2, viz., that of Mercury. This 
 makes the sun appear twice as large, bright, and hot as 
 seen and felt on Mercury at its perihelion than at its 
 aphelion. The earth is 3,236,000 miles nearer to the 
 sun in our winter than summer. Hence the summer in 
 the southern hemisphere is more intolerable than in the 
 northern. But this eccentricity is steadily diminishing 
 at a uniform rate, by reason of the perturbing influence 
 of the other planets. In the case of some other planets 
 it is steadily increasing, and, if it were to go on a suffi- 
 cient time, might cause frightful extremes of tempera- 
 ture; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at 
 which it is said, " Thus far shalt thou go, and no far- 
 ther." Then a compensative diminution will follow. 
 
 Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, float- 
 ing in a round pond. The axis will be inclined 7^ to 
 the surface of the water, one side of the equator be 7-J 
 below the surface, and the other side the same distance 
 above. Let the half -sub merged earth sail around the 
 sun in an appropriate orbit. The surface of the water 
 will be the plane of the orbit, and the water that reaches 
 out to the shore, where the stars would be set, will be 
 the plane of the ecliptic. It is the plane of the earth's 
 orbit extended to the stars. 
 
 The orbits of all the planets do not lie in the same 
 plane, but are differently inclined to the plane of the 
 ecliptic, or the plane of the earth's orbit. Going out 
 from the sun's equator, so as to see all the orbits of the 
 planets on the edge, we should see them inclined to that 
 of the earth, as in Fig. 40. 
 
 If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying at 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 
 
 107 
 
 Fig. 40. luclination of the Planes of Orbits. 
 
 right angles with the nodal line of their orbits, and in 
 the same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies 
 were to start in a direct line for the snn, they would 
 not collide with the earth on their way ; but Saturn 
 would pass 4,000,000 and Pallas 50,000,000 miles over 
 our heads. From this same cause we do not see Yenus 
 and Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun 
 at every revolution. 
 
 Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and 
 
 Fig. 41. Inclination of Orbits of Venus and Earth. Nodal Line, D B. 
 
 Yenus seen not from the edge but from a position 
 somewhat above. The point E, where Yenus crosses 
 the plane of the earth's orbit, is called the ascending 
 node. If the earth were at B when Yenus is at E, 
 Yenus would be seen on the disk of the sun, making a 
 transit. The same would be true if the earth were at 
 D, and Yenus at the descending node F. 
 
 This general view of the flying spheres is full of in- 
 
108 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 terest. While quivering themselves with thunderous 
 noises, all is silent about them ; earthquakes may be 
 struggling on their surfaces, but there is no hint of 
 contention in the quiet of space. They are too distant 
 from one another to exchange signals, except, perhaps, 
 the fleet of asteroids that sail the azure between Mars 
 and Jupiter. Some of these come near together, con- 
 tinuing to fill each other's sky for days with brightness, 
 then one gradually draws ahead. They have all phases 
 for each other crescent, half, full, and gibbous. These 
 hundreds of bodies fill the realm where they are with 
 inexhaustible variety. Beyond are vast spaces cold, 
 dark, void of matter, but full of power. Occasionally a 
 little spark of light looms up rapidly into a world so 
 huge that a thousand of our earths could not occupy its 
 vast bulk. It swings its four or eight moons with per- 
 fect skill and infinite strength ; but they go by and 
 leave the silence unbroken, the darkness unlighted for 
 years. Nevertheless, every part of space is full of pow- 
 er. Nowhere in its wide orbit can a world find a place ; 
 at no time in its eons of flight can it find an instant 
 when the sun does not hold it in safety and life. 
 
 The Outlook from the Earth. 
 
 If we come in from our wanderings in space and 
 take an outlook from the earth, we shall observe certain 
 movements, easily interpreted now that we know the 
 system, but nearly inexplicable to men who naturally 
 supposed that the earth was the largest, most stable, 
 and central body in the universe. 
 
 We see, first of all, sun, moon, and stars rise in the 
 east, mount the heavens, and set in the west. As I 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 109 
 
 revolve in my pivoted study-chair, and see all sides of 
 the room library, maps, photographs, telescope, and 
 windows I have no suspicion that it is the room that 
 whirls ; but looking out of a car-window in a depot at 
 another car, one cannot tell which is moving, whether 
 it be his car or the other. In regard to the world, we 
 have come to feel its whirl. We have noticed the pyr- 
 amids of Egypt lifted to hide the sun ; the mountains 
 of Hymettus hurled down, so as to disclose the moon 
 that was behind them to the watchers on the Acropo- 
 lis ; and the mighty mountains of Moab removed to re- 
 veal the stars of the east. Train the telescope on any 
 star; it must be moved frequently, or the world will 
 roll the instrument away from the object. Suspend a 
 cannon-ball by a fine wire at the equator ; set it vibrat- 
 ing north and south, and it swings all day in precisely 
 the same direction. But suspend it directly over the 
 north pole, and set it swinging toward Washington ; in 
 five hours after it is swinging toward the Sandwich Isl- 
 ands; in twelve hours, toward Siam,in Asia; in eighteen 
 hours, toward Rome, in Italy ; and in twenty-four, to- 
 ward Washington again, not because it has changed the 
 plane of its vibration, but because the earth has whirled 
 beneath it, and the torsion of the wire has not been suf- 
 ficient to compel the plane of the original direction to 
 change with the turning of the earth. The law of in- 
 ertia keeps it moving in the same direction. The same 
 experimental proof of revolution is shown in a propor- 
 tional degree at any point between the pole and the 
 equator. 
 
 But the watchers on the Acropolis do not get turned 
 over so as to see the moon at the same time every night. 
 
110 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 We turn down our eastern horizon, but we do not find 
 fair Luna at the same moment we did the night before. 
 We are obliged to roll on for some thirty to fifty min- 
 utes longer before we find the moon. It must be go- 
 ing in the same direction, and it takes us longer to get 
 round to it than if it were always in the same spot ; so 
 we notice a star near the moon one night it is 13 west 
 of the moon the next night. The moon is going around 
 
 ii 
 
 * * * *+* * * 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 + 
 f 
 ^ 
 
 v 
 
 * * 
 
 + 
 
 Fig. 42. Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars. 
 
 the earth from west to east, and if it goes 13 in one 
 day, it will take a little more than twenty-seven days to 
 go the entire circle of 360. 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. Ill 
 
 In our outlook we soon observe that we do not 
 by our revolution come to see the same stars rise at 
 the same hour every night. Orion and the Pleiades, 
 our familiar friends in the winter heavens, are gone 
 from the summer sky. Have they fled, or are we 
 turned from them ? This is easily understood from 
 Fig. 42. 
 
 When the observer on the earth at A looks into the 
 midnight sky he sees the stars at E; but as the earth 
 passes on to B, he sees those stars at E four minutes 
 sooner every night ; and at midnight the stars at F are 
 over his head. Thus in a year, by going around the sun, 
 we have every star of the celestial dome in our mid- 
 night sky. "We see also how the sun appears among 
 the successive constellations. When we are at A, we 
 see the sun among the stars at G ; but as we move to- 
 ward B, the sun appears to move toward H. If we 
 had observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 18T6, 
 we should have seen it rise a little before Regulus, 
 and a little south of it, in such a relation as circle 1 is 
 to the star in Fig. 43. By sunset the earth 
 had moved enough to make the sun appear to 
 be at circle 2, and by the next morning at cir- 
 cle 3, at which time Regulus would rise before 
 the sun. Thus the earth's motion seems to 
 make the sun traverse a regular circle among the stars 
 once a year : but it is not the sun that moves. 
 
 There are certain stars that have such irregular, un- 
 certain, vagarious ways that they were called vagabonds, 
 or planets, by the early astronomers. Here is the path 
 of Jupiter in the year 1866 (Fig. 44). These bodies 
 go forward for awhile, then stop, start aside, then retro- 
 
112 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 grade, and go on again. Some are never seen far from 
 the sun, and others in all parts of the ecliptic. 
 
 Pig. 44. 
 
 First see them as they stand to-day, as in Fig. 45. 
 The observer stands on the earth at A. It has rolled 
 over so far that he cannot see the sun ; it has set. But 
 
 Fig. 45 Showing Position of Planets. 
 
 Yenus is still in sight; Jupiter is 45 behind Yenus, 
 and Saturn is seen 90 farther east. When A has roll- 
 ed a little farther, if he is awake, he will see Mars be- 
 fore he sees the sun ; or, in common language, Yenus 
 will set after, and Mars rise before the sun. All these 
 bodies at near and far distances seem set in the starry 
 dome, as the different stars seem in Fig. 42, p. 110. 
 
 The mysterious movements of advance and retreat 
 are rendered intelligible by Fig. 46. The planet Mer- 
 cury is at A, and, seen from the earth, B is located at #, 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 113 
 
 on the background of the stars it seems to be among. 
 It remains apparently stationary at a for some time, be- 
 
 Pig. 46. Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet. 
 
 cause approaching the earth in nearly a straight line. 
 Passing D to C, it appears to retrograde among the 
 stars to c ; remains apparently stationary for some time, 
 then, in passing from C to E and A, appears to pass 
 back among the stars to a. The progress of the earth, 
 meanwhile, although it greatly retards the apparent mo- 
 tion from A to C, greatly hastens it from C to A. 
 
 It is also apparent that Mercury and Yenus, seen 
 from the earth, can never appear far from the sun. 
 They must be just behind the sun as evening stars, or 
 just before it as heralds of the morning. Venus is nev- 
 er more than 47 from the sun, and Mercury never more 
 than 30 ; indeed, it keeps so near the sun that very 
 few people have ever seen the brilliant sparkler. Ob- 
 serve how much larger the planet appears near the earth 
 in conjunction at D than in opposition at E. Observe 
 also what phases it must present, and how transits some- 
 times take place. 
 
1U 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 The movement of a superior planet, one whose orbit 
 is exterior to the earth, is clear from Fig. 47. When 
 the earth is at A and Mars at B, it will appear among 
 the stars at C. When the earth is at D, Mars having 
 moved more slowly to E, will have retrograded to F. It 
 remains there while the earth passes on, in a line near- 
 ly straight, from Mars to G ; then, as the earth begins 
 to curve around the sun, Mars will appear to retraverse 
 
 Fig. 47. Illustrating Movements of a Superior Planet. 
 
 the distance from F to C, and beyond. The farther 
 the superior planet is from the earth the less will be 
 the retrograde movement. 
 
 The reader should draw the orbits in proportion, and, 
 remembering the relative speed of each planet, note the 
 movement of each in different parts of their orbits. 
 
 To account for these most simple movements, the 
 earlier astronomers invented the most complex and im- 
 possible machinery. They thought the earth the centre, 
 and that the sun, moon, and stars were carried about it, 
 as stoves around a person to warm him. They thought 
 these strange movements of the planets were accom- 
 plished by mounting them on subsidiary eccentric 
 wheels in the revolving crystal sphere. All that was 
 
THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE. 115 
 
 needed to give them a right conception was a sinking 
 of their world and themselves to an appropriate propor- 
 tion, and an enlargement of their vision, to take in from 
 an exalted stand-point a view of the simplicity of the 
 perfect plan. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 Fix a rod, or tube, or telescope pointing at a star in the east or west, 
 and the earth's revolution will be apparent in a moment, turning the tube 
 away from the star. Point it at stars about the north pole, and those 
 on one side will be found going in an opposite direction from those on 
 the other, and very much slower than those about the equator. Any one 
 can try the pendulum experiment who has access to some lofty place 
 from which to suspend the ball. It was tried in Bunker Hill Monument 
 a few years ago, and is to be tried in Paris, in the summer of 1879, with a 
 seven -hundred -pound pendulum and a suspending wire seventy yards 
 long. The advance and retrograde movements of planets can be illus- 
 trated by twc persons walking around a centre and noticing the place 
 where the person appears projected on the wall beyond. 
 
 PROCESSION OF STARS AND SOULS. 
 
 I STOOD upon the open casement, 
 And looked upon the night, 
 
 And saw the westward-going stars 
 Pass slowly out of sight. 
 
 Slowly the bright procession 
 Went down the gleaming arch, 
 
 And my soul discerned the music 
 Of the long triumphal march ; 
 
 Till the great celestial army, 
 Stretching far beyond the poles, 
 
 Became the eternal symbol 
 Of the mighty march of souls. 
 
116 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Onward, forever onward, 
 
 Red Mars led on his clan ; 
 And the moon, like a mailed maiden, 
 
 Was riding in the van. 
 
 And some were bright in beauty, 
 
 And some were faint and small, 
 But these might be, in their great heights, 
 
 The noblest of them all. 
 
 Downward, forever downward, 
 
 Behind earth's dusky shore, 
 They passed into the unknown night 
 
 They passed, and were no more. 
 
 No more ! oh, say not so ! 
 
 And downward is not just ; 
 For the sight is weak and the sense is dim 
 
 That looks through heated dust. 
 
 The stars and the mailed moon, 
 Though they seem to fall and die, 
 
 Still sweep in their embattled lines 
 An endless reach of sky. 
 
 And though the hills of Death 
 
 May hide the bright array, 
 The marshalled brotherhood of souls 
 
 Still keeps its onward way. 
 
 Upward, forever upward, 
 
 I see their march sublime, 
 And hear the glorious music 
 
 Of the conquerors of Time. 
 
 And long let me remember 
 
 That the palest fainting one 
 May to diviner vision be 
 
 A bright and blazing sun. 
 
 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 
 
VII. 
 
 SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND 
 COMETS. 
 
 " The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Aze- 
 kah, and they tied." Joshua x. II. 
 
A SWAKM OF MKTKOUS MKKTINO TUB EAUTII. 
 
 Their orbits are all parallel. Those coming in direct line to the eye appear as 
 stars, having no motion. Those at one side of this line are seen in foreshortened 
 perspective. Those farthest from the centre, other things being equal, appear 
 longest. The centre, called the radiant point, of these November meteors is sit- 
 uated in Leo ; that of the August meteors in Perseus. Over fifty such radiant 
 points have been discovered. Over 30,000 meteors have been visible in au hour. 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 119 
 
 YIL 
 SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 
 
 BEFORE particularly considering the larger aggrega- 
 tions of matter called planets or worlds as individuals, 
 it is best to investigate a part of the solar system con- 
 sisting of smaller collections of matter scattered every- 
 where through space. They are of various densities, 
 from a cloudlet of rarest gas to solid rock ; of various 
 sizes, from a grain's weight to little worlds; of vari- 
 ous relations to each other, from independent individ- 
 uality to related streams millions of miles long. When 
 they become visible they are called shooting-stars, which 
 are evanescent star-points darting through the upper 
 air, leaving for an instant a brilliant train ; meteors, 
 sudden lights, having a discernible diameter, passing 
 over a large extent of country, often exploding with 
 violence (Fig. 48), and throwing down upon the earth 
 aerolites ; and comets, vast extents of ghostly light, 
 that come we know not whence and go we know not 
 whither. All these forms of matter are governed by 
 the same laws as the worlds, and are an integral part 
 of the solar system a part of the unity of the universe. 
 
 Every one has seen the so-called shooting - stars. 
 They break out with a sudden brilliancy, shoot a few 
 degrees with quiet speed, and are gone before we can 
 say, " See there !" The cause of their appearance, the 
 
120 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 conversion of force into heat by their contact with our 
 atmosphere, has been already explained. Other facts 
 remain to be studied. They are found to appear about 
 seventy - three miles above the earth, and to disappear 
 
 Fig. 48. Explosion of a Boiide. 
 
 about twenty miles nearer the surface. Their average 
 velocity, thirty -five, sometimes rises to one hundred 
 miles a second. They exhibit different colors, accord- 
 ing to their different chemical substances, which are 
 consumed. The number of them to be seen on differ- 
 ent nights is exceedingly variable ; sometimes not more 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 121 
 
 than five or six an hour, and sometimes so many that 
 a man cannot count those appearing in a small section 
 of sky. This variability is found to be periodic. There 
 are everywhere in space little meteoric masses of mat- 
 ter, from the weight of a grain to a ton, and from the 
 density of gas to rock. The earth meets 7,500,000 
 little bodies every day there is collision the little 
 meteoroid gives out its lightning sign of extinction, and, 
 consumed in fervent heat, drops to the earth as gas or 
 dust. If we add the number light enough to be seen 
 by a telescope, they cannot be less than 400,000,000 a 
 day. Everywhere we go, in a space as large as that 
 occupied by the earth and its atmosphere, there must 
 be at least 13,000 bodies one in 20,000,000 cubic miles 
 large enough to make a light visible to the naked 
 eye, and forty times that number capable of revealing 
 themselves to telescopic vision. Professor Peirce is 
 
 about to publish, as the startling result of his investi- 
 gations, " that the heat which the earth receives direct- 
 ly from meteors is the same in amount which it re- 
 ceives from the sun by radiation, and that the sun re- 
 ceives five-sixths of its heat from the meteors that fall 
 upon it." 
 
122 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 In 1T83 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have 
 a telescopic view of a system of bodies which had turn- 
 ed into meteors. These were two larger bodies fol- 
 lowed by several smaller ones, going in parallel lines 
 till they were extinguished. They probably had been 
 revolving about each other as worlds and satellites be- 
 
 Fig. 50. Saiita Rosa Aerolite. 
 
 fore entering our atmosphere. It is more than prob- 
 able that the earth has many such bodies, too small to 
 be visible, revolving around it as moons. 
 
 Aerolites. 
 
 Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the 
 heat, and the unconsurned centre comes to the earth. 
 

 SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 123 
 
 Their velocity has been lessened by the resisting air, 
 and the excessive heat diminished. Still, if found soon 
 after their descent, they are too hot to be handled. 
 These are called aerolites or air-stones. There was a 
 fall in Iowa, in February, 1875, from which fragments 
 amounting to five hundred pounds weight were se- 
 cured. On the evening of December 21st, 1876, a me- 
 teor of unusual size and brilliancy passed over the 
 states of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. 
 It was first seen in the western part of Kansas, at an 
 altitude of about sixty miles. In crossing the State of 
 Missouri it began to explode, and this breaking up con- 
 tinued while passing Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, till it 
 consisted of a large flock of brilliant balls chasing each 
 other across the sky, the number being variously esti- 
 mated at from twenty to one hundred. It was accom- 
 panied by terrific explosions, and was seen along a path 
 of not less than a thousand miles. "When first seen in 
 Kansas, it is said to have appeared as large as the full 
 moon, and with a train from twenty-five to one hun- 
 dred feet long. Another, very similar in appearance 
 and behavior, passed over a part of the same course in 
 February, 1879. At Laigle, France, on April 26th, 1803, 
 about one o'clock in the day, from two to three thou- 
 sand fell. The largest did not exceed seventeen pounds 
 weight. One fell in Weston, Connecticut, in 1807, 
 weighing two hundred pounds. A very destructive 
 shower is mentioned in the book of Joshua, chap. x. 
 ver. 11. 
 
 These bodies are not evenly distributed through space. 
 In some places they are gathered into systems which 
 circle round the sun in orbits as certain as those of the 
 
124: A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 planets. The chain of asteroids is an illustration of 
 meteoric bodies on a large scale. They are hundreds 
 in number meteors are millions. They have their 
 region of travel, and the sun holds them and the giant 
 Jupiter by the same power. The Power that cares for 
 a world cares for a sparrow. If their orbit so lies that 
 a planet passes through it, and the planet and the me- 
 teors are at the point of intersection at the same time, 
 there must be collisions, and the lightning signs of ex- 
 tinction proportioned to the number of little bodies in 
 a given space. 
 
 It. is demonstrated that the earth encounters more 
 than one hundred such systems of meteoric bodies in a 
 single year. It passes through one on the 10th of Au- 
 gust, another on the llth of November. In a certain 
 part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies suf- 
 ficient to become visible as it approaches the sun, and 
 this is known as the comet of 1862 ; in the second is a 
 similar agglomeration, known as Temple's comet. It is 
 repeating the same thing to say that meteoroids follow in 
 the train of the comets. The probable orbit of the No- 
 vember meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceeding- 
 ly elongated ellipse, embracing the orbit of the earth at 
 one end and a portion of the orbit of Uranus at the 
 other (Fig. 51). That of the August meteors and the 
 comet of 1862 embraces the orbit of the earth at one 
 end, and thirty per cent, of the other end is beyond the 
 orbit of Neptune. 
 
 In January, 1846, Biela's comet was observed to be 
 divided. At its next return, in 1852, the parts were 
 1,500,000 miles apart. They could not be found on 
 their periodic returns in 1859, 1865, and 1872 ; but it 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 125 
 
 should have crossed the earth's orbit early in Septem- 
 ber, 1872. The earth itself would arrive at the point of 
 crossing two or three months later. If the law of revo- 
 lution held, we might still expect to find some of the 
 trailing meteoroids of the comet not gone by on our ar- 
 
 ofiJLLL 
 
 VHAW/.S 
 
 Fig. 51. Orbit of the November Meteors aud the Comet of 1866. 
 
 rival. It was shown that the point of the earth that 
 would strike them would be toward a certain place in 
 the constellation of Andromeda, if the remains of the di- 
 luted comet were still there. The prediction was veri- 
 fied in every respect. At the appointed time, place, 
 
126 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 and direction, the streaming lights were in our sky. 
 That these little bodies belonged to the original comet 
 none can doubt. By the perturbations of planetary at- 
 traction, or by different original velocities, a comet may 
 be lengthened into an invisible stream, or an invisible 
 stream agglomerated till it is visible as a comet. 
 
 Comets. 
 
 Comets will be most easily understood by the fore- 
 going considerations. They are often treated as if 
 they were no part of the solar system ; but they are 
 under the control of the same laws, and owe their ex- 
 istence, motion, and continuance to the same causes as 
 Jupiter arid the rest of the planets. They are really 
 planets of wider wandering, greater ellipticity, and less 
 density. They have periodic times less than asteroids, 
 and fifty times as great as Neptune. They are little 
 clouds of gas or meteoric matter, or both, darting into 
 the solar system from every side, at every angle with 
 the plane of the ecliptic, becoming luminous with re- 
 flected light, passing the sun, and returning again to 
 outer darkness. Sometimes they have no tail, having a 
 nucleus surrounded by nebulosity like a dim sun with 
 zodiacal light; sometimes one tail, sometimes half a 
 dozen. These follow the comet to perihelion, and pre- 
 cede it afterward (Fig. 52).- The orbits of some comets 
 are enormously elongated ; one end may lie inside the 
 earth's orbit, and the other end be as far beyond Nep- 
 tune as that is from the sun. Of course only a small 
 part of such a curve can be studied by us : the comet is 
 visible only when near the sun. The same curve around 
 the sun may be an orbit that will bring it back again,, 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 127 
 
 Fig. 52. Aspects of Remarkable Comets. 
 
 or one that will carry it off into infinite space, never to 
 return. One rate of speed on that curve indicates an 
 elliptical orbit; it returns; a greater rate of speed in- 
 dicates that it will take a parabolic orbit, and never 
 return. The exact rate of speed is exceedingly difficult 
 to determine; hence it cannot be confidently asserted 
 that any comet ever visible will not return. They may 
 all belong to the solar system ; but some will certainly 
 be gone thousands of years before their fiery forms will 
 greet the watchful eyes of dwellers on the earth. A 
 comet that has an elliptic orbit may have it changed to 
 
128 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 parabolic by the accelerations of its speed, by attracting 
 planets; or a parabolic comet may become elliptic, and 
 so permanently attracted to the system by the retarda- 
 tions of attracting bodies. A comet of long period may be 
 changed to one of short period by such attraction, or vice 
 versa. Orbits may be changed without affecting speed. 
 The number of comets, like that of meteor streams, 
 is exceedingly large. Five hundred have been visible 
 to the naked eye since the Christian era. Two hun- 
 dred have been seen by telescopes invented since their 
 invention. Some authorities estimate the number be- 
 longing to our solar system by millions ; Professor 
 Peirce says more than five thousand millions. 
 
 Famous Comets. 
 
 The comet of 1680 is perhaps the one that appeared 
 in A.D. 44, soon after the death of Julius Caesar, also in 
 the reign of Justinian, A.D. 531, and in 1106. This is 
 not determined by any recognizable resemblance. It 
 had a tail 70 long; it was not all arisen when its head 
 reached the meridian. It is possible, from the shape of 
 its orbit, that it has a periodic time of nine thousand 
 years, or that it may have a parabolic orbit, and never 
 return. Observations taken two hundred years ago have 
 not the exactness necessary to determine so delicate a 
 point. 
 
 On August 19th, 1682, Halley discovered a comet 
 which he soon declared to be one seen by Kepler in 
 1607. Looking back still farther, he found that a com- 
 et was seen in 1531 having the same orbit. Still far- 
 ther, by the same exact period of seventy-five years, he 
 found that it was the same comet that had disturbed 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 129 
 
 the equanimity of Pope Calixtus in 1456. Calculations 
 were undertaken as to the result of all the accelerations 
 and retardations by the attractions of all the planets for 
 the next seventy-five years. There was not time to fin- 
 ish all the work ; but a retardation of six hundred and 
 eighteen days was determined, with a possible error of 
 thirty days. The comet actually came to time within 
 thirty-three days, on March 12th, 1759. Again its re- 
 turn was calculated with more laborious care. It came 
 to time and passed the sun within three days of the pre- 
 dicted time, on the 16th of November, 1835. It passed 
 from sight of the most powerful telescopes the follow- 
 ing May, and has never since been seen by human eye. 
 But the eye of science sees it as having passed its 
 aphelion beyond the orbit of Neptune in 1873, and is 
 already hastening back to the warmth and light of the 
 sun. It will be looked for in 1911 ; and there is good 
 hope of predicting, long before it is seen, the time of 
 its perihelion within a day. 
 
 Bieltfs lost Comet. This was a comet with a periodic 
 time of six years and eight months. It was observed 
 in January, 1846, to have separated into two parts of 
 unequal brightness. The lesser part grew for a month 
 until it equalled the other, then became smaller and 
 disappeared, while the other was visible a month longer. 
 At disappearance the parts were 200,000 miles asunder. 
 On its next return, in 1852, the parts were 1,500,000 
 miles apart ; sometimes one was brighter and sometimes 
 the other ; which was the fragment and which was the 
 main body could not be recognized. They vanished in 
 September, 1852, and have never been seen since. Three 
 revolutions have been made since that time, but no 
 
 6* 
 
130 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 trace of it could be discovered. Probably the same in- 
 fluence that separated it into parts, separated the par- 
 ticles till too thin and tenuous to be seen. There is 
 ground for believing that the earth passed through a 
 part of it, as before stated under the head of meteors. 
 
 The Great Comet of 184:3 passed nearer the sun than 
 any known body. It almost grazed the sun. If it ever 
 returns, it will be in A.D. 2373. 
 
 Donates Comet of 1858. This was one of the most 
 magnificent of modern times. During the first three 
 months it showed no tail, but from August to October 
 it had developed one forty degrees in length. Its period 
 is about two thousand years. Every reader remembers 
 the comet of the summer of 1874. 
 
 Enckds Comet. This comet has become famous for 
 its supposed confirmation of the theory that space was 
 filled with a substance infinitely tenuous, which resisted 
 the passage of this gaseous body in an appreciable de- 
 gree, and in long ages would so retard the motion of all 
 the planets that gravitation would draw them all one 
 by one into the sun. We must not be misled by the 
 term retardation to suppose it means behind time, for a 
 retarded body is before time. If its velocity is dimin- 
 ished, the attraction of the sun causes it to take a small- 
 er orbit, and smaller orbits mean increased speed hence 
 the supposed retardation would shorten its periodic 
 time. This comet was thought to be retarded two and 
 a half hours at each revolution. If it was, it would not 
 prove the existence of the resisting medium. Other 
 causes, unknown to us, might account for it. Subse- 
 quent and more exact calculations fail to find any re- 
 tardations in at least two revolutions between 1865 and 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 131 
 
 1871. Indications point to a retardation of one and a 
 half hours both before and since. But such discrep- 
 ancy of result proves nothing concerning a resisting 
 medium, but rather is an argument against its existence. 
 Besides, Faye's comet, in four revolutions of seven years 
 each, shows no sign of retardation. 
 
 The truth may be this, that a kind of atmosphere ex- 
 ists around the sun, perhaps revealed by the zodiacal 
 light, that reaches beyond where Encke's comet dips in- 
 side the orbit of Mercury, and thus retards this body, 
 but does not reach beyond the orbit of Mars, where 
 Faye's comet wheels and withdraws. 
 
 Of what do Comets consist? 
 
 The unsolved problems pertaining to comets are very 
 numerous and exceedingly delicate. Whence come 
 they ? Why did they not contract to centres of nebu- 
 lae? Are there regions where attractions are balanced, 
 and matter is left to contract on itself, till the move- 
 ments of suns and planets adds or diminishes attrac- 
 tive force on one side, and so allows them to be drawn 
 slowly toward one planet, and its sun, or another? 
 There is ground for thinking that the comet of 1866 
 and its train of meteors, visible to us in November, was 
 thus drawn into our system by the planet Uranus. In- 
 deed, Leverrier has conjecturally fixed upon the date 
 of A.D. 128 as the time when it occurred; but another 
 and closer observation of its next return, in 1899, will 
 be needed to give confirmation to the opinion. Our 
 sun's authority extends at least half-way to the nearest 
 fixed star, one hundred thousand times farther than the 
 orbit of the earth. Meteoric and cometary matter ly- 
 
132 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 ing there, in a spherical shell about the solar system, 
 balanced between the attraction of different suns, final- 
 ly feels the power that determines its destiny toward 
 our sun. It would take 167,000,000 years to come 
 thence to our system. 
 
