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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recreations in Astronomy
+       With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work
+
+Author: Henry Warren
+
+Release Date: April 14, 2005 [EBook #15620]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+[Page ii]
+[Illustration: THE CONSTELLATIONS OF ORION AND TAURUS.
+
+NOTES.--Star a in Taurus is red, has eight metals; moves east (page
+227). At o above tip of right horn is the Crab Nebula (page 219).
+In Orion, a is variable, has five metals; recedes 22 miles per
+second. b, d, e, x, r, etc., are double stars, the component parts
+of various colors and magnitudes (page 212, note). l and i are
+triple; s, octuple; th, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula (page
+218).]
+
+
+
+
+[Page iii]
+RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY
+
+WITH
+
+_DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND TELESCOPIC WORK_
+
+
+BY
+
+HENRY WHITE WARREN, D.D.
+
+AUTHOR OF "SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS; OR, KNOWLEDGE BY TRAVEL," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS
+
+
+
+[Page v]
+[Greek:
+  TAEI PSUCHAEI
+  TAEI AGAPAETAEI
+  ASTRAPOUSAEI
+  KAI
+  ISAGGEDOI]
+
+
+
+
+[Page vii]
+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 rewritten 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 important than either of the others.
+
+While nearly all men are prevented from practical experimentation
+in these high realms of knowledge, few [Page viii] 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 anyone 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 indebtedness to J. M.
+Van Vleck, LL.D., of the U.S. Nautical Almanac staff, and Professor
+of Astronomy at the Wesleyan University, for inspecting some of the
+more important 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 Newcomb, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page ix]
+CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAP.
+    I. CREATIVE PROCESSES
+   II. CREATIVE PROGRESS
+        Constitution of Light
+        Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light
+        Creative Force of Light
+  III. ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS
+        The Telescope
+        The Reflecting Telescope
+        The Spectroscope
+   IV. CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS
+        Celestial Movements
+        How to Measure
+    V. THE SUN
+        What the Sun does for us
+   VI. THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE
+        The Outlook from the Earth
+  VII. SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS
+        Aerolites
+        Comets
+        Famous Comets
+        Of what do Comets consist?
+        Will Comets strike the Earth?
+ VIII. THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS
+        Vulcan
+        Mercury
+        Venus
+        The Earth
+        The Aurora Borealis
+[Page x]
+        The Delicate Balance of Forces
+        Tides
+        The Moon
+        Telescopic Appearance
+        Eclipses
+        Mars
+        Satellites of Mars
+        Asteroids
+        Jupiter
+        Satellites of Jupiter
+        Saturn
+        Rings of Saturn
+        Satellites of Saturn
+        Uranus
+        Neptune
+   IX. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+    X. THE STELLAR SYSTEM
+        The Open Page of the Heavens
+        Equatorial Constellations
+        Characteristics of the Stars
+        Number
+        Double and Multiple Stars
+        Colored Stars
+        Clusters of Stars
+        Nebulæ
+        Variable Stars
+        Temporary, New, and Lost Stars
+        Movements of Stars
+   XI. THE WORLDS AND THE WORD
+  XII. THE ULTIMATE FORCE
+ SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS
+ SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
+ EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS
+        Signs of the Zodiac
+        Other Abbreviations Used in the Almanac
+        Greek Alphabet Used Indicating the Stars
+ CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS
+ GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX
+
+
+
+
+[Page xi]
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+FIG.
+     The Constellations of Orion and Taurus
+  1. An Orbit resulting from Attraction and Projection
+  2. The Moon's Orbit about the Earth
+  3. Changes of Orbit by Mutual Attraction
+  4. Velocity of Light measured by Jupiter's Satellites
+  5. Velocity of Light measured by Fizeau's Toothed Wheel
+  6. White Light resolved into Colors
+  7. Showing amount of Light received by Different Planets
+  8. Measuring Intensities of Lights
+  9. Reflection and Diffusion of Light
+ 10. Manifold Reflections
+ 11. Refraction by Water
+ 12. Atmospherical Reflection
+ 13. Refracting Telescope
+ 14. Reflecting Telescope
+ 15. The Cambridge Equatorial Refractor
+ 16. The new Reflecting Telescope at Paris
+ 17. Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms
+ 18. Spectra of Glowing Hydrogen and of the Sun
+ 19. Illustrating Arcs and Angles
+ 20. Measuring Objects by observing Angles
+ 21. Mural Circle
+ 22. Scale to measure Hundredths of an Inch
+ 23. Spider-lines to determine Star Transits
+ 24. Illustrating Triangulation
+[Page xii]
+ 25. Measuring Distance to an Inaccessible Object
+ 26. Measuring Elevation of an Inaccessible Object
+ 27. Illustrating Parallax
+ 28. Illustrating Stellar Parallax
+ 29. Mode of Ascertaining Longitude
+ 30. Relative Size of Sun, as seen from Different Planets
+ 31. Zodiacal Light
+ 32. Corona of the Sun in 1858--Brazil
+ 33. Corona of the Sun in 1878--Colorado
+ 34. Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen
+ 35. Changes in Solar Cavities during Rotation
+ 36. Solar Spot
+ 37. Holding Telescope to see the Sun-spots
+ 38. Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets
+ 39. Orbit of Earth, illustrating Seasons
+ 40. Inclination of Planes of Planetary Orbits
+ 41. Inclination of Orbits of Earth and Venus
+ 42. Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars
+ 43. Passage of the Sun by Star Regulus
+ 44. Apparent Path of Jupiter among the Stars
+ 45. Illustrating Position of Planets
+ 46. Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet
+ 47. Apparent Movements of a Superior Planet
+ 47_a_. A Swarm of Meteors meeting the Earth
+ 48. Explosion of a Bolide
+ 49. Flight of Bolides
+ 50. The Santa Rosa Aerolite
+ 51. Orbit of November Meteors and the Comet of 1866
+ 52. Aspects of Remarkable Comets
+ 53. Phases and Apparent Dimensions of Venus
+ 54. The Earth and Moon in Space
+ 55. Aurora as Waving Curtains
+ 56. Tide resulting from Centrifugal Motion
+ 57. Lunar Landscape
+[Page xiii]
+ 58. Telescopic View of the Moon
+ 59. Illumination of Lunar Craters and Peaks
+ 60. Lunar Crater "Copernicus"
+ 61. Eclipses: Shadows of Earth and Moon
+ 62. Apparent Sizes of Mars, seen from the Earth
+ 63. Jupiter
+ 64. Various Positions of Jupiter's Satellites
+ 65. View of Saturn and his Rings
+ 66. Perturbations of Uranus
+ 67. Map: Circumpolar Constellations
+ 68. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in December
+ 69. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in January
+ 70. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in April
+ 71. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in June
+ 72. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in September
+ 73. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in November
+ 74. Southern Circumpolar Constellations
+ 75. Aspects of Double Stars
+ 76. Sprayed Star Cluster below ae in Hercules
+ 77. Globular Star Cluster in the Centaur
+ 78. Great Nebula about th Orionis
+ 79. The Crab Nebula above z Tauri
+ 80. The Ring Nebula in Lyra
+ 81. Showing Place of Ring Nebula
+ 82. The Horizontal Pendulum
+
+  COLORED PLATE REPRESENTING VARIOUS SPECTA
+  MAPS TO FIND THE STARS
+
+
+
+
+[Page 1]
+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.
+
+[Page 2]
+ "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 stars supply;
+  Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,
+    Its dome the sky."    H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+ "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. JONES.
+
+
+[Page 3]
+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
+moving 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 illuminated 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 [Page 4] read backward in proper
+order; and it has glorious volumes 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. Meteors, 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 after 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 combinations,
+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 beginning, 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 imagination.
+God creates and embodies; we create, but [Page 5] it remains in
+thought only. But the creation is as bright, strong, clear,
+enduring, and real, as if it were embodied. Every 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."
+
+In 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 power, 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 together of every particle in existence. The laws
+governing this attraction shall be two. When these particles are
+associated together, the attraction shall be in proportion to the
+mass. A given mass will pull twice [Page 6] 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 1/24 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 attraction 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 body_.
+
+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 matter 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 [Page 7] imagine, either
+in differently sized masses or in combination with other substances.
+There it is! We cannot 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 movements. It only gives an even
+effulgence, a steady unflickering 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 empty space. But we created them
+dowered with attraction. Each instantly feels the drawing influence
+of the other. They are mutually attractive, and begin to [Page 8]
+move toward each other. They hasten along an undeviating straight
+line. Their speed quickens at every mile. The attraction increases
+every moment. They fly swift as thought. They dash 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 nothing to be warmed thereby. Are our creative
+powers exhausted by this effort?
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Orbit A D, resulting from attraction, A
+C, and projectile force, A B.]
+
+No, we will create another world, and add another power to it that
+shall keep them apart. That power 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 thousand miles
+in diameter. It instantly feels the attractive power of the sun
+drawing it to itself sixty-eight [Page 9] miles a second. 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 one hundred and
+eighty-nine miles a second. 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 gravity around which both turn
+will be 1/81 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
+introduced that only the most masterly minds can follow. Introduce
+a dozen or a million bodies, and complications arise that only
+Omniscience can unravel.
+
+[Page 10]
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+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 quarter of a
+million of miles toward 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 power,
+to C. All the while the invisible elastic force of the earth is
+unweariedly maintained; and though the moon's distances vary over a
+range of 31,355 miles, the moon is always in a determinable place.
+A simple revolution 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 [Page 11] of our
+night-wandering orb has just been explained by Professor Hansen, of
+Gotha, as a curious result of the attraction of Venus.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Changes of orbit by mutual attraction.]
+
+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 other by mutual attraction, Jupiter's
+orbit bends outward, and Saturn's becomes more nearly straight, as
+shown by the dotted lines. A partial correction of this difficulty
+immediately follows. As Jupiter 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, retarded, 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
+[Page 12] Saturn; and they will be near again, be drawn together,
+hastened, and retarded, as before; their next conjunction 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 perturbations 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 will
+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 direction. 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 planets, can be calculated
+with exceeding nicety.
+
+The difficulties would be greatly increased if the orbits [Page 13]
+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.
+Nevertheless, 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 by an
+intelligent mind 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,
+affecting the entire planetary system, the periods of which are
+immensely long. The number of these oscillations is equal to that
+of all the planets, and their periods range from 50,000 to 2,000,000
+years,
+
+Looking into the open page of the starry heavens we see double
+stars, the constituent parts of which must revolve 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 [Page 14] 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
+comprehends and directs them all."
+
+
+
+
+[Page 15]
+II.
+
+CREATIVE PROGRESS.
+
+  "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."--_Genesis_
+  i., 3.
+
+  "God is light."--1 _John_, i. 5.
+
+[Page 16]
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 legitimate 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 father, 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 manifestation 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 skeleton. Skeletons are
+somewhat interesting in themselves, but far more so when covered
+with flesh, flushed with beauty, and inspired with soul. The
+universe [Page 18] has bones, 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 cannot be quiet. The
+mighty locomotive trembles with its own energy. A smitten piece
+of iron has all its infinitesimal 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 heated body commences
+a vigorous vibration among its particles, and communicates these
+vibrations to the surrounding 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 undulations, and the
+object seems to glow with a dull red light; becoming hotter, the
+vibrations increase in rapidity. 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 different 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 inflammable 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 [Page
+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 consumed 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 1,300,000 times as large 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 hundred miles per second, and striking the sun's
+atmosphere, 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. Vivid auroras appeared, not only at the north and south poles,
+but even where such spectacles are seldom seen. The electro-magnetic
+[Page 20] disturbances were more distinctly marked. "In many places
+the telegraphic wires struck work. In Washington and Philadelphia
+the electric signalmen received severe electric shocks; at a station
+in Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at Boston a
+flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's electric telegraph." There
+is the best of reason for believing that a continuous succession of
+such bodies might have gone 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 contraction goes on evolving more light, and so
+the suns flame on through the millions of years unquenched. It is
+estimated that the contraction of our sun, from filling immensity
+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 [Page 21] shall have produced all the
+heat it can, and a new force of attraction must be added, or the sun
+itself will become cold as a cinder, dead as a burned-out char.
+
+Since light and heat are the product of such enormous 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 appears 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 commence a study of its
+qualities and powers.
+
+Light is the astronomer's necessity. When the sublime 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-gathering 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 fifty minutes or years ago, more
+or less. Light is the aërial sprite that carries our measuring-rods
+across the infinite [Page 22] spaces; light spreads out the history
+of that far-off beginning; 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Velocity of Light measured by Eclipses of
+Jupiter's Moons.]
+
+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 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 planet Jupiter. We know
+to a second when these eclipses take place, and they can be seen
+with a small telescope. But when the earth is on the opposite side
+of the sun [Page 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 184,000,000 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 result. Suppose the wheel, Fig. 5, to have one thousand 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 1/10000 of a
+second, or at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, the next tooth
+will have arrived before the eye, and each returning 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 having been traversed meanwhile. The method of
+measuring by means of a revolving mirror, used by Faucault, is held
+to be even more accurate.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Measuring the Velocity of Light.]
+
+When we take instantaneous photographs by the exposure [Page 24] of
+the sensitive plate 1/20000 part 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 Centauri
+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 goes 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
+directions, in the same place, without interference, and thus we
+see "the old moon in the arms of the new."
+
+_Constitution of Light._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 6.--White Light resolved into Colors.]
+
+Light was once supposed to be corpuscular, or consisting 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 [Page 25]
+instantly turned out of its course, some parts more and some less,
+according to the number of vibrations, and appears 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. 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
+different places from 716 to 765,000,000,000,000 of vibrations 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 differently, 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 vibrations
+numbering about 653,000,000,000,000 of [Page 25] vibrations 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 pore celestial white
+  With streakings of the morning light."
+
+Every little pansy, tender as fancy, pearled with evanescent 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 purple, and reflect each of these in other
+parts of the same tender petal. "Pansies are for thoughts," even
+more thoughts than poor Ophelia knew. An evening cloud that is
+dense enough to absorb all the faster and weaker vibrations, leaving
+only the stronger to come through, will be said to be 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 258-7/8 vibrations to the second, and its
+octave above 517-1/2. Not that sound vibrations cease [Page 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 misconstrued 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
+standing 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 keynote 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 they 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 is unapproachable by mortals; [Page 28] then the music
+swells beyond our ability to endure. 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
+mysteries, 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 simple 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
+[Page 29] they strike a substance we call colored. The rest are
+reflected, and give the impression of color. In one place on the
+flag of our nation all vibrations are destroyed except 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 narrow 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 vibrations 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 record 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 [Page 30] the
+stars whose very substance we know! If we were transported thither,
+or beyond, we should not be altogether strangers in an unknown
+realm.
+
+But the stars differ in their constituent elements; every ray that
+flashes from them bears in its very being proofs of what they are.
+Hence the eye of Omniscience, 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 unbraided sunbeam, 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 transfigures 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 engineer 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
+sunshine, falling on the scarcely lifted hills of Pennsylvania,
+caused the reedy vegetation to grow along the banks of [Page 31]
+shallow seas, accumulated vast amounts of this vegetation, sunk it
+beneath the sea, roofed it over with sand, compacted the sand into
+rock, and changed this vegetable 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. We
+mine the coal, bring out the heat, raise the steam, drive the train,
+so that in the ultimate analyses it is sunshine 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, because
+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. Naturally
+there will be as many different kinds of heat as tints of color,
+because there is as great a range of numbers of vibration. It is
+our privilege 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 [Page 32] 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 anxious 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, [Page 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 consumes 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 qualities 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 platinum 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 sun beam goes through glass without [Page 34] 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
+sweeping through them.
+
+The heat of the sun, by its intense vibrations, comes 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 flyaway every night, and our temperature would go down
+to 200° below zero. This heat comes with the light, and then,
+dissociated from it, the number of its vibrations lessened, 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 1/1000 of 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 temperature 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 locomotive 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 sunlight 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, acting [Page 35] upon the
+iron, stations its particles farther and farther apart. Since the
+bottom cannot give way the arches must rise in the middle. As they
+become longer 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 that mighty pile of granite with its
+aërial 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 wreathing mists of morning these myriads of tons rise
+in the air, flyaway hundreds of miles, and supply all the Niagaras,
+Mississippis and Amazons of earth. The sun says to the earth, wrapped
+in the mantle of winter, [Page 36] "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 constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome by a higher, and all by the highest. Gravitation of
+earth naturally and legitimately yields to the power of the sun's
+heat, and then the waters fly into the clouds. It as naturally
+and legitimately yields to the power of mind, and the waters of the
+Red Sea are divided and stand "upright as an heap." Water naturally
+bursts into flame when a bit of potassium 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
+constitutional exercise of higher force over forces organized 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."
+
+[Page 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 apparent 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 varying amount
+of light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above
+each world, the amount received by the earth being 1.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Measuring Intensities of Light.]
+
+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 [Page 38] 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Reflection and Diffusion of Light.]
+
+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 astronomer projects straight
+lines to infinity. Take a hand-mirror, or better, 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 darkness appeared. Turn the same ray into a tumbler of water,
+[Page 39]
+it becomes 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Manifold Reflections.]