 The conditions of matter with which we are acquaint- 
 ed do not cover all the ground presented by these mys- 
 terious visitors. We know a gas sixteen times as light 
 as air, but hydrogen is vastly too heavy and dense ; for 
 we see the faintest star through thousands of miles of 
 cometary matter; we know that water may become 
 cloudy vapor, but a little of it obscures the vision. 
 Into what more ethereal, and we might almost say spir- 
 itual, forms matter may be changed we cannot tell. But 
 if w r e conceive comets to be only gas, it would expand 
 indefinitely in the realms of space, where there is no 
 force of compression but its own. We might say that 
 comets are composed of small separate masses of mat- 
 ter, hundreds of miles apart; and, looking through thou- 
 sands of miles of them, we see light enough reflected 
 from them all to seem continuous. Doubtless that is 
 sometimes the case. But the spectroscope shows anoth- 
 er state of things: it reveals in some of these comets 
 an incandescent gas usually some of the combinations 
 of carbon. The conclusion, then, naturally is that there 
 are both gas and small masses of matter, each with an 
 orbit of its own nearly parallel to those of all the others, 
 and that they afford some attraction to hold the mass 
 of intermingled and confluent gas together. Our best 
 judgment, then, is that the nucleus is composed of sepa- 
 rate bodies, or matter in a liquid condition, capable of 
 being vaporized by the heat of the sun, and driven off, 
 
SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS. 133 
 
 as steam from a locomotive, into a tail. Indications of 
 this are found in the fact that tails grow smaller at suc- 
 cessive returns, as the matter capable of such vaporiza- 
 tion becomes condensed. In some instances, as in that 
 of the comet of 1843, the head was diminished by the 
 manufacture of a tail. On the other hand, Professor 
 Peirce showed that the nucleus of the comets of 1680, 
 1843, and 1858 must have had a tenacity equal to steel, 
 to prevent being pulled apart by the tidal forces caused 
 by its terrible perihelion sweep around the sun. 
 
 It is likely that there are great varieties of condition 
 in different comets, and in the same comet at times. 
 We see them but a few days out of the possible millions 
 of their periodic time ; we see them only close to the 
 sun, under the spur of its tremendous attraction and 
 terrible heat. This gives us ample knowledge of the 
 path of their orbit and time of their revolution, but 
 little ground for judgment of their condition, when they 
 slowly round the uttermost cape of their far-voyaging, 
 in the terrible cold and darkness, to commence their 
 homeward flight. The unsolved problems are not all 
 in the distant sun and more distant stars, but one of 
 them is carried by us, sometimes near, sometimes far 
 off ; but our acquaintance with the possible forms and 
 conditions of matter is too limited to enable us to mas- 
 ter the difficulties. 
 
 WiU Comets strike the Earth ? 
 
 Very likely, since one or two have done so within a 
 recent period. What will be the effect ? That depends 
 on circumstances. There is good reason to suppose we 
 passed through the tail of a comet in 1861, and the only 
 
134 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 observable effect was a peculiar phosphorescent mist. 
 If the comet were composed of small meteoric masses a 
 brilliant shower would be the result. But if we fairly 
 encountered a nucleus of any considerable mass and so- 
 lidity, the result would be far more serious. The mass 
 of Donati's comet has been estimated by M. Faye to 
 be inrumr of that of the earth. If this amount of matter 
 were dense as water, it would make a globe five hun- 
 dred miles in diameter; and if as dense as Professor 
 Peirce proved the nucleus of this comet to be, its im- 
 pact with the earth would develop heat enough to melt 
 and vaporize the hardest rocks. Happily there is little 
 fear of this: as Professor Newcomb says, "So small is 
 the earth in comparison with celestial space, that if one 
 were to shut his eyes and fire at random in the air, the 
 chance of bringing down a bird would be better than 
 that of a comet of any kind striking the earth." Be- 
 sides, we are not living under a government of chance, 
 but under that of an Almighty Father, who upholdeth 
 all things by the word of his power; and no world can 
 come to ruin till he sees that it is best. 
 
THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 "Through faith we understand that the worlds [plum I J were framed 
 by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of 
 tilings which do appear." Heb. xi. 3. 
 
" O rich and various man ! thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in 
 thy senses the morning, and the night, and the unfathomable galaxy ; in 
 thy brain the geometry of the city of God ; in thy heart the power of love, 
 and the realms of right and wrong. An individual man is a fruit which 
 it costs all the foregoing ages to form and ripen. He is strong, not to do 
 but to live ; not in his arms, but in his heart ; not as an agent, but as a 
 fact." EMERSON. 
 
THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 137 
 
 VIII. 
 THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 How many bodies there may be revolving about the 
 sun we have no means to determine or arithmetic to 
 express. When the new star of the American Repub- 
 lic appeared, there were but six planets discovered. 
 Since then three regions of the solar system have been 
 explored with wonderful success. The outlying realms 
 beyond Saturn yielded the planet Uranus in 1781, and 
 Neptune in 1846. The middle region between Jupiter 
 and Mars yielded the little planetoid Ceres in 1801, 
 Pallas in 1802, and one hundred and ninety others 
 since. The inner region between Mercury and the sun 
 is of necessity full of small meteoric bodies ; the ques- 
 tion is, are there any bodies large enough to be seen ? 
 
 The same great genius of Leverrier that gave us Nep- 
 tune from the observed perturbations of Uranus, point- 
 ed out perturbations in Mercury that necessitated either 
 a planet or a group of planetoids between Mercury and 
 the sun. Theoretical astronomers, aided by the fact 
 that no planet had certainly been seen, and that all as- 
 serted discoveries of one had been by inexperienced ob- 
 servers, inclined to the belief in a group, or that the dis- 
 turbance was caused by the matter reflecting the zodi- 
 acal light. 
 
 When the total eclipse of the sun occurred in 1878, 
 
138 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 astronomers were determined that the question of the 
 existence of an intra-mercurial planet should be settled. 
 Maps of all the stars in the region of the sun were care- 
 fully studied, sections of the sky about the sun were as- 
 signed to different observers, who should attend to noth- 
 
 O ' 
 
 ing but to look for a possible planet. It is now con- 
 ceded that Professor Watson and Lewis Swift, the fa- 
 mous comet-finder, each discovered two small bodies 
 four in all within the orbit of Mercury. Instead of 
 one Vulcan there are doubtless many planetoids. One 
 was seen during the eclipse of January llth, 1880. 
 They are about 13,000,000 miles from the sun, and 
 make a revolution in about twenty days. 
 
 MERCURY. 
 
 The swift messenger of the gods ; sign $, his caducens. 
 
 Distance from the sun, 35,750,000 miles. Diameter, 2992 
 miles. Orbital revolution, 87.97 days. Orbital velocity, 1773 
 miles per minute. Axial revolution, 24h. 5m. 
 
 Mercury shines with a white light nearly as bright as 
 Sirius ; is always near the horizon. When nearly be- 
 tween us and the sun, as at D (Fig. 46, p. 113), its illu- 
 minated side nearly opposite to us, we, looking from E, 
 see only a thin crescent of its light. When it is at its 
 greatest angular distance from the sun, as A or C, we 
 see it illuminated like the half-moon. When it is be- 
 yond the sun, as at E, we see its whole illuminated face 
 like the full-moon. 
 
 The variation of its apparent size from the varying 
 distance is very striking. At its extreme distance from 
 the earth it subtends an angle of only five seconds ; near- 
 est to us, an angle of twelve seconds. Its distance from 
 the earth varies nearly as one to three, and its apparent 
 size in the inverse ratio. 
 
THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS. 139 
 
 When Mercury comes between the earth and the sun, 
 near the line where the planes of their -orbits cut each 
 other by reason of their inclination, the dark body of 
 Mercury will be seen on the bright surface of the sun. 
 This is called a transit. If it goes across the centre of 
 the sun it may consume eight hours. It goes 100,000 
 miles an hour, and has 860,000 miles of disk to cross. 
 The transit of 1878 occupied seven and a half hours. 
 The transits for the remainder of the century will 
 occur : 
 
 November Ttl) 1881 
 
 May 9th 1891 
 
 November 10th 1894 
 
 November 4th 1901 
 
 VENUS. 
 
 Goddess of beauty; its sign $, a mirror. 
 
 Distance from the sun, 66,750,000 miles. Diameter, 7660 
 miles. Orbital Velocity, 1296 miles per minute. Axial rev- 
 olution, 23h, 21m. Orbital revolution, 224.7 days. 
 
 This brilliant planet is often visible in the daytime. 
 I was once delighted by seeing Venus looking down, a 
 little after mid-day, through the open space in the dome 
 of the Pantheon at Rome. It has never since seemed 
 to me as if the home of all the gods was deserted. 
 Phoebus, Diana, Yenus and the rest, thronged through 
 that open upper door at noon of night or day. Arago 
 relates that Bonaparte, upon repairing to Luxemburg 
 when the Directory was about to give him a fete, was 
 much surprised at seeing the multitude paying more 
 attention to the heavens above the palace than to him 
 or his brilliant staff. Upon inquiry, he learned that 
 these curious persons were observing with astonishment 
 a star which they supposed to be that of the conqueror 
 of Italy. The emperor himself was not indifferent when 
 
140 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 his piercing eye caught the clear lustre of Venus smil- 
 ing upon him at rnid-day. 
 
 This unusual brightness occurs when Yenus is about 
 five weeks before or after her inferior conjunction, and 
 also nearest overhead by being north of the sun. This 
 last circumstance occurs once in eight years, and came 
 on February 16th, 1878. 
 
 Venus may be as near the earth as 22,000,000 miles, 
 and as far away as 160,000,000. This variation of its 
 distances from the earth is obviously much greater than 
 that of Mercury, and its consequent apparent size much 
 more changeable. Its greatest and least apparent sizes 
 are as ten and sixty-five (Fig. 53). 
 
 o o 
 
 O ^t^fer ^ 
 
 C 3 
 
 f) ^^ d 
 
 * 
 
 Fig. 53 Phases of Venns, and Various Apparent Dimensions. 
 
 When Copernicus announced the true theory of the 
 solar system, he said that if the inferior planets could 
 be clearly seen they would show phases like the moon. 
 When Galileo turned the little telescope he had made 
 on Venus, he confirmed the prophecy of Copernicus. 
 Desiring to take time for more extended observation, 
 and still be able to assert the priority of his discovery, 
 he published the following anagram, in which his dis- 
 covery was contained : 
 
THE EARTH. 141 
 
 " Haec immatnra a me jam frustra leguntur o. y." 
 (These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.) 
 
 He first saw Verms as gibbous ; a few months revealed 
 it as crescent, and then he transposed his anagram into : 
 
 " Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater amorum." 
 (The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.) 
 
 Many things that were once supposed to be known 
 concerning Yenus are not confirmed by later and better 
 observations. Yenus is surrounded by an atmosphere so 
 dense with clouds that it is conceded that her time of 
 rotation and the inclination of her axis cannot be deter- 
 mined. She revealed one of the grandest secrets of the 
 universe to the first seeker ; showed her highest beauty 
 to her first ardent lover, and has veiled herself from the 
 prying eyes of later comers. 
 
 Florence has built a kind of shrine for the telescope 
 of Galileo. By it he discovered the phases of Yenus, 
 the spots on the sun, the mountains of the moon, the 
 satellites of Jupiter, and some irregularities of shape in 
 Saturn, caused by its rings. Galileo subsequently be- 
 came blind, but he had used his eyes to the best pur- 
 pose of any man in his generation. 
 
 THE EARTH. 
 
 Its sign . 
 
 Distance from the sun, 92,500,000 milea Diameter, polar, 
 7899 miles ; equatorial, 7925^ miles. Axial revolution, 23h. 
 56m. 4.09s.; orbital, 365.26. Orbital velocity per minute, 
 1102.8 miles. 
 
 Let us lift ourselves up a thousand miles from the 
 earth. We see it as a ball hung upon nothing in emp- 
 ty space. As the drop of falling water gathers itself 
 
142 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 into a sphere by its own inherent attraction, so the 
 earth gathers itself into a ball. Noticing closely, we 
 
 Fig. 54 Earth and Moon in Space. 
 
 see forms of continents outlined in bright relief, and 
 oceanic forms in darker surfaces. We see that its axis 
 of revolution is nearly perpendicular to the line of light 
 from the sun. One-half is always dark. The sunrise 
 greets a new thousand miles every hour ; the glories of 
 
AURORA BOREALIS. 143 
 
 the sunset follow over an equal space, 180 behind. We 
 are glad that the darkness never overtakes the morning. 
 
 The Aurora Borealis. 
 
 While east and west are gorgeous with sunrise and 
 sunset, the north is often more glorious with its aurora 
 borealis. We remember that all worlds have weird 
 
 Fig. 55. The Anrora as Waving Ctirtains. 
 
 and inexplicable appendages. They are not limited to 
 their solid surfaces or their circumambient air. The sun 
 has its fiery flames, corona, zodiacal light, and perhaps a 
 finer kind of atmosphere than we know. The earth is 
 
144: A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 not without its inexplicable surroundings. It lias not 
 only its gorgeous eastern sunrise, its glorious western 
 sunset, high above its surface in the clouds, but it also 
 has its more glorious northern dawn far above its clouds 
 and air. The realm of this royal splendor is as yet an 
 unconquered world waiting for its Alexander. There 
 are certain observable facts, viz., it prevails mostly near 
 the arctic circle rather than the pole ; it takes on vari- 
 ous forms cloud-like, arched, straight; it streams like 
 banners, waves like curtains in the wind, is inconstant ; 
 is either the cause or result of electric disturbance ; it 
 is often from four hundred to six hundred miles above 
 the earth, while our air cannot be over one hundred 
 miles. It almost seems like a revelation to human eyes 
 of those vast, changeable, panoramic pictures by which 
 the inhabitants of heaven are taught. 
 
 Investigation has discovered far more mysteries than 
 it has explained. It is possible that the same cause that 
 produces sun-spots produces aurora in all space, visible 
 in all worlds. If so, we shall see more abundant auroras 
 at the next maximum of sun-spot, between 1880-84. 
 
 The Delicate Balance of Forces. 
 
 A soap-bubble in the wind could hardly be more flex- 
 ible in form and sensitive to influence than is the earth. 
 On the morning of May 9th, 1876, the earth's crust at 
 Peru gave a few great throbs upward, by the action of 
 expansive gases within. The sea fled, and returned in 
 great waves as the land rose and fell. Then these waves 
 fled away over the great mobile surface, and in less than 
 five hours they had covered a space equal to half of Eu- 
 rope. The waves ran out to the Sandwich Islands, six 
 
THE EARTH. 14:5 
 
 thousand miles, at the rate of five hundred miles an 
 hour, and arrived there thirty feet high. They not only 
 sped on in straight radial lines, but, having run up the 
 coast to California, were deflected away into the former 
 series of waves, making the most complex undulations. 
 Similar beats of the great heart of the earth have sent 
 its pulses as widely and rapidly on previous occasions. 
 
 The figure of the earth, even on the ocean, is irregu- 
 lar, in consequence of the greater preponderance of land 
 and hence greater density in the northern hemi- 
 sphere. These irregularities are often very perplexing 
 in making exact geodetic measurements. The tendency 
 of matter to fly from the centre by reason of revolu- 
 tion causes the equatorial diameter to be twenty -six 
 miles longer than the polar one. By this force the 
 Mississippi River is enabled to run up a hill nearly 
 three miles high at a very rapid rato. Its mouth is 
 that distance farther from the centre of the earth than 
 its source, when but for this rotation both points would 
 be equally distant. 
 
 If the water became more dense, or if the world were 
 to revolve faster, the oceans would rush to the equator, 
 burying the tallest mountains and leaving polar regions 
 bare. If the water should become lighter in a very 
 slight degree, or the world rotate more slowly, the 
 poles would be submerged and the equator become an 
 arid waste. No balance, turning to y^W of a grain, is 
 more delicate than the poise of forces on the world. 
 Laplace has given us proof that the period of the earth's 
 axial rotation has not changed -j-J 7 of a second of time 
 in two thousand years. 
 
 7 
 
146 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Tides. 
 
 But there is an outside influence that is constantly 
 acting upon the earth, and to which it constantly re- 
 sponds. Two hundred and forty thousand miles from 
 the earth is the moon, having T T the mass of the world. 
 Its attractive influence on the earth causes the mov- 
 able and nearer portions to hurry away from the more 
 stable and distant, and heap themselves up on that part 
 of the earth nearest the moon. Gravitation is inverse- 
 ly as the square of the distance; hence the water on 
 the surface of the earth is attracted more than the body 
 of the earth, some parts of which are eight thousand 
 miles farther off; hence the water rises on the side next 
 the moon. But the earth, as a whole, is nearer the 
 moon than the w r ater on the opposite side, and being 
 drawn more strongly, is taken away from the water, 
 leaving it heaped up also on the side opposite to the 
 moon. 
 
 A subsidiary cause of tides is found in the revolution 
 of the earth and moon about their common centre of 
 gravity. Revolution about an axis through the centre 
 of a sphere enlarges the equator by centrifugal force. 
 Revolution about an axis touching the surface of a flex- 
 ible globe converts it into an egg-shaped body, with 
 the longer axis perpendicular to the axis of revolution. 
 In Fig. 56 the point of revolution is seen at the centre 
 of gravity at G ; hence, in the revolution of earth and 
 moon as one, a strong centrifugal force is caused at D, 
 and a less one at C. This gives greater height to the 
 tides than the attraction of the moon alone could pro- 
 duce. 
 
TIDES. 147 
 
 If the earth had no axial revolution, the attractive 
 point where the tide rises would be carried around the 
 
 Fig. 56. 
 
 earth once in twenty-seven days by the moon's revolu- 
 tion about the earth. But since the earth revolves on 
 its axis, it presents a new section to the moon's attrac- 
 tion every hour. If the moon were stationary, that 
 would bring two high tides in exactly twenty -four 
 hours ; but as the moon goes forward, we need nearly 
 twenty-five hours for two tides. 
 
 The attractive influence of the sun also gives us a 
 tide four-tenths as great as that of the moon. When 
 these two influences of the sun and moon combine, as 
 they do, in conjunction when both bodies are on one 
 side of the earth ; or in opposition, sun and moon being 
 on opposite sides of the earth we have spring or in- 
 creased tides. When the moon closes its first or third 
 quarter, i. <?., when a line from the moon to the earth 
 makes a right angle with one from the sun to the earth, 
 these influences antagonize one another, and we have 
 the neap or low tides. 
 
 It is easy to see that if, when the moon was drawing 
 its usual tide, the sun drew four-tenths of the water in 
 a tide at right angles with it, the moon's tide must be 
 by so much lower. Because of the inertia of the water 
 
148 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 it does riot yield instantly to the moon's influence, and 
 the crest of the tide is some hours behind the advan- 
 cing moon. 
 
 The amount of tide in various places is affected by 
 almost innumerable influences, as distance of moon at 
 its apogee or perigee ; its position north, south, or at the 
 equator ; distance of earth from sun at perihelion and 
 aphelion ; the position of islands ; the trend of conti- 
 nents, etc. All eastern shores have far greater tides than 
 western. As the earth rolls to the east it leaves the 
 tide-crest under the moon to impinge on eastern shores, 
 hence the tides of from seventy-ti ve to one hundred feet 
 in the Bay of Fundy. Lakes and most seas are too small 
 to have perceptible tides. The spring-tides in the Med- 
 iterranean Sea are only about three inches. 
 
 This constant ebb and flow of the great sea is a grand 
 provision for its purification. Even the wind is sent to 
 the sea to be cleansed. The sea washes every shore, 
 purifies every cove, bay, and river twice every twenty- 
 four hours. All putrescible matter liable to breed a 
 pestilence is carried far from shore and sunk under 
 fathoms of the never-stagnant sea. The distant moon 
 lends its mighty power to carry the burdens of com- 
 merce. She takes all the loads that can be floated on 
 her flowing tides, and cheerfully carries them in oppo- 
 site directions in successive journeys. 
 
 It must be conceded that the profoundest study has 
 not mastered the whole philosophy of tides. There are 
 certain facts which are apparent, but for an explanation 
 of their true theory such man as Laplace, Newton, and 
 Airy have labored in vain. There are plenty of other 
 worlds still to conquer. 
 
Fig. 57. Lunar Day. 
 
THE MO OX. 151 
 
 THE MOOX. 
 
 New moon, ; first quarter, 3 ; full moon, o ; last quarter, . 
 
 Extreme distance from the earth, 259,600 miles; least. 
 221,000 miles; mean, 240,000 miles. Diameter, 2164.6 miles 
 [2153, Lockyer]. Revolution about the earth, 29| days. Ax- 
 ial revolution, same time. 
 
 When the astronomer Herschel was observing the 
 southern sky from the Cape of Good Hope, the most 
 clever hoax was perpetrated that ever was palmed upon 
 a credulous public. Some new and wonderful instru- 
 ments were carefully described as having been used by 
 that astronomer, whereby he was enabled to bring the 
 moon so close that he could see thereon trees, houses, 
 animals, and men-like human beings. He could even 
 discern their movements, arid gestures that indicated a 
 peaceful race. The extent of the hoax will be perceived 
 when it is stated that no telescope that we are now able 
 to make reveals the moon more clearly than it would 
 appear to the naked eye if it was one hundred or one 
 hundred and fifty miles away. The distance at which 
 a man can be seen by the unaided eye varies according 
 to circumstances of position, background, light, and eye, 
 but it is much inside of five miles. 
 
 Since, however, the moon is our nearest neighbor, a 
 member of our own family in fact, it is a most interest- 
 ing object of study. 
 
 A glance at its familiar face reveals its unequal illu- 
 mination. All ages and races have seen a man in the 
 moon. All lovers have sworn by its constancy, and 
 only part of them have kept their oaths. Every twenty- 
 nine or thirty days we see a silver crescent in the west, 
 and are glad if it comes over the right shoulder so 
 
152 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 much tribute does habit pay to superstition. The next 
 night it is thirteen degrees farther east from the sun. 
 We note the stars it occults, or passes by, and leaves be- 
 hind as it broadens its disk, till it rises full-orbed in the 
 east when the sun sinks in the west. It is easy to see 
 that the moon goes around the earth from west to east. 
 Afterward it rises later and smaller each night, till at 
 length, lost from sight, it rises about the same time as 
 the sun, and soon becomes the welcome crescent new 
 moon again. 
 
 The same peculiarities are always evident in the visi- 
 ble face of the moon; hence we know that it always 
 presents the same side to the earth. Obviously it must 
 make just one axial to one orbital revolution. Hold 
 any body before you at arm's -length, revolve it one- 
 quarter around you until exactly overhead. If it has 
 not revolved on an axis between the hands, another 
 quarter of the surface is visible; but if in going up it is 
 turned a quarter over, by the hands holding it steady, 
 the same side is visible. Three causes enable us to 
 see a little more than half the moon's surface : 1. The 
 speed with which it traverses the ellipse of its orbit is 
 variable. It sometimes gets ahead of us, sometimes be- 
 hind, and we see farther around the front or back part. 
 2. The axis is a little inclined to the plane of its orbit, 
 and its orbit a little inclined to ours; hence we see a 
 little over its north pole, and then again over the south 
 pole. 3. The earth being larger, its inhabitants see a 
 little more than half-way around a smaller body. These 
 causes combined enable us to see fVtnr of the moon's 
 surface. Our eyes will never see the other side of the 
 moon. If, now, being solid, her axial revolution could 
 
THE MOON. 153 
 
 be increased enough to make one more revolution in 
 two or three years, that difference between her axial 
 and orbital revolution would give the future inhabitants 
 of the earth a view of the entire circumference of the 
 moon. Yet if the moon were once in a fluid state, or 
 had oceans on the surface, the enormous tide caused by 
 the earth would produce friction enough, as they moved 
 over the surface, to gradually retard the axial revolution 
 till the two tidal elevations remained fixed toward and 
 opposite the earth, and then the axial and orbital revo- 
 lutions would correspond, as at present. In fact, we can 
 prove that the form of the moon is protuberant toward 
 the earth. Its centre of gravity is thirty-three miles be- 
 yond its centre of magnitude, which is the same in ef- 
 fect as if a mountain of that enormous height rose on. 
 the earth side. Hence any fluid, as water or air, would 
 flow round to the other side. 
 
 The moon's day, caused by the sun's light, is 29j- 
 times as long as ours. The sun shines unintermittingly 
 for fifteen days, raising a temperature as fervid as boil- 
 ing water. Then darkness and frightful cold for the 
 same time succeed, except on that half where the earth 
 acts as a moon. The earth presents the same phases 
 crescent, full, and gibbons to the moon as the moon 
 does to us, and for the same causes. Lord Kosse has 
 been enabled, by his six-foot reflector, to measure the 
 difference of heat on the moon under the full blaze of 
 its noonday and midnight. He finds it to be no less 
 than five hundred degrees. People not enjoying ex- 
 tremes of temperature should shun a lunar residence. 
 The moon gives us only fe ^ 8 f as much light as the sun. 
 A sky full of moons would scarcely make daylight. 
 
154: A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 There are no indications of air or water on the moon. 
 When it occults a star it instantly shuts off the light 
 
 Pig. 58. View of the Moon near the Third Quarter. From a Photograph by 
 Professor Heury Draper. 
 
 and as instantly reveals it again. An atmosphere would 
 gradually diminish and reveal the light, and by refrac- 
 
THE MOOX. 155 
 
 tion cause the star to be bidden in much less time than 
 the solid body of the moon would need to pass over it. 
 If the moon ever had air and water, as it probably did, 
 they are now absorbed in the porous lava of its sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Telescopic Appearance. 
 
 Probably no one ever saw the moon by means of a 
 good telescope without a feeling of admiration and awe. 
 Except at full-moon, we can see where the daylight 
 struggles with the dark along the line of the moon's 
 sunrise or sunset. This line is called the terminator. 
 It is broken in the extreme, because the surface is as 
 rough as possible. In consequence of the small gravita- 
 tion of the moon, utter absence of the expansive power 
 of ice shivering the cliffs, or the levelling power of rains, 
 precipices can stand in perpendicularity, mountains 
 shoot up like needles, and cav- 
 ities three miles deep remain 
 unfilled. The light of the 
 sun falling on the rough body 
 of the moon, shown in sec- 
 tion (Fig. 59), illuminates the F ig.59.-Illumination of Craters and 
 
 whole cavity at #, part of the Peaks - 
 
 one at &, casts a long shadow from the mountain at c, and 
 touches the tip of the one at d, which appears to a distant 
 observer as a point of light beyond the terminator. As 
 the moon revolves the conical cavity, a is illuminated 
 on the forward side only; the light creeps down the 
 backward side of cavity b to the bottom ; mountain o 
 comes directly under the sun and casts no shadow, and 
 mountain d casts its long shadow over the plain. Know- 
 ing the time of revolution, and observing the change of 
 
156 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 illumination, we can easily measure the height of moun- 
 tain and depth of crater. An apple, with excavations 
 and added prominences, revolved on its axis toward the 
 
 Fig. CO. Lunar Crater "Copernicus,'' after Secchi. 
 
 light of a candle, admirably illustrates the crescent light 
 that fills either side of the cavities and the shadows of 
 the mountains on the plain. Notice in Fig. 58 the cres- 
 cent forms to the right, showing cavities in abundance. 
 The selenography of one side of the moon is much 
 better known to us than the geography of the earth. 
 Our maps of the moon are far more perfect than those 
 of the earth ; and the photographs of lunar objects by 
 Messrs. Draper and De la Rue are wonderfully perfect, 
 
ECLIPSES. 157 
 
 and the drawings of Padre Secchi equally so (Fig. 60). 
 The least change recognizable from the earth must be 
 speedily detected. There are frequently reports of dis- 
 coveries of volcanoes on the moon, but they prove to be 
 illusions. The moon will probably look the same to 
 observers a thousand years hence as it does to-day. 
 
 This little orb, that is only - T of the mass of the earth, 
 has twenty-eight mountains that are higher than Mont 
 Blanc, that " monarch of mountains," in Europe. 
 
 Eclipses. 
 
 It is evident that if the plane of the moon's orbit were 
 to correspond with that of the earth, as they all lie in 
 the plane of the page (Fig. 61), the moon must pass 
 between the centres of the earth and sun, and exactly 
 
 Fig. 61. Eclipses ; Shadows of Earth aud Moou. 
 
 behind the earth at every revolution. Such successive 
 and total darkenings would greatly derange all affairs 
 dependent on light. It is easily avoided. Venus does 
 
158 A SOLAR .SYSTEM. 
 
 not cross the disk of the sun at every revolution, be- 
 cause of the inclination of the plane of its orbit to that 
 of the earth (see Fig. 41, p. 107). So the plane of the 
 orbit of the moon is inclined to the orbit of the earth 
 5 8' 39" ; hence the full-moon is often above or below 
 the earth's shadow, and the earth is below or above the 
 moon's shadow at new moon. It is as if the moon's or- 
 bit were pulled up one-quarter of an inch from the page 
 behind the earth, and depressed as much below it be- 
 tween the earth and the sun. The point where the or- 
 bit of the moon penetrates the plane of the ecliptic is 
 called a node. If a new moon occur when the line of 
 intersection of the planes of orbits points to the sun, 
 the sun must be eclipsed ; if the full-moon occur, the 
 moon must be eclipsed. In any other position the sun 
 or moon will only be partially hidden, or no eclipse will 
 occur. 
 
 If the new moon be near the earth it will completely 
 obscure the sun. A dime covers it if held close to the 
 eye. It may be so far from the earth as to only par- 
 tially hide the sun ; and, if it cover the centre, leave a 
 ring of sunlight on every side. This is called an annu- 
 lar eclipse. Two such eclipses will occur this year (1879). 
 If the full-moon passes near the earth, or is at perigee, 
 it finds the cone of shadow cast by the earth larger, and 
 hence the eclipse is greater ; if it is far from the earth, 
 or near apogee, the earth's shadow is smaller, and the 
 eclipse less, or is escaped altogether. 
 
 There is a certain periodicity in eclipses. Whenever 
 the sun, moon, and earth are in a line, as in the total 
 eclipse of July 29th, 1878, they will be in the same po- 
 sition after the earth has made about eighteen revolu- 
 
MARS. 159 
 
 tions, and the moon two hundred and thirty-five that 
 is, eighteen years after. This period, however, is disre- 
 garded by astronomers, and each eclipse calculated by 
 itself to the accuracy of a second. 
 
 How terrible is the fear of ignorance and superstition 
 when the sun or moon appear to be in the process of 
 destruction ! how delightful are the joys of knowledge 
 when its prophesies in regard to the heavenly bodies are 
 being fulfilled ! 
 
 MARS. 
 
 The god of war; its sign $, spear aud shield. 
 
 Mean distance from the sun, 141,000,000 miles. Diame- 
 ter, 4211 miles. Revolution, axial, 24h. 37m. 22.7s. ; orbital, 
 686.98 days. Velocity per minute, 899 miles. Satellites, two. 
 
 At intervals, on an average of two years one month 
 and nineteen days, we find rising, as the sun goes down, 
 the reddest star in the heavens. Its brightness is ex- 
 ceedingly variable; sometimes it scintillates, and some- 
 times it shines with a steady light. Its marked pecu- 
 liarities demand a close study. We find it to be Mars, 
 the fiery god of war. Its orbit is far from circular. At 
 perihelion it is 128,000,000 miles from the sun, and at 
 aphelion 151,000,000 ; hence its mean distance is about 
 141,000,000. So great a change in its distance from 
 the sun partly accounts for the change in its brilliancy. 
 Now, if Mars and the earth revolved in circular orbits, 
 the one 141,000,000 miles from the sun, and the other 
 92,000,000, they would approach at opposition within 
 49,000,000 miles of each other, and at conjunction be 
 233,000,000 miles apart. But Mars at perihelion may 
 be only 128,000,000 miles from the sun, and earth at 
 
160 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 aphelion may be 94,000,000 miles from the sun. They 
 are, then, but 34,000,000 miles apart. This favorable 
 opportunity occurs about once in seventy -nine years. 
 At its last occurrence, in 1877, Mars introduced to us 
 his two satellites, that had never before been seen by 
 man. In consequence of this greatly varying distance, 
 the apparent size of Mars differs very much (Fig. 62). 
 
 Fig. 62. Apparent Size of Mars at Mean and Extreme Distances. 
 
 Take a favorable time when the planet is near, also as 
 near overhead as it ever comes, so as to have as little 
 atmosphere as possible to penetrate, and study the plan- 
 et. The first thing that strikes the observer is a daz- 
 zling spot of w T hite near the pole which happens to be 
 toward him, or at both poles when the planet is so situ- 
 ated that they can be seen. When the north pole is 
 turned toward the sun the size of the spot sensibly di- 
 minishes, and the spot at the south pole enlarges, and 
 vice versa. Clearly they are ice-fields. Hence Mars has 
 water, and air to carry it, and heat to melt ice. It is 
 winter at the south pole when Mars is farthest from 
 the sun ; therefore the ice-fields are larger than at the 
 north pole. It is summer at the south pole when Mars 
 is nearest the sun. Hence its ice-fields grow smaller 
 
SATELLITES OF MARS. 161 
 
 than those of the north pole in its summer. This car- 
 rying of water from pole to pole, and melting of ice 
 over such large areas, might give rise to uncomfortable 
 currents in ocean and air ; but very likely an inhabitant 
 of earth might be transported to the surface of Mars, 
 and be no more surprised at what he observed there 
 than if he went to some point of the earth to him un- 
 known. Day and night would be nearly of the same 
 length ; winter would linger longer in the lap of spring ; 
 summer would be one hundred and eighty -one days 
 long; but as the seas are more intermingled with the 
 land, and the divisions of land have less of continental 
 magnitude, it may be conjectured that Mars might be a 
 comfortable place of residence to beings like men. Per- 
 haps the greatest surprise to the earthly visitor would 
 be to find himself weighing only four-tenths as much as 
 usual, able to leap twice as high, and lift considerable 
 bowlders. 
 
 Satellites of Mars. 
 
 The night of August llth, 1877, is famous in modern 
 astronomy. Mars has been a special object of study in 
 all ages ; but on that evening Professor Hall, of Wash- 
 ington, discovered a satellite of Mars. On the 16th it 
 was seen again, and its orbital motion followed. On the 
 following night it was hidden behind the body of the 
 planet when the observation began, but at the calcu- 
 lated time at four o'clock in the morning it emerged, 
 and established its character as a true moon, and not a 
 fixed star or asteroid. Blessings, however, never come 
 singly, for another object oon emerged which proved 
 to be an inner satellite. This is extraordinarily near 
 
162 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 the planet only four thousand miles from the surface 
 and its revolution is exceedingly rapid. The shortest 
 period hitherto known is that of the inner satellite of 
 Saturn, 22h. 37m. The inner satellite of Mars makes 
 its revolution in 7h. 39m. a rapidity so much surpass- 
 ing the axial revolution of the planet itself, that it rises 
 in the west and sets in the east, showing all phases of 
 our moon in one night. The outer satellite is 12,572 
 miles from Mars, and makes its revolution in 30h. 18m. 
 Its diameter is six and a quarter miles ; that of the in- 
 ner one is seven and a half miles. This can be esti- 
 mated only by the amount of light given. 
 
 ASTEROIDS. 
 
 Already discovered (1879), 201. Distances from the sun, 
 from 200,000,000 to 315,000,000 miles. Diameters, from 20 
 to 400 miles. Mass of all, less than one-quarter of the earth. 
 
 The sense of infinite variety among the countless 
 number of celestial orbs has been growing rapidly upon 
 us for half a century, and doubtless will grow much 
 more in half a century to come. Just as we paused in 
 the consideration of planets to consider meteors and 
 comets, at first thought so different, so must we now 
 pause to consider a ring of bodies, some of which are 
 as small in comparison to Jupiter, the next planet, as 
 aerolites are compared to the earth. 
 
 In 1800 an association of astronomers, suspecting that 
 a planet might be found in the great distance between 
 Mars and Jupiter, divided the zodiac into twenty-four 
 parts, and assigned one part to each astronomer for 
 a thorough search ; but, before their organization could 
 sommence work, Piazzi, an Italian astronomer of Paler- 
 
ASTEROIDS. 1G3 
 
 mo, found in Taurus a star behaving like a planet. In 
 six weeks it was lost in the rajs of the sun. It was 
 rediscovered on its emergence, and named Ceres. In 
 March, 1802, a second planet was discovered by Olbers 
 in the same gap between Mars and Jupiter, and named 
 Pallas. Here was an embarrassment of richness. Ol- 
 bers suggested that an original planet had exploded, 
 and that more pieces could be found. More were 
 found, but the theory is exploded into more pieces 
 than a planet could possibly be. Up to 1879 one 
 hundred and ninety-two have been discovered, with a 
 prospect of more. Between 1871-75 forty-five were 
 discovered, showing that they are sought for with great 
 skill. In the discovery of these bodies, our American 
 astronomers, Professors Watson and Peters, are without 
 peers. 
 
 Between Mars and Jupiter is a distance of some 
 339,000,000 miles. Subtract 35,000,000 miles next to 
 Mars and 50,000,000 miles next to Jupiter, and there is 
 left a zone 254,000,000 miles wide outside of which the 
 asteroids never wander. If any ever did, the attraction 
 of Mars or Jupiter may have prevented their return. 
 
 Since the orbits of Mars and Jupiter show no sign of 
 being affected by these bodies for a century past, it is 
 probable that their number is limited, or at least that 
 their combined mass does not approximate the size of a 
 planet. Professor Newcomb estimates that if all that 
 are now discovered were put into one planet, it would 
 not be over four hundred miles in diameter; and if a 
 thousand more should exist, of the average size of those 
 discovered since 1850, their addition would not increase 
 the diameter to more than five hundred miles. 
 
164 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 That all these bodies, which differ from each other in 
 no respect except in brilliancy, can be noted and fixed 
 so as not to be mistaken one for another, and instantly 
 recognized though not seen for a dozen years, is one of 
 the highest exemplifications of the accuracy of astro- 
 nomical observation. 
 
 JUPITER. 
 
 The king of the gods ; sign v, the bird of Jove. 
 
 Distance from the sun, perihelion, 457,000,000 miles; aphe- 
 lion, 503,000,000 miles. Diameter, equatorial, 87,500 miles; 
 polar, 82,500 miles. Volume, 1400 earths. Mass, 213 earths. 
 Axial revolution, 9h. 55m. 20s. Orbital revolution, 11 years 
 317 days. Velocity, 483.6 miles per minute. 
 
 Jupiter rightly wears the name of the "giant planet." 
 His orbit is more nearly circular than most smaller 
 
 Fig. 63. Jupiter as seen by the great Washington Telescope. Drawn by Mr. 
 
 Holden. 
 
 planets. He could not turn short corners with facility. 
 We know little of his surface. His spots and belts are 
 
SATELLITES OF JUPITER. 165 
 
 changeable as clouds, which they probably are. Some 
 spots may be slightly self-luminous, but not the part of 
 the planet we see. It is covered with an enormous 
 depth of atmosphere. Since the markings in the belts 
 move about one hundred miles a day, the Jovian tem- 
 pests are probably not violent. It is, however, a singu- 
 lar and unaccountable fact, as remarked by Arago, that 
 its trade-winds move in an opposite direction from ours. 
 Jupiter receives only one twenty-seventh as much light 
 and heat from the sun as the earth receives. Its lighter 
 density, being about that of water, indicates that it still 
 has internal heat of its own. Indeed, it is likely that 
 this planet has not yet cooled so as to have any solid 
 crust, and if its dense vapors could be deposited on the 
 surface, its appearance might be more suggestive of the 
 sun than of the earth. 
 
 Satellites of Jupiter. 
 
 In one respect Jupiter seems like a minor sun he is 
 royally attended by a group of planets : we call them 
 moons. This system is a favorite object of study to 
 every one possessing a telescope. Indeed, I have known 
 a man who could see these moons with the naked eye, 
 and give their various positions without mistake. Gali- 
 leo first revealed them to ordinary men. We see their 
 orbits so nearly on the edge that the moons seem to be 
 sliding back and forth across and behind the disk, and 
 to varying distances on either side. Fig. 64 is the rep- 
 resentation of their appearance at successive observa- 
 tions in November, 1878. Their motion is so swift, and 
 the means of comparison by one another and the planet 
 so excellent, that they can be seen to change their places, 
 
166 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 64. a. Various Positions of Jupiter's Moous ; 6. Greatest Elongation of eacb 
 
 Satellite. 
 
 be occulted, emerge from shadow, and eclipse the plan- 
 et, in an hour's watching. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF JDPITER's SATELLITES. 
 
 
 Mean Distance 
 from Jupiter. 
 
 Sidereal Period. 
 
 Diameter. 
 
 I. lo 
 
 Miles. 
 
 260,000 
 
 Days Hrs. Min. 
 1 18 28 
 
 Miles. 
 
 2,352 
 
 II Europa . 
 
 414,000 
 
 3 13 43 
 
 2,01)!) 
 
 Ill Gnnvmede 
 
 661,000 
 
 7 3 59 
 
 3,436 
 
 IV Callixto 
 
 1,162,000 
 
 16 18 5 
 
 2 929 
 
 
 
 
 
 It is seen by the above table that all these moons 
 are larger than ours, one larger than Mercury, and the 
 asteroids are hardly large enough to make respectable 
 moons for them. They differ in color : I. and II. have 
 a bluish tinge ; III. a yellow ; and IY. is red. The 
 amount of light given by these satellites varies in the 
 most sudden and inexplicable manner. Perhaps it may 
 be owing to the different distributions of land and wa- 
 ter on them. The mass of all of them is .000171 of 
 Jupiter. 
 
SATURN. 167 
 
 If the Jovian system were the only one in existence, 
 it would be a surprising object of wonder and study. 
 A monster planet, 85,000 miles in diameter, hung on 
 nothing, revolving its equatorial surface over 450 miles 
 a minute, holding four other worlds in steady orbits, 
 some of them at a speed of TOO miles a minute, and 
 the whole system carried through space at 500 miles a 
 minute. Yet the discovery of all this display of power, 
 skill, and stability is only reading the easiest syllables 
 of the vast literature of wisdom and power. 
 
 SATURN, 
 
 The god of time ; sign ? , his scythe. 
 
 Mean distance from the sun, 881,000,000 miles. Diameter, 
 polar, 66,500 miles; equatorial, 73,300 miles. Axial revolu- 
 tion, lOh. 14m. Periodic time, 29 years. Moons, eight 
 
 The human mind has used Saturn and the two known 
 planets beyond for the last 200 years as a gymnasium. 
 It has exercised itself in comprehending their enormous 
 distances in order to clear those greater spaces, to where 
 the stars a.re set ; it has exercised its ingenuity at inter- 
 preting appearances which signify something other than 
 they seem, in order that it may no longer be deluded 
 by any sunrises into a belief that the heavenly dome 
 goes round the earth. That a wandering point of light 
 should develop into such amazing grandeurs under the 
 telescope, is as unexpected as that every tiny seed should 
 show peculiar markings and colors under the microscope. 
 
 There are certain things that are easy to determine, 
 such as size, density, periodic time, velocity, etc. ; but 
 other things are exceedingly difficult to determine. It 
 requires long sight to read when the book is held 
 
168 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 800,000,000 miles away. Only very few, if more than 
 two, opportunities have been found to determine the 
 time of Saturn's rotation. On the evening of December 
 
 Fig. 65. View of Saturn and his Rings. 
 
 7th, 1870, Professor Hall -observed a brilliant white spot 
 suddenly show itself on the body of this planet. It was 
 as if an eruption of white hot matter burst up from the 
 interior. It spread eastward, and remained bright till 
 January, when it faded. No such opportunity for get- 
 ting a basis on which to found a calculation of the time 
 of the rotation of Saturn has occurred since Sir William 
 Herschel's observations; and, very singularly, the two 
 times deduced wonderfully coincide that of Herschel 
 being lOh. 16m., that of Mr. Hall being lOh. Urn, 
 
SATURF'S RINGS. 169 
 
 The density of Saturn is less than that of water, and 
 its velocity of rotation so great that centrifugal force 
 antagonizes gravitation to such an extent that bodies 
 weigh on it about the same as on the earth. All the 
 fine fancies of the habitability of this vaporous world, 
 all the calculations of the number of people that could 
 live on the square miles of the planet and its enormous 
 rings, are only fancy. Nothing could live there with 
 more brains than a fish, at most. It is a world in for- 
 mative processes. We cannot hear the voice of the 
 Creator there, but we can see matter responsive to the 
 voice, and moulded by his word. 
 
 Rings of Saturn. 
 
 The eye and mind of man have worked out a prob- 
 lem of marvellous difficulty in finding a true solution 
 of the strange appearance of the rings. Galileo has 
 the immortal honor of first having seen something pe- 
 culiar about this planet. He wrote to the Duke of 
 Tuscany, " When I view Saturn it seems tricorps. The 
 central body seems the largest. The two others, situated, 
 the one on the east, and the other on the west, seem to 
 touch it. They are like two supporters, who help old 
 Saturn on his way, and always remain at his side." 
 Looking a few years later, the rings having turned from 
 view, he said, " It is possible that some demon mocked 
 me ;" and he refused to look any more. 
 
 Huyghens, in March, 1655, solved the problem of the 
 triform appearance of Saturn. He saw them as han- 
 dles on the two sides. In a year they had disappeared, 
 and the planet was as round as it seemed to Galileo in 
 1612. He did not, however, despair ; and in October, 
 
 S 
 
170 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 1656, he was rewarded by seeing them appear again. 
 He wrote of Saturn, " It is girdled by a thin plain ring, 
 nowhere touching, inclined to the ecliptic." 
 
 Since that time discoveries have succeeded one an- 
 other rapidly. " We have seen by degrees-a ring evolved 
 out of a triform planet, and the great division of the 
 ring and the irregularities on it brought to light. En- 
 celadus, and coy Mimas, faintest of twinklers, are caught 
 by Herschel's giant mirrors. And he, too, first of men, 
 realizes the wonderful tenuity of the ring, along which 
 he saw those satellites travelling like pearls strung on a 
 silver thread. Then Bond comes on the field, and fur- 
 nishes evidence to show that we must multiply the 
 number of separate rings we know not how many fold. 
 And here we reach the golden age of Saturnian discov- 
 ery, when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge, 
 and Dawes, with his 6^-inch Munich glass, first beheld 
 that wonderful dark semi-transparent ring, which still 
 remains one of the wonders of our system. But the 
 end is not yet : on the southern surface of the ring, ere 
 summer fades into autumn, Otto Struve in turn comes 
 upon the field, detects, as Dawes had previously done, a 
 division even in the dark ring, and measures it, while it 
 is invisible to Lassell's mirror a proof, if one were need- 
 ed, of the enormous superiority possessed by refractors 
 in such inquiries. Then we approach 1861, when the 
 ring plane again passes through the earth, and Struve 
 and Wray observe curious nebulous appearances."* 
 
 Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. As 
 the earth at one part of its orbit presents its south pole 
 
 * Lockyer. 
 
SATURN 1 S RINGS. 171 
 
 to the sun, then its equator, then the north pole, so Sat- 
 urn ; and we, in the direction of the sun, see the south 
 side of the rings inclined at an angle of 27 ; next the 
 edge of the rings, like a fine thread of light; then the 
 north side at a similar inclination. On February 7th, 
 1878, Saturn was between Aquarius and Pisces, with the 
 edge of the ring to the sun. In 1885, the planet be- 
 ing in Taurus, the south side of the rings will be seen 
 at the greatest advantage. From 1881 till 1885 all cir- 
 cumstances will combine to give most favorable studies 
 of Saturn. Meanwhile study the picture of it. The 
 outer ring is narrow, dark, showing hints of another di- 
 vision, sometimes more evident than at others, as if it 
 were in a" state of flux. The inner, or second, ring is 
 much brighter, especially on the outer edge, and shading 
 off to the dusky edge next to the planet. There is no 
 sign of division into a third dusky innermost ring, as 
 was plainly seen by Bond. This, too, may be in a state 
 of flux. 
 
 The markings of the planet are delicate, difficult of 
 detection, and are not like those stark zebra stripes that 
 are so often represented. 
 
 The distance between the planet and the second ring 
 seems to be diminished one-half since 1657, and this 
 ring has doubled its breadth in the same time. Some 
 of this difference may be owing to our greater tele- 
 scopic power, enabling us to see the ring closer to the 
 planet ; but in all probability the ring is closing in upon 
 the central body, and will touch it by A.D. 2150. Thus 
 the whole ring must ultimately fall upon the planet, 
 instead of making a satellite. 
 
 We are anxious to learn the nature of such a ring. 
 
172 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be 
 uniform and solid, and survive. Professor Peirce show- 
 ed it could not be fluid, and continue. Then Professor 
 Maxwell showed that it must be formed of clouds of 
 satellites too small to be seen individually, and too near 
 together for the spaces to be discerned, unless, perhaps, 
 we may except the inner dark ring, where they are 
 not near enough to make it positively luminous. In- 
 deed, there is some evidence that the meteoroids are far 
 enough apart to make the ring partially transparent. 
 
 We look forward to the opportunities for observation 
 in 1882 with the brightest hope that these difficult 
 questions will be solved. 
 
 Satellites of Saturn. 
 
 The first discovered satellite of Saturn seen by 
 Huyghens was in 1655, and the last by the Bonds, fa- 
 ther and son, of Cambridge, in 1848. These are eight 
 in number, and are named : 
 
 Distant from Saturn's centre. 
 
 I. Mimas 119,725 miles. 
 
 II. Enceladus 153,630 
 
 III. Tethys 190,225 
 
 IV. Dione 243,670 
 
 V. Rhea 340,320 
 
 VI. Titan 788,915 
 
 VII. Hyperion 954,160 
 
 VIII. Japetus 2,292,790 
 
 Titan can be seen by almost any telescope ; I., II., and 
 VII., only by the most powerful instrument. All ex- 
 cept Japetus revolve nearly in the plane of the ring. 
 Like the moons of Jupiter, they present remarkable and 
 unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection 
 
URANUS. 173 
 
 of the table reveals either an expectation that another 
 moon will be discovered between Y. and YL, and about 
 three more between YII. and YIIL, or that these gaps 
 may be filled with groups of invisible asteroids, as the 
 gap between Mars and Jupiter. This will become more 
 evident by drawing Saturn, the rings, and orbits of 
 the moons all as circles, on a scale of 10,000 miles to 
 the inch. Saturn will be in the centre, 70,000 miles in 
 diameter; then a gap, decreasing twenty -nine miles 
 a year to the first ring, of, say, 10,000 miles ; a dark 
 ring 9000 miles wide; next the brightest ring 18,300 
 miles wide; then a gap of 1750 miles; then the outer 
 ring 10,000 miles wide ; then the orbits of the satellites 
 in order. 
 
 If the scenery of Jupiter is magnificent, that of Saturn 
 must be sublime. If one could exist there, he might 
 wander from the illuminated side of the rings, under 
 their magnificent arches, to the darkened side, see the 
 swift whirling moons; one of them presenting ten times 
 the disk of the earth's moon, and so very near as to en- 
 able him to watch the advancing line of light that marks 
 the lunar morning journeying round that orb. 
 
 URANUS. 
 
 Sign Jjl ; the initial of Herechel, and sign of the world. 
 
 Distance from the sun, 1, 771,000,000 miles. Diameter, 31,700 
 miles. Axial revolution unknown. Orbital, 84 years. Ve- 
 locity per minute, 252 miles. Moons, four. 
 
 Uranus was presented to the knowledge of man as 
 an unexpected reward for honest work. It was first 
 mistaken by its discoverer for a comet, a mere cloud of 
 vapor ; but it proved to be a world, and extended the 
 
174 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 boundaries of our solar system, in the moment of its 
 discovery, as much as all investigation had done in all 
 previous ages. 
 
 Sir William Herschel was engaged in mapping stars 
 in 1781, when he first observed its sea-green disk. He 
 proposed to call it Georgium Sidus, in honor of his 
 king ; but there were too many names of the gods in 
 the sky to allow a mortal name to be placed among 
 them. It was therefore called Uranus, since, being the 
 most distant body of our system, as was supposed, it 
 might appropriately bear the name of the oldest god. 
 Finding anything in God's realms of infinite riches 
 ought not to lead men to regard that as final, but as a 
 promise of more to follow. 
 
 This planet had been seen five times by Flamsteed 
 before its character was determined once nearly a cen- 
 tury before and eight times by Le Monnier. These 
 names, which might easily have been associated with a 
 grand discovery, are associated with careless observa- 
 tion. Eyes were made not only to be kept open, but 
 to have minds behind them to interpret their visions. 
 "Herschel thought he discovered six moons belonging 
 to Uranus, but subsequent investigation has limited the 
 number to four. Two of these are seen with great dif- 
 ficulty by the most powerful telescopes. 
 
 If the plane of our moon's orbit were tipped up to 
 a greater inclination, revolving it on the line of nodes 
 as an axis until it was turned 85, the moon, still con- 
 tinuing on its orbit in that plane, would go over the 
 poles instead of about the equator, and would go back 
 to its old path when the plane was revolved 180 ; but 
 its revolution would now be from east to west, or ret- 
 
NEPTUNE. 175 
 
 rograde. The plane of the moons of Uranus has been 
 thus inclined till it has passed 10 beyond the pole, 
 and the moons' motions are retrograde as regards other 
 known celestial movements. How Uranus itself revolves 
 is not known. There are more worlds to conquer. 
 
 NEPTUNE. 
 
 God of the sea ; sign !, his trideut. 
 
 Distance from the sun, 2, 775,000, OOO miles. Diameter, 
 34,500 miles. Velocity per minute, 201.6 miles. Axial rev- 
 olution unknown. Orbital, 164.78 years. One moon. 
 
 Men sought for Neptune as the heroes sought the 
 golden fleece. The place of Uranus had been mapped 
 for nearly one hundred years by these accidental ob- 
 servations. On applying the law of universal gravita- 
 tion, a slight discrepancy was found between its com- 
 puted place and its observed place. This discrepancy 
 was exceedingly slight. In 1830 it was only 20"; in 
 1840, 90"; in 1844, 2'. Two stars that were 2' apart 
 would appear as one to the keenest unaided eye, but sucli 
 an error must not exist in astronomy. Years of work 
 were given to its correction. Mr. John C. Adams, of 
 Cambridge, England, finding that the attraction of a 
 planet exterior to Uranus would account for its irregu- 
 larities, computed the place of such a hypothetical body 
 with singular exactness in October, 1841 ; but neither 
 he nor the royal astronomer Airy looked for it. An- 
 other opportunity for immortality was heedlessly neg- 
 lected. Meanwhile, M. Leverrier, of Paris, was working 
 at the same problem. In the summer of 1846 Lever- 
 rier announced the place of the exterior planet. The 
 conclusion was in striking coincidence with that of Mr. 
 
17G 
 
 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 et is understood from Fig. 66. 
 
 Adams. Mr.Challis commenced to search for the planet 
 near the indicated place, and actually saw and mapped 
 the star August 4th, 1846, but did not recognize its 
 planetary character. Dr. Galle, of Berlin, on the 23d 
 of September, 1846, found an object with a planetary 
 disk .not plotted on the map of stars. It was the 
 sough t-f or world. It would seem easy to find a world 
 seventy-six times as large as the earth, and easy to rec- 
 ognize it when seen. The fact that it could be discov- 
 ered only by such care conveys an overwhelming idea 
 of the distance where it moves. 
 
 The effect of these perturbations by an exterior plan- 
 Uranus and Neptune 
 were i in conjunction, as 
 shown, in 1822. But in 
 1820 it had been found 
 that Uranus was too far 
 from the sun, and too much 
 accelerated. Since 1800, 
 Neptune, in his orbit from 
 F to E, had been hasten- 
 ing Uranus in his orbit 
 from C to B, and also 
 Fig. eo.-pertnrbati.rn of Uranus. drawing it farther from 
 
 the sun. After 1822, Neptune, in passing from E to D, 
 had been retarding Uranus in his orbit from B to A. 
 
 We have seen it is easy to miss immortality. There 
 is still another instance. Lalande saw Neptune on 
 May 8th and 10th, 1795, noted that it had moved a lit- 
 tle, and that the observations did not agree ; but, suppos- 
 ing the first was wrong, carelessly missed the glory -of 
 once more doubling the bounds of the empire of the sun. 
 
NEPTUNE. 177 
 
 It is time to pause and review our knowledge of this 
 system. The first view reveals a moon and earth en- 
 dowed with a force of inertia going on in space in 
 straight lines ; but an invisible elastic cord of attraction 
 holds them together, just counterbalancing this tenden- 
 cy to fly apart, and hence they circle round their centre 
 of gravity. The revolving earth turns every part of its 
 surface to the moon in each twenty-five hours. By an 
 axial revolution in the same time that the moon goes 
 round the earth, the moon holds the same point of its 
 surface constantly toward the earth. If we were to add 
 one, two, four, eight moons at appropriate distances, the 
 result would be the same. There is, however, another 
 attractive influence that of the sun. The sun attracts 
 both earth and moon, but their nearer affection for 
 each other keeps them from going apart. They both, 
 revolving on their axes and around their centre of grav- 
 ity, sweep in a vastly wider curve around the sun. Add 
 as many moons as has Jupiter or Saturn, the result is 
 the same an orderly carrying of worlds through space. 
 
 There lies the unsupported sun in the centre, nearer 
 to infinity in all its capacities and intensities of force than 
 our minds can measure, filling the whole dome to where 
 the stars are set with light, heat, and power. It holds 
 five small worlds Vulcan, Mercury, Yenus, Earth, and 
 Mars within a space whose radius it would require a 
 locomotive half a thousand years to traverse. It next 
 holds some indeterminate number of asteroids, and the 
 great Jupiter, equal in volume to 1400 earths. It 
 holds Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and all their various- 
 ly related satellites and rings. The two thoughts that 
 overwhelm us are distance and power. The period of 
 
 8* 
 
178 A SOLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 man's whole history is not sufficient for an express train 
 to traverse half the distance to Neptune. Thought wea- 
 ries and fails in seeking to grasp such distances ; it can 
 scarcely comprehend one million miles, and here are 
 thousands of them. Even the wings of imagination 
 grow weary and droop. When we stand on that outer- 
 most of planets, the very last sentinel of the outposts of 
 the king, the very sun grown dim and small in the dis- 
 tance, we have taken only one step of the infinite dis- 
 tance to the stars. They have not changed their rela- 
 tive position they have not grown brighter by our ap- 
 proach. Neptune carries us round a vast circle about 
 the centre of the dome of stars, but we seem no nearer 
 its sides. In visiting planets, we have been only visiting 
 next-door neighbors in the streets of a seaport town. 
 We know that there are similar neighbors about Sirius 
 and Arcturus, but a vast sea rolls between. As we said, 
 we stand with the outermost sentinel ; but into the great 
 void beyond the king of day sends his comets as scouts, 
 and they fly thousands of years without for one instant 
 missing the steady grasp of the power of the sun. It is 
 nearer alrnightiness than we are able to think. 
 
 If we cannot solve the problems of the present exist- 
 ence of worlds, how little can we expect to fathom the 
 unsoundable depths of their creation and development 
 through ages measureless to man ! Yet the very diffi- 
 culty provokes the most ambitious thought. We toil 
 at the problem because it has been hitherto unsolvable. 
 Every error we make, and discover to be such, helps 
 toward the final solution. Every earnest thinker who 
 climbs the shining worlds as steps to a higher thought 
 is trying to solve the problem God has given us to do. 
 
ix:. 
 
 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon 
 the face of the deep." Genesis i. 2. 
 
"A dark 
 
 Illimitable ocean, without bound, 
 
 Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 
 And time, and place are lost." MILTON. 
 
 * v lt is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and ar- 
 ranged ; while no material forces or properties are known to be capable 
 of discharging such functions." LIONEL BEALE. 
 
 "The laws of nature do not account for their own origin." JOHN 
 STUART MILL. 
 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 181 
 
 IX. 
 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 THE method by which the solar system came into its 
 present form was sketched in vast outline by Moses, 
 lie gave us the fundamental idea of what is called 
 the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that prodigal 
 dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conject- 
 ures of the way in which the outlines were to be filled 
 up ; Buffon followed him closely in 1749 ; Kant sought 
 to give it an ideal philosophical completeness, as he said, 
 " not as the result of observation and computation," but 
 as evolved out of his own consciousness ; and Laplace 
 sought to settle it on a mathematical basis. 
 