+
+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 through to the silvered back at B, and is totally
+reflected to _b_, 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 reflector
+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 secondary 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 light, and the frequency and prominence of
+each pulse-beat will be indicated by the tossing spot of light on
+the wall. If the operator becomes excited the fact will be evident
+to all observers.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
+
+Place a coin in a basin (Fig. 11), and set it so that the rim will
+conceal the coin from the eye. Pour in water, and the coin will
+[Page 40] appear 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
+atmosphere, 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.
+
+[Illustration: 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 object 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 41]
+III.
+
+ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS.
+
+  "The eyes of the Lord are in every place."--_Proverbs_ xv. 3.
+
+[Page 42]
+"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 objects 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 diameter, and penetrates the immensities of space
+thousands of times beyond where his natural eye can pierce, until he
+sees that God's immensities of worlds are infinite also."--BISHOP
+FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 43]
+III.
+
+_THE TELESCOPE._
+
+Frequent allusion has been made in the previous chapter to discovered
+results. It is necessary to understand more clearly the process by
+which such results have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments
+are of the simplest character, some most delicate and complex.
+When a man smokes a piece of glass, in order 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 constructed his own without a pattern,
+and used it to good purpose. It consists of a lens, O B (Fig. 13),
+which 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 [Page 44] find. Hence there is placed at
+R a concave lens, passing 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Refracting Telescope.]
+
+If, instead of a concave lens at R, converting the converging 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 overcome, 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 radically from the
+refracting one already described. It receives the light in a concave
+mirror, M (Fig. 14), which reflects it to the focus F, producing the
+same result as the lens of the refracting telescope. Here 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 [Page 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 coming 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Reflecting 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 instrument 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 highest 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 foundation
+on which it is placed is sunk deep in the earth, far from rail or
+other roads, and no part of the observatory 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
+follows 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 (Fig. 15). The reflector
+demands still more difficult engineering. That of Lord Rosse has
+a metallic mirror [Page 46] weighing six tons, a tube forty feet
+long, which, with its appurtenances, weighs seven tons more. It
+moves between two walls only 10° east and west. The new Paris
+reflector (Fig. 16) has a much wider range of movement.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Cambridge Equatorial.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 16.--New Paris Reflector.]
+
+_The Spectroscope._
+
+A spectrum is a collection of the colors which are dispersed by
+a prism from any given light. If it is sunlight, it is a solar
+spectrum; if the source of light is a [Page 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. Considering the infinite variety of light, and its
+easy modification and absorption, we should expect an immense number
+of spectra. A mere prism disperses the light so imperfectly that
+different orders of vibrations, perceived 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 until we get only
+a small beam of light. In order to have the colors thoroughly
+dispersed, the best instruments pass the beam of light through a
+series of prisms called a battery, each one spreading farther the
+colors which the previous ones had spread. In Fig. 17 the ray is
+seen entering through the telescope A, which renders the rays
+parallel, and passing [Page 50] through the prisms out to telescope
+B, where the 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 O 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
+examined just above where it entered the first prism.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms.]
+
+Attached to the examining telescope is a diamond-ruled scale of glass,
+enabling us to fix the position of any line with great exactness.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Spectra of glowing Hydrogen and the Sun.]
+
+In Fig. 18 is seen, in the lower part, a spectrum of the sun, with
+about a score of its thousands of lines 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 spectrum. 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 chromolithic plate.
+No. 1 represents the solar spectrum, with a few of its lines on an
+accurately graduated scale. [Page 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 always in the same place on
+the scale.
+
+A patient study of these signs of substances reveals, richer results
+than a study of the cuniform characters engraved on Assyrian slabs;
+for one is the handwriting 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 approaches 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 vibrations 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 hundred and fifty-seven
+vibrations could approach us at three hundred and sixty-four yards
+per second, it is obvious 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 [Page 52] result would
+appear if we carried our ear toward the sound fast enough to take up
+twice as many valves as though we stood still. This is apparent to
+every observer in a railway train. The whistle of an approaching
+locomotive gives one tone; it passes, and we instantly detect
+another. Let two trains, running at a speed of thirty-six yards a
+second, approach each other. 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 hundred 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.
+
+[Illustration: 1. Solar Spectrum. 2. Spectrum of Potassium. 3.
+Spectrum of Sodium. 4. Spectrum of Strontium. 5. Spectrum of Calcium.
+6. Spectrum of Barium.]
+
+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 recedes, it increases the length of the wave--puts
+a less number into an inch. If a body giving only the number of
+vibrations we call green were to approach sufficiently fast, it
+would crowd in vibrations enough to appear what we call blue, indigo,
+or even violet, according to its speed. If it receded sufficiently
+fast, it would leave behind it only vibrations enough to fill up
+[Page 53] the space with what we call yellow, orange, or red,
+according 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 cannot 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 violet, 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
+appropriate 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 receding 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 [Page 54]
+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 observing 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 millionth 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 movements taking place, the nature of
+comets, and nebulæ. By the spectroscope we know that the atmospheres
+of Venus and Mars are like our own; that those of Jupiter and Saturn
+are very unlike; it tells us which stars approach and which recede,
+and just how one star differeth 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 55]
+IV.
+
+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 right hand hath spanned the heavens."--_Isa._
+xl. 12; xlviii. 13.
+
+[Page 56]
+ "Go to yon tower, where busy science plies
+  Her vast antennæ, feeling thro' the skies;
+  That little vernier, on whose slender lines
+  The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
+  A silent index, tracks the planets' march
+  In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch,
+  Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
+  And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
+
+ "So, till by wrong or negligence effaced,
+  The living index which thy Maker traced
+  Repeats 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 57]
+IV.
+
+_CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS._
+
+We know that astronomy has what are called practical uses. If a
+ship had been driven by Euroclydon ten times fourteen days and
+nights without sun or star appearing, a moment's glance into the
+heavens from the heaving deck, by a very slightly educated sailor,
+would tell within one hundred yards where he was, and determine
+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 uncertain 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 longitude by observations of the stars. Our real landmarks
+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 broadest exercise
+of the creative faculty have been inspired by astronomy. No other
+instruments approximate in delicacy those which explore the heavens;
+no other [Page 58] system of thought can draw such vast and certain
+conclusions 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, instead 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 exact. Whoever studies astronomy,
+under proper guidance and in the right spirit, grows in thought
+and feeling, 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 locomotive, but quite an unlettered
+man can drive it. It is the work of genius to render difficult
+matters plain, abstruse thoughts clear.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
+
+A brief explanation of a few terms will make the principles of
+world inspection easily understood. Imagine a perfect circle thirty
+feet in diameter--that is, create [Page 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 circle, 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 measured 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 mountain, 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 ").
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Illustration of Angles.]
+
+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 [Page 60] 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 steadily 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 evening
+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 suggest 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 given meridian, or from the
+equator. Thus the stars called the Pointers, in the Great Bear,
+are 5° apart; the nearest one is 29° from the Pole Star, which is
+39° 56' 29" above the horizon at Philadelphia. In going to England
+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; [Page 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 mistake 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 immensely more at the distance of the
+stars. The correction of an inaccuracy of no greater magnitude than
+that has reduced our estimate of the distance of our sun 3,000,000
+miles.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Mural Circle.]
+
+Consider the nicety of the work. Suppose the graduated scale to
+be thirty feet in circumference. Divided into 360°, each would
+be one inch long. Divide each degree into 60', each one is 1/60
+of an inch long. It takes good eyesight to discern it. But each
+minute must be [Page 62] divided into 60", and these must not only
+be noted, but even tenths and hundredths of seconds must be
+discerned. 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 unreliable. It is taken to a
+watch-maker that every single second may be quickened 1/20160 part
+of itself. Now 1/20000 part of a second would be a small interval of
+time to measure, but it must be under control. If the temperature of
+a summer morning rises ten or twenty degrees we scarcely notice it;
+but the magnetic tastimeter measures 1/5000 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 Hoosac 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 mountain. 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 triangulate from the eastern portal to distant
+[Page 63] mountain 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 dropped 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 measurements
+in the skies.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
+
+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. Observe 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 99/100 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 telescope
+on the mural circle, we are able to reach an exactness of 0".1, or
+1/3600 of an inch. This instrument is used to measure the declination
+of stars, or angular [Page 64] 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 measure
+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 undulations of light. The shortest is
+of the violet light, 154.84 ten-millionths of an inch. By the
+horizontal pendulum Professor Root has made 1/36000000 of an inch
+apparent.
+
+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 exactly 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 [Page 65] the star will come into
+the field just above the horizontal 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Transit of a Star noted.]
+
+But man is not reliable enough to observe and record with sufficient
+accuracy. Some, in their excitement, anticipate 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
+estimating 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-officers
+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 astronomer,
+and to others, that we owe the mechanical accuracy 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 [Page 66] over each 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 men, 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 accounted for.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
+
+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 perpendicular A C. Now any point--C, where
+a perpendicular, A C, and a diagonal, B C, meet--will be [Page 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 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 feet away.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Measuring Distances.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Measuring Elevations.]
+
+The next process is to measure the 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, 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 [Page 68] one-half an
+inch going two feet, in going four feet they will spread an inch,
+and in going a mile, or five thousand 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 infinity 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 63/10000000 of
+an inch, and the lines will come together at a distance of three
+hundred miles. That new angle differs from the former right angle
+almost infinitesimally, 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
+meeting 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 distances is easily seen
+by Fig. 27.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 27.]
+
+Let O P be the base. This would subtend a greater angle seen from
+star A than from star B. Let B be far enough away, and O P would
+become invisible, and B [Page 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 diameter 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° 59' 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 station 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 carried
+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 [Page
+70] 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 instant, 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
+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 angles of the same stars: it is the same angle. Sitting in my
+study here, I glance out of the window and discern separate bricks,
+in houses five hundred feet away, with my unaided eye; they subtend
+a discernible angle. 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. Not 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 [Page 71] earth's orbit on one
+side, as T R A (Fig. 28), and a line were to be drawn six months
+later from the same stars, touching our earth's orbit on the other
+side, as R B T, such a line would not diverge sufficiently from a
+straight line for us to detect its divergence. Numerous vain
+attempts 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 inconceivable depths of space, and ascertain
+their distance from us. We are ever impelled to triumph over what is
+declared 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
+assaulted, till some ambitious spirits have outsoared even
+imagination by the certainties of mathematics.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 28.]
+
+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 another, we reach a ground of judgment. The ascertainment
+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 [Page 72] 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Mode of Ascertaining Longitude.]
+
+So, by comparisons of the near and far stars, the approximate distance
+of a few of them has been determined. The nearest one is the brightest
+star in the Centaur, never 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
+dissolve 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 flyaway toward 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 allegiance 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 traverse 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 [Page 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-housse 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 astronomical unit and standard of
+measurement is the distance 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 astronomical unit 226,000 times, we
+measure to Alpha Centauri, more than twenty millions of millions
+of miles. Doubtless 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 celestial 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 Nautical 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 parts of the [Page 74] 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 one hundred and ninety-two 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,
+establishing landmarks, and guiding the sailor. It greatly quickens
+and enlarges thought, excites a desire to know, leads to the utmost
+exactness, and ministers to adoration and love of the Maker of
+the innumerable suns.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 75]
+V.
+
+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.
+
+[Page 76]
+"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 similar with the sun of
+heaven, from which the Divine 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 according
+to the quality of the minds, each of which takes from the common
+influx as much as is necessary."--SWEDENBORG.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 77]
+V.
+
+_THE SUN._
+
+Suppose we had stood on the dome of Boston Statehouse November 9th,
+1872, on the night of the great conflagration, and seen the fire
+break out; seen the engines 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 decompose 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 Rocky 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 [Page 78] 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 flaming
+globe--on fire above, below, around--there is nothing 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
+quieted. 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 burning 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 relative 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 always 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Relative Size of Sun as seen from Different
+Planets.]
+
+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 soon by the eye.
+But that is a small part of its real diameter. So we say the earth
+has an equatorial diameter of 7925-1/2 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 [Page 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 the sun, we might almost say that its diameter is
+infinite, for its light and heat reach beyond our measurement. Its
+living, throbbing heart sends out pulsations, keeping all space full
+of its tides of living light.
+
+[Page 80]
+[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Zodiacal Light.]
+
+We might say with evident truth that the far-off planets are a
+part of the sun, since the space they traverse 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 [Page 81] into our
+western sky soon after sunset, on a clear, moonless 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, inclined 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 surrounding 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, coming and returning, in order that they might note the
+three minutes of total eclipse in Colorado. Each man had his work
+assigned to him, and he was drilled to attend to that and nothing
+else. Improved instruments were put into his [Page 82] 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 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 32.--The Corona in 1858, Brazil.]
+
+It was then settled that the corona consists of reflected light,
+sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids swirling in the vast
+seas, giving new densities and [Page 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 orbital revolution, we do not know. That the corona cannot
+be in any sense an atmosphere of any continuous gas, is seen from
+the fact that the comet of 1843, passing within 93,000 miles of the
+body of the sun, was not burned out of existence as a comet, nor in
+any perceptible 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 33.--The Corolla in 1878, Colorado.]
+ [Page 84] 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 spectroscope attached. I have seen them
+ with great distinctness and brilliancy with the excellent
+ eleven-inch telescope 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 extremity 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
+ thunderhead.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen.]
+
+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 actually in progress. "The whole thing
+had been literally blown to shreds," he says, "by some inconceivable
+uprush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had [Page 87]
+left, the air--if I may use the expression--was filled with the
+flying _débris_, 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 formerly
+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,
+chromatospheric 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
+wonderfully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing flame, to speak
+according to appearances. First, it was crowded down, as it were,
+along the solar surface; later, it arose almost pyramidally 50,000
+miles in height; then [Page 88] its summit 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 outward; and then, after an interval, followed by a
+corresponding 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 indistinguishable cloud." In the presence of
+these evident visions of an actual body in furious flame, we need
+hesitate no longer in accepting as true the words of St. Peter
+of the time "in which the [atmospheric] heavens shall pass away
+with a great noise, and the elements 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 [Page 89] metals, some of them as yet
+unknown on earth, but having a record in the spectrum, in the denser
+parts below. If these fierce fires are a part of the Sun, as they
+assuredly are, its diameter would be from 1,060,000 to 1,260,000
+miles.
+
+Let us approach even nearer. We see a clearly recognized even disk,
+of equal dimensions in every direction. This is the photosphere.
+We here reach some definitely 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 necklace, 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 hundred 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 estimate 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 composed
+of solid particles, floating in gas so condensed [Page 90] by
+pressure and attraction as to shine like a solid. It has no sensible
+changes of general level, but has prodigious 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 others,
+for years. But it is a long way off to study an object. No telescope
+brings it nearer than 200,000 miles. Theory after theory has been
+advanced, each one satisfactory 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, beyond 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 across its disk by axial
+revolution, being narrow as they present their edges to us, and
+rounder as we look perpendicularly into them (Fig. 35).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Change in Spots as rotated across the Disk,
+showing Cavities.]
+
+These spots are also very variable in number, sometimes there being
+none for nearly two hundred days, and again whole years during which
+the sun is never without them. The period from minimum to maximum
+[Page 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
+scoriæ floating in the sea of molten matter. But they were depressed
+below the surface, and showed a notch when on the edge. Wilson
+originated 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 [Page 92]
+great depth, and rises up tumultuously around the whirlpool, 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 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."
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Solar spot, by Langley.]
+
+A spot of 20,000 miles diameter is quite small; there was one 14,816
+miles across, visible to the naked eye for a week in 1843. This
+particular sun-spot somewhat [Page 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 ont
+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 incredible. 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 thousands of miles into space. It falls again into the
+incandescent 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 fire, where one hundred
+worlds could be buried, do not usually prevent the sun's appearing
+to our far-off eyes as a perfect sphere.
+
+[Page 94]
+_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 perpetually 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 tendency 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 may 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 millions of cubic miles of ice could
+be hailed at the sun every second without affecting 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 conservatory, 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,
+[Page 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 fifty miles, the
+hurricane one hundred. The force is as the square of the velocity.
+It is by means of the sun that the merchant's white-sailed ships are
+blown safely home. So the sun carries off the miasma of the marsh,
+the pollution 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 Manchesters possible, because
+the sun lifted all that water to the hills.
+
+Intermingled with these currents of air are the currents 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 only
+1/21500000000 part 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 beyond [Page 96] its usual focusing for distant objects. The
+farther it is drawn, the nearer must we hold the screen for a
+perfect image.
+
+By holding a paper near the eye-piece, the proper direction of
+the instrument 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 Mercury and Venus shown to any number of spectators.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Holding Telescope to see the Sun'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 determine 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 97]
+VI.
+
+THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE.
+
+"He hangeth the earth upon nothing."--_Job_ xxvi. 7.