 It has been modified greatly by later writers, and 
 must receive still greater modifications before it can be 
 accepted by the best scientists of to-day. It has been 
 called " the grandest generalization of the human mind ;" 
 and if it shall finally be so modified as to pass from a 
 tentative hypothesis to an accepted philosophy, declar- 
 ing the modes of a divine worker rather than the neces- 
 sities of blind force, it will still be worthy of that high 
 distinction. 
 
 Let it be clearly noted that it never proposes to do 
 more than to trace a portion of the mode of working 
 which brought the universe from one stage to another. 
 It only goes back to a definite point, never to absolute 
 beginning, nor to nothingness. It takes matter from 
 
182 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 the hand of the unseen power behind, and merely notes 
 the progress of its development. It finds the clay in 
 the hands of an intelligent potter, and sees it whirl in 
 the process of formation into a vessel. It is not in any 
 sense necessarily atheistic, any more than it is to affirm 
 that a tree grows by vital processes in the sun and dew, 
 instead of being arbitrarily and instantly created. The 
 conclusion reached depends on the spirit of the ob- 
 server. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system 
 of the sun, planets, arid comets could only proceed from 
 the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and power- 
 ful being !" Still it is well to recognize that some of its 
 most ardent defenders have advocated it as materialis- 
 tic. And Laplace said of it to Napoleon, " I have no 
 need of the hypothesis of a god." 
 
 The materialistic statement of the theory is this : that 
 matter is at first assumed to exist as an infinite cloud 
 of fire-mist, dowered with power latent therein to grow 
 of itself into every possibility of world, flower, animal, 
 man, mind, and affection, without any interference or 
 help from without. But it requires far more of the Di- 
 vine Worker than any other theory. He must fill mat- 
 ter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would 
 tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a con- 
 stant supervision and occasional interference. Instead 
 of making the vase in perfect form, and coloring it with 
 exquisite beauty by an ever-present skill, he must en- 
 dow the clay with power to make itself in perfect form, 
 adorn itself with delicate beauty, and create other vases. 
 
 The nebular hypothesis is briefly this : All the mat- 
 ter composing all the bodies of the sun, planets, and 
 satellites once existed in an exceedingly diffused state ; 
 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 183 
 
 rarer than any gas with which we are acquainted, filling 
 a space larger than the orbit of Xeptune. Gravitation 
 gradually contracted this matter into a condensing globe 
 of immense extent. Some parts would naturally be 
 denser than others, and in the course of contraction a 
 rotary motion, it is affirmed, would be engendered. Ro- 
 tation would flatten the globe somewhat in the line of 
 its axis. Contracting still more, the rarer gases, aided 
 by centrifugal force, would be left behind as a ring that 
 would ultimately be separated, like Saturn's ring, from 
 the retreating body. There would naturally be some 
 places in this ring denser than others ; these would grad- 
 ually absorb all the ring into a planet, and still revolve 
 about the central mass, and still rotate on its own axis, 
 throwing off rings from itself. Thus the planet Xep- 
 tune would be left behind in the first sun-ring, to make 
 its one moon ; the planet Uranus left in the next sun- 
 ring, to make its four moons from four successive plan- 
 et-rings ; Saturn, with its eight moons and three rings 
 not made into moons, is left in the third sun-ring; and 
 so on down to Yulcan. 
 
 The outer planets would cool off first, become inhab- 
 itable, and, as the sun contracted and they radiated their 
 own heat, become refrigerated and left behind by the 
 retreating sun. Of course the outer planets would 
 move slowly; but as that portion of the sun which gave 
 them their motion drew in toward the centre, keeping 
 its absolute speed, and revolving in the lessening circles 
 of a contracting body, it would give the faster motion 
 necessary to be imparted to Earth, Mercury, and Yulcan. 
 
 The four great classes of facts confirmatory of this 
 hypothesis are as follows : 1st. All the planets move 
 
184 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 in the same direction, and 'nearly in the same plane, as 
 if thrown off from one equator; 2d. The motions of the 
 satellites about their primaries are mostly in the same 
 direction as that of their primaries about the sun ; 3d. 
 The rotation of most of these bodies on their axes, and 
 also of the sun, is in the same direction as the motion 
 of the planets about the sun ; 4th. The orbits of the 
 planets, excluding asteroids, and their satellites, have but 
 a comparatively small eccentricity ; 5th. Certain nebulse 
 are observable in the heavens which are not yet con- 
 densed into solids, but are still bright gas. 
 
 The materialistic evolutionist takes up the idea of a 
 universe of material world-stuff without form, and void, 
 but so endowed as to develop itself into orderly worlds, 
 and adds to it this exceeding advance, that when soil, 
 sun, and chemical laws found themselves properly re- 
 lated, a force in matter, latent for a million eons in the 
 original cloud, comes forward, and dead matter becomes 
 alive in the lowest order of vegetable life ; there takes 
 place, as Herbert Spencer says, "a change from an indefi- 
 nite, incoherent homogeneity, into a definite, coherent 
 heterogeneity, through continuous differentiation and 
 integration." The dead becomes alive ; matter passes 
 from unconsciousness to consciousness ; passes up from 
 plant to animal, from animal to man ; takes on power to 
 think, reason, love, and adore. The theistic evolution- 
 ist may think that the same process is gone through, 
 but that an ever-present and working God superin- 
 tends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endow- 
 ment of power that successively gives life, conscious- 
 ness, mental, affectional, and spiritual capacity. 
 
 Is this world-theory true ? and if so, is either of the 
 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 185 
 
 evolution theories true, also ? If the first evolution 
 theory is true, the evolved man will hardly know which 
 to adore most, the Being that could so endow matter, or 
 the matter capable of such endowment. 
 
 There are some difficulties in the way of the accept- 
 ance of the nebular hypothesis that compel many of 
 the most thorough scientists of the day to withhold 
 their assent to its entirety. The latest, and one of the 
 most competent writers on the subject, Professor Kew- 
 comb, who is a mathematical astronomer, and not an 
 easy theorist, evolving the system of the universe from 
 the depth of his own consciousness, says : " Should any 
 one be sceptical as to the sufficiency of these laws to 
 account for the present state of things, science can 
 furnish no evidence strong enough to overthrow his 
 doubts until the sun shall be found to be growing 
 smaller by actual measurement, or the nebulae be act- 
 ually seen to condense into stars and systems." In 
 one of the most elaborate defences of the theory, it is 
 argued that the hypothesis explains why only one of 
 the four planets nearest the sun can have a moon, and 
 why there can be no planet inside of Mercury. The 
 discovery of the two satellites to Mars and of the planet 
 Vulcan makes it all the worse for these facts. 
 
 Some of the objections to the theory should be 
 known by every thinker. Laplace must have the cloud 
 " diffused in consequence of excessive heat," etc. Helm- 
 holtz, in order to account for the heat of the contract- 
 ing sun, must have the cloud relatively cold. How he 
 and his followers diffused the cloud without heat is not 
 stated. 
 
 The next difficulty is that of rotation. The laws 
 
186 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 of science compel a contraction into one non-rotating 
 body a central sun, indeed, but no planets about it. 
 Laplace cleverly evades the difficulty by not taking 
 from the hand of the Creator diffused gas, but a sun 
 with an atmosphere filling space to the orbit of Nep- 
 tune, and already in revolution. He says : " It is four 
 millions to one that all motions of the planets, rotations 
 and revolutions, were at once imparted by an original 
 commOn cause, of which we know neither the nature 
 nor the epoch." Helmholtz says of rotation, " the ex- 
 istence of which must be assumed." Professor New- 
 comb says that the planets would not be arranged as 
 now, each one twice as far from the sun as the next 
 interior one, and the outer ones made first, but that 
 all would be made into planets at once, and the small 
 inner ones quite likely to cool off more rapidly. 
 
 It is a very serious difficulty that at least one satel- 
 lite does not revolve in the right direction. How Nep- 
 tune or Uranus could throw their moons backward from 
 its equator is not easily accounted for. It is at least 
 one Parthian arrow at the system, not necessarily fatal, 
 but certainly dangerous. 
 
 A greater difficulty is presented by the recently dis'- 
 covered satellites of Mars. The inner one goes round 
 the planet in one-third part of the time of the latter's 
 revolution. How Mars could impart three times the 
 speed to a body flying off its surface that it has itself, 
 has caused several defenders of the hypothesis to rush 
 forward with explanations, but none with anything 
 more than mere imaginary collisions with some comet. 
 It is to be noticed that accounting for three times the 
 speed is not enough; for as Mars shrunk away from the 
 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 187 
 
 ring that formed that satellite, it ought itself to attain 
 more speed, as the sun revolves faster than its planets, 
 and the earth faster than its moon. In defending the 
 hypothesis, Mitchel said : " Suppose we had discovered 
 that it required more time for Saturn or Jupiter to ro- 
 tate on their axes than for their nearest moon to re- 
 volve round them in its orbit ; this would have falsified 
 the theory." It is also asserted that the newly discover- 
 ed planet Vulcan makes an orbital in less time than the 
 sun makes an axial revolution. 
 
 In regard to one Martial moon, Professor Kirkwood, 
 on whom Proctor conferred the highest title that could 
 be conferred, " the modern Kepler," says : " Unless some 
 explanation can be given, the short period of the inner 
 satellite will be doubtless regarded as a conclusive argu- 
 ment against the nebular hypothesis," If gravitation 
 be sufficient to account for the various motions of the 
 heavenly bodies, we have a perplexing problem in the 
 star known as 1830 Goombridge, now in the Hunting 
 Dogs of Bootes. It is thought to have a speed of two 
 hundred miles per second a velocity that all the 
 known matter in the universe could not give to the star 
 by all its combined attraction. Neither could all that 
 attraction stop the motion of the star, or bend it into 
 an orbit. Its motion must be accounted for on some 
 hypothesis other than the nebular. 
 
 The nebulae which we are able to observe are not al- 
 together confirmatory of the hypothesis under consider- 
 ation. They have the most fantastic shapes, as if they 
 had no relation to rotating suns in the formative stages. 
 There are vast gaps in the middle, where they ought 
 to be densest. Mr. Plumer, in the Natural Science He- 
 
188 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 view, says, in regard to the results of the spectroscopic 
 revelations: "We are furnished with distinct proof that 
 the gases so examined are not only of nearly equal den- 
 sity, but that they exist in a low state of tension. This 
 fact is fatal to the nebular theory" 
 
 In the autumn of 1876 a star blazed out in Cygnus, 
 which promised to throw a flood of light on the ques- 
 tion of world-making. Its spectrum was like some of 
 the fixed stars. It probably blazed out by condensation 
 from some previously invisible nebula. But its brill- 
 iancy diminished swiftly, when it ought to have taken 
 millions of years to cool. If the theory was true, it 
 ought to have behaved very differently. It should 
 have regularly condensed from gas to a solid sun by 
 slow process. But, worst of all, after being a star awhile, 
 it showed unmistakable proofs of turning into a cloud- 
 mist a star into a nebula, instead of vice versa. A pos- 
 sible explanation will be considered under variable stars. 
 
 Such are a few of the many difficulties in the way of 
 accepting the nebular hypothesis, as at present explain- 
 ed, as being the true mode of development of the solar 
 system. Doubtless it has come from a hot and diffused 
 condition into its present state ; but when such men as 
 Proctor, l^ewcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that 
 cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be rec- 
 onciled by the principles of this theory, surely lesser 
 men are obliged to suspend judgment, and render the 
 Scotch verdict of "not proven." Whatever truth there 
 may be in the theory will survive, and be incorporated 
 into the final solution of the problem ; which solution 
 will be a much grander generalization of the human 
 mind than the nebular hypothesis. 
 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 189 
 
 Of some things we feel very sure : that matter was 
 once without form and void, and darkness rested on the 
 face of the mighty deeps; that, instead of chaos, we have 
 now cosmos and beauty ; and that there is some process 
 by which matter has been brought from one state to 
 the other. Whether, however, the nebular hypothesis 
 lays down the road travelled to this transfiguration, we 
 are not sure. Some of it seems like solid rock, and 
 some like shifting quicksand. Doubtless there is a 
 road from that chaos to this fair cosmos. The nebular 
 hypothesis has surveyed, worked, and perfected many 
 long reaches of this road, but the rivers are not bridged, 
 the chasms not filled, nor the mountains tunnelled. 
 
 When men attempt to roll the hypothesis of evolu- 
 tion along the road of the nebular hypothesis of worlds, 
 and even beyond to the production .of vegetable and 
 animal life, mind and affection, the gaps in the road 
 become evident, and disastrous. 
 
 A soul that has reached an adoration for the Supreme 
 Father cares not how he has made him. Doubtless the 
 way God chose was the best. It is as agreeable to have 
 beeji thought of and provided for in the beginning, to 
 have had a myriad ages of care, and to have come from 
 the highest existent life at last, as to have been made at 
 once, by a single act, out of dust. The one who is made 
 is not to say to the Maker, "Why hast thou formed me 
 in this or that manner ?" We only wish the question 
 answered in what manner we were really made. 
 
 Evolution, without constant superintendence and oc- 
 casional new inspiration of power, finds some tremen- 
 dous chasms in the road it travels. These must be span- 
 ned by the power of a present God or the airy imagiua- 
 
190 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 tion of man. Dr. McCosli has happily enumerated some 
 of these tremendous gaps over which mere force cannot 
 go. Given, then, matter with mechanical power only, 
 what are the gaps between it and spirituality \ 
 
 " 1. Chemical action cannot be produced by mechan- 
 ical power. 
 
 " 2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be pro- 
 duced from unorganized matter. 
 
 " 3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living mat- 
 ter. 
 
 " 4. Organized matter is made up of cells, and can be 
 produced only by cells. Whence the first cell ? 
 
 " 5. A living being can be produced only from a seed 
 or germ. "Whence the first vegetable seed ? 
 
 "6. An animal cannot be produced from a plant. 
 Whence the first animal ? 
 
 " 7. Sensation cannot be produced in insentient matter. 
 
 "8. The genesis of a new species of plant or animal 
 has never come under the cognizance of man, either in 
 pre-human or post-human ages, either in pre-scientific 
 or scientific times. Darwin acknowledges this, and says 
 that, should a new species suddenly arise, we have no 
 means of knowing that it is such. 
 
 " 9. Consciousness that is, a knowledge of self and 
 its operations cannot be produced out of mere matter 
 or sensation. 
 
 " 10. We have no knowledge of man being generated 
 out of the lower animals. 
 
 " 11. All human beings, even savages, are capable of 
 forming certain high ideas, such as those of God and 
 duty. The brute creatures cannot be made to enter- 
 tain these by any training. 
 
THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 191 
 
 " With such tremendous gaps in the process, the the- 
 ory which would derive all things out of matter by de- 
 velopment is seen to be a very precarious one." 
 
 The truth, according to the best judgment to be 
 formed in the present state of knowledge, would seem 
 to be about this : The nebular hypothesis is correct in 
 all the main facts on which it is based ; but that neither 
 the present forces of matter, nor any other forces con- 
 ceivable to the mind of man, with which it can possibly 
 be endowed, can account for all the facts already ob- 
 served. There is a demand for a personal volition, for 
 an exercise of intelligence, for the following of a divine 
 plan that embraces a final perfection through various 
 and changeful processes. The five great classes of facts 
 that sustain the nebular hypothesis seem set before us 
 to show the regular order of working. The several 
 facts that will not, so far as at present known, accord 
 with that plan, seem to be set before us to declare the 
 presence of a divine will and power working his good 
 pleasure according to the exigencies of time and place. 
 
X. 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 " The heavens number out the glory of the strong God." DAVID. 
 
 9 
 
Richter says that " an angel once took a man and stripped him of his 
 flesh, and lifted him up into space to show him the glory of the universe. 
 When the flesh was taken away the man ceased to be cowardly, and was 
 ready to fly with the angel past galaxy after galaxy, and infinity after in- 
 finity, and so man and angel passed on, viewing the universe, until the 
 sun was out of sight until our solar system appeared as a speck of light 
 against the black empyrean, and there was only darkness. And they 
 looked onward, and in the infinities of light before, a speck of light ap- 
 peared, and suddenly they were in the midst of rushing worlds. But they 
 passed beyond that system, and beyond system after system, and infinity 
 after infinity, until the human heart sank, and the man cried out: 'End 
 is there none of the universe of God ?' The angel strengthened the man 
 by words of counsel and courage, and they flew on again until worlds left 
 behind them were out of sight, and specks of light in advance were trans- 
 formed, as they approached them, into rushing systems ; they moved over 
 architraves of eternities, over pillars of immensities, over architecture of 
 galaxies, unspeakable in dimensions and duration, and the human heart 
 sank again and called out : ' End is there none of the universe of God ?' 
 And all the stars echoed the question with amazement: 'End is there 
 none of the universe of God ?' And this echo found no answer. They 
 moved on again past immensities of immensities, and eternities of eterni- 
 ties, until in the dizziness of uncounted galaxies the human heart sank for 
 the last time, and called out : ' End is there none of the universe of God ?' 
 And again all the stars repeated the question, and the angel answered : 
 ' End is there none of the universe of God. Lo, also, there is no be- 
 ginning.'" 
 
THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS. 195 
 
 X. 
 
 THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS. 
 
 THE Greeks set their mythological deities in the skies, 
 and read the revolving pictures as a starry poem. Not 
 that they were the first to set the blazonry of the stars 
 as monuments of their thought ; we read certain allu- 
 sions to stars and asterisms as far back as the time of 
 Job. And the Pleiades, Arcturus, and Orion are some 
 of the names used by Him who " calleth all the stars by 
 their names, in the greatness of his power." Homer and 
 Hesiod, 750 B.C., allude to a few stars and groups. The 
 Arabians very early speak of the Great Bear ; but the 
 Greeks completely nationalized the heavens. They col- 
 onized the earth widely, but the heavens completely ; 
 and nightly over them marched the grand procession of 
 their apotheosized divinities. There Hercules perpetu- 
 ally wrought his mighty labors for the good of man ; 
 there flashed and faded the changeful star Algol, as an 
 eye in the head of the snaky-haired Medusa; over them 
 flew Pegasus, the winged horse of the poet, careering 
 among the stars ; there the ship Argo, which had ex- 
 plored all strange seas of earth, nightly sailed in the in- 
 finite realms of heaven; there Perseus perpetually killed 
 the sea-monster by celestial aid, and perpetually won the 
 chained Andromeda for his bride. Very evident was 
 their recognition of divine help : equally evident was 
 
106 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 their assertion of human ability and dominion. They 
 gathered the illimitable stars, and put uncountable suns 
 into the shape of the Great Bear the most colossal 
 form of animal ferocity and strength across whose 
 broad forehead imagination grows weary in flying ; but 
 they did not fail to put behind him a representative of 
 themselves, who forever drives him around a sky that 
 never sets a perpetual type that man's ambition and 
 expectation correspond to that which has always been 
 revealed as the divine. 
 
 The heavens signify much higher power and wisdom 
 to us; we retain the old pictures and groupings for the 
 convenience of finding individual stars. It is enough 
 for the astronomer that we speak of a star as, right 
 ascension, Ih. 13m. 45s., declination, 88 40'. But for 
 most people, if not all, it is better to call it Polaris. So 
 we might speak of a lake in latitude 42 40', longitude 
 79 22', but it would be clearer to most persons to say 
 Chautaiiqna. For exact location of a star, right ascension 
 and declination must be given; but for general indica- 
 tion its name or place in a constellation is sufficiently 
 exact. The heaven is rather indeterminably laid out 
 in irregular tracts, and the mythological names are pre- 
 served. The brightest stars are then indicated in order 
 by the letters of the Greek alphabet Alpha (a), Beta 
 (j3), Gamma (y), etc. Stars are numbered in the order 
 of right ascension without regard to their brilliancy. 
 Thus No. 50 Cygni is Alpha ; K. A., 20h. 36m.l9s. No. 61 
 is, R. A., 21.h. Om. 10s. Thus any star unknown by name 
 is easily found. An acquaintance with the names, pecu- 
 liarities, and movements of the stars visible at different 
 seasons of the year is an unceasing source of pleasure. It 
 
THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS. 197 
 
 * 
 
 is not vision alone that is gratified, for one fine enough 
 may hear the morning stars sing together, and understand 
 the speech that day nttereth unto day, and the knowl- 
 edge that night showeth unto night. One never can be 
 alone if he is familiarly acquainted with the stars. He 
 rises early in the summer morning, that he may see his 
 winter friends ; in winter, that he may gladden himself 
 with a sight of the summer stars. He hails their suc- 
 cessive rising as he does the coming of his personal 
 friends from beyond the sea. On the wide ocean he is 
 commercing with the skies, his rapt soul sitting in his 
 eyes. Under the clear skies of the East he hears God's 
 voice speaking to him, as to Abraham, and saying, 
 " Look now toward the heavens, and tell the number of 
 the stars, if thou be able to number them." 
 
 A general acquaintance with the stars will be first at- 
 tempted ; a more particular knowledge afterward. Fig. 
 67 (page 201) is a map of the circumpolar region, which 
 is in full view every clear night. It revolves daily 
 round Polaris, its central point. Toward this star, the 
 two end stars of the Great Dipper ever point, and are 
 in consequence called "the Pointers." The map may 
 be held toward the northern sky in such a position as 
 the stars may happen to be. The Great Bear, or Dipper, 
 will be seen at nine o'clock in. the evening above the 
 pole in April and May ; west of the pole, the Pointers 
 downward, in July and August ; close to the north ho- 
 rizon in October and November; and east of the pole the 
 Pointers highest, in January and February. The names 
 of such constantly visible stars should be familiar. In 
 order, from the end of the tail of the Great Bear, we 
 have Benetnasch rj, Mizar , Little Alcor close to it, Ali- 
 
198 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 oth t, Megrez , at the junction, has been growing dim- 
 mer for a century, Phad y, Dubhe and Merak. It is 
 best to get some facility at estimating distances in de- 
 grees. Dubhe and Merak, " the Pointers," are five de- 
 grees apart. Eighteen degrees forward of Dubhe is 
 the Bear's nose ; and three pairs of stars, fifteen degrees 
 apart, show the position of the Bear's three feet. Fol- 
 low "the Pointers" twenty-nine degrees from Dubhe, 
 and we come to the pole-star. This star is double, made 
 of two suns, both appearing as one to the naked eye. 
 It is a test of an excellent three-inch telescope to resolve 
 it into two. Three stars beside it make the curved-up 
 handle of the Little Dipper of Ursa Minor. Between 
 the two Bears, thirteen degrees from Megrez, and eleven 
 degrees from Mizar, are two stars in the tail of the 
 Dragon, which curves about to appropriate all the stars 
 not otherwise assigned. Follow a curve of fifteen stars, 
 doubling back to a quadrangle from five to three de- 
 grees on a side, and thirty-five degrees from the pole, for 
 his head. His tongue runs out to a star four degrees 
 in front. We shall find, hereafter, that the foot of Her- 
 cules stands on this head. This is the Dragon slain by 
 Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such a crop of san- 
 guinary men. 
 
 The star Thuban was once the pole-star. In the 
 year B.C. 2300 it was ten times nearer the pole than 
 Polaris is now. In the year A.D. 2100 the pole will 
 be within 30' of Polaris ; in A.D. 7500, it will be at 
 a of Cepheus ; in A.D. 13,500, within 7 of Yega ; in 
 A.D. 15,700, at the star in the tongue of Draco ; in 
 A.D. 23,000, at Thuban ; in A.D. 28,000, back to Polaris. 
 This indicates no change in the position of the dome 
 
THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS. 199 
 
 of stars, but a change in the direction of the axis of 
 the earth pointing to these various places as the cy- 
 cles pass. As the earth goes round its orbit, the axis, 
 maintaining nearly the same direction, really points to 
 every part of a circle near the north star as large as the 
 earth's orbit, that is, 185,000,000 miles in diameter. But, 
 as already shown, that circle is too small to be discerni- 
 ble at our distance. The wide circle of the pole through 
 the ages is really made up of the interlaced curves of 
 the annual curves continued through 25,870 years. 
 The stein of the spinning top wavers, describes a circle, 
 and finally falls ; the axis of the spinning earth wavers, 
 describes a circle of nearly 26,000 years, and never 
 falls. 
 
 The star y Draconis, also called Etanin, is famous in 
 modern astronomy, because observations on this star 
 led to the discovery of the aberration of light. If we 
 held a glass tube perpendicularly out of the window of 
 a car at rest, when the rain was falling straight down, 
 we could see the drops pass directly through. Put 
 the car in motion, and the 'drops would seem to start 
 toward us, and the top of the tube must be bent forward, 
 or the drops entering would strike on the backside of 
 the tube carried toward them. So our telescopes are 
 bent forward on the moving earth, to enable the entered 
 light to reach the eye-piece. Hence the star does not 
 appear just where it is. As the earth moves faster in 
 some parts of its orbit than others, this aberration is 
 sometimes greater than at others. It is fortunate that 
 light moves with a uniform velocity, or this difficult 
 problem would be still further complicated. The dis- 
 placement of a star from this course is about 20". 43. 
 
200 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is 
 King Cephens, made of a few dim stars in the form of 
 the letter K. Near by is his brilliant wife Cassiopeia, 
 sitting on her throne of state. They were the grace- 
 less parents who chained their daughter to a rock for 
 the sea-monster to devour ; but Perseus, swift with the 
 winged sandals of Mercury, terrible with his avenging 
 sword, and invincible with the severed head of Me- 
 dusa, whose horrid aspect of snaky hair and scaly body 
 turned to stone every beholder, rescues the maiden from 
 chains, and leads her away by the bands of love. Noth- 
 ing could be more poetical than the life of Perseus. 
 When he went to destroy the dreadful Gorgon, Medusa, 
 Pluto lent him his helmet, which would make him in- 
 visible at will ; Minerva loaned her buckler, impenetra- 
 ble, and polished like a mirror; Mercury gave him 
 a dagger of diamonds, and his winged sandals, which 
 would carry him through the air. Coming to the 
 loathsome thing, he would not look upon her, lest he, 
 too, be turned to stone ; but, guided by the reflection 
 in the buckler, smote off her head, carried it high over 
 Libya, the dropping blood turning to serpents, which 
 have infested those deserts ever since. 
 
 The human mind has always been ready to deify 
 and throne in the skies the heroes that labor for others. 
 Both Perseus and Hercules are divine by one parent, 
 and human by the other. They go up and down the 
 earth, giving deliverance to captives, and breaking ev- 
 ery yoke. They also seek to purge away all evil ; they 
 slay dragons, gorgons, devouring monsters, cleanse the 
 foul places of earth, and one of them so wrestles with 
 death as to win a victim from his grasp. Finally, by 
 
CIRCUMPOLAR CONSTELLATIONS. 201 
 
 Fig. 67. Circnmpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this position. Janu- 
 ary 20th, at 10 o'clock ; February 4th, at 9 o'clock ; and February 19th, at 8 
 o'clock. 
 
 an ascension in light, they go up to be in light forever. 
 They are not ideally perfect. They right wrong by 
 slaying wrong -doers, rather than by being crucified 
 themselves; they are just murderers; but that only 
 plucks the fruit from the tree of evil. They never 
 attempted to infuse a holy life. They punished rather 
 than regenerated. It must be confessed, also, that they 
 were not sinless. But they were the best saviors the 
 race could imagine, and are examples of that perpetual 
 effort of the human mind to incarnate a Divine Helper 
 who shall labor and die for the good of men. 
 
202 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 68 Algol is on the Meridian, 51 South of Pole. At 10 o'clock, December 
 
 7th ; 9 o'clock, December 22d ; 8 o'clock, January 5th. 
 
 Equatorial Constellations. 
 
 If we turn our backs on Polaris on the 10th of No- 
 vember, at 10 o'clock in the evening, and look directly 
 overhead, we shall see the beautiful constellation of 
 Andromeda. Together with the square of Pegasus, it 
 makes another enormous dipper. The star a Alpheratz 
 is in her face, the three at the left cross her breast. 
 |3 and the two above mark the girdle of her loins, and 
 y is in the foot. Perseus is near enough for help ; 
 and Cetus, the sea-monster, is far enough away to do 
 no harm. Below, and east of Andromeda, is the Ram 
 of the golden fleece, recognizable by the three stars in 
 an acute triangle. The brightest is called Arietis, or 
 Hamel. East of this are the Pleiades, and the Y-shaped 
 Hyades in Taurus, or the Bull. The Pleiades rise about 
 9 o'clock on the evening of the 10th of September, and 
 at 3 o'clock A.M. on June 10th. 
 
EQUATORIAL CONSTELLATIONS. 
 
 203 
 
 Fig. 69. Capella (45 from the Pole) and Rigel (100) are on the Meridian at 
 8 o'clock February 7th, 9 o'clock January 22d, and at 10 o'clock January 7th. 
 
 Fig. 69 extends east and south of our last map. It 
 is the most gorgeous section of our heavens. (See the 
 Notes to the Frontispiece.) Note the triangle, 26 on 
 a side, made by Betelguese, Sirius, and Procyon. A 
 line from Procyon to Pollux leads quite near to Polaris. 
 Orion is the mighty hunter. Under his feet is a hare, 
 behind him are two dogs, and before him is the rushing 
 bull. The curve of stars to the right of Bellatrix, 7, 
 represents his shield of the Nemean lion's hide. The 
 three stars of his belt make a measure 3 long ; the 
 upper one, Mintaka, is less than 30' south of the equi- 
 noctial. The ecliptic passes between Aldebaran and the 
 Pleiades. Sirius rises about 9 o'clock P.M. on the 1st of 
 December, and about 4 o'clock A.M. on the 16th of Au- 
 gust. Procyon rises about half an hour earlier. 
 
204 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 70 Regains comes cm the Meridian, 79 south from the Pole, at 10 o'clock 
 March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and at S o'clock April 23d. 
 