+
+[Page 98]
+"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 required 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 may 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 wailing world; weigh
+well the mighty impulse soon to be given, for out of the myriads
+of directions, and the myriads of impulsive forces, there comes
+but a single combination 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 wisdom, or relieve me from
+the impossible task!'"-0. M. MITCHEL, LL. D.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 sunshine. 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
+possibly Venus, and all moons except those of Uranus and Neptune,
+present their equators to the sun. The direction of orbital and
+axial revolution seen from above the North Pole would be opposite
+to that of the hands of a watch.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets.]
+
+The speed of this orbital revolution must be proportioned to the
+distance from the sun. The attraction of the sun varies inversely
+as the square of the distance. [Page 100] 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
+[Page 101] speed when attractive power is diminished by distance.
+Hence Mercury must go 29.5 miles per second--seventy 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 attracted only 1/5626 as much, must be slowed down to 3.4
+miles a second to prevent its flying away from the feebler
+attraction of the sun. The orbital velocity of the various planets
+in miles per second is as follows:
+
+  Mercury  29.55  |  Jupiter  8.06
+  Venus    21.61  |  Saturn   5.95
+  Earth    18.38  |  Uranus   4.20
+  Mars     14.99  |  Neptune  3.36
+
+Hence, while the earth makes one revolution in its year, Mercury
+has made over four revolutions, or passed through four years; the
+slower Neptune has made only 1/164 of one revolution.
+
+The time of axial revolution 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 enormous 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 [Page 102] 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
+hereafter.
+
+The difference in the size of the planets is very noticeable. 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Orbit of Earth, showing Parallelism of
+Axis and Seasons.]
+
+The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination of its axis
+to the plane of its orbit. In Fig. 39 the rotating 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 darkness than day, and hence winter. Passing on
+to B, the world is seen illuminated 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 northern pole is shrouded in continual
+gloom. Every place [Page 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
+necessary. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are observed to
+enlarge and contract, according as it is winter 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 anomaly, 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 winters, 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. [Page 106] 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 sufficient time, might cause frightful extremes of
+temperature; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at which it
+is said, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Then a
+compensative diminution will follow.
+
+Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, floating in a round
+pond. The axis will be inclined 7-1/2° to the surface of the water,
+one side of the equator be 7-1/2° below the surface, and the other
+side the same distance above. Let the half-submerged 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Inclination of the Planes of Orbits.]
+
+If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying in [Page 107] the
+same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies were to start in a
+direct line for the sun, 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 Venus and
+Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun at every
+revolution.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Inclination of Orbits of Venus and Earth.
+Nodal Line, D B.]
+
+Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and Venus seen
+not from the edge but from a position somewhat above. The point E,
+where Venus crosses the plane of the earth's orbit, is called the
+ascending node. If the earth were at B when Venus is at E, Venus
+would be seen on the disk of the sun, making a transit. The same
+would be true if the earth were at D, and Venus at the descending
+node F.
+
+This general view of the flying spheres is full of interest. [Page
+108] 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, continuing 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 perfect 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 power. 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 [Page 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 pyramids 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 Acropolis; and the
+mighty mountains of Moab removed to reveal 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 vibrating 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 six hours after it is swinging toward Rome, in
+Italy; in twelve hours, toward Siam, in Asia; in nineteen hours,
+toward the Sandwich Islands; and in twenty-four, toward 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 sufficient to compel the plane of the original
+direction to change with the turning of the earth. The law of
+inertia keeps it moving in the same direction. The same experimental
+proof of revolution is shown in a proportional 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. [Page 110] 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 minutes longer before we find the moon. It must be going in
+the same direction, and it takes us longer to get round to it than
+if 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 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°.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars.]
+
+[Page 111]
+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 three 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 midnight
+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 toward B, the sun appears to move toward H.
+If we had observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 1876, 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 circle 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 43.]
+
+There are certain stars that have such irregular, uncertain, 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 retrograde, [Page 112] and go on again. Some are never seen far
+from the sun, and others in all parts of the ecliptic.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 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 Venus is still in sight; Jupiter is
+45° behind Venus, and Saturn is seen 90° farther east. When A has
+rolled a little farther, if he is awake, he will see Mars before
+he sees the sun; or, in common language, Venus 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 45. Showing Position of Planets.]
+
+The mysterious movements of advance and retreat are rendered
+intelligible by Fig. 46. The planet Mercury is at A, and, seen from
+the earth, B is located at _a_, [Page 113] on the background of the
+stars it seems to be among. It remains apparently stationary at _a_
+for some time, because 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 motion from A to C, greatly hastens it from C to A.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet.]
+
+It is also apparent that Mercury and Venus, 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 never 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. Observe 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
+sometimes take place.
+
+[Page 114]
+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 nearly
+straight, from Mars to G; then, as the earth begins to curve around
+the sun, Mars will appear to retraverse the distance from F to
+C, and beyond. The farther the superior planet is from the earth
+the less will be the retrograde movement.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Illustrating Movements of a Superior Planet.]
+
+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 impossible 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 accomplished by mounting them
+on subsidiary eccentric wheels in the revolving crystal sphere.
+All that was [Page 115] needed to give them a right conception was a
+sinking of their world and themselves to an appropriate proportion,
+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 cast
+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. Anyone 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 illustrated by two 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.
+
+[Page 116]
+  "Onward, forever onward,
+     Red Mars led on his clan;
+   And the moon, like a mailèd 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 mailèd 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 117]
+VII.
+
+SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS.
+
+"The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah,
+and they died."--_Joshua_ x. II.
+
+[Page 118]
+[Illustration: A SWARM OF METEORS MEETING THE EARTH.
+
+Their orbits are all parallel. Those coming in direct line to the
+eye appear as stars, having no motion. Those on one side of this
+line are seen in foreshortened perspective. Those furthest from
+the centre, other things being equal, appear longest. The centre,
+called the radiant point, of these November meteors is situated
+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 an hour.]
+
+
+
+
+[Page 119]
+VII.
+
+_SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS._
+
+Before particularly considering the larger aggregations of matter
+called planets or worlds as individuals, it is best to investigate
+a part of the solar system consisting of smaller collections of
+matter scattered everywhere 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 various relations
+to each other, from independent individuality 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Explosion of a Bolide.]
+
+Everyone 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 [Page 120] 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 about twenty miles nearer
+the surface. Their average velocity, thirty-five, sometimes rises to
+one hundred miles a second. They exhibit different colors, according
+to their different chemical substances, which are consumed. The
+number of them to be seen on different nights is exceedingly
+variable; sometimes not more [Page 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 matter, 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 investigations, "that the heat which the
+earth receives directly from meteors is the same in amount which it
+receives from the sun by radiation, and that the sun receives
+five-sixths of its heat from the meteors that fall upon it."
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Bolides.]
+
+[Page 121]
+In 1783 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have a telescopic view
+of a system of bodies which had turned into meteors. These were two
+larger bodies followed by several smaller ones, going in parallel
+lines till they were extinguished. They probably had been revolving
+about each other as worlds and satellites before entering our
+atmosphere. It is more than probable that the earth has many such
+bodies, too small to be visible, revolving around it as moons.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Santa Rosa Aerolite.]
+
+_Aerolites._
+
+Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the heat, and the
+unconsumed centre comes to the earth. [Page 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 secured. On the evening
+of December 21st, 1876, a meteor 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 continued 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 estimated at from twenty to one hundred. It was
+accompanied 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 hundred 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 thousand 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 [Page 124] 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 meteors are at the point of intersection at the
+same time, there must be collisions, and the lightning signs of
+extinction 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 August, another on the 11th of November. In
+a certain part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies
+sufficient 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 November meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceedingly
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Orbit of the November Meteors and the Comet
+or 1866.]
+
+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 [Page 125] should have crossed the earth's orbit
+early in September, 1872. The earth itself would arrive at the point
+of crossing two or three months later. If the law of revolution
+held, we might still expect to find some of the trailing meteoroids
+of the comet not gone by on our arrival. 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 diluted
+comet were still there. The prediction was verified in every
+respect. At the appointed time, place, [Page 126] 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 attraction, 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 foregoing 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
+existence, motion, and continuance to the same causes as Jupiter and
+the rest of the planets. They are really planets of wider wandering,
+greater ellipticity, and less density. They have periodic times
+less than the earth, 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 reflected 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 precede 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 Neptune 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, [Page 127] or one that will
+carry it off into infinite space, never to return. One rate of speed
+on the curve indicates an elliptical orbit that returns; a greater
+rate of speed indicates that it will take a parabolic orbit, which
+never returns. 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
+[Page 128] 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 retardations of
+attracting bodies. A comet of long period may be changed to one of
+short period by such attraction, or _vice versa_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Aspects of Remarkable Comets.]
+
+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 hundred have been seen by telescopes invented
+since their invention. Some authorities estimate the number belonging
+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 Cæsar, 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 comet was seen in 1531 having the same orbit. Still
+farther, by the same exact period of seventy-five years, he found
+that it was the same comet that had disturbed [Page 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 finish 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 return was calculated with more
+laborious care. It came to time and passed the sun within three days
+of the predicted time, on the 16th of November, 1835. It passed from
+sight of the most powerful telescopes the following 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.
+
+_Biela's 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 [Page 130] trace of it could
+be discovered. Probably the same influence that separated it into
+parts, separated the particles 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_ 1843 passed nearer the sun than any known
+body. It almost grazed the sun. If it ever returns, it will be in
+A.D. 2373.
+
+_Donati's 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 1875.
+
+_Encke's 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 degree, 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 diminished, the attraction of
+the sun causes it to take a smaller 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. Subsequent and more exact calculations fail
+to find any retardations in at least two revolutions between 1865
+and [Page 131] 1871. Indications point to a retardation of one and a
+half hours both before and since. But such discrepancy 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 exists around the
+sun, perhaps revealed by the zodiacal light, that reaches beyond
+where Encke's comet dips inside 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 nebulæ? Are there regions where attractions are balanced,
+and matter is left to contract on itself, till the movements of
+suns and planets adds or diminishes attractive 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. Indeed, 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 lying [Page 132] there, in a spherical
+shell about the solar system, balanced between the attraction of
+different suns, finally 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 acquainted do not cover
+all the ground presented by these mysterious 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 spiritual, forms matter may be changed we
+cannot tell. But if we 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 matter, hundreds of miles apart; and,
+looking through thousands 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 another 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 separate bodies, or matter in a liquid condition,
+capable of being vaporized by the heat of the sun, and driven off,
+[Page 133] as steam from a locomotive, into a tail. Indications of
+this are found in the fact that tails grow smaller at successive
+returns, as the matter capable of such vaporization 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 master the difficulties.
+
+_Will 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 [Page 134] 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 solidity, the
+result would be far more serious. The mass of Donati's comet has
+been estimated by M. Faye to be 1/20000 of that of the earth. If
+this amount of matter were dense as water, it would make a globe
+five hundred miles in diameter; and if as dense as Professor Peirce
+proved the nucleus of this comet to be, its impact 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." Besides, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 135]
+VIII.
+
+THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS.
+
+"Through faith we understand that the worlds [plural] were framed
+by the word of God, so that things which were seen were not made
+of things which do appear."--_Heb._ xi. 3.
+
+[Page 136]
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 137]
+VII.
+
+_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 Republic 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 question is, are there any bodies
+large enough to be seen?
+
+The same great genius of Leverrier that gave us Neptune from the
+observed perturbations of Uranus, pointed 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 asserted
+discoveries of one had been by inexperienced observers, inclined
+to the belief in a group, or that the disturbance was caused by
+the matter reflecting the zodiacal light.
+
+When the total eclipse of the sun occurred in 1878, [Page 138]
+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 carefully studied, sections of the sky
+about the sun were assigned to different observers, who should
+attend to nothing but to look for a possible planet. It is now
+conceded that Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor, actually saw the
+sought-for body.
+
+
+VULCAN.
+
+The god of fire; its sign [Symbol], his hammer.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 13,000,000 MILES. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, ABOUT
+20 DAYS.
+
+
+MERCURY.
+
+The swift messenger of the gods; sign [Symbol], his caduceus.
+
+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 between us and the sun, as
+at D (Fig. 46, p. 113), its illuminated 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 beyond 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; nearest 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.
+
+[Page 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
+1818 occupied seven and a half hours. The transits for the remainder
+of the century will occur:
+
+  November 7th   1881  |  November 10th   1894
+  May 9th        1891  |  November 4th    1901
+
+
+VENUS.
+
+Goddess of beauty; its sign [Symbol], a mirror.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 66,750,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 7660 MILES.
+ORBITAL VELOCITY, 1296 MILES PER MINUTE. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 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, Venus 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 _fête_, 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 [Page 140] his piercing eye caught the clear lustre
+of Venus smiling upon him at mid-day.
+
+This unusual brightness occurs when Venus 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).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Phases of Venus, and Varions 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 discovery was contained:
+
+[Page 141]
+  "Hæc immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o. y."
+ (These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.)
+
+He first saw Venus as gibbous; a few months revealed it as crescent,
+and then he transposed his anagram into:
+
+  "Cynthiæ figuras æmulatur mater amorum."
+ (The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.)
+
+Many things that were once supposed to be known concerning Venus are
+not confirmed by later and better observations. Venus 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
+determined. 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 Venus, 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 became blind, but he had used his eyes to the best
+purpose of any man in his generation.
+
+
+THE EARTH.
+
+Its sign [Symbol].
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 92,500,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR, 7899
+MILES; EQUATORIAL, 7925-1/2 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 23H. 56M.
+4.09S.; ORBITAL, 365.86. ORBITAL VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 1152.8 MILES.
+
+Let us lift ourselves up a thousand miles from the earth. We see it
+as a ball hung upon nothing in empty space. As the drop of falling
+water gathers itself [Page 142] into a sphere by its own inherent
+attraction, so the earth gathers itself into a ball. Noticing
+closely, we 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 [Page 143] the sunset follow over an equal space,
+180° behind. We are glad that the darkness never overtakes the
+morning.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Earth and Moon in Space.]
+
+_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 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
+[Page 144]
+not without its inexplicable surroundings. It has 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 various 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 55.--The Aurora as Waving Curtains.]
+
+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 flexible 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 Europe. The
+waves ran out to the Sandwich Islands, six [Page 145] 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 irregular, in consequence
+of the greater preponderance of land--and hence greater density--in the
+northern hemisphere. These irregularities are often very perplexing
+in making exact geodetic measurements. The tendency of matter to
+fly from the centre by reason of revolution 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 rate. 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 an infinitesimal degree, or the world rotate more slowly,
+the poles would be submerged and the equator become an arid waste.
+No balance, turning to 1/1000 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 1/100
+of a second of time in two thousand years.
+
+[Page 146]
+_Tides._
+
+But there is an outside influence that is constantly acting upon
+the earth, and to which it constantly responds. Two hundred and
+forty thousand miles from the earth is the moon, having 1/81 the
+mass of the world. Its attractive influence on the earth causes the
+movable 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 inversely 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 water 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 flexible 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 produce.
+
+[Page 147]
+[Illustration: Fig. 56.]
+
+If the earth had no axial revolution, the attractive point where
+the tide rises would be carried around the earth once in twenty-seven
+days by the moon's revolution about the earth. But since the earth
+revolves on its axis, it presents a new section to the moon's attraction
+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 increased tides.
+When the moon is in its first or third quarter, _i. e._, 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 [Page 148] it does not yield instantly
+to the moon's influence, and the crest of the tide is some hours
+behind the advancing 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
+continents, 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-five 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 Mediterranean 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 commerce. She takes all the loads that
+can be floated on her flowing tides, and cheerfully carries them
+in opposite 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 men as
+Laplace, Newton, and Airy have labored in vain. There are plenty
+of other worlds still to conquer.
+
+
+[Page 150]
+[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Lunar Day.]
+
+[Page 151]
+THE MOON.
+
+New moon, [Symbol]; first quarter, [Symbol]; full moon, [Symbol];
+last quarter, [Symbol].
+
+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, 29-1/2 DAYS. AXIAL 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
+instruments 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, and 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 interesting object of study.
+
+A glance at its familiar face reveals its unequal illumination.
+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 [Page
+152] 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 behind 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 visible 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 behind, 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 576/1000 of the moon's surface. Our eyes
+will never see the other side of the moon. If, now, being solid,
+her axial revolution could [Page 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 revolutions 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 beyond its centre of magnitude, which is the same
+in effect 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 29-1/2 times as long
+as ours. The sun shines unintermittingly for fifteen days, raising a
+temperature as fervid as boiling 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 gibbous--to the moon as the moon does to us, and for the same
+causes. Lord Rosse 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 extremes of temperature should
+shun a lunar residence. The moon gives us only 1/6180000 as much
+light as the sun. A sky full of moons would scarcely make daylight.
+
+[Page 154]
+[Illustration: Fig. 58.--View of the Moon near the Third Quarter.
+From a Photograph by Professor Henry Draper.]
+
+There are no indications of air or water on the moon. When it occults
+a star it instantly shuts off the light and as instantly reveals
+it again. An atmosphere would gradually diminish and reveal the
+light, and by refraction [Page 155] cause the star to be hidden 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 substance.
+
+_Telescopic Appearance._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Illumination of Craters and Peaks.]