 Fig. TO continues eastward. Note the sickle in the 
 head and neck of the Lion. The star /3 is Denebola, in 
 his tail. Arcturus appears by the word Bootes, at the 
 edge of the map. These two stars make a triangle with 
 Spica, about 35 on a side. The geometric head of 
 Hydra is easily discernible east of Procyon. The star 
 y in the Virgin is double, with a period of 145 years. 
 is just above the equinoctial. There is a fine nebula 
 two-thirds of the way from to )j, and a little above the 
 line connecting the two. Coma Berenices is a beauti- 
 ful cluster of faint stars. Spica rises at 9 o'clock on 
 the 10th of February, at 5 o'clock A.M. on the 6th of 
 November. 
 
EQUATORIAL CONSTELLATIONS. 205 
 
 Fig. 71. Arctnrns comes to the Meridian, 70 from the Pole, at 10 o'clock May 
 25th, 9 o'clock Juue 9th, aud at 8 o'clock Jane 25th. 
 
 Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and north- 
 ward of the last. A line drawn from Polaris and 
 Benetnasch conies east of Arcturus to the little triangle 
 called his sons. Bootes drives the Great Bear round 
 the pole. Arcturus arid Denebola make a triangle with 
 a, also called Cor Creroli, in the Hunting Dogs. This 
 triangle, and the one having the same base, with Spica 
 for its apex, is called the "Diamond of the Virgin." 
 Hercules appears head down a in the face, |3, 7, in his 
 shoulders, TT and j in the loins, r in the knee, the foot 
 being bent to the stars at the right. The Serpent's 
 head, making an x , is just at the right of the 7 of 
 Hercules, and the partial circle of the Northern Crown 
 above. The head of Draco is seen at ]3 on the left of 
 the map. Arcturus rises at 9 o'clock about the 20th of 
 February, and at 5 A.M. on the 22d of October ; Kegu- 
 lus 3h. 35m. earlier. 
 
206 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 72. Altair conies to the Meridian, 82 from the Pole, at 10 o'clock P.M. Au- 
 gust 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and at 8 o'clock. September 18th. 
 
 Fig. 72 portrays the stars eastward and southward. 
 Scorpio is one of the most brilliant and easily traced 
 constellations. Antares, a, in the heart, is double. In 
 Sagittarius is the Little Milk-dipper, and west of it the 
 bended bow. Yega is at the top of the map. Near it 
 observe , a double, and c, a quadruple star. The point 
 to which the solar system is tending is marked by the 
 sign of the earth below TT Herculis. The Serpent, west 
 of Hercules, and coiled round nearly to Aquila, is very 
 traceable. In the right-hand lower corner is the Cen- 
 taur. Below, and always out of our sight, is the famous 
 a Centauri. The diamond form of the Dolphin is some- 
 times called " Job's Coffin." The ecliptic passes close 
 
EQUATORIAL CONSTELLATIONS. 207 
 
 Fi. 73. Fomalhaut conies to the Meridian, only 17 from the horizon, at 
 8 o'clock November 4th. 
 
 to ]3 of Scorpio, which star is in the head. Antares, in 
 Scorpio, rises at 9 o'clock P.M. on May 9th, and at 5 
 o'clock A.M. on January 5th. 
 
 In Fig. 73 we recognize the familiar stars of Pegasus, 
 which tell us we have gone quite round the heavens. 
 Note the beautiful cross in the Swan. |3 in the bill is 
 named Albireo, and is a beautiful double to almost any 
 glass. Its yellow and blue colors are very distinct. 
 The place of the famous double star 61 Cygni is seen. 
 The first magnitude star in the lower left-hand corner is 
 Fomalhaut, in the Southern Fish, a Pegasi is in the 
 diagonal corner from Alpheratz, in Andromeda. The 
 star below Altair is ]3 Aquilse, and is called Alschain ; 
 the one above is y Aquilae, named Tarazed. Tin's is 
 not a brilliant section of the sky. Altair rises at 9 
 o'clock on the 29th of May, and at 6 o'clock A.M. on 
 the 11 th of January. 
 
208 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Fig. 74. Southern Circumpolar Constellations invisible north of the Equator. 
 
 Fig. 74 gives the stars that are best seen by per- 
 sons south of the earth's equator. In the ship is brill- 
 iant Canopus, and the remarkable variable rj. Below it 
 is" the beautiful Southern Cross, near the pole of the 
 southern heavens. Just below are the two first mag- 
 nitude stars Bungula, a, and Achernar, /3, of the Centaur. 
 Such a number of unusually brilliant stars give the 
 southern sky an unequalled splendor. In the midst of 
 them, as if for contrast, is the dark hole, called by the 
 sailors the " Coal - sack," where even the telescope re- 
 veals no sign of light. Here, also, are the two Magel- 
 lanic clouds, both easily discernible by the naked eye ; 
 the larger two hundred times the apparent size of the 
 moon, lying between the pole and Canopus, and the 
 other between Achernar and the pole. The smaller 
 cloud is only one-fourth the size of the other. Both are 
 mostly resolvable into groups of stars from the fifth to 
 the fifteenth magnitude. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE STARS. 209 
 
 For easy ont-door finding of the stars above the hori- 
 zon at any time, see star-maps at end of the book. 
 
 Characteristics of the Stars. 
 
 Such a superficial examination of stars as we have 
 made scarcely touches the subject. It is as the study 
 of the baptismal register, where the names were an- 
 ciently recorded, without any knowledge of individuals. 
 The heavens signify much more to us than to the 
 Greeks. We revolve under a dome that investigation 
 has infinitely enlarged from their estimate. Their lit- 
 tle lights were turned by clumsy machinery, held to- 
 gether by material connections. Our vast worlds are 
 connected by a force so fine that it seems to pass out 
 of the realm of the material into that of the spiritual. 
 Animal ferocity or a human Hercules could image their 
 idea of power. Ours finds no symbol, but rises to the 
 Almighty. Their heavens were full of fighting Orions, 
 wild bulls, chained Andromedas, and devouring mon- 
 sters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and 
 unity; all worlds carried by one force, and all harmo- 
 nized into perfect music. All their voices blend their 
 various significations into a personal speaking, which 
 says, " Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, 
 the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
 not, neither is weary ?" There is no searching of his 
 understanding. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold 
 who hath created all these things, that brought out their 
 host by number, that calleth them all by their names 
 in the greatness of his power; for that he is strong in 
 power not one faileth. 
 
210 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Number. 
 
 We find about five thousand stars visible to the 
 naked eye in the whole heavens, both north and south. 
 Of these twenty are of the first magnitude, sixty-five 
 of the second, two hundred of the third, four hundred 
 of the fourth, eleven hundred of the fifth, and three 
 thousand two hundred of the sixth. We think we can 
 easily number the stars; but train a six-inch telescope 
 on a little section of the Twins, where six faint stars are 
 visible, and over three thousand luminous points appear. 
 The seventh magnitude has 13,000 stars; the eighth, 
 40,000 ; the ninth, 142,000. There are 18,000,000 stars 
 in the zone called the Milky Way. When our eyes are 
 not sensitive enough to be affected by the light of far- 
 off stars the tasi meter feels their heat, and tells us the 
 word of their Maker is true "they are innumerable."* 
 
 Double and Multiple Stars. 
 
 If we look up during the summer months nearly over- 
 head at the star c Lyrae, east of Vega (Fig. 72), we shall 
 see with the naked eye that the star appears a little 
 
 * Telescopic Work. Look at the Hyndes and Pleiades in Taurus. 
 Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find the cluster 
 Pra3sepe in Fig. 70, just a trifle above a point midway between Procyon 
 and Regulus. It is equally distant from Procyon and a point a little 
 below Pollux. Sweep along the Milky Way almost anywhere, and ob- 
 serve the distribution of stars ; in some places perfect crowds, in oth- 
 ers more sparsely scattered. Find with the naked eye the rich cluster 
 in Perseus. Draw a line from Algol to a of Perseus (Fig. 67) ; turn 
 at right angles to the right, at a distance of once and four-tenths the 
 first line a brightness will be seen. The telescope reveals a gorgeous 
 cluster. 
 
DOUBLE AND MULTIPLE STARS. 211 
 
 elongated. Turn your opera- glass upon it, and two 
 stars appear. Turn a larger telescope on this double 
 star, and each of the components separate into two. It 
 is a double double star. We know that if two stars are 
 near in reality, and not simply apparently so by being 
 in the same line of sight, they must revolve around a 
 common centre of gravity, or rush to a common ruin. 
 Eagerly we watch to see if they revolve. A few years 
 suffice to show them in actual revolution. Nay, the 
 movement of revolution has been decided before the 
 companion star was discovered. Sirius has long been 
 known to have a proper motion, such as it would have 
 if another sun were revolving about it. Even the di- 
 rection of the unseen body could always be indicated. 
 In February, 1862, Alvan Clark, artist, poet, and maker 
 of telescopes (which requires even greater genius than 
 to be both poet and artist), discovered the companion of 
 Sirius just in its predicted place. As a matter of fact, 
 one of Mr. Clark's sons saw it first ; but their fame is 
 one. The time of revolution of this pair is fifty years. 
 But one companion does not meet the conditions of the 
 movements. Here must also be one or more planets 
 too small or dark to be seen. The double star in the 
 Great Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in fifty- 
 eight years. 
 
 Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the pres- 
 ence of a companion star, but it has as yet eluded our 
 search. Castor is a double star; but a third star or 
 planet, as yet undiscovered, is required to account for 
 its perturbations. Men who discovered Neptune by 
 the perturbations of Uranus are capable of judging the 
 cause of the perturbations of suns. We have spoken of 
 
212 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 the whole orbit of the earth being invisible from the 
 stars. The nearest star in our northern hemisphere, 61 
 Cygni, is a telescopic double star ; the constituent parts 
 of it are forty-five times as far from each other as the 
 earth is from the sun, yet it takes a large opera-glass to 
 show any distance between the stars.* 
 
 When y Yirginis was observed in 1718 by Bradley, 
 the component parts were 7" asunder. He incidental- 
 ly remarked in his note -book that the line of their 
 connection was parallel to the line of the two stars 
 Spica, or a and S Yirginis. By 1840 they were not 
 more than V apart, and the line of their connection 
 greatly changed. The appearance of the star is given 
 in Fig. 75 (15), commencing at the left, for the years 
 1837, '38, '39, '40, '45, '50, '60, and '79 ; also a con- 
 jectural orbit, placed obliquely, and the position of 
 
 * Telescopic Work. Only such work will be laid out here as can he 
 done by small telescopes of from two to four inch object-glasses. The 
 numbers in Fig. 75 correspond to those of the table. 
 
 No. 
 
 Name. 
 
 H* 
 
 Dist. of 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Magni- 
 tudes. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 1. 
 
 Lyras 
 
 72 
 
 I' 56" 
 
 
 
 Quadruple. 
 
 2. 
 
 Lyras 
 
 72 
 
 44 
 
 5 and 6 
 
 Topaz and green. 
 
 3. 
 
 J3 Cvgui.... 
 
 73 
 
 84j 
 
 3 " 6 
 
 Yellow and blue. 
 
 4. 
 
 61 Cygni... 
 
 73 
 
 20 
 
 5 " 6 
 
 Nearest star but one. 
 
 5. 
 
 Mizar 
 
 67 
 
 14 
 
 3 " 4 
 
 Both white. 
 
 6. 
 
 Polaris 
 
 67 
 
 101 
 
 2 " 9 
 
 (Test object of eye 
 i i "i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( aim glass. 
 
 7. 
 
 p Orionis... 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 7 
 
 5 " 8 
 
 Yellow and blue. 
 
 8. 
 
 jSOrionis... 
 
 
 9 
 
 1 " 8 
 
 Kigel. 
 
 9. 
 
 d " ... 
 
 
 10 
 
 2 " 8 
 
 Red and white. 
 
 10. 
 
 " ... 
 
 
 
 
 Septuple. 
 
 11. 
 
 X " ... 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 White and violet. 
 
 12. 
 
 o " ... 
 
 A,B. 
 
 11 
 
 4 " 10 
 
 Octuple. 
 
 13. 
 
 Castor 
 
 69 
 
 5! 
 
 2 " 3 
 
 White. 
 
 14. 
 
 Pollux 
 
 69 
 
 
 
 Triple. 
 
 Orange, gray, lilac. 
 
 15. 
 
 y Virgin is.. 
 
 70 
 
 5 
 
 3 and 3 
 
 Both yellow. 
 
DOUBLE AND MULTIPLE STARS. 213 
 
 the stars at the times mentioned, commencing at the 
 top. The time of its complete revolution is one hun- 
 dred and fifty years. 
 
 Fig. 75. Aspects and Revolution of Double Stars. 
 
 The meaning of these double stars is that two or 
 more suns revolve about their centre of gravity, as the 
 moon and earth about their centre. If they have plan- 
 ets, as doubtless they have, the movement is no more 
 complicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn 
 revolving about their central bod} 7 , and also about the 
 sun. Kindle Saturn and Jupiter to a blaze, or let out 
 their possible light, and our system would appear a 
 triple star in the distance. Doubtless, in the far past, 
 before these giant planets were cooled, it so appeared. 
 
 We find some stars double, others triple, quadruple, 
 octuple, and multiple. It is an extension of the same 
 principles that govern our system. Some of these suns 
 are so far asunder that they can swing their Xeptunes 
 between them, with less perturbation than Uranus and 
 Neptune have in ours. Light all our planets, and there 
 would be a multiple star with more or less suns seen, 
 
214 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the 
 octuple star a in Orion differs in no respect from our sys- 
 tem, except in the size and distance of its separate bod- 
 ies, and less cooling, either from being younger, or from 
 the larger bodies cooling more slowly. Suns are of all 
 ages. Infinite variety fills the sky. It is as preposter- 
 ous to expect that every system or world should have 
 analogous circumstances to ours at the present time, as 
 to insist that every member of a family should be of the 
 same age, and in the same state of development. There 
 are worlds that have not yet reached the conditions of 
 habitability by men, and worlds that have passed these 
 conditions long since. Let them go. There are enough 
 left, arid an infinite number in the course of preparation. 
 Some are fine and lasting enough to be eternal mansions. 
 
 Colored Stars. 
 
 In the smoky morning we get only red light, but the 
 sun is white. So Aldebaran and Betelguese may be 
 girt by vapors, that only the strong red rays can pass. 
 Again, an iron moderately heated gives out dull red 
 light ; becoming hotter, it emits white light. Sirius, 
 Regulus, Yega, and Spica may be white from greater 
 intensity of vibration. Procyon, Capella, and Polaris 
 are yellow from less intensity of vibration. Again, 
 burn salt in a white flame, and it turns to yellow; mix 
 alcohol and boracic acid, ignite them, and a beautiful 
 green flame results; alcohol and nitrate of strontia 
 give red flame ; alcohol and nitrate of barytes give 
 yellow flame. So the composition of a sun, or the spe- 
 cial development of any one substance thereof at any 
 time, may determine the color of a star. 
 
CLUSTERS OF STARS. 215 
 
 The special glory of color in the stars is seen in the 
 marked contrasts presented in the double and multiple 
 stars. The larger star is usually white, still in the in- 
 tensity of heat and vibration ; the others, smaller, are 
 somewhat cooled off, and hence present colors lower 
 down the scale of vibration, as green, yellow, orange, 
 and even red. 
 
 That stars should change color is most natural. Many 
 causes would produce this effect. The ancients said Si- 
 rius was red. It is now white. The change that would 
 most naturally follow mere age and cooling would be 
 from white, through various colors, to red. We are 
 charmed with the variegated flowers of our gardens of 
 earth, but he who makes the fields blush with flowers 
 under the warm kisses of the sun has planted his wider 
 gardens of space with colored stars. " The rainbow 
 flowers of the footstool, and the starry flowers of the 
 throne," proclaim one being as the author of them all. 
 
 Clusters of Stars. 
 
 From double and multiple we naturally come to 
 groups and clusters. Allusion has been made to the 
 Hyades, Pleiades, etc. Every one has noticed the 
 Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of 
 compacted stars. It is not supposed that they are nec- 
 essarily nearer together than the stars in the sparse re- 
 gions about the pole. But the 18,000,000 suns belong- 
 ing to our system are arranged within a space repre- 
 sented by a flattened disk. If one hundred lights, three 
 inches apart, are arranged on a hoop ten feet in diame- 
 ter, they would be in a circle. Add a thousand or two 
 more the same distance apart, filling up the centre, and 
 
216 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 ft). Sprayed Cluster below n iu 
 Hercules. 
 
 extending a few inches on each side of the inner plane 
 of the hoop : an eye in the centre, looking out toward 
 the edge, would see a milky way of lights; looking out 
 
 toward the sides or poles, 
 would see comparatively 
 few. It would seem as if 
 this oblate spheroidal ar- 
 rangement was the result 
 of a revolution of all the 
 suns composing the system. 
 Jupiter and earth are flat- 
 tened at the poles for the 
 same reason. 
 
 In various parts of the 
 heavens there are small 
 globular well-defined clus- 
 ters, and clusters very irregular in form, marked with 
 sprays of stars. There is a cluster of this latter class in 
 Hercules, just under the S, 
 in Fig. 72. " Probably no 
 one ever saw it with a 
 good telescope without a 
 shout of wonder." Here 
 is a cluster of the former 
 class represented in Fig. 77. 
 "The noble globular clus- 
 ter w Centauri is beyond all 
 comparison the richest and 
 largest object of the kind 
 in the heavens. Its stars are literally innumerable ; and 
 as their total light, when received by the naked eye, af- 
 fects it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth 
 
 Fig. TT. Globular Cluster. 
 
NEBULA. 217 
 
 magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imag- 
 ined." 
 
 There are two possibilities of thought concerning 
 these clusters. Either that they belong to our stellar 
 system, and hence the stars must be small and young, 
 or they are another universe of millions of suns, so far 
 away that the inconceivable distances between the stars 
 are shrunken to a'hand's-breadth, and their unbearable 
 splendor of innumerable suns can only make a gray 
 haze at the distance at which we behold them. The 
 latter is the older and grander thought ; the former the 
 newer and better substantiated. 
 
 Nebulcs. 
 
 The gorgeous clusters we have been considering ap- 
 pear to the eye or the small telescope as little cloudlets 
 of hazy light. One after another were resolved into 
 stars ; and the natural conclusion was, that all would 
 yield and reveal themselves to be clustered suns, when 
 we had telescopes of sufficient power. But the spec- 
 troscope, seeing not merely form but substance also, 
 shows that some of them are not stars in any sense, but 
 masses of glowing gas. Two of these nebulae are visi- 
 ble to the naked eye : one in Andromeda (see Fig. 68), 
 and one around the middle star of the sword of Orion, 
 shown in Fig. 78. A three -inch telescope resolves 
 Orionis into the famous trapezium, and a five-inch in- 
 strument sees two stars more. The shape of the nebula 
 is changeable, and is hardly suggestive of the moulding 
 influence of gravitation. It is probably composed of 
 glowing nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Nebulae are of 
 all conceivable shapes circular, annular, oval, lenticu- 
 
 10 
 
218 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 lar, conical, spiral, snake -like, looped, and nameless. 
 Compare the sprays of the Crab nebulae above Tauri, 
 
 Fig. 78. The great Nebula about the multiple Star Orionis. (See Frontispiece.) 
 
 seen in Fig. 79, and the ring nebula, Fig. 80. This last 
 possibly consists of stars, and is situated, as shown in 
 Fig. 81, midway between )3 and j Lyrse. 
 
 When Herschel was sweeping the heavens with his 
 telescope, and saw but few stars, he often said to his 
 assistant, " Prepare to write; the nebulae are coming." 
 They are most abundant where the stars are least so. 
 A zone about the heavens 30 wide, with the Milky 
 Way in the centre, would include one-fourth of the ce- 
 lestial sphere ; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine- 
 
NEBULA. 219 
 
 tenths of the stars in this zone, and but one-tenth of the 
 nebulae. 
 
 These immense masses of unorganized matter are 
 noticed to change their forms, vary their light greatly, 
 but not quickly ; they change through the ages. " God 
 works slowly." He takes a thousand years to lift his 
 hand off. 
 
 Fig. 79. Crab Nebula, near Tatiri. (See Frontispiece.) 
 
 There are many unsolved problems connected with 
 these strange bodies. Whether they belong to our sys- 
 tem, or are beyond it, is not settled ; the weight of evi- 
 dence leans to the first view. 
 
220 
 
 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 Variable Stars. 
 
 Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing 
 through a period of eleven years. Probably every star, 
 
 Fig. 80. The Ring Nebnla. 
 
 if examined by methods sufficiently delicate and exact, 
 would be found to be variable. The variations of some 
 
VARIABLE STARS. 221 
 
 stars are so marked as to challenge investigation. )3 
 Lyrse (Fig. 81) has two maxima and minima of light. In 
 
 Fig. 81. Constellation Lyra, showing place of the Ring Nebnla, 
 
 three days it rises from magnitude % to 3 ; in a week 
 it falls to 4, and rises to 3 ; and in three days more 
 drops to 4% : it makes all these changes in thirteen 
 days ; but this period is constantly increasing. The 
 variations of one hundred and forty -three stars have 
 been well ascertained. 
 
 Mira, or the Wonderful, in the Whale (Fig. 68), is 
 easily found when visible. Align from Capella to the 
 Pleiades, and as much farther, and four stars will be 
 seen, situated thus: * * * The right-hand one is 
 Mira. For half a month it shines as a star of the second 
 magnitude. Then for three months it fades away, and 
 is lost to sight ; going down even to the eleventh mag- 
 nitude. But after five months its resurrection morning 
 comes; and in three months more eleven months in 
 all our Wonderful is in its full glory in the heavens. 
 But its period and brilliancy are also variable. The star 
 Megrez, in the Great Bear, has been growing dim 
 
222 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 for a century. In 1836 Betelguese was exceedingly 
 variable, and continued so till 1840, when the changes 
 became much less conspicuous. Algol (Fig. 68) has 
 been already referred to. This slowly winking eye 
 is of the second magnitude during 2d. 14h. Then it 
 dozes off toward sleep for 4h. 24m., when it is nearly 
 invisible. It wakes up during the same time; so that 
 its period from maximum brilliancy to the same state 
 again is 2d. 20h. 48m. Its recognizable changes are 
 within five or six hours. As I write, March 25th, 1879, 
 Algol gives its minimum light at 9h. 36m. P.M. It 
 passes fifteen minima in 43d. 13m. There will therefore 
 be another minimum May 7th, at 9h.49m. Its future 
 periods are easy to estimate. Perhaps it has some dark 
 body revolving about it at frightful speed, in a period 
 of less than three days. The period of its variability is 
 growing shorter at an increasing rate. If its variability 
 is caused by a dark body revolving about it, the orbit of 
 that body is contracting, and the huge satellite will soon, 
 as celestial periods are reckoned, commence to graze the 
 surface of the sun itself, rebound again and again, and 
 at length plunge itself into the central fire. Such an 
 event would evolve heat enough to make Algol flame 
 up into a star of the first magnitude, and perhaps out- 
 blaze Sirius or Capella in our winter sky. 
 
 None of the causes for "these changes we have been 
 able to conjecture seem very satisfactory. The stars 
 may have opaque planets revolving about them, shut- 
 ting off their light ; they may rotate, and have unequal- 
 ly illuminated sides ; they may revolve in very elliptical 
 orbits, so as to greatly alter their distance from us ; they 
 may be so situated in regard to zones of meteorites as 
 
TEMPORARY, NEW, AXD LOST STARS. 223 
 
 to call down periodically vast showers; but none or all 
 of these suppositions apply to all cases, if they do to any. 
 
 Temporary, New, and Lost Stars. 
 
 Besides regular movements to right and left, np and 
 down, to and from us changes in the intensity of illu- 
 mination by changes of distance besides variations oc- 
 curring at regular and ascertainable intervals, there are 
 stars called temporary, shining awhile and then disap- 
 pearing ; new, coming to a definite brightness, and so 
 remaining; and lost, those whose first appearance was 
 not observed, but which have utterly disappeared. 
 
 In November, 1572, a new star blazed out in Cassio- 
 peia. Its place is shown in Fig. 67, \ y being the stars 
 $ * in the seat of the chair, and S being the first one 
 7 * in the back. This star was visible at noonday, 
 and was brighter than any other star in the heavens. 
 In January, 1573, it was less bright than Jupiter; in 
 April it was below the second magnitude, and the last 
 of May it utterly disappeared. It was as variable in 
 color as in brilliancy. During its first two months, the 
 period of greatest brightness, it was dazzling white, then 
 became yellow, and finally as red as Mars or Aldebaran, 
 and so expired. 
 
 A bright star was seen very near to the place of the 
 Pilgrim, as the star of 1572 was called, in A.D. 945 and 
 1264. A star of the tenth magnitude is now seen 
 brightening slowly almost exactly in the same place. 
 It is possible that this is a variable star of a period of 
 about three hundred and ten years, and will blaze out 
 again about 1885. 
 
 But we have had, within a few years, fine opportuni- 
 
224: THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 ties to study, with improved instruments, two new stars. 
 On the evening of May 12th, 1866, a star of the second 
 magnitude was observed in the Northern Crown, where 
 no star above the fifth magnitude had been twenty- 
 four hours before. In Argelander's chart a star of the 
 tenth magnitude occupies the place. May 13th it had 
 declined to the third magnitude, May 16th to the fourth, 
 May 17th to the fifth, May 19th to the seventh, May 
 31st to the ninth, and has since diminished to the tenth. 
 The spectroscope showed it to be a star in the usual 
 condition ; but through the usual colored spectrum, 
 crossed with bright lines, shone four bright lines, two 
 of which indicated glowing hydrogen. Here was plen- 
 ty of proof that an unusual amount of this gas had 
 given this sun its sudden flame. As the hydrogen 
 burned out the star grew dim. 
 
 Two theories immediately presented themselves : 
 First, that vast volumes had been liberated from within 
 the orb by some sudden breaking up of the doors of 
 its great deeps; or, second, this star had precipitated 
 upon itself, by attraction, some other sun or planet, the 
 force of whose impact had been changed into heat. 
 
 Though we see the liberated hydrogen of our sun 
 burst up with sudden flame, it can hardly be supposed 
 that enough could be liberated at once to increase the 
 light and heat one hundred-fold. 
 
 In regard to the second theory, it is capable of proof 
 that two suns half as large as ours, moving at a velocity 
 of four hundred and seventy-six miles per second, would 
 evolve heat enough to supply the radiation of our sun 
 for fifty million years. How could it be possible for 
 a sun like this newly blazing orb to cool off to such a 
 
TEMPORARY, NEW, AND LOST STARS. - 225 
 
 degree in a month? Besides, there would not be one 
 chance in a thousand for two orbs to come directly to- 
 gether. They would revolve about each other till a 
 kind of grazing contact of grinding worlds would slow- 
 ly kindle the ultimate heat. 
 
 It is far more likely that this star encountered an 
 enormous stream of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorb- 
 ed a whole comet, that laid its million leagues of tail 
 as fuel on the central fire. Only let it be remembered 
 that the fuel is far more force than substance. Allu- 
 sion has already been made to the sudden brightening 
 of our sun on the first day of September, 1859. That 
 was caused, no doubt, by the fall of large meteors, fol- 
 lowing in the train of the comet of 1843, or some other 
 comet. What the effect would have been, had the whole 
 mass of the comet been absorbed, cannot be imagined. 
 
 Another new star lately appeared in Cygnus, near 
 the famous star 61 the first star in the northern hem- 
 isphere whose distance was determined. It was first 
 seen November 24th, 1876, as a third magnitude star 
 of a yellow color. By December 2d it had sunk to the 
 fourth magnitude, and changed to a greenish color. It 
 had then three bright hydrogen lines, the strong double 
 sodium line, and others, which made it strongly resem- 
 ble the spectrum of the chromosphere of our sun. An 
 entirely different result appeared in the fading of these 
 two stars. In the case of the star in the Crown, the ex- 
 traordinary light was the first to fade, leaving the usual 
 stellar spectrum. In the case of the star in Cygnus, the 
 part of the spectrum belonging to stellar light was the 
 first to fade, leaving the bright lines ; that is, the gas 
 of one gave way to regular starlight, and the starlight 
 
226 * THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 of the other having faded, the regular light of the glow- 
 ing gas continued. By some strange oversight, no one 
 studied the star again for six months. In September 
 and November, 1877, the light of this star was found to 
 be. blue, and not to be starlight at all. It had no rain- 
 bow spectrum, only one kind of rays, and hence only 
 one color. Its sole spectroscopic line is believed to be 
 that of glowing nitrogen gas. We have then, probably, 
 in the star of 1876, a body shining by a feeble and un- 
 discernible light, surrounded by a discernible immensi- 
 ty of light of nitrogen gas. This is its usual condition ; 
 but if a flight of meteors should raise the heat of the 
 central body so as to outshine the nebulous envelope, 
 we should have the conditions we discovered in No- 
 vember, 1876. But a rapid cooling dissipates the ob- 
 servable light of all colors, and leaves only the glowing 
 gas of one color. 
 
 Movements of Stars. 
 
 We call the stars fixed, but motion and life are nec- 
 essary to all things. Besides the motion in the line of 
 sight described already, there is motion in every other 
 conceivable direction. We knew Sirius moved before 
 we had found the cause. We know that our sun moves 
 back and forth in his easy bed one-half his vast diam- 
 eter, as the larger planets combine their influence on 
 one side or the other. 
 
 The sun has another movement. We find the stars 
 in Hercules gradually spreading from each other. Iler- 
 cules's brawny limbs grow brawnier every century. 
 There can be but one cause : we are approaching that 
 quarter of the heavens. (See 0, Fig. 72.) We are even 
 
MOVEMENTS OF STARS. 227 
 
 able to compute the velocity of our approach ; it is 
 eight miles a second. The stars in the opposite quarter 
 of the heavens in the Dove are drawing nearer together. 
 
 This movement would have no effect on the apparent 
 place of the stars at either pole, if they were all equally 
 distant ; but it must greatly extend or contract the ap- 
 parent space between 'them, since they are situated at 
 various distances. 
 
 Independent of this, the stars themselves are all in 
 motion, but so vast is the distance from which we ob- 
 serve them that it has taken an accumulation of centu- 
 ries before they could be made measurable. A train 
 going forty miles an hour, seen from a distance of two 
 miles, almost seems to stand still. Arcturus moves 
 through space three times as fast as the earth, but it 
 takes a century to appear to move the eighth part of 
 the diameter of the moon. There is a star in the Hunt- 
 ing Dogs, known as 1830 Groombridge, which has a 
 velocity beyond what all the attraction of the matter of 
 the known universe could give it. By the year 9000 
 it may be in Berenice's Hair. 
 
 . Some stars have a common movement, being evident- 
 ly related together. A large proportion of the bright- 
 er stars between Aldebaran and the Pleiades have a 
 common motion eastward of about ten seconds a cen- 
 tury. All the angles marked by a, )3, 7, \ Orionis will 
 be altered in different directions; X is moving toward y. 
 A and will appear as a double star. In A.D. 50,000 
 Procyon will be nearer ^ Orionis than Rigel now is, 
 and Sirius will be in line with a and ^ Orionis. All 
 the stars of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch and 
 Dubhe, have a common motion somewhat in the direc- 
 
228 THE STELLAR SYSTEM. 
 
 tion of Thuban (Fig. 67), while the two named have a 
 motion nearly opposite. In 36,000 years the end of 
 the Dipper will have fallen out so that it will hold no 
 water, arid the handle will be broken square off at Mi- 
 zar. " The Southern Cross," says Humboldt, " will not 
 always keep its characteristic form, for its four stars 
 travel in different directions with unequal velocities. 
 At the present time it is not known how many myriads 
 of years must elapse before its entire dislocation." 
 
 These movements are not in fortuitous or chaotic 
 ways, but are doubtless in accordance with some perfect 
 plan. We have climbed up from revolving earth and 
 moon to revolving planets and sun, in order to under- 
 stand how two or ten suns can revolve about a common 
 centre. Let us now leap to the grander idea that all 
 the innumerable stars of a winter night not only can, 
 but must revolve about some centre of gravity. Men 
 have been looking for a central sun of suns, and have 
 not found it. None is needed. Two suns can balance 
 about a point; all suns can swing about a common 
 centre. That one unmoving centre may be that city 
 more gorgeous than Eastern imagination ever conceived, 
 whose pavement is transparent gold, whose walls are 
 precious stones, whose light is life, and where no dark 
 planetary bodies ever cast shadows. There reigns the 
 King and Lord of all, and ranged about are the far- 
 off provinces of his material systems. They all move 
 in his sight, and receive power from a mind that never 
 wearies. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE "WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 u Tfte wonas were framed by the word of God." Heb. xi., 3. 
 
' Mysterious night! when our first parent knew thee 
 From report divine, and heard thy name, 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue? 
 Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent de\v, 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 Hesperus, with all the host of heaven, car/.e. 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay oonceaiec* 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ! Oh who could find. 
 Whilst fruit and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
 That to such countless worlds thou mad'st us blind! 
 Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? 
 If light conceal so much, wherefore not life?" 
 
 BLANCO WHITE O 
 
THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 231 
 
 XL 
 
 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 MEN have found the various worlds to be far rich- 
 er than they originally thought. They have opened 
 door after door in their vast treasuries, have ascended 
 throne after throne of power, and ruled realms of in- 
 creasing extent. We have no doubt that unfoldings 
 in the future will amaze even those whose expectations 
 have been quickened by the revealings of the past. 
 What if it be found that the Word is equally inex- 
 haustible ? 
 
 After ages of thought and discovery we have come 
 out of the darkness and misconceptions of men. We 
 believe in no serpent, turtle, or elephant supporting 
 the world; no Atlas holding up the heavens; no crys- 
 tal domes, " with cycles and epicycles scribbled o'er." 
 What if it be found that one book, written by ignorant 
 men, never fell into these mistakes of the wisest ! JS"ay, 
 more, what if some of the greatest triumphs of modern 
 science are to be found plainly stated in a book older 
 than the writings of Homer? If suns, planets, and 
 satellites, with all their possibilities of life, changes of 
 flora and fauna, could be all provided for, as some 
 scientists tell us, in the fiery star-dust of a cloud, why 
 may not the same Author provide a perpetually widen- 
 ing river of life in his Word? As we believe He is 
 perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has 
 
232 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 promised to be perpetually present in his Word, making 
 it alive with spirit and life. 
 
 The wise men of the past could not avoid alluding 
 to ideas the falsity of which subsequent discovery has 
 revealed; but the writers of the Bible did avoid such 
 erroneous allusion. Of course they referred to some 
 things, as sunrise and sunset, according to appearance; 
 but our most scientific books do the same to-day. 
 That the Bible could avoid teaching the opposite of 
 scientific truth proclaims that a higher than human 
 wisdom was in its teaching. 
 
 That negative argument is strong, but the affirmative 
 argument is much stronger. The Bible declares scien- 
 tific truth far in advance of its discovery, far in ad- 
 vance of man's ability to understand its plain declara- 
 tions. Take a few conspicuous illustrations : 
 
 The Bible asserted from the first that the present 
 order of things had a beginning. After ages of investi- 
 gation, after researches in the realms of physics, argu- 
 ments in metaphysics, and conclusions by the necessities 
 of resistless logic, science has reached the same result. 
 
 The Bible asserted from the first that creation of 
 matter preceded arrangement. It was chaos void 
 without form darkness: arrangement was a subsequent 
 work. The world was not created in the form it was 
 to have; it was to be moulded, shaped, stratified, coal- 
 ed, mountained, valleyed, subsequently. All of which 
 science utters ages afterward. 
 
 The Bible did not hesitate to affirm that light existed 
 before the sun, though men did not believe it, and 
 used it as a weapon against inspiration. Now we praise 
 men for having demonstrated the oldest record. 
 
THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 233 
 
 It is a recently discovered truth of science that the 
 strata of the earth were formed by the action of water, 
 and the mountains were once under the ocean. It is 
 an idea long familiar to Bible readers : " Thou coverest 
 the earth with the deep as with a garment. The waters 
 stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled ; 
 at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. The 
 mountains ascend ; the valleys descend into the place 
 thou hast founded for them." Here is a whole volume 
 of geology in a paragraph. The thunder of continental 
 convulsions is God's voice; the mountains rise by God's 
 power ; the waters haste away unto the place God pre- 
 pared for them. Our slowness of geological discovery 
 is perfectly accounted for by Peter. " For of this they 
 are willingly ignorant, that by the word of God there 
 were heavens of old, and land framed out of water, 
 and by means of water, whereby the world that then 
 was, being overflowed by water, perished." We recog- 
 nize these geological subsidences, but we read them 
 from the testimony of the rocks more willingly than 
 from the testimony of the Word. 
 
 Science exults in having discovered what it is pleased 
 to call an order of development on earth tender grass, 
 herb, tree ; moving creatures that have life in the wa- 
 ters ; bird, reptile, beast, cattle, man. The Bible gives 
 the same order ages before, and calls it God's successive 
 creations. 
 
 During ages on ages man's wisdom held the earth to 
 be flat. Meanwhile, God was saying, century after cen- 
 tury, of himself, "He sitteth upon the sphere of the 
 earth " (Gesenins). 
 
 Men racked their feeble wits for expedients to up- 
 
234: THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 liold the earth, and the best they could devise were ser- 
 pents, elephants, and turtles ; beyond that no one had 
 ever gone to see what supported them. Meanwhile, 
 God was perpetually telling men that he had hung the 
 earth upon nothing. 
 
 Men were ever trying to number the stars. Hippar- 
 chus counted one thousand and twenty-two; Ptolemy 
 one thousand and twenty-six; and it is easy to number 
 those visible to the naked eye. But the Bible said, 
 when there were no telescopes to make it known, that 
 they were as the sands of the sea, " innumerable." Sci- 
 ence has appliances of enumeration unknown to other 
 ages, but the space-penetrating telescopes ami tastime- 
 ters reveal more worlds eighteen millions in a single 
 system, and systems beyond count till men acknowl- 
 edge that the stars are innumerable to man. It is 
 God's prerogative " to number all the stars ; he also 
 calleth them all by their names." 
 
 Torricelli's. discovery that the air had weight was re- 
 ceived w T ith incredulity. For ages the air had propelled 
 ships, thrust itself against the bodies of men, and over- 
 turned their works. But no man ever dreamed that 
 weight was necessary to give momentum. During all 
 the centuries it had stood in the Bible, waiting for 
 man's comprehension: "He gave to the air its weight" 
 (Job xxviii. 25). 
 
 The pet science of to-day is meteorology. The fluc- 
 tuations and variations of the weather have hitherto 
 baffled all attempts at unravelling them. It has seemed 
 that there was no law in their tickle changes. But at 
 length perseverance and skill have triumphed, and a 
 single man in one place predicts the weather and winds 
 
THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 235 
 
 for a continent. But the Bible has always insisted that 
 the whole department was under law ; nay, it laid down 
 that law so clearly, that if men had been willing to learn 
 from it they might have reached this wisdom ages ago. 
 The whole moral law is not more clearly crystallized in 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and thy neighbor as thyself," than all the fundamentals 
 of the science of meteorology are crystallized in these 
 words : " The wind goeth toward the south (equator), 
 and turneth about (up) unto the north ; it whirleth 
 about continually, and the wind returneth again accord- 
 ing to his circuits (established routes). All the rivers 
 run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full : unto the place 
 from whence the rivers come, thither they return again" 
 (Eccles. i. 6, 7). 
 
 Those scientific queries which God propounded to 
 Job were unanswerable then ; most of them are so 
 now. " Whereon are the sockets of the earth made to 
 sink?" Job never knew the earth turned in sockets; 
 much less could he tell where they were fixed. God 
 answered this question elsewhere. " He stretcheth the 
 north (one socket) over the empty place, and hangeth 
 the earth upon nothing." Speaking of the day-spring, 
 God says the earth is turned, to it, as clay to the seal. 
 The earth's axial revolution is clearly recognized. Co- 
 pernicus declared it early ; God earlier. 
 
 K"o man yet understands the balancing of the clouds, 
 nor the suspension of the frozen masses of hail, any 
 more than Job did. 
 
 Had God asked if he hud perceived the length of the 
 earth, many a man to-day could have answered yes. 
 But the eternal ice keeps us from perceiving the breadth 
 
236 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 of the earth, and shows the discriminating wisdom of 
 the question. 
 
 The statement that the sun's going is from the end 
 of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it, has given 
 edge to many a sneer at its supposed assertion that the 
 sun went round the earth. It teaches a higher truth 
 that the sun itself obeys the law it enforces on the plan- 
 ets, and flies in an orbit of its own, from one end of 
 heaven in Argo to the other in Hercules. 
 
 So eminent an astronomer and so true a Christian as 
 General Mitchell, who understood the voices in which 
 the heavens declare the glory of God, who read with 
 delight the Word of God embodied in worlds, and who 
 fed upon the written Word of God as his daily bread, 
 declared, " We find an aptness and propriety in all these 
 astronomical illustrations, which are not weakened, but 
 amazingly strengthened, when viewed in the clear light 
 of our present knowledge." Herschel says, "All hu- 
 man discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose 
 of confirming more strongly the truths that come from 
 on high, and are contained in the sacred writings." 
 The common authorship of the worlds and the Word 
 becomes apparent ; their common unexplorable wealth 
 is a necessary conclusion. 
 
 Since the opening revelations of the past show an 
 unsearchable wisdom in the Word, has that Word any 
 prophecy concerning mysteries not yet understood, and 
 events yet in the future ? There are certain problems 
 as yet insolvable. We have grasped many clews, and 
 followed them far into labyrinths of darkness, but not 
 yet through into light. 
 
 We ask in vain, " What is matter ?" No man can 
 
THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 237 
 
 answer. We trace it up through the worlds, till its in- 
 creasing fineness, its growing power, and possible iden- 
 tity of substance, seem as if the next step would reveal 
 its spirit origin. What we but hesitatingly stammer, 
 the Word boldly asserts. 
 
 We ask, " What is force ?" No man can answer. 
 We recognize its various grades, each subordinate to 
 the higher cohesion dissolvable by heat; the affinity 
 of oxygen and hydrogen in water overcome by the pierc- 
 ing intensity of electric fire ; rivers seeking the sea by 
 gravitation carried back by the sun; rock turned to 
 soil, soil to flowers ; and all the forces in nature meas- 
 urably subservient to iniiid. Hence we partly under- 
 stand what the Word has always taught us, that all 
 lower forces must be subject to that which is highest. 
 How easily can seas be divided, iron made to swim, 
 water to burn, and a dead body to live again, if the 
 highest force exert itself over forces made to be mas- 
 tered. When we have followed force to its highest 
 place, we always find ourselves considering the forces 
 of mind and spirit, and say, in the words of the Scrip- 
 tures, " God is spirit." 
 
 We ask in vain what is the end of the present condi- 
 tion of things. We have read the history of our globe 
 with great difficulty its prophecy is still more difficult. 
 We have asked whether the stars form a system, and 
 if so, whether that system is permanent. We are not 
 able to answer yet. We have said that the sun would 
 in time become as icy cold and dead as the moon, and 
 then the earth would wander darkling in the voids of 
 space. But the end of the earth, as prophesied in the 
 Word, is different : " The heavens will pass away witli 
 
238 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 a rushing noise, and the elements will be dissolved with 
 burning heat, and the earth arid the works therein will 
 be burned np." The latest conclusions of science point 
 the same way. The great zones of uncondensed matter 
 about the sun seem to constitute a resisting medium as 
 far as they reach. Encke's comet, whose orbit comes 
 near the sun, is delayed. This gives gravitation an 
 overwhelming power, and hence the orbit is lessened 
 and a revolution accomplished more quickly. Faye's 
 comet, which wheels beyond the track of Mars, is not 
 retarded. If the earth moves through a resisting sub- 
 stance, its ultimate fall into the sun is certain. Wheth- 
 er in that far future the sun shall have cooled off, or 
 will be still as hot as to-day, Peter's description would 
 admirably portray the result of the impact. Peter's 
 description, however, seems rather to indicate an inter- 
 ference of Divine power at an appropriate time before 
 a running down of the system at present in existence, 
 and a re-endowment of matter with new capabilities. 
 
 After thousands of years, science discovered the true 
 way to knowledge. It is the Baconian way of experi- 
 ment, of trial, of examining the actual, instead of imag- 
 ining the ideal. It is the acceptance of the Scriptural 
 plan. " If a man wills to do God's will, he shall know." 
 Oh taste and see ! In science men try hypotheses, think 
 the best they can, plan broadly as possible, and then see 
 if facts sustain the theory. They have adopted the 
 Scriptural idea of accepting a plan, and then working 
 in faith, in order to acquire knowledge. Fortunately, 
 in the work of salvation the plan is always perfect. 
 But, in order to make the trial under the most favora- 
 ble circumstances, there must be faith. The faith of 
 
THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 239 
 
 science is amazing; its assertions of the supersensual 
 are astounding. It affirms a thousand things that can- 
 not be physically demonstrated : that the flight of a rifle- 
 ball is parabolic ; that the earth has poles ; that gases are 
 made of particles; that there are atoms; that an elec- 
 tric light gives ten times as many rays as are visible; 
 that there are sounds to which we are deaf, sights to 
 which we are blind ; that a thousand objects and activi- 
 ties are about us, for the perception of which we need a 
 hundred senses instead of five. These faiths have near- 
 ly all led to sight ; they have been rewarded, and the 
 world's wealth of knowledge is the result. The Word 
 has ever asserted the supersensuous, solicited man's faith, 
 and ever uplifted every true faith into sight. Lowell is 
 partly right when he sings : 
 
 "Science was Faith once; Faith were science now, 
 Would she but lav her bow and arrows by, 
 And arm her with the weapons of the time." 
 
 Faith laid her bow and arrows by before men in pursuit 
 of worldly knowledge discovered theirs. 
 
 What becomes of the force of the sun that is being 
 spent to-day ? It is one of the firmest rocks of science 
 that there can be no absolute destruction of force. It 
 is all conserved somehow. But how ? The sun con- 
 tracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all encircling 
 space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars in- 
 visible by the largest telescope enters the tasti meter, and 
 declares that that force has journeyed from its source 
 through incalculable years. There is no encircling 
 dome to reflect all this force back upon its sources. Is 
 it lost ( Science, in defence of its own dogma, should 
 
240 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 assign light a work as it flies in the space which we have 
 learned cannot be empty. There ought to be a realm 
 where light's inconceivable energy is utilized in build- 
 ing a grander universe, where there is no night. Christ 
 said, as he went out of the seen into the unseen, " I go 
 to prepare a place for you ;" and when John saw it in 
 vision the sun had disappeared, the moon was gone, but 
 the light still continued. 
 
 Science finds matter to be capable of unknown refine- 
 ment ; water becomes steam full of amazing capabilities : 
 we add more heat, superheat the steam, and it takes on 
 new aptitudes and uncontrollable energy. Zinc burned 
 in acid becomes electricity, which enters iron as a kind 
 of soul, to fill all that body with life. All matter is 
 capable of transformation, if not transfiguration, till it 
 shines by the light of an indwelling spirit. Scripture 
 readers know that bodies and even garments can be 
 transfigured, be made aarpcurTtov (Luke xxiv. 4), shin- 
 ing with an inner light. They also look for new heav- 
 ens and a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit 
 for perfect beings. 
 
 When God made matter, so far as our thought per- 
 mits us to know, he simply made force stationary and 
 unconscious. Thereafter he moves through it with his 
 own will. He can at any time change these forces, 
 making air solid, water and rock gaseous, a world a 
 cloud, or a fire-mist a stone. He may at some time re- 
 store all force to consciousness again, and make every 
 part of the universe thrill with responsive joy. " Then 
 shall the mountains and the hills break forth before 
 you into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their 
 hands." One of these changes is to come to the earth. 
 
THE WORLDS AXD THE WORD. 
 
 Amidst great noise the heaven shall flee, the earth be 
 burned up, and all their forces be changed to new 
 forms. Perhaps it will not then be visible to mortal 
 eyes. Perhaps force will then be made conscious, and 
 the flowers thereafter return our love as much as lower 
 creatures do now. A river and tree of life may be 
 consciously alive, as well as give life. Poets that are 
 nearest to God are constantly hearing the sweet voices 
 of responsive feeling in nature. 
 
 "For his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness and a smile, 
 And eloquence of beauty; and she ^li.les 
 Into his darker musings with a mild 
 And gentle sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness ere lie is aware." 
 
 Prophets who utter God's voice of truth say, " The 
 wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for holy 
 men, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the 
 rose. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even 
 with joy and singing." 
 
 Distinguish clearly between certainty .and surmise. 
 The certainty is that the world will pass through catas- 
 trophic changes to a perfect world. The grave of uni- 
 fonnitarianism is already covered with grass. He that 
 creates promises to complete. The invisible, impon- 
 derable, inaudible ether is beyond our apprehension ; 
 it transmits impressions 186,000 miles a second ; it is 
 millions of times more capable and energetic than air. 
 What may be the bounds of its possibility none can im- 
 agine, for law is not abrogated nor designs disregarded 
 as we ascend into higher realms. Law works out more 
 beautiful designs with more absolute certainty. Why 
 
 11 
 
242 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 should there not be a finer universe than this, and dis- 
 connected from this world altogether a fit home for 
 immortal souls ? It is a necessity. 
 
 God filleth all in all, is everywhere omnipotent and 
 wise. Why should there be great vacuities, barren of 
 power and its creative outgoings ? God has fixed the 
 stars as proofs of his agency at some points in space. 
 But is it in points only? Science is proud of its dis- 
 covery that what men once thought to be empty space 
 is more intensely active than the coarser forms of mat- 
 ter can be. But in the long times which are past Job 
 glanced at earth, seas, clouds, pillars of heaven, stars, 
 day, night, all visible things, and then added: "Lo! 
 these are only the outlying borders of his works. AVhat 
 a w T hisper of a word we hear of Him ! The thunder 
 of his power who can comprehend ?" 
 
 Science discovers that man is adapted for mastery in 
 this world. He is of the highest order of visible creat- 
 ures. Neither is it possible to imagine an order of be- 
 ings generically higher to be connected with the con- 
 ditions of the. material world. This whole secret w r as 
 known to the author of the oldest writing. " And God 
 blessed them, and God said unto them: Be fruitful, and 
 multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it : and 
 have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
 fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
 upon the earth." The idea is never lost sight of in the 
 sacred writings. And while every rnan knows he must 
 fail in one great contest, and yield himself to death, 
 the later portions of the divine Word offer him victory 
 even here. The typical man is commissioned to destroy 
 even death, and make man a sharer in the victory. 
 
THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 Science babbles at this great truth of man's position 
 like a little child ; Scripture treats it with a breadth of 
 perfect wisdom we are only beginning to grasp. 
 
 Science tells us that each type is prophetic of a 
 higher one. The whale has bones prophetic of a 
 human hand. Has man reached perfection? Is there 
 no prophecy in him ? Not in his body, perhaps ; but 
 how his whole soul yearns for greater beauty. As 
 soon as he has found food, the savage begins to carve 
 his paddle, and make himself gorgeous with feathers. 
 How man yearns for strength, subduing animal and 
 cosmic forces to his will ! How he fights against dark- 
 ness and death, and strives for perfection and holiness ! 
 These prophecies compel us to believe there is a world 
 where powers like those of electricity and luminiferous 
 ether are ever at hand; where its waters are rivers of 
 life, and its trees full of perfect healing, and from which 
 all unholiness is forever kept. What we infer, Scrip- 
 ture affirms. 
 
 Science tells us there has been a survival of the fittest. 
 Doubtless this is so. So in the future there will be a 
 survival of the fittest. What is it ? Wisdom, gentle- 
 ness, meekness, brotherly kindness, and charity. Over 
 those who have these traits death hath no permanent 
 power. The caterpillar has no fear as he weaves his 
 own shroud ; for there is life within fit to survive, and 
 ere long it spreads its gorgeous wings, and flies in the 
 air above where once it crawled. Man has had two 
 states of being alread3 T . One confined, dark, peculiarly 
 nourished, slightly conscious ; then he was born into 
 another wide, differently nourished, and intensely con- 
 scious. He knows he may be born again into a life 
 
244 THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 
 
 wider yet, differently nourished, and even yet more in- 
 tensely conscious. Science lias no hint how a long 
 ascending series of developments crowned by man may 
 advance another step, and make man IvayysXoz equal 
 to angels. But the simplest teaching of Scripture points 
 out a way so clear that a child need not miss the glori- 
 ous consummation. 
 
 When Uranus hastened in one part of its orbit, 
 and then retarded, and swung too wide, men said there 
 must be another attracting world beyond ; and, looking 
 there, Neptune was found. So, w r hen individual men 
 are so strong that nations or armies cannot break down 
 their wills ; so brave, that lions have no terrors ; so 
 holy, that temptation cannot lure nor sin defile them ; 
 so grand in thought, that men cannot follow ; so pure 
 in walk, that God walks with them let us infer an at- 
 tracting world, high and pure and strong as heaven. 
 The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is a roll-call of heroes 
 of whom this world was not worthy. They were tort- 
 ured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain 
 a better resurrection. The world to come influenced, 
 as it were, the orbits of their souls, and when their bod- 
 ies fell off, earth having no hold on them, they sped on 
 to their celestial home. The tendency of such souls 
 necessitates such a world. 
 
 The worlds and the Word speak but one language, 
 teach but one set of truths. How was it possible that 
 the writers of the earlier Scriptures described physical 
 phenomena with wonderful sublimity, and with such 
 penetrative truth ? They gazed upon the same heaven 
 that those men saw who ages afterward led the world 
 in knowledge. These latter were near-sighted, and ab- 
 
THE WORLDS AND THE WORD. 245 
 
 sorbed in the pictures on the first veil of matter ; the 
 former were far-sighted, and penetrated a hundred 
 strata of thickest material, and saw the immaterial pow- 
 er behind. The one class studied the present, and made 
 the gravest mistakes ; the other pierced the uncounted 
 ages of the past, and uttered the profoundest wisdom. 
 There is but one explanation. He that planned and 
 made the worlds inspired the Word. 
 
 Science and religion are not two separate depart- 
 ments, they are not even two phases of the same truth. 
 Science has a broader realm in the unseen than in the 
 seen, in the source of power than in the outcomes of 
 power, in the sublime laws of spirit than in the laws of 
 matter; and religion sheds its beautiful light over all 
 stages of life, till, whether we eat or whether we drink, 
 or whatsoever we do, we may do all for the glory of 
 God. Science and religion make common confession 
 that the great object of life is to learn and to grow. 
 Both will come to see the best possible means, for the 
 attainment of this end is a personal relation to a teach- 
 er who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All 
 tilings became by him, and without him was not anything made that was 
 made * * * and bv nim all things stand together." 
 
" O thou eternal one ; whose presence bright 
 All space doth occupy all motion guide 
 Thou from primeval nothingness didst call 
 First chaos, then existence. Lord, on thee 
 Eternity had its foundation : all 
 Sprung forth from thee of light, joy, harmony, 
 Sole origin : all life, all beauty thine. 
 Thy word created all, and doth create ; 
 Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine ; 
 Thou art and wert, and shalt be glorious, great ; 
 Life-giving, life-sustaining Potentate, 
 Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround 
 Upheld by thee, by thee inspired with breath." 
 
 DlCRZHAVIN 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 249 
 
 XII. 
 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 THE universe is God's name writ large. Thought 
 goes up the shining suns as golden stairs, and reads the 
 consecutive syllables all might, and wisdom, and beau- 
 ty; and if the heart be fine enough and pure enough, it 
 also reads everywhere the mystic name of love. Let 
 us learn to read the hieroglyphics, and then turn to the 
 blazonry of the infinite page. That is the key-note; the 
 heavens and the earth declaring the glory of God, and 
 men with souls attuned listening. 
 
 To what voices shall we listen first? Stand on the 
 shore of a lake set like an azure gem among the bosses 
 of green hills. The patter of rain means an annual fall 
 of four cubic feet of water on every square foot of it. 
 It weighs sixty-two and three-tenths pounds to the cubic 
 foot, i. e.y fifty-two million tons on the surface of a little 
 sheet of water twenty miles long by three wide. Now, 
 all that weight of falling rain had to be lifted, a work 
 compared to which taking up mountains and casting 
 them into the sea is pastime. All that water had to be 
 taken up before it could be cast down, and carried hun- 
 dreds of miles before it could be there. You have heard 
 Niagara's thunder; have stood beneath the falling im- 
 mensity; seen it ceaselessly poured from an infinite 
 hand ; felt that you would be ground to atoms if you 
 fell into that resistless flood. Well, all that infinity of 
 
 11* 
 
250 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 water had to be lifted by main force, Lad to be taken 
 up out of the far Pacific, brought over the Rocky 
 Mountains ; and the Mississippi keeps bearing its wide 
 miles of water to the Gulf, and Niagara keeps thunder- 
 ing age after age, because there is power somewhere to 
 carry the immeasurable floods all the time the other 
 way in the upper air. 
 
 But this is only the Alpha of power. Professor 
 Clark, of Amherst, Massachusetts, found that such a 
 soft and pulpy thing as a squash had so great a power 
 of growth that it lifted three thousand pounds, arid held 
 it day and night for months. It toiled and grew un- 
 der the growing weight, compacting its substance like 
 oak to do the work. All over the earth this tremen- 
 dous power and push of life goes on in the little star- 
 eyed flowers that look up to God only on the Alpine 
 heights, in every tuft of grass, in every acre of wheat, 
 in every mile of prairie, and in every lofty tree that 
 wrestles with the tempests of one hundred winters. 
 But this is only the B in the alphabet of power. 
 
 Rise above the earth, and you find the worlds tossed 
 like playthings, and hurled seventy times as fast as a 
 rifle-ball, never an inch out of place or a second out of 
 time. But this is only the C in the alphabet of power. 
 
 Rise to the sun. It is a quenchless reservoir of high- 
 class energy. Our tornadoes move sixty miles an hour, 
 those of the sun twenty thousand miles an hour. A 
 forest on fire sends its spires of flame one hundred feet 
 ifl air, the sun sends its spires of flame two hundred 
 thousand miles. All our fires exhaust the fuel and burn 
 out. If the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in 
 five thousand years ; and yet this sea of unquenchable 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 251 
 
 flame seethes and burns, and rolls and vivifies a dozen 
 worlds, and flashes life along the starry spaces for a mill- 
 ion years without any apparent diminution. . It sends 
 out its power to every planet, in the vast circle in which 
 it lies. It fills with light not merely a whole circle, but 
 a dome ; not merely a dome above, but one below, and 
 on every side. At our distance of ninety-two and a half 
 millions of miles, the great earth feels that power in 
 gravitation, tides, rains, winds, and all possible life 
 every part is full of power. Fill the earth's orbit with 
 a circle of such receptive worlds seventy thousand in- 
 stead of one every one would be as fully supplied with 
 power from this central source. More. Fill the whole 
 dome, the entire extent of the surrounding sphere, bot- 
 tom, sides, top, a sphere one hundred and eighty -five 
 million miles in diameter, and every one of these un- 
 countable worlds would be touched with the same pow- 
 er as one; each would thrill with life. This is only the 
 D of the alphabet of power. And glancing up to the 
 other suns, one hundred, five hundred, twelve hundred 
 times as large, double, triple, septuple, multiple suns, we 
 shall find power enough to go through the whole alpha- 
 bet in geometrical ratio ; and then in the clustered suns, 
 galaxies, and nebulae, power enough still unrepresented 
 by single letters to require all combinations of the al- 
 phabet of power. What is the significance of this single 
 element of power ? The answer of science to-day is " cor- 
 relation," the constant evolution of one force from an- 
 other. Heat is a mode of motion, motion a result of heat. 
 So far so good. But are we mere reasoners in a circle? 
 Then we would be lost men, treading our round of death 
 in a limitless forest. What is the ultimate? Reason 
 
252 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 out in a straight line. No definition of matter allows it 
 to originate force ; only mind can do that. Hence the 
 ultimate .force is always mind. Carry your correlation 
 as far as you please through planets, suns, nebulae, con- 
 cretionary vortices, and revolving fire-mist there must 
 always be mind and will beyond. Some of that will- 
 power that works without exhaustion must take its own 
 force and render it static, apparent. It may do this in 
 such correlated relation that that force shall go on year 
 after year to a thousand changing forms; but that force 
 must originate in mind. 
 