+
+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 gravitation 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 cavities three miles deep
+remain unfilled. The light of the sun falling on the rough body
+of the moon, shown in section (Fig. 59), illuminates the whole
+cavity at _a_, part of the one at _b_, 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 _c_. comes directly under
+the sun and casts no shadow, and mountain _d_ casts its long shadow
+over the plain. Knowing the time of revolution, and observing the
+change of [Page 156] illumination, we can easily measure the height
+of mountain and depth of crater. An apple, with excavations and
+added prominences, revolved on its axis toward the 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 crescent forms to the right, showing cavities
+in abundance.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Lunar Crater "Copernicus," after Secchi.]
+
+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,
+[Page 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 discoveries 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 1/81 of the mass of the earth, has
+twenty-eight mountains that are higher than Mont Blanc, that "monarch
+of mountains," in Europe.
+
+_Eclipses._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Eclipses; Shadows of Earth and Moon.]
+
+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 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 [Page 158] not
+cross the disk of the sun at every revolution, because 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 orbit were pulled
+up one-quarter of an inch from the page behind the earth, and
+depressed as much below it between the earth and the sun. The point
+where the orbit 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 partially hide the sun; and, if it cover
+the centre, leave a ring of sunlight on every side. This is called
+an annular 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 position after the earth has made
+about eighteen revolutions, [Page 159] and the moon two hundred and
+sixteen--that is, eighteen years after. This period, however, is
+disregarded 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 or war; Its sign [Symbol], spear and shield.
+
+MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 141,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 4211 MILES.
+REVOLUTION, AXIAL, 24H. 37M. 22.7S.; ORBITAL, 686.98 DAYS. VELOCITY
+PER MINUTE, 899 MILES. SATELLITES, TWO.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 62.--Apparent Size of Mars at Mean and Extreme
+Distances.]
+
+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 exceedingly variable; sometimes
+it scintillates, and sometimes it shines with a steady light. Its
+marked peculiarities 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 154,000,000;
+hence its mean distance is about 141,000,000. So great a change
+in its distance from the sun easily 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 conjunction within 49,000,000
+miles of each other, and at opposition be 233,000,000 miles apart.
+But Mars at perihelion may be only 128,000,000 miles from the sun,
+and earth at [Page 160] 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). 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 planet. The first thing that
+strikes the observer is a dazzling spot of white near the pole which
+happens to be toward him, or at both poles when the planet is so
+situated that they can be seen. When the north pole is turned toward
+the sun the size of the spot sensibly diminishes, 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 [Page 161] than those of the north pole
+in its summer. This carrying 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 unknown. 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. Perhaps 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 11th, 1877, is famous in modern astronomy.
+Mars has been a special object of study in all ages; but on that
+evening Professor Hall, of Washington, 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 calculated 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 soon emerged which proved
+to be an inner satellite. This is extraordinarily near [Page 162]
+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 surpassing 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 12,579 miles from Mars,
+and makes its revolution in 30h. 18m. Its diameter is six and a
+quarter miles; that of the inner one is seven and a half miles. This
+can be estimated only by the amount of light given.
+
+
+ASTEROIDS.
+
+ALREADY DISCOVERED (1879), 192. 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 commence work, Piazzi, an Italian astronomer of Palermo, [Page
+163] found in Taurus a star behaving like a planet. In six weeks it
+was lost in the rays 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. Olbers
+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.
+
+[Page 164]
+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 astronomical observation.
+
+
+JUPITER.
+
+The king of the gods; sign [Symbol], the bird of Jove.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, PERIHELION, 457,000,000 MILES; APHELION,
+503,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, EQUATORIAL, 87,500 MILES; POLAR, 82,500
+MILES. VOLUME, 1300 EARTHS. MASS, 213 EARTHS. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 9H.
+55M 20S. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, 11 YEARS 317 DAYS. VELOCITY, 483.6
+MILES PER MINUTE.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Jupiter as seen by the great Washington
+Telescope. Drawn by Mr. Holden.]
+
+Jupiter rightly wears the name of the "giant planet." His orbit
+is more nearly circular than most smaller planets. He could not
+turn short corners with facility. We know little of his surface.
+His spots and belts are [Page 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 tempests are probably not violent. It is,
+however, a singular 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 everyone 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. Galileo 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
+representation of their appearance at successive observations 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, [Page 166] be occulted, emerge from shadow,
+and eclipse the planet, in an hour's watching.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 64.--_a._ Various Positions of Jupiter's Moons;
+_b._ Greatest Elongation of each Satellite.]
+
+                ELEMENTS OF JUPITER'S SATELLITES.
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |               | Mean Distance |                  |          |
+ |               | from Jupiter. | Sidereal Period. | Diameter.|
+ |               |---------------+------------------+----------|
+ |               |     Miles.    |  Days Hrs. Min.  |  Miles.  |
+ |   I. Io       |     260,000   |    1   18   28   |   2,352  |
+ |  II. Europa   |     414,000   |    3   13   43   |   2,099  |
+ | III. Ganymede |     661,000   |    7    3   59   |   3,436  |
+ |  IV. Callisto |   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 IV. 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 water on them. The mass of all
+of them is .000171 of Jupiter.
+
+[Page 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
+forty-five miles a minute, holding four other worlds in steady
+orbits, some of them at a speed of seven hundred miles a minute,
+and the whole system carried through space at five hundred 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 or time; sign [Symbol], his scythe.
+
+MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 881,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR,
+66,500 MILES; EQUATORIAL, 73,300 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 10H.
+14M. PERIODIC TIME, 29T 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 are set; it has exercised its
+ingenuity at interpreting 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 65.--View of Saturn and his Rings.]
+
+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 [Page 168] 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 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 getting
+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 10h. 16m., that of Mr. Hall being
+10h. 14m.
+
+[Page 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 formative 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 problem 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 peculiar 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 handles 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, [Page 170]
+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 another 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. Enceladus, 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 furnishes 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 discovery,
+when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge, and Dawes, with
+his 6-1/3-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 needed, 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."[*]
+
+[Footnote *: Lockyer.]
+
+Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. As the earth at
+one part of its orbit presents its south pole [Page 171] to the sun,
+then its equator, then the north pole, so Saturn; 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 being in Taurus, the south
+side of the rings will be seen at the greatest advantage. From 1881
+till 1885 all circumstances 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 division, 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
+telescopic 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. [Page 172]
+Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be uniform and
+solid, and survive. Professor Peirce showed 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. Indeed, 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, father 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 III., only
+by the most powerful instrument. All except Japetus revolve nearly
+in the plane of the ring. Like the moons of Jupiter, they present
+remarkable and unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection
+[Page 173] of the table reveals either an expectation that another
+moon will be discovered between V. and VI., and about three more
+between VII. and VIII., 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 enable him
+to watch the advancing line of light that marks the lunar morning
+journeying round that orb.
+
+
+URANUS.
+
+Sign [Symbol]; the initial of Herschel, and sign of the world.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 1,771,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 31,700 MILES.
+AXIAL REVOLUTION UNKNOWN. ORBITAL, 84 YEARS. VELOCITY 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
+[Page 174] 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 century before--and eight times by
+Le Monnier. These names, which might easily have been associated
+with a grand discovery, are associated with careless observation.
+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 difficulty 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 continuing 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 [Page 175]
+retrograde. 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 [Symbol], his trident.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 2,775,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 34,500 MILES.
+VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 201.6 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION 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 observations. On applying the law of universal
+gravitation, a slight discrepancy was found between its computed
+place and its observed place. This discrepancy was exceedingly
+slight. In 1830 it was only 20"; in 1840,190"; in 1884, 2'. Two
+stars that were 2' apart would appear as one to the keenest unaided
+eye, but such 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 irregularities, 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. Another
+opportunity for immortality was heedlessly neglected. Meanwhile,
+M. Leverrier, of Paris, was working at the same problem. In the
+summer of 1846 Leverrier announced the place of the exterior planet.
+The conclusion was in striking coincidence with that of Mr. [Page
+176] Clark. 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
+sought-for world. It would seem easy to find a world seventy-six
+times as large as the earth, and easy to recognize it when seen. The
+fact that it could be discovered only by such care conveys an
+overwhelming idea of the distance where it moves.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Perturbation of Uranus.]
+
+The effect of these perturbations by an exterior planet is understood
+from Fig. 66. Uranus and Neptune were 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 hastening Uranus in his orbit D
+from C to B, and also 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 little, and that the observations did not agree;
+but, supposing the first was wrong, carelessly missed the glory
+of once more doubling the bounds of the empire of the sun.
+
+[Page 177]
+It is time to pause and review our knowledge of this system. The
+first view reveals a moon and earth endowed 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 tendency
+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-four 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 gravity, 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,
+Venus, 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 13,000 earths. It holds Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and
+all their variously related satellites and rings. The two thoughts
+that overwhelm us are distance and power. The period of [Page 178]
+man's whole history is not sufficient for an express train to
+traverse half the distance to Neptune. Thought wearies 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 outermost of
+planets, the very last sentinel of the outposts of the king, the
+very sun grown dim and small in the distance, we have taken only one
+step of the infinite distance to the stars. They have not changed
+their relative position--they have not grown brighter by our
+approach. 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 almightiness than we are able to
+think.
+
+If we cannot solve the problems of the present existence 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 difficulty 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 179]
+IX.
+
+THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+
+"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
+the face of the deep."--_Genesis_ i. 2.
+
+[Page 180]
+                                "A dark
+    Illimitable ocean, without bound,
+    Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
+    And time, and place are lost."--MILTON.
+
+"It is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and
+arranged; 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 181]
+IX.
+
+_THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS._
+
+The method by which the solar system came into its present form
+was sketched in vast outline by Moses. He gave us the fundamental
+idea of what is called the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that
+prodigal dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conjectures 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, declaring
+the modes of a divine worker rather than the necessities 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 [Page 182] 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 observer. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system of the
+sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and
+dominion of an intelligent and powerful being!" Still it is well to
+recognize that some of its most ardent defenders have advocated it
+as materialistic. 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 Divine Worker than any other theory. He must fill
+matter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would
+tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a constant
+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 endow 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 matter composing
+all the bodies of the sun, planets, and satellites once existed
+in an exceedingly diffused state; [Page 183] rarer than any gas with
+which we are acquainted, filling a space larger than the orbit of
+Neptune. 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. Rotation 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 gradually 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 Neptune 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 planet-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 Vulcan.
+
+The outer planets would cool off first, become inhabitable, 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 Vulcan.
+
+The four great classes of facts confirmatory of this hypothesis
+are as follows: 1st. All the planets move [Page 184] 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 nebulæ are observable in the heavens
+which are not yet condensed 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 related, 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 indefinite, 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 evolutionist may think that the same
+process is gone through, but that an ever-present and working God
+superintends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endowment
+of power that successively gives life, consciousness, mental,
+affectional, and spiritual capacity.
+
+Is this world-theory true? and if so, is either of the [Page 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 acceptance 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 Newcomb,
+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
+nebulæ be actually 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. Helmholtz, in order to account for the heat of the
+contracting 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 [Page 186] 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 Neptune,
+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
+existence of which must be assumed." Professor Newcomb 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 satellite does
+not revolve in the right direction. How Neptune 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 discovered 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 [Page 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 rotate on their axes than for their nearest
+moon to revolve round them in its orbit; this would have falsified
+the theory." It is also asserted that the newly discovered 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
+argument 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 Groombridge, 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 nebulæ which we are able to observe are not altogether confirmatory
+of the hypothesis under consideration. 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 Review_, [Page 188]
+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 density, 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 question of world-making. Its
+spectrum was like some of the fixed stars. It probably blazed ont
+by condensation from some previously invisible nebula. But its
+brilliancy 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 possible 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 explained, 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, Newcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that
+cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be reconciled 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.
+
+[Page 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 evolution 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 been 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 occasional new
+inspiration of power, finds some tremendous chasms in the road
+it travels. These must be spanned by the power of a present God
+or the airy imagination [Page 190] of man. Dr. McCosh 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 mechanical power.
+
+"2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be produced from unorganized
+matter.
+
+"3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living matter.
+
+"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 entertain these by any training.
+
+[Page 191]
+"With such tremendous gaps in the process, the theory which would
+derive all things out of matter by development 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 conceivable to
+the mind of man, with which it can possibly be endowed, can account
+for all the facts already observed. 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 193]
+X.
+
+THE STELLAR SYSTEM.
+
+"The heavens number out the glory of the strong God."--DAVID.
+
+[Page 194]
+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 infinity, 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 appeared,
+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 transformed, 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
+ont: '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 eternities, 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 beginning.'"
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 allusions 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 colonized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; and
+nightly over them marched the grand procession of their apotheosized
+divinities. There Hercules perpetually 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 explored all strange seas
+of earth, nightly sailed in the infinite 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 [Page 196]
+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
+situated right ascension 13' 45", 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 Chatauqua. For exact
+location of a star, right ascension and declination must be given;
+but for general indication 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 preserved.
+The brightest stars are then indicated in order by the letters of
+the Greek alphabet--Alpha (a), Beta (b), Gamma (g), etc. After
+these are exhausted, the Roman alphabet is used in the same manner,
+and then numbers are resorted to; so that the famous star 61 Cygni
+is the 111th star in brightness in that one constellation. An
+acquaintance with the names, peculiarities, and movements of the
+stars visible at different seasons of the year is an unceasing
+source of pleasure. It [Page 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 uttereth unto day, and
+the knowledge 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 successive 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 attempted;
+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 horizon
+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 ae, Mizar z, Little Alcor close to it,
+[Page 198] Alioth, e Megrez, d at the junction, has been growing
+dimmer for a century, Phad, g Dubhe and Merak. It is best to get
+some facility at estimating distances in degrees. Dubhe and Merak,
+"the Pointers," are five degrees 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. Follow "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
+degrees 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 Hercules stands on this head. This
+is the Dragon slain by Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such a crop
+of sanguinary 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 Vega; 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 [Page 199] of stars, but a change in the
+direction of the axis of the earth pointing to these various places
+as the cycles 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 discernible 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 stem of the spinning top wavers, describes a circle, and
+finally falls; the axis of the spinning earth wavers, describes a
+circle of nearly 28,000 years, and never falls.
+
+The star g 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 displacement of a star from this course is about 20".43.
+
+[Page 200]
+On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is King Cepheus,
+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 graceless 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 Medusa, 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.
+Nothing 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 invisible at will; Minerva loaned
+her buckler, impenetrable, 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible.
+In this position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at
+9 o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]
+
+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 every
+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 [Page 201] 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.
+
+[Page 202]
+[Illustration: 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 November, 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. b and the
+two above mark the girdle of her loins, and g 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 V-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.
+
+[Page 203]
+[Illustration: 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, g, represents his shield of the
+Nemean lion's hide. The three stars of his belt make a measure
+3° long; the upper one, Mintaker, is less than 30' south of the
+equinoctial. 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 August. Procyon rises about half an
+hour earlier.
+
+[Page 204]
+[Illustration: Fig. 70--Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79° south
+from the Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and
+at 8 o'clock April 23d.]
+
+Fig. 70 continues eastward. Note the sickle in the head and neck
+of the Lion. The star b 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 g in the
+Virgin is double, with a period of 145 years. z is just above the
+equinoctial. There is a fine nebula two-thirds of the way from d to
+ae, and a little above the line connecting the two. Coma Berenices
+is a beautiful 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.
+
+[Page 205]
+[Illustration: Fig. 7l.--Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70° from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8
+o'clock June 25th.]
+
+Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and northward of the
+last. A line drawn from Polaris and Benetnasch comes east of Arcturus
+to the little triangle called his sons. Bootes drives the Great
+Bear round the pole. Arcturus and Denebola make a triangle with
+a, also called Cor Coroli, 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, b, g, d; in his shoulders, p; and ae; in the loins, t 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 g of Hercules, and
+the partial circle of the Northern Crown above. The head of Draco
+is seen at b 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;
+Regulus 3h. 35m. Earlier.
+
+[Page 206]
+[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Altair comes to the Meridian, 82° from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock P.M. August 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. Vega is at the top of the map. Near
+it observe z, a double, and e, a quadruple star. The point to which
+the solar system is tending is marked by the sign of the earth
+below p; Herculis. The Serpent, west of Hercules, and coiled round
+nearly to Aquila, is very traceable. In the right-hand lower corner
+is the Centaur. Below, and always out of our sight, is the famous
+a Centauri. The diamond form of the Dolphin is sometimes called
+"Job's Coffin." The ecliptic passes close [Page 207] to b 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17°
+from the horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.]
+
+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. b 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 Alpharetz,
+in Andromeda. The star below Altair is b Aquilæ, and is called
+Alschain; the one above is g Aquilæ, named Tarazed. This 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 11th of January.
+
+[Page 208]
+[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Southern Circumpolar Constellations invisible
+north of the Equator.]
+
+Fig. 74 gives the stars that are never seen by persons north of
+the earth's equator. In the Ship is brilliant Canopus, and the
+remarkable variable ae. Below it is the beautiful Southern Cross,
+near the pole of the southern heavens. Just below are the two first
+magnitude stars Bungala, a, and Achernar, b, 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 reveals no sign of light. Here, also, are the
+two Magellanic 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.