 Go out in the falling rain, stand under the thunder- 
 ous Niagara, feel the immeasurable rush of life, see the 
 hanging worlds, and trace all this the carried rain, the 
 terrific thunder with God's bow of peace upon it, and 
 the unfailing planets hung upon nothing trace all this 
 to the orb of day blazing in perpetual strength, but stop 
 not there. Who made the sun ? Contrivance fills all 
 thought. Who made the sun ? Nature says there is a 
 mind, and that mind is Almighty. Then you have read 
 the first syllables, viz., being and power. 
 
 What is the continuous relation of the universe to the 
 mind from which it derived its power? Some say that 
 it is the relation of a wound-up watch to the winder. It 
 was dowered with sufficient power to revolve its cease- 
 less changes, and its maker is henceforth an absentee 
 God. Is it ? Let us have courage to see. For twen- 
 ty years one devotes ten seconds every night to put- 
 ting a little force into a watch. It is so arranged that 
 it distributes that force over twenty -four hours. In 
 that twenty years more power has been put into that 
 watch than a horse could exert at once. . But suppose 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 253 
 
 one had tried to put all that force into the watch at once : 
 it would have pulverized it to atoms. But supposing 
 the universe had been dowered with power at first to 
 run its enormous rounds for twenty millions of years. 
 It is inconceivable; steel would be as friable as sand, 
 and strengthless as smoke, in such strain. 
 
 We have discovered some of the laws of the force we 
 call gravitation. But what do we know of its essence ? 
 How it appears to act we know a little, what it is we 
 are profoundly ignorant. Few men ever discuss this 
 question. All theories are sublimely ridiculous, and fail 
 to pass the most primary tests. How matter can act 
 where it is not, and on that with which it has no con- 
 nection, is inconceivable. 
 
 Newton said that any one who has* in philosophical 
 matters a competent faculty of thinking, could not ad- 
 mit for a moment the possibility of a sun reaching 
 through millions of miles, and exercising there an at- 
 tractive power. A watch may run if wound up, but 
 how the watch-spring in one pocket can run the watch 
 in another is hard to see. A watch is a contrivance for 
 distributing a force outside of itself, and if the universe 
 runs at all on that principle, it distributes some force 
 outside of itself. 
 
 Le Sage's theory of gravitation by the infinitive hail 
 of atoms cannot stand a minute, hence we come back as 
 a necessity of thought to HerschePs statement. " It is 
 but reasonable to regard gravity as a result of a con- 
 sciousness and a will existent somewhere." Where ? I 
 read an old book speaking of these matters, and it says 
 of God, He hangeth the earth upon nothing; he up- 
 holdeth constantly all things by the word of his power. 
 
254: THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 By him. all things consist or hold together. It teach- 
 es an imminent mind ; an almighty, constantly exerted 
 power. Proof of this starts up on every side. There 
 is a recognized tendency in all high-class energy to de- 
 teriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boil- 
 er, but it wastes without fuel. There is electricity in 
 the jar, but every particle of air steals away a little, 
 unless our conscious force is exerted to regather it. 
 There is light in the sun, but infinite space waits to re- 
 ceive it, and takes it swift as light can leap. We said 
 that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in live 
 thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million. 
 How can it? There have been various theories: chem- 
 ical combustion, it has failed ; meteoric impact, it is 
 insufficient ; condensation, it is not proved ; and if it 
 were, it is an intermediate step back to the original 
 cause of condensation. The far-seeing eyes see in the 
 sun the present active power of Him who first said, 
 "Let there be light," and who at any moment can meet 
 a Saul in the way to Damascus with a light above the 
 brightness of the sun another noon arisen on mid-day ; 
 and of whom it shall be said in the eternal state of un- 
 clouded brightness, where sun and moon are no more, 
 " The glory of the Lord shall lighten it, and the Lamb 
 is the light thereof." 
 
 But suppose matter could be dowered, that worlds 
 could have a gravitation, one of two things must fol- 
 low: It must have conscious knowledge of the position, 
 exact weight, and distance of every atom, mass, and 
 world, in order to proportion the exact amount of grav- 
 ity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attract- 
 ive power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing ; in 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 255 
 
 a few places at worlds. Every world must exert an in- 
 finitely extended power, but myriads of infinities can- 
 not be in the same space. The solution is, one infinite 
 power and conscious will. 
 
 To see the impossibility of every other solution, join in 
 the long and microscopic hunt for the ultimate particle, 
 the atom ; and if found, or if not found, to a consider- 
 ation of its remarkable powers. Bring telescopes and 
 microscopes, use all strategy, for that atom is difficult 
 to catch. Make the first search with the microscope : 
 we can count 112,000 lines ruled on a glass plate in- 
 side of an inch. But we are here looking at mountain 
 ridges and valleys, not atoms. Gold can be beaten to 
 the TTinnnr ^ au i cn - It can t> e drawn as the coating 
 of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the 34uu i uuu0 of 
 an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon an- 
 other. 
 
 Take some of the infusorial animals. Alonzo Gray 
 says millions of them would not equal in bulk a grain 
 of sand. Yet each of them performs the functions of 
 respiration, circulation, digestion, and locomotion. Some 
 of our blood-vessels are not a millionth of our size. 
 What must be the size of the ultimate particles that 
 freely move about to nourish an animal whose totality 
 is too small to estimate? A grain of musk gives off 
 atoms enough to scent every part of the air of a room. 
 You detect it above, below, on every side. Then let 
 the zephyrs of summer and the blasts of winter s\veep 
 through that room for forty years, bearing out into the 
 wide world miles on miles of air, all perfumed from the 
 atoms of that grain of musk, and at the end of the forty 
 years the weight of musk has not appreciably dimin- 
 
256 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 ished. Yet uncountable myriads on myriads of atoms 
 have gone. 
 
 Our atom is not found- yet. Many are the ways of 
 searching for it which we cannot stop to consider. We 
 will pass in review the properties with which materi- 
 alists preposterously endow it. It is impenetrable and 
 indivisible. Atoms of arsenic and phosphorus are one- 
 half; and of mercury and zinc, twice the normal size. 
 They have different shapes. They differ in weight, in 
 quantity of combining power, in quality of combining 
 power. They combine with different substances, in cer- 
 tain exact assignable quantities. Thus, one atom of bro- 
 mine combines with one of hydrogen, one of oxygen with 
 two of hydrogen, one of nitrogen with three of hydrogen, 
 one of silicon with four of hydrogen, etc. Hence our 
 atom of hydrogen must have power to count, or at least 
 to measure, or be cognizant of bulk. Again, atoms are 
 of different sorts, as positive or negative to electric 
 currents. They have power to take different shapes 
 with different atoms in crystallization ; that is, there is 
 a power in them, conscious or otherwise, that the same 
 bricks shall make themselves into stables or palaces, sew- 
 ers or pavements, according as the mortar varies. "No, 
 no," you cry out; "it is only according as the builder 
 varies his plan." There is no need to rehearse these 
 powers much further; though not one -tenth of the 
 supposed innate properties of this infinitesimal infinite 
 have been recited properties which are expressed by the 
 words atomicity, quantivilence, monad, dyad, univalent, 
 perissad, quadrivalent, and twenty other terms, each ex- 
 pressing some endowment of power in this invisible 
 atom. Refer to one more presumed ability, an ability 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 257 
 
 to keep themselves in exact relation of distance and 
 power to each other, without touching. 
 
 It is well known that water does not fill the space it 
 occupies. We can put eight or ten similar bulks of 
 different substances into a glass of water without great- 
 ly increasing its bulk, some actually diminishing it. A 
 philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen and hy- 
 drogen are probably not nearer to each other in^ water 
 than one hundred and fifty men would be if scattered 
 over the surface of England, one man to four hundred 
 square miles. 
 
 The atoms of the luminiferous ether are infinitely 
 more diffused, and yet its interactive atoms can give 
 577 millions of millions of light-waves a second. And 
 now, more preposterous than all, each atom has an at- 
 tractive power for every other atom of the universe. 
 The little mote, visible only in a sunbeam streaming 
 through a dark room, and the atom, infinitely smaller, 
 has a grasp upon the whole world, the far-off sun, and 
 the stars that people infinite space. The Sage of Con- 
 cord advises you to hitch your wagon to a star. But 
 this is hitching all stars to an infinitesimal part of a 
 wagon. Such an atom, so dowered, so infinite, so con- 
 scious, is an impossible conception. 
 
 But if matter could be so dowered as to produce such 
 results by mechanism, could it be dowered to produce 
 the results of intelligence? Could it be dowered with 
 power of choice without becoming mind? If oxygen 
 and hydrogen could be made able to combine into wa- 
 ter, could the same unformed matter produce in one 
 case a plant, in another a bird, in a third a man ; and 
 in each of these put bone, brain, blood, and nerve in 
 
258 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 proper relations? Matter must be mind, or subject to 
 a present working mind, to do this. There must be a 
 present intelligence directing the process, laying the 
 dead bricks, marble, and wood in an intelligent order 
 for a living temple. If we do put God behind a single 
 veil in dead matter, in all living things he must be ap- 
 parent and at work. If, then, such a thing as an infi- 
 nite atom is impossible) shall we not best understand 
 matter by saying/it" is a visible representation of God's 
 personal will and power, of his personal force, and per- 
 haps knowledge, set aside a little from himself, still 
 possessed somewhat of his personal attributes, still re- 
 sponsive to his will/ What we call matter may be best 
 understood as God's force, will, knowledge, rendered 
 apparent, static, and unweariably operative. Unless 
 matter is eternal, which is unthinkable, there was noth- 
 ing out of which the world could be made, but God 
 himself ; and, reverently be it said, matter seems to re- 
 tain fit capabilities for such source. Is not this the 
 teaching of the Bible ? I come to the old Book. I come 
 to that man who was taken up into the arcana of the 
 third heaven, the holy of holies, and heard things im- 
 possible to word. I find he makes a clear, unequivocal 
 statement of this truth as God's revelation to him. 
 " By faith," says the author of Hebrews, " we under- 
 stand the worlds were framed by the word of God, so 
 that, things which are seen were not made of things 
 which do appear." In Corinthians, Paul says But to 
 us there is but one God, the Father, of whom [as a 
 source] are all things ; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by 
 whom [as a creative worker] are all things. So in Ro- 
 mans he says " For out of him, and through him, and 
 ko him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen." 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 259 
 
 God's intimate relation to matter is explained. No 
 wonder the forces respond to his will ; no wonder pan- 
 theism the idea that matter is God has had such a 
 hold upon the minds of men. Matter, derived from him, 
 bears marks of its parentage, is sustained by him, and 
 when the Divine will shall draw it nearer to himself 
 the new power and capabilities of a new creation shall 
 appear. Let us pay a higher respect to the attractions 
 and affinities ; to the plan and power of growth ; to the 
 wisdom of the ant ; the geometry of the bee ; the mi- 
 grating instinct that rises and stretches its wings toward 
 a provided South for it is all God's present wisdom 
 and power. Let us come to that true insight of the 
 old prophets, who are fittingly called seers; whose eyes 
 pierced the veil of matter, and saw God clothing the 
 grass of the field, feeding the sparrows, giving snow 
 like wool and scattering hoar-frost like ashes, and ever 
 standing on the bow of our wide -sailing world, and 
 ever saying to all tumultuous forces, " Peace, be still." 
 Let us, with more reverent step, walk the leafy soli- 
 tudes, and say : 
 
 "Father, thy hand 
 
 Hath reared these venerable columns. Thon 
 Did'st weave this verdant roof. Thou did'st look down 
 Upon the naked earth, and forthwise rose 
 All these fair ranks of trees. They in Thy sun 
 Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze. 
 
 "That delicate forest flower, 
 With scented breath and looks so like a smile, 
 Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould, 
 An emanation of the indwelling life, 
 A visible token of the unfolding love 
 That are the soul of this wide universe." BRYANT. 
 
260 THE ULTIMATE FORGE. 
 
 Philosophy has seen the vast machine of the uni- 
 verse, wheel within wheel, in countless numbers and 
 hopeless intricacy. But it has not had the spiritual 
 insight of Ezekiel to see that they were every one of 
 them full of eyes God's own emblem of the omni- 
 scient supervision. 
 
 What if there are some sounds that do not seem to be 
 musically rhythmic. I have seen where an avalanche 
 broke from the mountain side and buried a hapless 
 city; have seen the face of a cliff shattered to frag- 
 ments by the weight of its superincumbent mass, or 
 pierced by the fingers of the frost and torn away. All 
 these thunder down the valley and are pulverized to 
 sand. Is this music ? No, but it is a tuning of instru- 
 ments. The rootlets seize the sand and turn it to soil, 
 to woody fibre, leafy verdure, blooming flowers, and de- 
 licious fruit. This asks life to come, partake, and be 
 made strong. The grass gives itself to all flesh, the 
 insect grows to feed the bird, the bird to nourish the 
 animal, the animal to develop the man. 
 
 Notwithstanding the tendency of all high-class energy 
 to deteriorate, to find equilibrium, and so be strength- 
 less and dead, there is, somehow, in nature a tremen- 
 dous push upward. Ask any philosopher, and he will 
 tell you that the tendency of all endowed forces is to 
 find their equilibrium and be at rest that is, dead. 
 He draws a dismal picture of the time when the sun 
 shall be burned out, and the world float like a charnel 
 ship through the dark, cold voids of space the sun a 
 burned-out char, a dead cinder, and the world one dis- 
 mal silence, cold beyond measure, and dead beyond con- 
 sciousness. The philosopher has wailed a dirge with- 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 261 
 
 out hope, a requiem without grandeur, over the world's 
 future. But nature herself, to all ears attuned, sings 
 paeans, and shouts to men that the highest energy, that 
 of life, does not deteriorate. 
 
 Mere nature may deteriorate. The endowments of 
 force must spend themselves. Wound-up watches and 
 worlds must run down. But nature sustained by un- 
 expendable forces must abide. Nature filled with un- 
 expendable forces continues in form. Nature impelled 
 by a magnificent push of life must ever rise. 
 
 Study her history in the past. Sulphurous realms 
 of deadly gases become solid worlds; surplus sunlight 
 becomes coal, which is reserved power ; surplus carbon 
 becomes diamonds; sediments settle until the heavens 
 are azure, the air pure, the water translucent. If that is 
 the progress of the past, why should it deteriorate in 
 the future? 
 
 There is a system of laws in the universe in which 
 the higher have mastery over the lower. Lower pow- 
 ers are constitutionally arranged to be overcome ; high- 
 er powers are constitutionally arranged for mastery. 
 At one time the water lies in even layers near the 
 ocean's bed, in obedience to the law or power of gravi- 
 tation. At another time it is heaved into mountain 
 billows by the shoulders of the wind. Again it flies 
 aloft in the rising mists of the morning, transfigured 
 by a thousand rainbows by the higher powers of the 
 sun. Again it develops the enormous force of steam 
 by the power of heat. Again it divides into two light 
 flying airs by electricity. Again it stands upright as 
 a heap by the power of some law in the spirit realm, 
 whose mode of working we are not yet large enough 
 
262 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 to comprehend. The \vater is solid, liquid, gaseous on 
 earth, and in air according to the grade of power oper- 
 ating upon it. 
 
 The constant invention of man finds higher and 
 higher powers. Once he throttled his game, and often 
 perished in the desperate struggle ; then he trapped it ; 
 then pierced it with the javelin ; then shot it with an 
 arrow, or set the springy gases to hurl a rifle-ball at it. 
 Sometime he may point at it an electric spark, and it 
 shall be his. Once he wearily trudged his twenty miles 
 a day, then he took the horse into service and made 
 sixty ; invoked the winds, and rode on their steady 
 wings two hundred and forty ; tamed the steam, and 
 made almost one thousand ; and if he cannot yet send 
 his body, he can his mind, one thousand miles a second. 
 It all depends upon the grade of power he uses. Now, 
 hear the grand truth of nature : as the years progress 
 the higher grades of power increase. Either by discov- 
 ery or creation, there are still higher class forces to be 
 made available. Once there was no air, no usable elec- 
 tricity. There is no lack of those higher powers now. 
 The higher we go the more of them we find. Mr. 
 Lockyer says that the past ten years have been years of 
 revelation concerning the sun. A rnan could not read 
 in ten years the library of books created in that time 
 concerning the sun. But though we have solved cer- 
 tain problems and mysteries, the mysteries have in- 
 creased tenfold. 
 
 We do not know that any new and higher forces 
 have been added to matter since man's acquaintance 
 with it. But it would be easy to add any number of 
 them, or change any lower into higher. That is the 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 263 
 
 meaning of the falling granite that becomes soil, of the 
 pulverized lava that decks the volcano's trembling sides 
 with flowers ; that is the meaning of the grass becom- 
 ing flesh, and of all high forces constitutionally ar- 
 ranged for mastery over lower. Take the ore from 
 the mountain. It is loose, friable, worthless in itself. 
 Raise it in capacity to cast -iron v wrought -iron, steel, 
 it becomes a highway for the commerce- of nations, 
 over the mountains and under them. It becomes 
 bones, muscles, body for the inspiring soul of steam. 
 It holds up the airy bridge over the deep chasm. It 
 is obedient in your hand as blade, hammer, bar, or 
 spring. It is inspirable by electricity, and bears hu- 
 man hopes, fears, and loves in its own bosom. It has 
 been raised from valueless ore. Change it again to 
 something as far above steel as that is above ore. 
 Change all earthly ores to highest possibility; string 
 them to finest tissues, and the new result may fit God's 
 hand as tools, and thrill with his wisdom and creative 
 processes, a body fitted for God's spirit as well as the 
 steel is fitted to your hand. From this world take 
 opacity, gravity, darkness, bring in more mind, love, 
 and God, and then we will have heaven. An imma- 
 nent God makes a plastic world. 
 
 When man shall have mastered the forces that now 
 exist, the original Creator and Sustainer will say, "Be- 
 hold. I create all things new." Kature shall be called 
 
 O 
 
 nearer to God, be more full of his power. To the long- 
 wandering ^Eneas, his divine mother sometimes came 
 to cheer his heart and to direct his steps. But the god- 
 dess only showed herself divine by her departure ; only 
 when he stood in desolation did the hero know he had 
 
264: THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 stood face to face with divine power, beauty, and love. 
 Not so the Christian scholars, the wanderers in Nature's 
 bowers to-day. In the first dawn of discovery, we see 
 her full of beauty and strength ; in closer communion, 
 we find her full of wisdom ; to our perfect knowledge, 
 she reveals an indwelling God in her ; to our ardent 
 love, she reveals an indwelling God in us. 
 
 But the evidence of the progressive refinements of 
 habitation is no more clear than that of progressive re- 
 finement of the inhabitant : there must be some one to 
 use these finer things. An empty house is not God's 
 ideal nor man's. The child may handle a toy, but a man 
 must mount a locomotive ; and before there can be New 
 Jerusalems with golden streets, there must be men more 
 avaricious of knowledge than of gold, or they would dig 
 them up ; more zealous for love than jewels, or they 
 would unhang the pearly gates. The uplifting refine- 
 ment of the material world has been kept back until 
 there should appear masterful spirits able to handle the 
 higher forces. Doors have opened on every side to new 
 realms of power, when men have been able to wield 
 them. If men lose that ability they close again, and 
 shut out the knowledge and light. Then ages, dark and 
 feeble, follow. 
 
 Some explore prophecy for the date of the grand 
 transformation of matter by the coming of the Son of 
 Man, for a new creation. A little study of nature would 
 show that the date cannot be fixed. A little study of 
 Peter would show the same thing. He says, "What 
 manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversa- 
 tion and godliness, looking for and hastening the com- 
 ing of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 2Gd 
 
 fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with 
 fervent heat ? Nevertheless we, -according t6 his prom- 
 ise, look for a new heaven and a new earth." 
 
 The idea is, that the grand transformation of matter 
 Waits the readiness of man. The kingdom waits the 
 king. The scattered cantons of Italy were only pros- 
 trate provinces till Victor Emanuel came, then they 
 were developed into united Italy. The prostrate prov- 
 inces of matter are not developed until the man is vic- 
 tor, able to rule there a realm equal to ten cities here. 
 Every good man hastens the coming of the day of God 
 and nature's renovation. Not only does inference teach 
 that there must be finer men, but fact affirms that trans- 
 formation has already taken place. Life is meant to 
 have power over chemical forces. It separates carbon 
 from its compounds and builds a tree, separates the ele- 
 ments and builds the body, holds them separate until 
 life withdraws. More life means higher being. Cer- 
 tainly men can be refined and recapacitated as well as 
 ore. In Ovid's "Metamorphoses" he represents the 
 lion in process of formation from earth, hind quarters 
 still clay, but fore quarters, head, erect mane, and blaz- 
 ing eye live lion and pawing to get free. We have 
 seen winged spirits yet linked to forms of clay, but beat- 
 ing the celestial air, endeavoring to be free; and we 
 have seen them, dowered with new sight, filled with new 
 love, break loose and rise to higher being. 
 
 In this grand apotheosis of man which nature teaches, 
 progress has already been made. Man has already out- 
 grown his harmony with the environment of mere mat- 
 ter. He has given his hand to science, and been lifted 
 up above the earth into the voids of infinite space. He 
 
 12 
 
266 THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 
 
 has gone on and on, till thought, wearied amidst the in- 
 finities of velocity and. distance, has ceased to note them. 
 But he is not content; all his faculties are not filled. 
 He feels that his future self is in danger of not being 
 satisfied with space, and worlds, and all mental delights, 
 even as his manhood fails to be satisfied with the ma- 
 teriel toys of his babyhood. He asks for an Author and 
 Maker of things, infinitely above them. He has seen 
 wisdom unsearchable, power illimitable ; but he asks for 
 personal sympathy and love. Paul expresses his feel- 
 ing : every creature not the whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain together until now, waiting for 
 the adoption the uplifting from orphanage to parent- 
 age a translation out of darkness into the kingdom 
 of God's dear Son. He hears that a man in Christ 
 is a new creation : old things pass away, all things be- 
 come new. There is then a possibility of finding the 
 Author of nature, and the Father of man. He begins 
 his studies anew. Now he sees that all lines of knowl- 
 
 /edge converge as they go out toward the infinite mys- 
 tery ; sees that these converging lines are the reins of 
 government in this world ; sees the converging lines 
 grasped by an almighty hand ; sees a loving face and 
 form behind ; sees that these lines of knowledge and 
 power are his personal nerves, along which flashes his 
 will, and every force in the universe answers like a 
 perfect muscle. 
 yThen he asks if this Personality is as full of love as 
 
 /of power. He is told of a tenderness too deep for tears, 
 a love that has the Cross for its symbol, and a dying 
 cry for its expression : seeking it, he is a new creation. 
 He sees more wondrous things in the Word than in the 
 
THE ULTIMATE FORCE. 267 
 
 world. He comes to know God with his heart, better 
 than he knows God's works by his mind. 
 
 Every song closes with the key-note with which it be- 
 gan, and the brief cadence at the close hints the realms 
 of sound through which it has tried its wings. The 
 brief cadence at the close is this : All force runs back 
 into mind for its source, constant support, and uplifts 
 into higher grades. 
 
 Mr. Grove says, " Causation is the will, creation is the 
 act, of God." Creation is planned and inspired for the 
 attainment of constantly rising results. The order is 
 chaos, light, worlds, vegetable forms, animal life, then 
 man. There is no reason to pause here. This is not 
 perfection, not even perpetuity. Original plans are not 
 accomplished, nor original force exhausted. In another 
 world, free from sickness, sorrow, pain, and death, per- 
 fection of abode is offered. Perfection of inhabitant 
 is necessary; and as the creative power is everywhere 
 present for the various uplifts and refinements of mat- 
 ter, it is everywhere present with appropriate power 
 for the uplifting and refinement of mind and spirit. 
 
SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 Movements on the Sun. The discovery and measurement of 
 the np-rush, down-rush, and whirl of currents about the sun- 
 spots, also of the determination of the velocity of rotation by 
 means of the spectroscope, as described (page 53), is one of the 
 most delicate and difficult achievements of modern science. 
 
 Movement of Stars in Line of Sight (page 51). The fol- 
 lowing table shows this movement of stars, so far as at present 
 known : 
 
 
 APPROACHING. 
 
 
 
 RKORDING. 
 
 
 Map. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Rate 
 per sec. 
 
 Map. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Kate 
 per sec. 
 
 Fig. 71 
 
 Arctnrus 
 
 55 miles 
 
 Fig. 69 
 
 Sirius 
 
 20 miles 
 
 " 72 
 
 Vega 
 
 50 " 
 
 Fr'piece 
 
 Betelguese 
 
 22 " 
 
 " 73 
 " 69 
 
 a Cvgui 
 Pollux 
 
 39 " 
 49 " 
 
 n 
 Fig 69 
 
 Kigel 
 Ouster 
 
 15 " 
 
 25 " 
 
 " 67 
 
 Dubhe 
 
 46 " 
 
 " 70 
 
 lie^ulns 
 
 15 " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sun's Appearance. This was formerly supposed to be an 
 even, regular, dazzling brightness, except where the spots ap- 
 peared. But the sun's surface is now known to be mottled 
 with what are called rice grains or willow leaves. But the 
 rice grains are as large as the continent of America. The 
 spaces between are called pores. They constitute an innumer- 
 able number of small spots. This appearance of the general 
 surface is well portrayed in the cut on page 92. 
 
 Close Relation betiveen Sun and Earth. Men always knew 
 that the earth received light from the sun. They subsequently 
 discovered that the earth was momentarily held by the power 
 
SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES, ETC. 269 
 
 of gravitation. But it is a recent discovery that the light is 
 one of the principal agents in chemical changes, in molecular 
 grouping and world -building, thus making all kinds of life 
 possible (p. 30-36). The close connection of the sun and 
 the earth will be still farther shown in the relation of sun-spots 
 and auroras. One of the most significant instances is related 
 on page 19, when the earth felt the fall of bolides upon the 
 sun. Members of the body.no more answer to the heart than 
 the planets do to the sun. 
 
 Hydrogen Flames. It has been demonstrated that the sun 
 flames 200,000 miles high are hydrogen in a state of flaming 
 incandescence (page 85). 
 
 Sun's Distance. The former estimate, 95,513,794 miles, has 
 been reduced by nearly one-thirtieth. Lockyer has stated it as 
 low as 89,895,000 miles, and Proctor, in " Encyclopedia Bri- 
 tannica," at 91,430,000 miles, but discovered errors show that 
 these estimates are too small. Newcomb gives 92,400,000 as 
 within 200,000 miles of the correct distance. The data for a 
 new determination of this distance, obtained from the transit 
 of Venus, December 8th, 1874, have not yet been deciphered; 
 a fact that shows the difficulty and laboriousness of the work. 
 Meanwhile it begins to be evident that observations of the 
 transit of Venus do not afford the best basis for the most per- 
 fect determination of the sun's distance. 
 
 Since the earth's distance is our astronomical unit of meas- 
 ure, it follows that all other distances will be changed, when 
 expressed in miles, by this ascertained change of the value of 
 the standard. 
 
 Oxygen in the Sun. In 1877 Professor Draper announced 
 the discover) 7 of oxygen lines in the spectrum of the sun. The 
 discovery was doubted, and the methods used were criticised by 
 Lockyer and others, but later and more delicate experiments 
 substantiate Professor Draper's claim to the discovery. The 
 elements known to exist in the sun are salt, iron, hydrogen, 
 
270 SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES, ETC. 
 
 magnesium, barium, copper, zinc, cromium, and nickel. Some 
 elements in the sun are scarcely, if at all, discoverable on the 
 earth, and some on the earth not yet discernible in the sun. 
 
 Substance of Stars. Aldebaran (Frontispiece) shows salt, 
 magnesium, hydrogen, calcium, iron, bismuth, tellurium, anti- 
 mony, and mercury. Some of the sun's metals do not appear. 
 Stars differ in their very substance, and will, no doubt, introduce 
 new elements to us unknown before. 
 
 The theory that all nebulaB are very distant clusters of stars 
 is utterly disproved by the clearest proof that some of them are 
 only incandescent gases of one or two kinds. 
 
 Discoveries of New Bodies. The four planetoids nearest the 
 sun (page 138). The two satellites of Mars were discovered by 
 Mr. Hall, IT. S. Naval Observatory, August llth, 1877 (page 
 161). The outer one is called Dicmas; the inner, Phobus. 
 
 Sir William Herschel thought he discovered six satellites of 
 Uranus. The existence of four of them has been disproved by 
 the researches of men with larger telescopes. Two new ones, 
 however, were discovered by Mr. Lassell in 1846. 
 
 Saturn's Rings are proved to be in a state of fluidity and 
 contraction (page 171). 
 
 Meteors and Comets. The orbits of over one hundred 
 swarms of meteoric bodies are fixed : their relation to, and in 
 some cases indentity with, comets determined. Some comets 
 are proved to be masses of great weight and solidity (page 133). 
 
 Aerolites. Some have a texture like our lowest strata of 
 rocks. There is a geology of stars and meteors as well as of 
 the earth. M. Meunier has just received the Lalande Medal 
 from the Paris Academy for his treatise showing that, so far as 
 our present knowledge can determine, some of these meteors 
 once belonged to a globe developed in true geological epochs, 
 and which has been separated into fragments by agencies with 
 which we are not acquainted. 
 
 Dr. O. Hahn, a German lawyer, proves the existence of 
 
SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES, ETC. 271 
 
 organic remains in the stones that come from space. From 
 museums in Tubingen and in Vienna Hahn procured himself 
 more than six hundred chips of meteorites of the Choadrite 
 class, proved in each case to be genuine, and having been col- 
 lected on eighteen different occasions, partly during the pres- 
 ent and partly during the last century, in Europe, Asia, and 
 America. Minute inspection has discovered in them a quan- 
 tity of organic remains, principally belonging to the most 
 ancient form of porous corallines, to the genus of fossil zoo- 
 phytes denominated Favosites, or at least bearing a very 
 strong resemblance to these latter, though of a still smaller 
 type. About fifty kinds of these tiny animals have been made 
 out by Dr. Hahn, and assigned to sixteen different families. 
 