+
+[Page 209]
+For easy out-door finding of the stars above the horizon 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 anciently 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 little lights were turned by
+clumsy machinery, held together 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
+monsters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and unity; all
+worlds carried by one force, and all harmonized 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.
+
+[Page 210]
+_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 tastimetre
+feels their heat, and tells us the word of their Maker is true--"they
+are innumerable."[*]
+
+[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Look at the Hyades and Pleiades
+in Taurus. Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find
+the cluster Præsepe 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 observe the distribution of stars; in some places
+perfect crowds, in others 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._
+
+If we look up during the summer months nearly overhead at the star
+e Lyra, east of Vega (Fig. 72), we shall see with the naked eye
+that the star appears a little [Page 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
+direction 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 x in the Great Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in
+fifty-eight years.
+
+Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the presence 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 [Page 212] 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 telescope to show
+any distance between the stars.[*]
+
+[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Only such work will be laid out
+here as can be done by small telescopes of from two to four inch
+object-glasses. The numbers in Fig. 75 correspond to those of the
+table.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+|   |            |             |Dist. of|Magni-|                     |
+|No.|     Name.  |     Fig.    | Parts. |tudes.|       Remarks.      |
+|---|------------|-------------|--------|------|---------------------|
+| 1.| e Lyræ     |      72     | 1' 56" |      |Quadruple.           |
+| 2.| z Lyræ     |      72     |    44  |5 & 6 |Topaz and green.     |
+| 3.| b Cygni    |      73     |  34-1/2|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     |  18-1/2|2 & 9 |Test object of eye   |
+|   |            |             |        |      | and glass.          |
+| 7.| r Orionis  |Frontispiece.|     7  |5 & 8 |Yellow and blue.     |
+| 8.| b Orionis  |      "      |     9  |1 & 8 | Rigel.              |
+| 9.| d    "     |      "      |    10  |2 & 8 | Red and white.      |
+|10.| th   "     |      "      |        |      |Septuple.            |
+|11.| l    "     |      "      |     5  |      |White and violet.    |
+|12.| s    "     |      " A, B.|    11  |4 & 10|Octuple.             |
+|13.| Castor     |      69     |   5-1/2|2 & 3 |White.               |
+|14.| Pollux     |      69     |        |Triple|Orange, gray, lilac. |
+|15.| g Virginis |      70     |     5  |3 & 3 |Both yellow.         |
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+]
+
+When g Virginis was observed in 1718 by Bradley, the component
+parts were 7" asunder. He incidentally remarked in his note-book
+that the line of their connection was parallel to the line of the
+two stars Spica, or a and d Virginis. By 1840 they were not more
+than 1" 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 conjectural [Page 213] orbit, placed obliquely, and the
+position of the stars at the times mentioned, commencing at the top.
+The time of its complete revolution is one hundred and fifty years.
+
+[Illustration: 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 planets, as doubtless they have, the movement
+is no more complicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn
+revolving about their central body, 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 Neptunes 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,
+[Page 214]
+according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the octuple star
+s in Orion differs in no respect from our system, except in the
+size and distance of its separate bodies, 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
+preposterous 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,
+and an infinite number in the course of preparation. Some are fine
+and lasting enough to be eternal mansions.
+
+_Colored Stars._
+
+In the cloudy 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, Vega, 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 special development of anyone substance thereof
+at any time, may determine the color of a star.
+
+[Page 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 intensity 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 Sirius 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. Everyone has
+noticed the Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of compacted
+stars. It is not supposed that they are necessarily nearer together
+than the stars in the sparse regions about the pole. But the 18,000,000
+suns belonging to our system are arranged within a space represented
+by a flattened disk. If one hundred lights, three inches apart,
+are arranged on a hoop ten feet in diameter, they would be in a
+circle. Add a thousand or two more the same distance apart, filling
+up the centre, and [Page 216] 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 arrangement was the result of a revolution of
+all the suns composing the system. Jupiter and earth are flattened
+at the poles for the same reason.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Sprayed Cluster below ae in Hercules.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 77.--Globular Cluster.]
+
+In various parts of the heavens there are small globular well-defined
+clusters, 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 cluster,
+o 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, affects
+it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth
+[Page 217]
+magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imagined."
+
+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 way 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.
+
+_Nebulæ._
+
+The gorgeous clusters we have been considering appear 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 spectroscope,
+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
+nebulæ are visible 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 th Orionis into the
+famous trapezium, and a nine-inch instrument 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. Nebulæ are of all conceivable
+shapes--circular, annular, oval, lenticular, [Page 218] conical,
+spiral, snake-like, looped, and nameless. Compare the sprays of the
+Crab nebulæ above z Tauri, 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 b and g Lyræ.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 78.--The great Nebula about the multiple Star
+th Orionis. (See Frontispiece.)]
+
+When Herschel was sweeping the heavens with his telescope, and
+saw but few stars, he often said to his assistant, "Prepare to
+write; the nebulæ 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 celestial
+sphere; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine-tenths
+[Page 219]
+of the stars in this zone, and but one-tenth of the nebulæ.
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Crab Nebula, near z Tauri. (See Frontispiece.)]
+
+There are many unsolved problems connected with these strange bodies.
+Whether they belong to our system, or are beyond it, is not settled;
+the weight of evidence leans to the first view.
+
+[Page 220]
+_Variable Stars._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 80.--The Ring Nebula.]
+
+Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing through a period
+of eleven years. Probably every star, if examined by methods
+sufficiently delicate and exact, would be found to be variable.
+The variations of some [Page 221] stars are so marked as to
+challenge investigation. b Lyræ (Fig. 81) has two maxima and minima
+of light. In three days it rises from magnitude 4-1/2 to 3-1/2; in a
+week falls to 4, and rises to 3-1/2; and in three days more drops to
+4-1/2: 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Constellation Lyra, showing place of the
+Ring Nebula.]
+
+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
+lost to sight; going down even to the eleventh magnitude. But after
+five months its resurrection morning mes; and in three months
+more--eleven months in all--our Wonderful is in its full glory
+in the heavens. It its period and brilliancy are also variable.
+The star Megrez, d in the Great Bear, has been growing dim [Page
+222] 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, shutting off their light; they may rotate, and have
+unequally 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 [Page 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, up and down, to and
+from us--changes in the intensity of illumination by changes of
+distance--besides variations occurring at regular and ascertainable
+intervals, there are stars called _temporary_, shining awhile and
+then disappearing; _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 Cassiopeia. Its place
+is shown in Fig. 67, ch g being the stars
+
+  d    *
+   g ch
+
+in the seat of the chair, and d being the first one 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 opportunities [Page 224]
+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 plenty 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
+[Page 225] degree in a month? Besides, there would not be one chance
+in a thousand for two orbs to come directly together. They would
+revolve about each other till a kind of grazing contact of grinding
+worlds would slowly kindle the ultimate heat.
+
+It is far more likely that this star encountered an enormous stream
+of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorbed 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.
+Allusion 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, following 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 hemisphere 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 resemble 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 extraordinary
+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 [Page 226] of the other having faded, the regular light of
+the glowing 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 rainbow 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 undiscernible light, surrounded
+by a discernible immensity 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 November, 1876. But a rapid
+cooling dissipates the observable 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 necessary 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 diameter, 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. Hercules's brawny limbs grow brawnier
+every century. There can be but one cause: we are approaching that
+quarter of the heavens. (See [Symbol], Fig. 72.) We are even [Page
+227] able to compute the velocity of our approach; it is four miles
+a second. The stars in the opposite quarter of the heavens in Argo
+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 apparent 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 observe them that it has taken
+an accumulation of centuries 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 Hunting 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 evidently related together.
+A large proportion of the brighter stars between Aldebaran and
+the Pleiades have a common motion eastward of about ten seconds
+a century. All the angles marked by a, b, g, ch Orionis will be
+altered in different directions; l is moving toward g. l and e
+will appear as a double star. In A.D. 50,000 Procyon will be nearer
+ch Orionis than Rigel now is, and Sirius will be in line with a and
+ch Orionis. All the stars of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch
+and Dubhe, have a common motion somewhat in the direction [Page 228]
+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, and the handle will be broken square
+off at Mizar. "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 understand 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 loan, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 229]
+XI.
+
+THE WORLDS AND THE WORD.
+
+"The worlds were framed by the word of God."--_Heb._ xi., 3.
+
+[Page 230]
+  "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 dew,
+  Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
+  Hesperus, with all the host of heaven, came,
+  And lo! creation widened in man's view.
+  Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
+  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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 231]
+XI.
+
+_THE WORLDS AND THE WORD._
+
+Men have found the various worlds to be far richer 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
+increasing 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 inexhaustible?
+
+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 crystal 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! Nay, 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 widening river of life in his Word? As we
+believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has
+[Page 232] 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 scientific truth far in advance
+of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand
+its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations:
+
+The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things
+had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in
+the realms of physics, arguments 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, coaled,
+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.
+
+[Page 233]
+It is a recently discovered truth of science that the trata 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 prepared 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 recognize 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 waters; 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 century, of himself, "He sitteth upon
+the sphere of the earth" (Gesenius).
+
+Men racked their feeble wits for expedients to uphold [Page 234] the
+earth, and the best they could devise were serpents, 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. Hipparchus 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." Science has appliances
+of enumeration unknown to other ages, but the space-penetrating
+telescopes and tastimeters reveal more worlds--eighteen millions
+in a single system, and systems beyond count--till men acknowledge
+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 received with
+incredulity. For ages the air had propelled ships, thrust itself
+against the bodies of men, and overturned 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 fluctuations and
+variations of the weather have hitherto baffled all attempts at
+unravelling them. It has seemed that there was no law in their
+fickle changes. But at length perseverance and skill have triumphed,
+and a single man in one place predicts the weather and winds [Page
+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 according 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.
+Copernicus declared it early; God earlier.
+
+No 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 had 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_ [Page 236] 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 planets, 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 em bodied 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 human 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 [Page 237] answer. We
+trace it up through the worlds, till its increasing fineness, its
+growing power, and possible identity 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 piercing 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 measurably subservient to
+mind. Hence we partly understand 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 mastered. 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 Scriptures, "God
+is spirit."
+
+We ask in vain what is the end of the present condition 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 with [Page 238] a rushing noise, and the elements will be
+dissolved with burning heat, and the earth and the works therein
+will be burned up." 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 substance, its ultimate fall into the sun is
+certain. Whether 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. Peters description,
+however, seems rather to indicate an interference 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 experiment, of trial, of examining the
+actual, instead of imagining 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 favorable circumstances, there
+must be faith. The faith of [Page 239] science is amazing; its
+assertions of the supersensual are astounding. It affirms a thousand
+things that cannot be physically demonstrated: that the flight of a
+rifle-ball is parabolic; that the earth has poles; that gages are
+made of particles; that there are atoms; that an electric 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 activities are about us, for the perception of which we
+need a hundred senses instead of five. These faiths have nearly 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 lay her bow and arrows by,
+  And aim 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 contracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all
+encircling space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars invisible
+by the largest telescope enters the tastimeter, 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 [Page 240] 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 building 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 refinement; 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 astrapton (Luke xxiv.
+4), shining with an inner light. They also look for new heavens and
+a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit for perfect beings.
+
+When God made matter, so far as our thought permits 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 restore 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. [Page
+241] 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 glides
+  Into his darker musings with a mild
+  And gentle sympathy, that steals away
+  Their sharpness ere he 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 catastrophic changes to a perfect
+world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass.
+He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable,
+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 imagine, 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 [Page 242] should there not be a
+finer universe than this, and disconnected 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
+discovery that what men once thought to be empty space is more
+intensely active than the coarser forms of matter 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. What
+a whisper 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 creatures. Neither is it
+possible to imagine an order of beings generically higher to be
+connected with the conditions of the material world. This whole
+secret was 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 man 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. [Page 243] 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 darkness 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, Scripture 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, gentleness, 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 already. One confined, dark, peculiarly
+nourished, slightly conscious; then he was born into another--wide,
+differently nourished, and intensely [Page 244] conscious. He knows
+he may be born again into a life wider yet, differently nourished,
+and even yet more intensely conscious. Science has no hint how a
+long ascending series of developments crowned by man may advance
+another step, and make man isaggelos--equal to angels. But the
+simplest teaching of Scripture points out a way so clear that a
+child need not miss the glorious 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, when 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 attracting 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 tortured, 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
+bodies 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 absorbed [Page 245] 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 power 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 departments, 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 teacher
+who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 247]
+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 things
+became by him, and without him was not anything made that was made
+* * * and by him all things stand together."
+
+[Page 248]
+ "O thou eternal one; whose presence blight
+  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."
+                                     DERZHAVIN.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 beauty; 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 two hundred and forty pounds to the
+cubic foot, one hundred 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
+hundreds of miles before it could be there. You have heard Niagara's
+thunder; have stood beneath the falling immensity; 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
+[Page 250] water had to be lifted by main force, had 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 thundering 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,
+and held it day and night for months. It toiled and grew under the
+growing weight, compacting its substance like oak to do the work.
+All over the earth this tremendous 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 in 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 [Page 251] flame seethes and
+burns, and rolls and vivifies a dozen worlds, and flashes life along
+the starry spaces for a million 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 instead of one--everyone would be as fully
+supplied with power from this central source. More. Fill the whole
+dome, the entire extent of the surrounding sphere, bottom, sides,
+top, a sphere one hundred and eighty-five million miles in diameter,
+and everyone of these uncountable worlds would be touched with the
+same power 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 alphabet in geometrical ratio; and then in the
+clustered suns, galaxies, and nebulæ, power enough still
+unrepresented by single letters to require all combinations of the
+alphabet of power. What is the significance of this single element
+of power? The answer of science to-day is "correlation," the
+constant evolution of one force from another. 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 [Page
+252] 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, nebulæ, concretionary vortices, and revolving
+fire-mist--there must always be mind and will beyond. Some of that
+willpower 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 thunderous 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 ceaseless changes, and its maker is henceforth
+an absentee God. Is it? Let us have courage to see. For twenty
+years one devotes ten seconds every night to putting 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
+[Page 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 connection, is inconceivable.
+
+Newton said that anyone who has in philosophical matters a competent
+faculty of thinking, could not admit for a moment the possibility
+of a sun reaching through millions of miles, and exercising there
+an attractive 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 Herschel's statement. "It is but reasonable to regard gravity
+as a result of a consciousness 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 upholdeth constantly
+all things by the word of his power. [Page 254] By him all things
+consist or hold together. It teaches 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
+deteriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boiler, 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 receive it, and takes it swift as light can leap. We
+said that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in five
+thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million. How can it?
+There have been various theories: chemical 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
+unclouded 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 follow: 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
+gravity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attractive
+power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing; in [Page 255] a few
+places at worlds. Every world must exert an infinitely extended
+power, but myriads of infinities cannot 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 consideration 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 inside of an
+inch. But we are here looking at mountain ridges and valleys, not
+atoms. Gold can be beaten to the 1/340000 of an inch. It can be
+drawn as the coating of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the
+1/340000000 of an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon
+another.
+
+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 sweep
+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 diminished. [Page 256] 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 materialists preposterously endow it. It is impenetrable
+and indivisible, though some atoms are a hundred times larger than
+others. Each has definite shape; some one shape, and some another.
+They differ in weight, in quantity of combining power, in quality
+of combining power. They combine with different substances, in
+certain exact assignable quantities. Thus one atom of hydrogen
+combines with eighty of bromine, one hundred and sixty of mercury,
+two hundred and forty of boron, three hundred and twenty of silicon,
+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, sewers 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, dryad,
+univalent, perissad, quadrivalent, and twenty other terms, each
+expressing some endowment of power in this in visible atom. Refer
+to one more presumed ability, an ability [Page 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 greatly increasing its bulk, some actually
+diminishing it. A philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen
+and hydrogen 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 four hundred millions of
+light-waves a second. And now, more preposterous than all, each
+atom has an attractive 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 Concord 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 conscious, 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 water,
+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 [Page 258] 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 apparent and at work. If, then, such a
+thing as an infinite 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 perhaps
+knowledge, set aside a little from himself, still possessed somewhat
+of his personal attributes, still responsive 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 nothing out of which the
+world could be made, but God himself; and, reverently be it said,
+matter seems to retain 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 impossible 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 understand 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 Romans he says--"For out of
+him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory
+forever. Amen."
+
+[Page 259]
+God's intimate relation to matter is explained. No wonder the forces
+respond to his will; no wonder pantheism--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
+migrating 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 solitudes, and say:
+
+                       "Father, thy hand
+  Hath reared these venerable columns: Thou
+  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.
+
+[Page 260]
+Philosophy has seen the vast machine of the universe, wheel within
+wheel, in countless numbers and hopeless intricacy. But it has
+not had the spiritual insight of Ezekiel to see that they were
+everyone of them full of eyes--God's own emblem of the omniscient
+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 fragments 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 instruments. The rootlets seize the sand and turn
+it to soil, to woody fibre, leafy verdure, blooming flowers, and
+delicious 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 strengthless and dead, there is,
+somehow, in nature a tremendous 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 dismal silence, cold beyond measure, and dead beyond
+consciousness. The philosopher has wailed a dirge without [Page 261]
+hope, a requiem without grandeur, over the world's future. But
+nature herself, to all ears attuned, sings pæans, 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 unexpendable forces must abide. Nature filled with
+unexpendable 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 powers are constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome; higher 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 gravitation. 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 rain bows 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
+[Page 262] to comprehend. The water is solid, liquid, gaseous on
+earth, and in air according to the grade of power operating 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 discovery or creation, there are still higher class forces to
+be made available. Once there was no air, no usable electricity.
+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 man could not read
+in ten years the library of books created in that time concerning
+the sun. But though we have solved certain problems and mysteries,
+the mysteries have increased 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
+[Page 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 becoming flesh, and of all
+high forces constitutionally arranged for mastery over lower. Take
+the ore from the mountain. It is loose, friable, worthless in
+itself. Raise it in capacity to cast-iron, 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 human 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 immanent God makes a plastic world.
+
+When man shall have mastered the forces that now exist, the original
+Creator and Sustainer will say, "Behold, I create all things new."
+Nature shall be called nearer to God, be more full of his power.
+To the long-wandering Æneas, his divine mother sometimes came to
+cheer his heart and to direct his steps. But the goddess only showed
+herself divine by her departure; only when he stood in desolation
+did the hero know he had [Page 264] 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 refinement 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
+refinement 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 conversation and
+godliness, looking for and hastening the coming [Page 265] of the
+day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
+and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we,
+according to his promise, 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 prostrate provinces till Victor Emanuel came,
+then they were developed into united Italy. The prostrate provinces
+of matter are not developed until the man is victor, 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 transformation 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 elements and builds the body,
+holds them separate until life withdraws. More life means higher
+being. Certainly 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 blazing eye--live lion--and pawing to get
+free. We have seen winged spirits yet linked to forms of clay,
+but beating 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
+lias already been made. Man has already outgrown his harmony with
+the environment of mere matter. He has given his hand to science, and
+been lifted up above the earth into the voids of infinite space. He
+[Page 266] has gone on and on, till thought, wearied amidst the
+infinities 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 materiel 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 feeling: every creature--not
+the whole creation--groaneth and travaileth in pain together until
+now, waiting for the adoption--the uplifting from orphanage to
+parentage--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 become 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 knowledge converge
+as they go out toward the infinite mystery; 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.
+
+Then 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 [Page 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 began, 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, perfection of abode is
+offered. Perfection of inhabitant is necessary; and as the creative
+power is everywhere present for the various uplifts and refinements
+of matter, it is everywhere present with appropriate power for
+the uplifting and refinement of mind and spirit.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 269]
+SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+_Movements on the Sun._--The discovery and measurement of the up-rush,
+down-rush, and whirl of currents about the sunspots, 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 following
+table shows this movement of stars, so far as at present known:
+
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+|        APROACHING.           ||          RECEDING.            |
+|------------------------------||-------------------------------|
+|  Map. |   Name.   |   Rate   ||  Map.  |   Name.   |  Rate    |
+|       |           | per sec. ||        |           | per sec. |
+|-------|-----------|----------||--------|-----------|----------|
+|Fig. 71|Arcturus   | 55 miles ||Fig. 69 |Sirius     | 20 miles |
+| "   72|Vega       | 50   "   ||Fr'piece|Betelguese | 22   "   |
+| "   73|a Cygni    | 39   "   ||    "   |Rigel      | 15   "   |
+| "   69|Pollux     | 49   "   ||Fig. 69 |Castor     | 25   "   |
+| "   67|Dubhe      | 46   "   || "   70 |Regulus    | 15   "   |
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+
+_Sun's Appearance._--This was formerly supposed to be an even,
+regular, dazzling brightness, except where the spots appeared.
+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 innumerable number of small spots. This
+appearance of the general surface is well portrayed in the cut
+on page 92.
+
+_Close Relation between 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 [Page 270] 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 "Encyclopædia Britannica," 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 perfect determination of the sun's distance.
+
+Since the earth's distance is our astronomical unit of measure, 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 discovery
+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, [Page 271] 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, antimony, 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 nebulæ 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._--Vulcan, the planet nearest the sun
+(page 138). The two satellites of Mars were discovered by Mr. Hall,
+U. S. Naval Observatory, August 11th, 1877 (page 161). "The outer
+one is called Diemas; 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Horizontal Pendulum.]
+
+_The Horizontal Pendulum._--This delicate instrument is [Page 272]
+represented 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 slightest influence.
+The least change in the level of a base thirty-nine inches long that
+could be detected by a spirit-level is 0".1 of an arc--equal to
+raising one end 1/2068 of an inch. But the pendulum detects a
+raising of one end 1/36000000 of an inch. To observe the movements
+of the pendulum, 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 enormously magnified, and read and
+measured 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 either is exactly overhead or
+underfoot, of course there is no deflection. The mean deflection
+caused by the moon at rising or setting is 0".0174; by the sun,
+0".008. Great results are expected from this instrument hardly known
+as yet: among others, whether gravitation acts instantly 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.
+
+[Page 273]
+_Light of Unseen Stars._--From careful examination, it appears
+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 American 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 Newcomb'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 theories of
+these planets. * * * A few years ago the remark was frequently 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 planets shall stand the test of observation.
+But, after all, such a condition of things is only the natural
+result of long and accurate series of observations, which make
+evident the small inequalities 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 Loomis telegraphs
+twenty miles without wire, by the electric currents between mountains.
+We begin to use electricity for light, and feel after it for a
+motor. Comets and Auroras show its presence between worlds, and
+in the interstellar spaces. Let another Newton arise.
+
+[Page 274]
+               SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
+|           |        |            |     Mean Dist.    |         |        |
+|           |        |            |     from Sun.     |         |        |
+|           |        |            |-------------------|  Mean   |Density.|
+|           |        |            | Earth's|          |Diameter |[Earth] |
+|   Name.   | Sign.  |   Masses.  |  Dist. | Millions |in Miles.|  = 1.  |
+|           |        |            |  as 1. | of Miles.|         |        |
+|-----------|--------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|
+| Sun       |[Symbol]|    Unity   |        |          | 860,000 | 0.255  |
+| Mercury   |[Symbol]|1/5000000(?)|  0.387 |    35-3/4|   2,992 | 1.21   |
+| Venus     |[Symbol]|  1/425000  |  0.723 |    66-3/4|   7,660 | 0.85   |
+| Earth     |[Symbol]|  1/326800  |  1.    |    92-1/3|   7,918 | 1.     |
+| Mars      |[Symbol]|  1/2950000 |  1.523 |   141    |   4,211 | 0.737  |
+| Asteroids |  (No.) |            |        |          |         |        |
+| Jupiter   |[Symbol]|   1/1047   |  5.203 |   480    |  86,000 | 0.243  |
+| Saturn    |[Symbol]|   1/3501   |  9.538 |   881    |  70,500 | 0.133  |
+| Uranus    |[Symbol]|  1/22600   | 19.183 |  1771    |  31,700 | 0.226  |
+| Neptune   |[Symbol]|  1/19380   | 30.054 |  2775    |  34,500 | 0.204  |
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ -------------------------------------------------------------
+|           |               | Gravity  |           |          |
+|           |     Axial     |    at    |           | Orbital  |
+|           |    Revolu-    | Surface. |  Periodic | Velocity |
+|   Name.   |     tion      | [Earth]  |    Time.  | in Miles |
+|           |               |   = 1    |           | per sec. |
+|-----------|---------------|----------|-----------|----------|
+| Sun       | 25 to 26d     |  27.71   |           |          |
+| Mercury   | 24h 5m(?)     |   0.46   |   87.97d  |  29.55   |
+| Venus     | 23h 21m(?)    |   0.82   |  224.70d  |  21.61   |
+| Earth     | 23h 56m 4s    |   1.     |  365.26d  |  18.38   |
+| Mars      | 24h 37m 22.7s |   0.39   |  686.98d  |  14.99   |
+| Asteroids |               |          |           |          |
+| Jupiter   |  9h 55m 20s   |   2.64   |  11.86yrs |   8.06   |
+| Saturn    |    10h 14m    |   1.18   |  29.46yrs |   5.95   |
+| Uranus    |    Unknown.   |   0.90   |  84.02yrs |   4.20   |
+| Neptune   |    Unknown.   |   0.89   | 164.78yrs |   3.36   |
+ -------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Page 275]
+              EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS.
+
+                     SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
+
+   0. [Symbol] Aries     0°  |   VI. [Symbol] Libra        180°
+   I. [Symbol] Taurus   30   |  VII. [Symbol] Scorpio      210
+  II. [Symbol] Gemini   60   | VIII. [Symbol] Sagittarius  240
+ III. [Symbol] Cancer   90   |   IX. [Symbol] Capricornus  270
+  IV. [Symbol] Leo     120   |    X. [Symbol] Aquarius     300
+   V. [Symbol] Virgo   150   |   XI. [Symbol] Pisces       330
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ [Symbol]  Conjunction.      |          S.  Seconds of Time.
+ [Symbol]  Quadrature.       |           °  Degrees.
+ [Symbol]  Opposition.       |           '  Minutes of Arc.
+ [Symbol]  Ascending Node.   |           "  Seconds of Arc.
+ [Symbol]  Descending Node.  |       R. A.  Right Ascension.
+       H.  Hours.            | Decl. or D.  Declination.
+       M.  Minutes of Time.  |    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. [Symbols]
+Inf., inferior conjunction; Sup., superior conjunction.
+
+              GREEK ALPHABET USED INDICATING THE STARS.
+
+      a, alpha.    | ae, eta.    | n, nu.       | t, tau.
+      b, beta.     | th, theta.  | x, xi.       | u, upsilon.
+      g, gamma.    | i, iota.    | o, omicron.  | ph, phi.
+      d, delta.    | k, kappa.   | p, pi.       | ch, chi.
+      e, epsilon.  | l, lambda.  | r, rho.      | ps, psi.
+      z, zeta.     | m, mu.      | s, sigma.    | o, omega.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 276]
+CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS.
+
+As an aid to comprehension, every student should draw illustrative
+figures of the various circles, planes, and situations described.
+(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 or 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,
+minutes, 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 [Page 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;
+colors; number in space; telescopic view of. Aerolites: Systems
+of; how many known. Comets: Orbits; number of comets; Halley's;
+Biela's lost; Encke's. Resisting medium. Whence come comets? Composed
+of what? Amount of matter in. [Symbol].
+
+VIII. _The Planets._--How many? Uranus discovered? Neptune? Asteroids?
+Vulcan? Distance from sun. Periodic time. Mercury: Elements; shapes,
+as seen from earth; transits. Venus: Elements; seen by day; how
+near earth? how far from? phases; Galileo. Earth: Elements; in
+space; Aurora; balance of forces. Tides: Main and subsidiary 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; habitability; rings; flux; satellites. Uranus:
+Elements; discoverer; seen by; moon's motion. Neptune: Elements;
+discovered by; how? Review system.
+
+IX. _The Nebular Hypothesis._--State it; facts confirmatory.
+Objections--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 Lyræ, Sirius, Procyon, Castor,
+61 Cygni, g Virginis. Colored stars; change color. Clusters: Two
+theories. Nebulæ: Two visible; composed of; shapes; where? Variable
+stars. Sun. b Lyræ, 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 Dipper, 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; [Page 278] 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. Properties
+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. Matter
+recapacitated. Refined habitations. Inhabitants. All force leads
+back to mind. Personal and infinite.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 279]
+GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX.
+
+ABBREVIATIONS used in astronomies, 275.
+ABERRATION OF LIGHT (_a wandering away_), an apparent
+  displacement of a star, owing to the progressive motion of light
+  combined with that of the earth and 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 in directions of two straight lines that meet.
+ANNULAR (_ring-shaped_) ECLIPSES, 158; nebulæ, 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
+  solar 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
+  revolve 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.
+[Page 280]
+CELESTIAL SPHERE, the apparent dome in which the heavenly bodies
+  seem to be set; appears to revolve, 3.
+CENTRE OF GRAVITY, the point on which a body, or two or more
+  related 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
+  passing from the pole, one through each equinox, and one through
+  each solstice.
+COMETS, 126; Halley's, 128; Biela's lost, 129; Encke's, 130;
+  constitution 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
+  conjunction 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
+  interior planet.
+DECLINATION, the angular distance of a celestial body north or south
+  from the celestial equator.
+DEGREE, the 1/360 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
+  divided by half the major axis.
+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.
+[Page 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
+  annual 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 plane
+  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;
+  velocity of, 22; undulatory and musical, 26; chemical force of, 30;
+  experiments 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 the
+  perpendicular from the vertical equinox, counted toward the east;
+  mode of ascertaining terrestrial, 72.
+MAGELLANIC CLOUDS, 208.
+[Page 282]
+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
+  perihelion distances.
+MEASUREMENTS, celestial, 57.
+MERCURY, 138.
+MERIDIAN, terrestrial, of a place, a great circle of the heavens
+  passing 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;
+  telescopic appearance of, 155.
+MURAL CIRCLE, 61.
+NADIR, the point in the celestial sphere directly beneath our feet,
+  opposite to zenith.
+NEBULÆ, 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
+  interposition 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
+[Page 283]
+  bodies upon each other, disturbing their regular motion; of Saturn
+  and Jupiter, 11; of asteroids, 13; of Uranus and Neptune, 176.
+PHASES, the portions of the illuminated half of the moon or
+  interior planet, as seen from the earth, called crescent, full, and
+  gibbous.
+PHOTOSPHERE of the sun, 89.
+PLANET (_a wanderer_), 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 joining 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;
+  decreasing, 171; nature of, 171; satellites of, 172.
+SEASONS, of the earth, 102; of other planets, 105.
+SELENOGRAPHY (_lunography_), 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 in a planet's orbit at which it has no
+  motion among the stars.
+[Page 284]
+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
+  meridian, 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
+  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 THE STARS IN THE 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.
+
+[Illustration: Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this
+position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at 9 o'clock;
+and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]
+
+[Illustration: 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.]
+
+[Illustration: Capella (45° from 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.]
+
+[Illustration: Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79° south from the
+Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and at 8 o'clock
+April 23d.]
+
+[Illustration: Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70° from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8 o'clock June
+25th.]
+
+[Illustration: Altair comes to the Meridian, 82° from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock P.M. August 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and
+at 8 o'clock September 18th.]
+
+[Illustration: Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17° from the
+horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
+<html lang="en">
+
+<head>
+ <title>Recreations in Astronomy</title>
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
+ <meta name="keywords" content="astronomy planet star moon comet">
+ <meta name="author" content="Henry WHite Warren">
+ <meta name="rating" content="General">
+ <meta name="robots" content="all">
+ <style type="text/css">
+
+  body          { background: white;
+                  margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
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+  h3            { text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; }
+  hr            {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+  p.indent      { text-indent: 3mm; text-align: justify; }
+  p.bquote      { margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em; }
+  p.subtitle    { text-align: center; font-size: large; }
+  p.author      { text-align: center; font-size: large; }
+  p.center      { text-align: center; }
+  p.title       { text-align: center; font-size: x-large; }
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+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recreations in Astronomy
+       With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work
+
+Author: Henry Warren
+
+Release Date: April 14, 2005 [EBook #15620]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center;">
+<span style="margin: 8px; width: 501px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_ii"><span class="page">Page ii</span></a>
+<img src="images/front.jpg" width="501" height="825" alt="frontispiece">
+<br />
+THE CONSTELLATIONS OF ORION AND TAURUS. <br />
+NOTES.&mdash;Star &alpha; in Taurus is red, has eight metals; moves
+east (<a href="#page_227">page 227</a>). At <tt>o</tt> above tip of
+right horn is the Crab Nebula (<a href="#page_219">page 219</a>). In
+Orion, &alpha; is variable, has five metals; recedes 22 miles per
+second. &beta;, &delta;, &epsilon;, &xi;, &rho;, etc., are double
+stars, the component parts of various colors and magnitudes (<a
+href="#page_212">page 212</a>, note). &lambda; and &iota; are triple;
+&sigma;, octuple; &theta;, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula
+(<a href="#page_218">page 218</a>).