 Dr. D. F. Weinland, who has devoted a year to the study of 
 Hahn's book, and testing his microscopic researches, says that 
 it is only the shell of the Choadrite meteorite that is burnt 
 and glazed by friction with our atmosphere. The heat does 
 not extend so far during the short transit of the meteor as to 
 impair the kernel, which has an appearance somewhat like 
 coarse shell lime, of a conglomeration of petrified organic mat- 
 ter, baked in a lump. Though only few specimens can be 
 called well preserved, yet the substance is sufficiently distin- 
 guishable to enable us to class most of the structures among 
 the Polycistines and the Foramimfera. They must have ex- 
 isted in water warm enough never to freeze down to the 
 bottom. Where are we to seek for this water, if Professor 
 Schiaparelli tells us that meteorites do not belong to our solar 
 system, but are intruders from without? Very strange is the 
 complete resemblance of all the cuttings examined to one an- 
 other, though, as stated, they belong to stones fallen at dif- 
 ferent periods in all parts of the globe. Are these parts of 
 an exploded world, or have these little worlds developed life 
 in a manner similar to larger ones? 
 
 The Horizontal Pendulum. This delicate instrument is rep- 
 
272 SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES, ETC. 
 
 resented in Fig. 82. It consists of an upright standard, strongly 
 braced ; a weight, m, suspended by the hair-spring of a watch, 
 B D, and held in a horizontal position by another watch-spring, 
 A C. The weight is deflected from side to side by the slight- 
 est influence. The least change in the level of a base thirty- 
 nine inches long that could be detected by a spirit-level is 0".l 
 of an arc equal to raising one end oirW f an inch. But the 
 pendulum detects a raising of one 
 end Tjnnnunnr of an inch. To ob- 
 serve the movements of the pendu- 
 lum, it is kept in a dark room, and a 
 ray of light is directed to the mirror, 
 m, and thence reflected upon a screen. 
 Thus the least movement may be enor- 
 mously magnified, and read and meas- 
 ured by the moving spot on the screen. 
 It has been discovered that when the 
 sun rises it has sufficient attraction to 
 incline this instrument to the east ; 
 when it sets, to incline it to the west. 
 The same is true of the moon. When 
 cither is exactly overhead or under- 
 foot, of course there is no deflection. 
 The mean deflection caused by the 
 moon at rising or setting is 0".0l74; 
 by the sun, 0".008. Great results are 
 expected from this instrument hardly 
 known as yet : among others, whether 
 
 Fig. S2.-Horizoutal Pendulum. gravitation actg i nstail tly or Consumes 
 
 time in coming from the sun. This will be shown by the time 
 of the change of the pendulum from east to west when the sun 
 reaches the zenith, and vice versa when it crosses the nadir. The 
 sun will be best studied without light, in the quiet and darkness 
 of some deep mine. 
 
SUMMAR Y OF LA TEST DISCO VERIES, ETC. 273 
 
 Light of Unseen Stars. From careful examination, it ap- 
 pears that three-fourths of the light on a fine starlight night 
 comes from stars that cannot be discerned by the naked eye. 
 The whole amount of star light is about one-eightieth of that 
 of the full moon. 
 
 Lateral Movements of Stars, page 226-28. 
 
 Future Discoveries A Trans-Neptunian Planet. Professor 
 Asaph Hall says : " It is known to me that at least two Amer- 
 ican astronomers, armed with powerful telescopes, have been 
 searching quite recently for a trans-Neptunian planet. These 
 searches have been caused by the fact that Professor New- 
 comb's tables of Uranus and Neptune already begin to differ 
 from observation. But are we to infer from these errors of 
 the planetary tables the existence of a trans-Neptunian planet ? 
 It is possible that such a planet may exist, but the probability 
 is, I think, that the differences are caused by errors in the theo- 
 ries of these planets. * * * A few years ago the remark was fre- 
 quently made that the labors of astronomers on the solar system 
 were finished, and that henceforth they could turn their whole 
 attention to sidereal astronomy. But to-day we have the lunar 
 theory in a very discouraging condition, and the theories of 
 Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all in need of 
 revision ; unless, indeed, Leverrier's theories of the last two plan- 
 ets shall stand the test of observation. But, after all, such a 
 condition of things is only the natural result of long and accu- 
 rate series of observations, which make evident the small inequal- 
 ities in the motions, and bring to light the errors of theory." 
 
 Future discoveries will mostly reveal the laws and conditions 
 of the higher and finer forces. Already Professor Loom is tele- 
 graphs twenty miles without wire, by the electric currents be- 
 tween mountains. We begin to use electricity for light, and 
 feel after it for a motor. Comets and Auroras show its pres- 
 ence between worlds, and in the interstellar spaces. Let an- 
 other Newton arise. 
 
 12* 
 
274 
 
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 B 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 W 
 
 |0 
 lo 
 
 lo 
 
 HO : 
 i 
 
 10 
 
 lw 
 
 IH 
 
 H 
 
 22600 
 
 lo 
 KO 
 HIM 
 10 
 IH 
 
 
 i 
 
 x> 
 
 Of 
 
 e 
 
 *0 H d 
 
 * 
 
 ^ 
 
 B 
 
 9H 
 
 
 -A 
 
 
 
 
 ^ / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 : : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 : : 
 
 
 
 
 : 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 
 Q) 
 
 ; ; 
 
 ; 
 
 
 
 03 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 E 
 
 " t*^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <Z> 
 
 
 
 : s 
 
 o 
 
 = 1 
 
 02 s 
 
 in 
 
 S 
 
 p 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 : '3 
 
 1 1 
 
 2 
 "S. 
 
 s 
 
 1 
 
 s 
 
 1 
 
 S, 
 
 O 
 
ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS. 
 
 275 
 
 EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS. 
 
 SIGNS OP THE ZODIAC. 
 
 0. T Aries 
 
 1. 8 Taurus 30 
 
 II. n Gemini 60 
 
 III. Cancer 90 
 
 IV. ft Leo ..120 
 
 V. TT Virgo 150 
 
 VI. == Libra 180 
 
 VII. TTi Scorpio 210 
 
 VIII. Sagittarius 240 
 
 IX. V3 Capricornus 270 
 
 X. ffff Aquarius 300 
 
 XL X Pisces 330 
 
 c$ Conjunction. 
 
 [J Quadrature. 
 
 8 Opposition. 
 
 3 Ascending Node. 
 
 3 Descending Node. 
 
 H. Hours. 
 
 M. Minutes of Time. 
 
 S. Seconds of Time. 
 
 Degrees. 
 
 ' Minutes of Arc. 
 
 " Seconds of Arc. 
 
 R. A. Right Ascension. 
 
 Decl. or I). Declination. 
 
 N. P. D. Dist. from North Pole. 
 
 OTHER ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE ALMANAC. 
 
 S., south, i.e., crosses the meridian; M., morning; A, afternoon; 
 Gr. H. L. N., greatest heliocentric latitude north, i.e., greatest distance 
 north of the ecliptic, as seen from the sun. & $ O Inf., inferior con- 
 junction ; Sup., superior conjunction. 
 
 GREEK ALPHABET USED INDICATING THE STARS. 
 
 a, alpha. 
 
 /, eta. 
 
 v, nu. 
 
 T, tau. 
 
 |3, beta. 
 
 9, theta. 
 
 5, xi. 
 
 v, upsilon. 
 
 y, gamma. 
 
 t, iota. 
 
 o, omicron. 
 
 0, phi. 
 
 d, delta. 
 
 K, kappa. 
 
 IT, pi. 
 
 X. c hi - 
 
 e, epsilon. 
 
 X, lambda. 
 
 p, rho. 
 
 ^, psi. 
 
 , zeta. 
 
 /i, mu. 
 
 <r, sigma. 
 
 w, omega. 
 
CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS. 
 
 As an aid to comprehension, every student should draw illus- 
 trative figures of the various circles, planes, and situations de- 
 scribed. (For example, see Fig. 45, page 112.) As an aid to 
 memory, the portion of this outline referring to each chapter 
 should be examined at the close of the reading, and this mere 
 sketch filled up to a perfect picture from recollection. 
 
 I. Creative Processes. The dial-plate of the sky. Cause of different 
 weights on sun, moon. Two laws of gravity. Inertia. Fall of earth 
 to sun per second. Forward motion. Elastic attraction. Perturbation 
 of moon ; of Jupiter and Saturn. Oscillations of planets. 
 
 II. Light. From condensation. Number of vibrations of red ; violet. 
 Thermometer against air. Aerolite against earth. Two bolides against 
 the sun. Large eye. Velocity of light. Prism. Color means different 
 vibrations. Music of light. Light reports substance of stars. Force of ; 
 bridge, rain, dispersion, intensities, reflection, refraction, decomposition. 
 
 III. Astronomical Instruments. Refracting telescope. Reflecting-; 
 largest. Spectroscope. Spectra of sun, hydrogen, sodium, etc. E made 
 G by approach ; C by departure. Stars approach and recede. 
 
 IV. Celestial Measurements. Place and time by stars. Degrees, min- 
 utes, seconds. Mapping stars. Mural circle. Slow watch. Hoosac 
 Tunnel. Fine measurements. Sidereal time. Spider -lines. Personal 
 equation. Measure distance height. Ten-inch base line. Parallax of 
 sun, stars. Longitude at sea. Distance of Polaris, a Centauri, 61 Cygni. 
 Orbits of asteroids. 
 
 V. The Sun. World on fire. Apparent size from planets. Zodiacal 
 light. Corona. Hydrogen how high? Size. How many earths? 
 Spots : 1. Motion ; 2. Edges ; 3. Variable ; 4. Periodic ; 5. Cyclonic ; 
 6. Size ; 7. Velocities. What the sun does. Experiments. 
 
 VI. The Planets from Space. North Pole. Speed. Sizes. Axial 
 revolution. Man's weight on. Seasons. Parallelism, of axis. Earth near 
 
CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS. 277 
 
 sun in winter. Plane of ecliptic. Orbits inclined to. Earth rotates. 
 Proof. Sun's path among stars. Position of planets. Motion direct, 
 retrograde. Experiments. 
 
 VII. Meteors. Size; number; cause of; above earth ; velocity; col- 
 ors; number in space ; telescopic view of. Aerolites: Systems of; how 
 many known. Comets: Orbits; number of comets; llalley's ; Biela's 
 lost ; Encke's. Resisting medium. Whence come comets ? Composed 
 of what ? Amount of matter in. . 
 
 VIII. The Planets. How many ? Uranus discovered ? Neptnne? As- 
 teroids ? Vulcan ? Distance from sun. Periodic time. Mercury : Ele- 
 ments ; shapes, as seen from earth ; transits. Venus : Elements ; seen by 
 day ; how near earth ? how far from ? phases ; Galileo. Earth : Ele- 
 ments ; in space ; Aurora ; balance of forces. Tides : Main and sub- 
 sidiary causes ; eastern shores ; Mediterranean Sea. Moon : Elements ; 
 hoax ; moves east ; see one side ; three causes help to see more than 
 half. Revolution: Why twenty-nine and a half days : heat cold; how 
 much light? Craters and peaks lighted; measured. Eclipses Why 
 not every new and full moon ? Periodicity. Mars : Elements ; how 
 near earth? How far from? Apparent size; ice-fields; which end 
 most? Satellites Asteroids : How found ? When? By whom? How 
 many? Jupiter: Elements; trade - winds ; how much light received? 
 Own heat. Satellites : How many ? Colors. Saturn : Elements ; habi- 
 tability; rings; flux; satellites. Uranus: Elements; discoverer; seen 
 by ; moon's motion. Neptune : Elements ; discovered by ; how ? Re- 
 view system. 
 
 IX. The Nebular Hypothesis. State it ; facts confirmatory. Objec- 
 tions 1. Heat; 2. Rotation; 3. Retrograde; 4. Martial moons ; 5. Star 
 of 1876. Evolution : Gaps in ; conclusion. 
 
 X. The Stellar System. Motto. Man among stars ; open page ; starry 
 poem ; stars located ; named. Thuban. Etanin. Constellations : Know 
 them ; number of stars ; double ; e Lyras, Sirius, Procyon, Castor, 61 
 Q"8 m > 7 Virginis. Colored stars ; change color. Clust jrs : Two theo- 
 ries. Nebulae: Two visible; composed of; shapes; where? Variable 
 stars. Sun. /3 Lyra?, Mira, Betelguese, Algol ; cause. Temporary ; 1572. 
 New star of 1866 : Two theories. Star of 1876. Movements of stars ; 
 Sirius; sun; 1830 Groombridge. Stars near Pleiades : Orion, Great Dip- 
 per, Southern Cross. Centre of gravity. 
 
 XI. The Worlds and the Word. Rich. Number. Erroneous allusions. 
 Truth before discovery : 1. A beginning; 2. Creation before arrangement; 
 3. Light before sun ; 4. Mountains under water; 5. Order of development ; 
 
278 CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS. 
 
 6. Sphere of earth ; 7. How upheld ; 8. Number of stars ; 9. Weight of 
 air; 10. Meteorology; 11. Queries to Job; 12. Sun to end of heaven; 
 13. View of Mitchell ; 14. Herschel. What is matter ? Force? End of 
 earth. Way to knowledge. Work of light. Transfiguration of matter. 
 Uniformitarianism. A whisper of Him. Man for mastery. Each a type 
 of higher. Survival of fittest. Uranus. Worlds and Word one language. 
 XII. The Ultimate Force. Universe shows power : 1. Rain; Niagara; 
 2. Vegetable growth ; 3. Worlds carried ; 4. Sun ; fill dome with worlds ; 
 5. Double suns ; 6. Galaxies. Correlation. What ultimate ? Mind and 
 will. What continuous relation ? Watch. Theories of gravitation : 
 Newton's, Le Sage's, Bible's. High -class energy deteriorates. Search 
 for atoms : 1. Microscope ; 2. Gold ; 3. Infusoria ; 4. Musk. Proper- 
 ties of atoms : 1. Impenetrable ; 2. Indivisible ; 3. Shape ; 4. Quality ; 
 5. Crystallization ; 6. Not touch each other : 7. Active ; 8. Attractive ; 
 9. Intelligent. Whose? Relation of matter to God; rock to soil. 
 Push upward. Highest has mastery. Man advances by highest. Mat- 
 ter incapacitated. Refined habitations. Inhabitants. All force leads 
 back to mind. Personal and infinite. 
 
GLOSSAEY OF ASTBONOMICAL TEEMS 
 AND INDEX. 
 
 Abbreviations used in astronomies, 275. 
 
 Aberration of light (a wandering aicay), an apparent displace- 
 ment of a star, owing to the progressive motion of light com- 
 bined with that of the earth iu its orbit, 199. 
 
 Aerolite (air-stone), 122. 
 
 Air, refraction of the, 40. 
 
 Algol, the variable star, 222. 
 
 Almanac, Nautical, 71 ; explanation of signs used, 275. 
 
 Alphabet, Greek, 275. 
 
 Altitude, angular elevation of a body above the horizon. 
 
 Angle, difference iu directions of two straight lines that meet. 
 
 Annular (ring-shaped) eclipses, 158 ; nebulae, 218, 220. 
 
 Aphelion, the point in an orbit farthest from the sun. 
 
 Apogee, the point of an orbit which is farthest from the earth. 
 
 Apsis, plural apsides, the line joining the aphelion and perihelion 
 points ; or the major axis of elliptical orbits. 
 
 Arc, a part of a circle. 
 
 Ascension, right, the angular distance of a heavenly body from 
 the first point of Aries, measured on the equator. 
 
 Asteroids (star-like), 162 ; orbits of interlaced, 74. 
 
 Astronomical instruments, 43. 
 
 Astronomy, use of, 57. 
 
 Atom, size of, 255 ; power of, 256. 
 
 Aurora Borealis, 143. 
 
 Axis, the line about which a body rotates. 
 
 Azimuth, the angular distance of any point or body in the horizon 
 from the north or south points. 
 
 Bailey's beads, dots of light on the edge of the moon seen in a so- 
 lar eclipse, caused by the moon's inequalities of surface. 
 
 Base line, 68. 
 
 Biela's comet, 129. 
 
 Binary system, a double star, the component parts of which re- 
 volve around their centre of gravity. 
 
 Bode's law of planetary distances is no law at all, but a study of 
 coincidences. 
 
 Bolides, small masses of matter in space. They are usually called 
 meteors when luminous by contact with air, 120. 
 
280 GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 
 
 Celestial sphere, the apparent dome iu which the heavenly hodies 
 seein to be set ; appears to revolve, 3. 
 
 Centre of gravity, the point on which a body, or two or more re- 
 lated bodies, balances. 
 
 Centrifugal force (centre fleeing'). 
 
 Chromolithic plate of spectra of metals, to face 50. 
 
 Circumpolar stars, map of north, 201. 
 
 Colors of stars, 214. 
 
 Colures, the four principal meridians of the celestial sphere pass- 
 ing from the pole, one through each equiuox, and one through 
 each solstice. 
 
 Comets, 126 ; Halley's, 128 ; Biela's lost, 129 ; Encke's, 130 ; consti- 
 tution of, 131 ; will they strike the earth ? 133. 
 
 Conjunction. Two or more bodies are in conjunction when they 
 are in a straight line (disregarding inclination of orbit) with the 
 sun. Planets nearer the sun than the earth are in inferior con- 
 junction when they are between the earth and the sun; superior 
 conjunction when they are beyond the sun. 
 
 Constellation, a group of stars supposed to represent some figure : 
 circumpolar, 201 ; equatorial, for December, 202 ; for January, 203 ; 
 April, 204; June, 205; September, 206 ; November, 207 ; southern 
 circumpolar, 208. 
 
 Culmination, the passage of a heavenly body across the meridian 
 or south point of a place ; it is the highest point reached in its 
 path. 
 
 Cusp, the extremities of the crescent form of the moon or an inte- 
 rior planet. 
 
 Declination, the angular distance of a celestial body north or south 
 from the celestial equator. 
 
 Degree, the 1S ^ S part of a circle. 
 
 Direct motion, a motion from west to east among stars. 
 
 Disk, the visible surface of sun, moon, or planets. 
 
 Distance of stars, 70. 
 
 Double stars, 210. 
 
 Earth, revolution of, 109 ; in space, 142 ; irregular figure, 145. 
 
 Eccentricity of an ellipse, the distance of either focus from centre. 
 A planet's orbit has comparatively little, a comet's very much. 
 
 Eclipse (a disappearance}, 157. 
 
 Ecliptic, the apparent annual path of the sun among the stars ; 
 plane of, 106. 
 
 Egress, the passing of one body off the disk of another. 
 
 Elements, the quantities which determine the motion of a planet : 
 data for predicting astronomical phenomena; table of solar, 274. 
 
 Elements, chemical, present in the sun, 270. 
 
 Elongation, the angular distance of a planet from the sun. 
 
 Emersion, the reappearance of a body after it has been eclipsed or 
 occulted by another. 
 
GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 281 
 
 Equator, terrestrial, the great circle half-way between the poles of 
 the earth. When the plane of this is extended to the heavens, 
 the line of contact is called the celestial equator. 
 
 Equinox, either of the points in which the sun, in its apparent an- 
 nual course among the stars, crosses the equator, making days 
 and nights of equal length. 
 
 Evolution, materialistic, 182 ; insufficient, 189. 
 
 Fizeau determines the velocity of light, 23. 
 
 Forces, delicate balance of, 144. 
 
 Galileo, construction of his telescope, 43. 
 
 Geocentric, a position of a heavenly body as seen or measured from 
 the earth's centre. 
 
 Geodesy, the art of measuring the earth without reference to the 
 heavenly bodies. 
 
 God, relation of, to the universe, 258. 
 
 Gravitation, laws of, 6 ; extends to the stars, 13 ; theories of, 253. 
 
 Gravity on different bodies, 6, 274. 
 
 Helical, rising or setting of a star, as near to sunrise or sunset as it 
 can be seen. 
 
 Heliocentric, as seen from the centre of the sun. 
 
 Hoosac Tunnel, example of accuracy, 62. 
 
 Horizontal pendulum, 272. 
 
 Immersion, the disappearance of one body behind another, or in 
 its shadow. 
 
 Inclination of an orbit, the angle between its plane and the piano 
 of the ecliptic. 
 
 Inferior conjunction, when an interior planet is between the earth 
 and the sun. 
 
 Jupiter, apparent path of, in 1866, 112 ; elements of, 164 ; satellites 
 of, 165; positions of satellites, 166 ; elements of satellites, 166; 
 the Jovian system, 167. 
 
 Kepler's Laws 1st, that the orbits of planets are ellipses, having 
 the sun or central body in one of the foci ; 2d, the radius-vector 
 passes over equal spaces in equal times; 3d, the squares of the 
 periodic times of the planets are in proportion to the cubes of 
 their mean distances from the sun. 
 
 Latitude, the angular distance of a heavenly body from the ecliptic. 
 
 Light, the child of force, 17 ; number of vibrations of, 18, 25 ; veloc- 
 ity of, 22 ; undulatory and musical, 26 ; chemical force of, 30 ; ex- 
 periments with, 37 ; approach and departure of a light-giving 
 body measured, 51 ; aberration of, 199. 
 
 Limb, the edge of the disk of the moon, sun, or a planet. 
 
 Longitude. If a perpendicular be dropped from a body to the 
 ecliptic, its celestial longitude is the distance of the foot of tho 
 perpendicular from the vernal equinox, counted to ward the east; 
 mode of ascertaining terrestrial, 72. 
 
 Magellanic clouds, 208. 
 
282 GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 
 
 Mars, 159 ; snow spots of, 160 ; satellites of, 161. 
 
 Mass, the quantity of matter a body contains. 
 
 Mean distance of a planet, half the sum of the aphelion and peri- 
 helion distances. 
 
 Measurements, celestial, 57. 
 
 Mercury, 138. 
 
 Meridian, terrestrial, of a place, a great circle of the heavens pass- 
 ing through the poles, the zenith, and the north and south points 
 of the horizon ; celestial, any great circle passing from one pole 
 to the other. 
 
 Meteors, 119; swarm of, meeting the earth, 118; explosion of, 120; 
 systems of, 123 ; relation of, to comets, 124. 
 
 Micrometer, any instrument for the accurate measurement of very 
 small distances or angles. 
 
 Mind, origin of force, 252 ; continuous relation of, to the universe, 
 252. 
 
 Milky Way, 210, 215. 
 
 Mira, the Wonderful, 221. 
 
 Moon, the, 151 ; greatest and least distance from the earth, 10 ; tele- 
 scopic appearance of, 155. 
 
 Mural circle, 61. 
 
 Nadir, the point in the celestial sphere directly heueath our feet, 
 opposite to zenith. 
 
 Nebulae, 217. 
 
 Nebular hypothesis, not atheistic, 182 ; stated, 182 ; confirmatory 
 facts, 183 ; objections to, 185. 
 
 Neptune, elements of, 175. 
 
 Node, the point in which an orbit intersects the ecliptic, or other 
 plane of reference ; ascending, descending, line of, 107. 
 
 Occultation, the hiding of a star, planet, or satellite by the inter- 
 position of a nearer body of greater angular magnitude. 
 
 Opposition. A superior planet is in opposition when the sun, 
 earth, and the planet are in a line, the earth being in the middle. 
 
 Orbit, the path of a planet, comet, or meteor around the sun, or of 
 a satellite around a primary; inclination of, 106; earth's, seen 
 from the stars, 70. 
 
 Outline for students, 276. 
 
 Parallax, the difference of direction of a heavenly body as seen 
 from two points, as the centre of the earth and some point of its 
 surface, 69. 
 
 Parallels, imaginary circles on the earth or in the heavens parallel 
 to the equator, having the poles for their centre. 
 
 Perigee, nearest the earth : said of a point in an orbit. 
 
 Perihelion, the point of an orbit nearest the sun. 
 
 Periodic time, time of a planet's, comet's, or satellite's revolution. 
 
 Personal equation, 65. 
 
 Perturbation, the effect of the attractions of the planets or other 
 
GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 283 
 
 bodies upon each other, disturbing their regnlar motion ; of Sat- 
 urn and Jupiter, 11 ; of asteroids, 13 ; of Uranus and Neptune, 176. 
 
 Phases, the portions of the illumiuated half of the moon or infe- 
 rior planet, as seen from the earth, called crescent, half, full, and 
 gibbous. 
 
 Photosphere of the sun, 89. 
 
 Planet (a icanderer), as seen from space, 99 ; speed of, 101 ; size of, 
 102 ; movements retrograde and direct, 112. 
 
 Pointers, the, 197. 
 
 Pole, North, movement of, 198. 
 
 Poles, the extremities of an imaginary line on which a celestial 
 body rotates. 
 
 Quadrant, the fourth part of the circumference of a circle, or 90. 
 
 Quadrature, a position of the moon or other body when 90 from 
 the sun. 
 
 Radiant point, that point of the heavens from which meteors seem 
 to diverge, 118. 
 
 Radius-vector, an imaginary line joiniug the sun and a planet or 
 comet in any part of its orbit. 
 
 Rain, weight of, 249. 
 
 Reflecting telescope, 44. 
 
 Refracting telescope, 43. 
 
 Refraction, a bending of light by passing through any medium, as 
 air, water, prism. 
 
 Retrograde motion, the apparent movement of a planet from east 
 to west among the stars. 
 
 Revolution, the movement of bodies about their centre of gravity. 
 
 Rotation, the motion of a body around its axis. 
 
 Satellites, smaller bodies revolving around planets and stars. 
 
 Saturn, elements of, 167 ; revolution of, 168 ; rings of, 169 ; decreas- 
 ing, 171 ; nature of, 171 ; satellites of, 172. 
 
 Seasons, of the earth, 102 ; of other planets, 105. 
 
 Selenography (lunograpky), a description of the moon's surface. 
 
 Signs of the zodiac, the twelve equal parts, of 30 each, into which 
 the zodiac is divided. 
 
 Solar system, view of, 100, 177. 
 
 Solstices, those points of the ecliptic which are most distant from 
 the equator. The sun passes one about June 21st, and the other 
 about December 21st, giving the longest days and nights. 
 
 Spectroscope, 46. 
 
 Spectrum of sun and metals, 50. 
 
 Stars, chemistry of, 28; distance of, 70-73; mode of naming, 196; 
 number of, 210 ; double and multiple, 210; colored, 214 ; clusters 
 of, 215 ; variable, 220 ; temporary, new, and lost, 223 ; movements 
 of lateral, 226 ; in line of sight, 269. 
 
 Stationary points, places iu a planet's orbit at which it has no mo- 
 tion among the stars. 
 
284 GLOSSARY AND INDEX. 
 
 Stellar system, the, 195. 
 
 Summary of recent discoveries, 269. 
 
 Sun, fall of two meteoric bodies into, 19; light from contraction of, 
 20 ; as seen from planets, 79 ; corona, 81 ; hydrogen flames of, 84 ; 
 condition of, 89 ; spots, 90 ; experiments, 95 ; apparent path among 
 the stars, 111 ; power of, 250. 
 
 Symbols used in astronomy, 275. 
 
 Telescope, refracting, 43 ; reflecting, 44 ; Cambridge equatorial, 46. 
 
 Telescopic work, clusters, 210 ; double stars, 212. 
 
 Temporary stars, 223. 
 
 Terminator, the boundary-line between light and darkness on the 
 moon or a planet. 
 
 Tides, 146. 
 
 Transit, the passage of an object across some fixed line, as the me- 
 ridian, or between the eye of an observer and an apparently 
 larger object, as that of Mercury or Venus over the disk of the 
 sun, and the satellites of Jupiter over its disk : of a star, 65. 
 
 Ultimate force, the, 249. 
 
 Uranus, elements of, 173 ; moons of, retrograde, 174 ; perturbed by 
 Neptune, 176. 
 
 Variable stars, 220. 
 
 Venus, 139. 
 
 Vernier, a scale to measure very minute distances. 
 
 Vertical circle, one that passes through the zenith and nadir of the 
 celestial sphere. The prime vertical circle passes through the 
 east and west points of the horizon. 
 
 Vulcan, discovery of, 137. 
 
 Worlds, the, and the Word, teach the same truth, 231-245. 
 
 Year, the, length of, on any planet, is determined by the periodic 
 time. 
 
 Zenith, the point in the celestial sphere directly overhead. 
 
 Zodiac, a belt 18 wide encircling the heavens, the ecliptic being in 
 the middle. In this belt the larger planets always appear. In 
 the older astronomy it was divided into twelve parts of 30 
 each, called signs of the zodiac. 
 
 Zodiacal light, 80. 
 
TO FIND TM i-i STARS IN TH i-i SKY. 
 
 Detach any of the following maps, appropriate to the time 
 of year, hold it between you and a lantern out-of-doors, and 
 you have an exact miniature of the sky. Or, better, cut squares 
 of suitable sizes from the four sides of a box ; put a map over 
 each aperture ; provide for ventilation, and turn the box over 
 a lamp or candle out-of-doors. Use an opera glass to find the 
 smaller stars, if one is accessible. 
 
 Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this position. January 20th, at 
 10 o'clock ; February 4th, at 9 o'clock; and February 19th, at S o'clock. 
 
Algol is on the Meridian, 51 South of Pole. At 10 o'clock, December 7th ; 9 o'clock- 
 December 22d ; 8 o'clock, January 5th. 
 
 Capella (45 from the Pole) and Rigel (100) are on the Meridian at 8 o'clock 
 February Tth, 9 o'clock January 22d, and at 10 o'clock January 7th. 
 
Regains comes on the Meridian, T9 south from the Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 
 9 o'clock April Sth, and at 8 o'clock April 23d. 
 
 Arctnrns comes to the Meridian, 70 from the Pole, at 10 o'clock May 25th, 
 9 o'clock June 9th, and at S o'clock Jnne 25th. 
 
 13 
 
Altair comes to the Meridian, 82 from the Pole, at 10 o'clock P.M. August 18tb, at 
 9 o'clock September 2d, and at S o'clock September ISth. 
 
 Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17 from the horizon, at S o'clock Novem- 
 ber 4th. 
 
<&' 
 
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