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<h1>
+<a name="page_iii"><span class="page">Page iii</span></a>
+RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY</h1>
+
+<p class="center">
+WITH
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND TELESCOPIC WORK</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+BY
+</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+HENRY WHITE WARREN, D.D.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+AUTHOR OF "SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS; OR, KNOWLEDGE BY TRAVEL," ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS
+</p>
+
+<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="40" class="center">
+<tr><td class="center">
+<a name="page_v"><span class="page">Page v</span></a>
+&Tau;&Eta;&Iota;&nbsp;&Psi;&Upsilon;&Chi;&Eta;&Iota;<br />
+&Tau;&Eta;&Iota;&nbsp;&Alpha;&Gamma;&Alpha;&Pi;&Eta;&Tau;&Eta;&Iota;<br />
+&Alpha;&Sigma;&Tau;&Rho;&Alpha;&Pi;&Tau;&Omicron;&Upsilon;&Sigma;&Eta;&Iota;
+<br />
+&Kappa;&Alpha;&Iota;<br />
+&Iota;&Sigma;&Alpha;&Gamma;&Gamma;&Epsilon;&Delta;&Omega;&Iota;
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_vii"><span class="page">Page vii</span></a>
+PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 rewritten not to correct material errors, but
+to incorporate new discoveries.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The invention of the telescope constituted one era in Astronomy;
+its perfection in our day, another; and the discoveries of the
+spectroscope a third&mdash;no less important than either of the
+others.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+While nearly all men are prevented from practical experimentation
+in these high realms of knowledge, few
+<a name="page_viii"><span class="page">Page viii</span></a>
+have so little leisure as to be debarred from intelligently enjoying
+the results of the investigations of others.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 anyone 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+I take great pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to J. M.
+Van Vleck, LL.D., of the U.S. Nautical Almanac staff, and Professor
+of Astronomy at the Wesleyan University, for inspecting some of the
+more important 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 Newcomb, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_ix"><span class="page">Page ix</span></a>
+CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table border="0">
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">CHAP.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">I.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_1">CREATIVE PROCESSES</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">II.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_15">CREATIVE PROGRESS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_24">Constitution of Light</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_28">Chemistry of Suns revealed
+   by Light</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_30">Creative Force of Light</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">III.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_41">ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_43">The Telescope</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_44">The Reflecting Telescope</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_46">The Spectroscope</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">IV.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_55">CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_58">Celestial Movements</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_60">How to Measure</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">V.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_75">THE SUN</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_94">What the Sun does for
+   us</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">VI.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_97">THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_108">The Outlook from the
+   Earth</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">VII.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_117">SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_122">Aerolites</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_126">Comets</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_128">Famous Comets</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_131">Of what do Comets
+   consist?</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_133">Will Comets strike the
+   Earth?</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">VIII.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_135">THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_138">Vulcan</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_138">Mercury</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_139">Venus</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_141">The Earth</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_143">The Aurora Borealis</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset">
+<a name="page_x"><span class="page">Page x</span></a>
+   <a href="#page_144">The Delicate Balance of
+   Forces</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_146">Tides</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_151">The Moon</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_155">Telescopic Appearance</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_157">Eclipses</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_159">Mars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_161">Satellites of Mars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_162">Asteroids</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_164">Jupiter</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_165">Satellites of Jupiter</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_167">Saturn</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_169">Rings of Saturn</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_172">Satellites of Saturn</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_173">Uranus</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_175">Neptune</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">IX.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_179">THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">X.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_193">THE STELLAR SYSTEM</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_195">The Open Page of the
+   Heavens</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_202">Equatorial Constellations</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_209">Characteristics of the
+   Stars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_210">Number</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_210">Double and Multiple
+   Stars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_214">Colored Stars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_215">Clusters of Stars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_217">Nebul&aelig;</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_220">Variable Stars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_223">Temporary, New, and Lost
+   Stars</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_226">Movements of Stars</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">XI.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_229">THE WORLDS AND THE WORD</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">XII.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_247">THE ULTIMATE FORCE</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_269">SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES
+   AND CONCLUSIONS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_274">SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR
+   SYSTEM</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_275">EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL
+   SYMBOLS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_275">Signs of the Zodiac</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_275">Other Abbreviations Used in
+   the Almanac</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="inset"><a href="#page_275">Greek Alphabet Used Indicating
+   the Stars</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_276">CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR
+   STUDENTS</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_279">GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL
+   TERMS AND INDEX</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_xi"><span class="page">Page xi</span></a>
+ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<table border="0">
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">FIG.</td>
+  <td> </td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right"> </td>
+  <td><a href="#page_ii">The Constellations of Orion and
+  Taurus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">1.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_8">An Orbit resulting from Attraction and
+  Projection</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">2.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_10">The Moon's Orbit about the Earth</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">3.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_11">Changes of Orbit by Mutual
+  Attraction</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">4.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_22">Velocity of Light measured by Jupiter's
+  Satellites</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">5.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_23">Velocity of Light measured by Fizeau's
+  Toothed Wheel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">6.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_25">White Light resolved into Colors</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">7.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_37">Showing amount of Light received by
+  Different Planets</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">8.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_37">Measuring Intensities of Lights</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">9.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_38">Reflection and Diffusion of
+  Light</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">10.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_39">Manifold Reflections</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">11.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_40">Refraction by Water</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">12.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_40">Atmospherical Reflection</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">13.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_43">Refracting Telescope</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">14.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_44">Reflecting Telescope</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">15.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_46">The Cambridge Equatorial Refractor</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">16.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_47">The new Reflecting Telescope at
+  Paris</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">17.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_49">Spectroscope, with Battery of
+  Prisms</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">18.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_50">Spectra of Glowing Hydrogen and of the
+  Sun</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">19.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_59">Illustrating Arcs and Angles</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">20.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_59">Measuring Objects by observing
+  Angles</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">21.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_61">Mural Circle</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">22.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_63">Scale to measure Hundredths of an
+  Inch</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">23.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_63">Spider-lines to determine Star
+  Transits</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">24.</td>
+  <td>
+<a name="page_xii"><span class="page">Page xii</span></a>
+  <a href="#page_66">Illustrating Triangulation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">25.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_67">Measuring Distance to an Inaccessible
+  Object</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">26.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_67">Measuring Elevation of an Inaccessible
+  Object</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">27.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_69">Illustrating Parallax</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">28.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_71">Illustrating Stellar Parallax</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">29.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_72">Mode of Ascertaining Longitude</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">30.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_79">Relative Size of Sun, as seen from
+  Different Planets</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">31.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_80">Zodiacal Light</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">32.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_82">Corona of the Sun in 1858&mdash;Brazil</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">33.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_83">Corona of the Sun in 1878&mdash;Colorado</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">34.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_85">Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">35.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_90">Changes in Solar Cavities during
+  Rotation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">36.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_92">Solar Spot</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">37.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_96">Holding Telescope to see the Sun-spots</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">38.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_100">Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the
+  Planets</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">39.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_103">Orbit of Earth, illustrating
+  Seasons</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">40.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_107">Inclination of Planes of Planetary
+  Orbits</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">41.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_107">Inclination of Orbits of Earth and
+  Venus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">42.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_110">Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">43.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_111">Passage of the Sun by Star Regulus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">44.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_112">Apparent Path of Jupiter among the
+  Stars</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">45.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_112">Illustrating Position of Planets</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">46.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_113">Apparent Movements of an Inferior
+  Planet</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">47.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_114">Apparent Movements of a Superior
+  Planet</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">47<i>a</i>.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_118">A Swarm of Meteors meeting the
+  Earth</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">48.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_120">Explosion of a Bolide</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">49.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_121">Flight of Bolides</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">50.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_122">The Santa Rosa Aerolite</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">51.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_125">Orbit of November Meteors and the Comet
+  of 1866</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">52.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_127">Aspects of Remarkable Comets</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">53.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_140">Phases and Apparent Dimensions of
+  Venus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">54.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_142">The Earth and Moon in Space</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">55.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_143">Aurora as Waving Curtains</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">56.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_147">Tide resulting from Centrifugal
+  Motion</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">57.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_150">Lunar Landscape</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">58.</td>
+  <td>
+<a name="page_xiii"><span class="page">Page xiii</span></a>
+  <a href="#page_154">Telescopic View of the Moon</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">59.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_155">Illumination of Lunar Craters and
+ Peaks</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">60.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_156">Lunar Crater "Copernicus"</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">61.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_157">Eclipses: Shadows of Earth and Moon</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">62.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_160">Apparent Sizes of Mars, seen from the
+  Earth</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">63.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_164">Jupiter</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">64.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_166">Various Positions of Jupiter's
+  Satellites</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">65.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_168">View of Saturn and his Rings</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">66.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_176">Perturbations of Uranus</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">67.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_201">Map: Circumpolar Constellations</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">68.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_202">Map of Constellations on the Meridian in
+  December</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">69.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_203">Map of Constellations on the Meridian in
+  January</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">70.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_204">Map of Constellations on the Meridian in
+  April</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">71.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_205">Map of Constellations on the Meridian in
+  June</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">72.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_206">Map of Constellations on the Meridian in
+  September</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">73.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_207">Map of Constellations on the Meridian in
+  November</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">74.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_208">Southern Circumpolar Constellations</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">75.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_213">Aspects of Double Stars</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">76.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_216">Sprayed Star Cluster below &eta; in
+  Hercules</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">77.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_216">Globular Star Cluster in the Centaur</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">78.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_218">Great Nebula about &theta; Orionis</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">79.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_219">The Crab Nebula above &zeta; Tauri</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">80.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_220">The Ring Nebula in Lyra</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">81.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_221">Showing Place of Ring Nebula</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">82.</td>
+  <td><a href="#page_272">The Horizontal Pendulum</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_52">COLORED PLATE REPRESENTING
+  VARIOUS SPECTA</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2"><a href="#page_285">MAPS TO FIND THE STARS</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_1"><span class="page">Page 1</span></a>
+I.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CREATIVE PROCESSES.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"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."&mdash;<i>Genesis</i> i. 1, 2.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_2"><span class="page">Page 2</span></a>
+"Not to the domes, where crumbling arch and column<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,<br>
+But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Which God hath planned,&mdash;<br>
+To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Whose quenchless lamps the sun and stars supply;<br>
+Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Its dome the sky."&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The heavens are a point from the pen of His perfection;<br>
+The world is a rose-bud from the bower of His beauty;<br>
+The sun is a spark from the light of His wisdom;<br>
+And the sky a bubble on the sea of His power."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;SIR W. JONES.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_3"><span class="page">Page 3</span></a>
+RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="title">I.</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>CREATIVE PROCESSES.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+moving 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 illuminated 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This dial not only shows present movements, but it keeps the history
+of uncounted ages past ready to be
+<a name="page_4"><span class="page">Page 4</span></a>
+read backward in proper order; and it has glorious volumes 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. Meteors, rainbows,
+auroras, shifting groups of stars, make pictures vast and significant
+as the armies, angels, and falling stars in the Revelation of St.
+John&mdash;changing and progressive pictures of infinite wisdom
+and power.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 after 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The greatest triumphs of men's minds have been in astronomy&mdash;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 combinations,
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In order to know how worlds move and develop, we must create them;
+we must go back to their beginning, 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 imagination.
+God creates and embodies; we create, but
+<a name="page_5"><span class="page">Page 5</span></a>
+it remains in thought only. But the creation is as bright, strong,
+clear, enduring, and real, as if it were embodied. Every 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
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,<br>
+Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;<br>
+And, as imagination bodies forth<br>
+The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen<br>
+Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing<br>
+A local habitation and a name."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In 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 power, 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&mdash;nothing
+save utter silence, utter darkness. It cannot be endured. Creation
+is a necessity of mind&mdash;even of the Divine mind.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 together of every particle in existence. The laws
+governing this attraction shall be two. When these particles are
+associated together, the attraction shall be in proportion to the
+mass. A given mass will pull twice
+<a name="page_6"><span class="page">Page 6</span></a>
+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 1/24 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 attraction of
+gravitation are&mdash;1, <i>Gravity is proportioned to the quantity
+of matter</i>; and 2, <i>The force of gravity varies inversely
+as the square of the distance from the centre of the attracting
+body</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 matter are only so many different sized molecules
+of one original substance&mdash;hydrogen. Whether that is true or
+not, let us now create all the hydrogen we can
+<a name="page_7"><span class="page">Page 7</span></a>
+imagine, either in differently sized masses or in combination with
+other substances. There it is! We cannot 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 movements. It only gives an even
+effulgence, a steady unflickering light. Turn one quarter round.
+Still we see our world, but it is at one side.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&mdash;two huge, lone bodies, in empty space. But we created
+them dowered with attraction. Each instantly feels the drawing
+influence of the other. They are mutually attractive, and begin to
+<a name="page_8"><span class="page">Page 8</span></a>
+move toward each other. They hasten along an undeviating straight
+line. Their speed quickens at every mile. The attraction increases
+every moment. They fly swift as thought. They dash their flaming,
+seething foreheads together.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 nothing to be warmed thereby. Are our creative
+powers exhausted by this effort?
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 420px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig01.jpg" width="420" height="170" alt="Figure 1">
+<br />
+Fig. 1.&mdash;Orbit A D, resulting from attraction, A C, and projectile
+force, A B.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+No, we will create another world, and add another power to it that
+shall keep them apart. That power 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 thousand miles
+in diameter. It instantly feels the attractive power of the sun
+drawing it to itself sixty-eight
+<a name="page_9"><span class="page">Page 9</span></a>
+miles a second. 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 one hundred and eighty-nine miles a second. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 gravity around which both turn
+will be 1/81 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+introduced that only the most masterly minds can follow. Introduce
+a dozen or a million bodies, and complications arise that only
+Omniscience can unravel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 quarter of a
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<a name="page_10"><span class="page">Page 10</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig02.jpg" width="142" height="207" alt="Figure 2">
+<br />
+Fig. 2.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+million of miles toward 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 power,
+to C. All the while the invisible elastic force of the earth is
+unweariedly maintained; and though the moon's distances vary over a
+range of 31,355 miles, the moon is always in a determinable place.
+A simple revolution 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
+<a name="page_11"><span class="page">Page 11</span></a>
+of our night-wandering orb has just been explained by Professor
+Hansen, of Gotha, as a curious result of the attraction of Venus.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig03.jpg" width="196" height="190" alt="Figure 3">
+<br />
+Fig. 3.&mdash;Changes of orbit by mutual attraction.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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 other by mutual attraction, Jupiter's
+orbit bends outward, and Saturn's becomes more nearly straight, as
+shown by the dotted lines. A partial correction of this difficulty
+immediately follows. As Jupiter moves on ahead of Saturn it is
+held back&mdash;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, retarded, Jupiter approaches the smaller
+curve that is its true orbit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_12"><span class="page">Page 12</span></a>
+Saturn; and they will be near again, be drawn together, hastened,
+and retarded, as before; their next conjunction would be at 3,
+3, etc.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 perturbations have mutually corrected one
+another.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 will
+be one degree before its computed place&mdash;a perturbation of
+two degrees. When a bullet is a little heavier or ragged on one
+side, it will constantly swerve in that direction. The spiral groove
+in the rifle, of one turn in forty-five feet, turns the disturbing
+weight or raggedness from side to side&mdash;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 planets, can be calculated
+with exceeding nicety.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The difficulties would be greatly increased if the orbits
+<a name="page_13"><span class="page">Page 13</span></a>
+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. Nevertheless,
+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. <i>They are guided by an intelligent mind and
+an almighty arm.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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,
+affecting the entire planetary system, the periods of which are
+immensely long. The number of these oscillations is equal to that
+of all the planets, and their periods range from 50,000 to 2,000,000
+years,
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Looking into the open page of the starry heavens we see double
+stars, the constituent parts of which must revolve 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_14"><span class="page">Page 14</span></a>
+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 comprehends and directs
+them all."
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_15"><span class="page">Page 15</span></a>
+II.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CREATIVE PROGRESS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"And God said, Let there be light, and there was
+light."&mdash;<i>Genesis</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;i.,&nbsp;3.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"God is light."&mdash;1 <i>John</i>, i. 5.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_16"><span class="page">Page 16</span></a>
+"Hail! holy light, offspring of Heaven first born,<br>
+Or of the eternal, co-eternal beam,<br>
+May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,<br>
+And never but in unapproached light<br>
+Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,<br>
+Bright effluence of bright essence increate."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;MILTON.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"A million torches lighted by Thy hand<br>
+Wander unwearied through the blue abyss:<br>
+They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command,<br>
+All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss.<br>
+What shall we call them? Piles of crystal light&mdash;<br>
+A glorious company of golden streams&mdash;<br>
+Lamps of celestial ether burning bright&mdash;<br>
+Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams?<br>
+But 'Thou to these art as the noon to night."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;DERZHAVIN, trans. by BOWRING.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_17"><span class="page">Page 17</span></a>
+II.</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>CREATIVE PROGRESS.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 legitimate 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Light is the child of force, and the child, like its father, is
+full of power. We dowered our created world with but a single
+quality&mdash;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 manifestation 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 skeleton. 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,
+<a name="page_18"><span class="page">Page 18</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But how can condensation cause light? Power cannot be quiet. The
+mighty locomotive trembles with its own energy. A smitten piece
+of iron has all its infinitesimal 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 heated body commences
+a vigorous vibration among its particles, and communicates these
+vibrations to the surrounding 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 undulations, and the
+object seems to glow with a dull red light; becoming hotter, the
+vibrations increase in rapidity. 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 different rapidities,
+which affect the eye&mdash;as orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
+in an almost infinite number of shades&mdash;according to the
+sensitiveness of the eye.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 inflammable 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&mdash;it is red-hot. Attach a thermometer to
+an extended
+<a name="page_19"><span class="page">Page 19</span></a>
+arm of a whirling wheel; drive it against the air five hundred
+feet per second, the mercury rises 16&deg;. 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&deg;
+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 consumed 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 1,300,000 times as large 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 hundred miles per second, and striking the sun's
+atmosphere, 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. Vivid auroras appeared, not only at the north and south poles,
+but even where such spectacles are seldom seen. The electro-magnetic
+<a name="page_20"><span class="page">Page 20</span></a>
+disturbances were more distinctly marked. "In many places the
+telegraphic wires struck work. In Washington and Philadelphia the
+electric signalmen received severe electric shocks; at a station in
+Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at Boston a
+flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's electric telegraph." There
+is the best of reason for believing that a continuous succession
+of such bodies might have gone far toward rendering the earth
+uncomfortable as a place of residence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 contraction goes on evolving more light, and so
+the suns flame on through the millions of years unquenched. It is
+estimated that the contraction of our sun, from filling immensity
+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
+<a name="page_21"><span class="page">Page 21</span></a>
+shall have produced all the heat it can, and a new force of attraction
+must be added, or the sun itself will become cold as a cinder, dead
+as a burned-out char.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Since light and heat are the product of such enormous 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&deg;
+below zero, through utter darkness, and appears 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 commence a study of its
+qualities and powers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Light is the astronomer's necessity. When the sublime 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-gathering 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 fifty minutes or years ago,
+more or less. Light is the a&euml;rial sprite that carries our
+measuring-rods across the infinite
+<a name="page_22"><span class="page">Page 22</span></a>
+spaces; light spreads out the history of that far-off beginning;
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 413px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig04.jpg" width="413" height="220" alt="Figure 4">
+<br />
+Fig. 4.&mdash;Velocity of Light measured by Eclipses of Jupiter's
+Moons.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 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 planet Jupiter. We know
+to a second when these eclipses take place, and they can be seen
+with a small telescope. But when the earth is on the opposite side
+of the sun
+<a name="page_23"><span class="page">Page 23</span></a>
+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 184,000,000 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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 274px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig05.jpg" width="274" height="253" alt="Figure 5">
+<br />
+Fig. 5.&mdash;Measuring the Velocity of Light.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+per second. That is probably correct to within a thousand miles.
+Methods of measurement by the toothed wheel of Fizeau confirm this
+result. Suppose the wheel, Fig. 5, to have one thousand 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 1/10000 of a
+second, or at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, the next tooth
+will have arrived before the eye, and each returning 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 having been traversed meanwhile. The method of
+measuring by means of a revolving mirror, used by Faucault, is
+held to be even more accurate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When we take instantaneous photographs by the exposure
+<a name="page_24"><span class="page">Page 24</span></a>
+of the sensitive plate 1/20000 part of a second, a stream of light
+nine miles long dashes in upon the plate in that very brief period
+of time.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Centauri
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It goes 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&mdash;three times in opposite
+directions, in the same place, without interference, and thus we
+see "the old moon in the arms of the new."
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Constitution of Light.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Light was once supposed to be corpuscular, or consisting 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
+<a name="page_25"><span class="page">Page 25</span></a>
+instantly turned out of its course, some parts more and some less,
+according to the number of vibrations, and appears 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. But the different divisions we call colors are
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig06.jpg" width="406" height="296" alt="Figure 6">
+<br />
+Fig. 6.&mdash;White Light resolved into Colors.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+not colors in themselves at all, but simply a different number of
+vibrations. Color is all in the eye. Violet has in different places
+from 716 to 765,000,000,000,000 of vibrations 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 differently, 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 vibrations numbering about 653,000,000,000,000 of vibrations
+<a name="page_26"><span class="page">Page 26</span></a>
+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,
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Freedom mingles with its gorgeous dyes<br>
+The milky baldrick of the skies,<br>
+And stripes its pore celestial white<br>
+With streakings of the morning light."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Every little pansy, tender as fancy, pearled with evanescent 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 purple, and reflect each of these in other
+parts of the same tender petal. "Pansies are for thoughts," even
+more thoughts than poor Ophelia knew. An evening cloud that is
+dense enough to absorb all the faster and weaker vibrations, leaving
+only the stronger to come through, will be said to be 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 258-7/8 vibrations to the second, and its
+octave above 517-1/2. Not that sound vibrations cease
+<a name="page_27"><span class="page">Page 27</span></a>
+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&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,<br>
+But in his motion like an angel sings,<br>
+Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.<br>
+Such harmony is in immortal souls;<br>
+But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay<br>
+Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+And that older poetry which is always highest truth says, "The
+morning stars sing together." We misconstrued 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
+standing there for ages, waiting a mind that could take it in.
+Now we read as it is written&mdash;"Thou makest the out-goings
+of the morning and evening to sing." Were our senses fine enough,
+we could hear the separate keynote 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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"In reason's ear they all rejoice,<br>
+And utter forth a glorious voice.<br>
+Forever singing, as they shine,<br>
+The hand that made us is divine."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This music is not monotonous. Stars draw near each other, and make
+a light that is unapproachable by mortals;
+<a name="page_28"><span class="page">Page 28</span></a>
+then the music swells beyond our ability to endure. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Our senses are limited&mdash;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
+mysteries, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When we examine the assemblage of colors spread from the white ray
+of sunlight, we do not find red simple red, yellow yellow, etc.,
+but there is a vast number of fine microscopic lines of various
+lengths, parallel&mdash;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
+<a name="page_29"><span class="page">Page 29</span></a>
+strike a substance we call colored. The rest are reflected, and
+give the impression of color. In one place on the flag of our nation
+all vibrations are destroyed except 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 narrow 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 vibrations 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Thus we have brought to our doors a readable record 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_30"><span class="page">Page 30</span></a>
+the stars whose very substance we know! If we were transported
+thither, or beyond, we should not be altogether strangers in an
+unknown realm.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But the stars differ in their constituent elements; every ray that
+flashes from them bears in its very being proofs of what they are.
+Hence the eye of Omniscience, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Creative Force of Light.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Just above the color vibrations of the unbraided sunbeam, 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 transfigures 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This power is also fit and able to survive. The engineer 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
+sunshine, falling on the scarcely lifted hills of Pennsylvania,
+caused the reedy vegetation to grow along the banks of
+<a name="page_31"><span class="page">Page 31</span></a>
+shallow seas, accumulated vast amounts of this vegetation, sunk
+it beneath the sea, roofed it over with sand, compacted the sand
+into rock, and changed this vegetable matter&mdash;the products
+of the sunshine&mdash;into coal; and when it was ready, lifted
+it once more, all garnered for the use of men, roofed over with
+mighty mountains. We mine the coal, bring out the heat, raise the
+steam, drive the train, so that in the ultimate analyses it is
+sunshine that drives the train. These great beds of coal are nothing
+but condensed sunshine&mdash;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, because his work will be better done,
+and without any cost for the maintenance of the doer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Come down below the color vibrations, and we shall find that those
+which are too infrequent to be visible, manifest as heat. Naturally
+there will be as many different kinds of heat as tints of color,
+because there is as great a range of numbers of vibration. It is
+our privilege to sift them apart and sort them over, and find what
+kinds are best adapted to our various uses.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_32"><span class="page">Page 32</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 anxious 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,
+<a name="page_33"><span class="page">Page 33</span></a>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+These are simple illustrations of the various kinds of heat. The
+best furnace or stove ever invented consumes 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Heat associated with light has very different qualities 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Nearly all the heat of the sun passes through glass without hinderance;
+but take heat from white-hot platinum 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&deg; only six per cent. can go through glass, the other
+ninety-four per cent. being absorbed by it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The heat of the sun beam goes through glass without
+<a name="page_34"><span class="page">Page 34</span></a>
+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 sweeping through them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The heat of the sun, by its intense vibrations, comes 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 flyaway every night, and our temperature would go down
+to 200&deg; below zero. This heat comes with the light, and then,
+dissociated from it, the number of its vibrations lessened, it is
+robbed of its power to get away, and remains to work its beneficent
+ends for our good.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Worlds that are so distant as to receive only 1/1000 of 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 temperature as high as ours. The poet drew on
+his imagination when he wrote:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Who there inhabit must have other powers,<br>
+Juices, and veins, and sense and life than ours;<br>
+One moment's cold like theirs would pierce the bone,<br>
+Freeze the heart's-blood, and turn us all to stone."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 locomotive 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 sunlight 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, acting
+<a name="page_35"><span class="page">Page 35</span></a>
+upon the iron, stations its particles farther and farther apart.
+Since the bottom cannot give way the arches must rise in the middle.
+As they become longer 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 that mighty pile of granite with
+its a&euml;rial 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 wreathing mists of morning these myriads of tons rise
+in the air, flyaway hundreds of miles, and supply all the Niagaras,
+Mississippis and Amazons of earth. The sun says to the earth, wrapped
+in the mantle of winter,
+<a name="page_36"><span class="page">Page 36</span></a>
+"Bloom again;" and the snows melt, the ice retires, and vegetation
+breaks forth, birds sing, and spring is about us.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Thus it is evident that every force is constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome by a higher, and all by the highest. Gravitation of
+earth naturally and legitimately yields to the power of the sun's
+heat, and then the waters fly into the clouds. It as naturally
+and legitimately yields to the power of mind, and the waters of the
+Red Sea are divided and stand "upright as an heap." Water naturally
+bursts into flame when a bit of potassium 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
+constitutional exercise of higher force over forces organized 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<a name="page_37"><span class="page">Page 37</span></a>
+EXPERIMENTS WITH LIGHT.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 apparent 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 varying amount
+of light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above
+each world, the amount received by the earth being 1.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 422px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig07.jpg" width="422" height="152" alt="Figure 7">
+<br />
+Fig. 7.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 423px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig08.jpg" width="423" height="191" alt="Figure 8">
+<br />
+Fig. 8.&mdash;Measuring Intensities of Light.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_38"><span class="page">Page 38</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 464px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig09.jpg" width="464" height="437" alt="Figure 9">
+<br />
+Fig. 9.&mdash;Reflection and Diffusion of Light.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 astronomer projects straight
+lines to infinity. Take a hand-mirror, or better, 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 darkness appeared. Turn the same ray into a tumbler of water,
+it becomes
+<a name="page_39"><span class="page">Page 39</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 422px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig10.jpg" width="422" height="186" alt="Figure 10">
+<br />
+Fig. 10.&mdash;Manifold Reflections.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In Fig. 10 the sunbeam enters at A, and, striking the mirror <i>m</i>
+at <i>a</i>, is partly reflected to 1 on the wall, and partly enters
+the glass, passes through to the silvered back at B, and is totally
+reflected to <i>b</i>, 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 reflector
+and has the most light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 secondary reflection was caused by holding the mirror
+in an oblique position.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 light, and the frequency and prominence of
+each pulse-beat will be indicated by the tossing spot of light on
+the wall. If the operator becomes excited the fact will be evident
+to all observers.
+</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; margin: 4px; width: 224px;">
+<tr><td class="center">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig11.jpg" width="224" height="84" alt="Figure 11">
+<br />
+Fig. 11.
+</span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Place a coin in a basin (Fig. 11), and set it so that the rim will
+conceal the coin from the eye. Pour in water, and the coin will appear
+<a name="page_40"><span class="page">Page 40</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Thus light coming from the interstellar spaces, and entering our
+atmosphere, 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 498px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig12.jpg" width="498" height="183" alt="Figure 12">
+<br />
+Fig. 12.&mdash;Atmospherical Refraction.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 object 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_41"><span class="page">Page 41</span></a>
+III.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The eyes of the Lord are in every place."&mdash;<i>Proverbs</i> xv. 3.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_42"><span class="page">Page 42</span></a>
+"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 objects 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 diameter, and penetrates the immensities of
+space thousands of times beyond where his natural eye can pierce,
+until he sees that God's immensities of worlds are infinite
+also."&mdash;BISHOP FOSTER.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_43"><span class="page">Page 43</span></a>
+III.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle"><i>THE TELESCOPE.</i></p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Frequent allusion has been made in the previous chapter to discovered
+results. It is necessary to understand more clearly the process by
+which such results have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments
+are of the simplest character, some most delicate and complex.
+When a man smokes a piece of glass, in order 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 constructed his own without a pattern,
+and used it to good purpose. It consists of a lens, O B (Fig. 13),
+which 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
+<a name="page_44"><span class="page">Page 44</span></a>
+find. Hence there is placed at R a concave lens, passing 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 451px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig13.jpg" width="451" height="88" alt="Figure 13">
+<br />
+Fig. 13.&mdash;Refracting Telescope.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If, instead of a concave lens at R, converting the converging 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 overcome, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>The Reflecting Telescope</i>.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This is the only kind of instrument differing radically from the
+refracting one already described. It receives the light in a concave
+mirror, M (Fig. 14), which reflects it to the focus F, producing the
+same result as the lens of the refracting telescope. Here 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
+<a name="page_45"><span class="page">Page 45</span></a>
+an opening in the mirror at M. This form is called the Gregorian
+telescope. Or the mirror M may be slightly inclined to the coming
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 451px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig14.jpg" width="517" height="108" alt="Figure 14">
+<br />
+Fig. 14.&mdash;Reflecting Telescope.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 instrument 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The mounting of large telescopes demands the highest 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 foundation
+on which it is placed is sunk deep in the earth, far from rail or
+other roads, and no part of the observatory 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
+follows 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 (Fig. 15). The reflector
+demands still more difficult engineering. That of Lord Rosse has
+a metallic mirror
+<a name="page_46"><span class="page">Page 46</span></a>
+weighing six tons, a tube forty feet long, which, with its
+appurtenances, weighs seven tons more. It moves between two walls
+only 10&deg; east and west. The new Paris reflector (Fig. 16) has
+a much wider range of movement.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 442px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig15.jpg" width="442" height="567" alt="Figure 15">
+<br />
+Fig. 15.&mdash;Cambridge Equatorial.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>The Spectroscope.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A spectrum is a collection of the colors which are dispersed by
+a prism from any given light. If it is sunlight, it is a solar
+spectrum; if the source of light is a
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<a name="page_47"><span class="page">Page 47</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig16.jpg" width="548" height="903" alt="Figure 16">
+<br />
+Fig. 16.&mdash;New Paris Reflector.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+<a name="page_49"><span class="page">Page 49</span></a>
+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. Considering the infinite variety of light,
+and its easy modification and absorption, we should expect an immense
+number of spectra. A mere prism disperses the light so imperfectly
+that different orders of vibrations, perceived 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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig17.jpg" width="301" height="375" alt="Figure 17">
+<br />
+Fig. 17.&mdash;Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+every instance, contract the aperture of the instrument until we get
+only a small beam of light. In order to have the colors thoroughly
+dispersed, the best instruments pass the beam of light through
+a series of prisms called a battery, each one spreading farther
+the colors which the previous ones had spread. In Fig. 17 the ray
+is seen entering through the telescope A, which renders the rays
+parallel, and passing
+<a name="page_50"><span class="page">Page 50</span></a>
+through the prisms out to telescope B, where the 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 O 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 examined just above
+where it entered the first prism.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Attached to the examining telescope is a diamond-ruled scale of glass,
+enabling us to fix the position of any line with great exactness.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 355px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig18.jpg" width="355" height="123" alt="Figure 18">
+<br />
+Fig. 18.&mdash;Spectra of glowing Hydrogen and the Sun.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In Fig. 18 is seen, in the lower part, a spectrum of the sun, with
+about a score of its thousands of lines 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 spectrum. 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&mdash;that
+is, glowing gas gives out the same rays of light that it absorbs
+when it is not glowing.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The subject becomes clearer by a study of the chromolithic plate.
+No. 1 represents the solar spectrum, with a few of its lines on
+an accurately graduated scale.
+<a name="page_51"><span class="page">Page 51</span></a>
+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&mdash;several red, orange, yellow, and
+four are very bright green ones. The lines given by any volatilized
+substances are always in the same place on the scale.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A patient study of these signs of substances reveals, richer results
+than a study of the cuniform characters engraved on Assyrian slabs;
+for one is the handwriting of men, the other the handwriting of
+God.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 approaches 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?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It can best be illustrated by music. The note C of the G clef is
+made by two hundred and fifty-seven vibrations 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 hundred and fifty-seven
+vibrations could approach us at three hundred and sixty-four yards
+per second, it is obvious 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
+<a name="page_52"><span class="page">Page 52</span></a>
+result would appear if we carried our ear toward the sound fast
+enough to take up twice as many valves as though we stood still.
+This is apparent to every observer in a railway train. The whistle
+of an approaching locomotive gives one tone; it passes, and we
+instantly detect another. Let two trains, running at a speed of
+thirty-six yards a second, approach each other. 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
+hundred 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 540px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a href="images/spectra.jpg"><br>
+<img src="images/spectra_small.jpg" width="540" height="377"
+  alt="spectra"></a>
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<table border="0" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <td>1. Solar Spectrum.</td>
+ <td>3. Spectrum of Sodium.</td>
+ <td>5. Spectrum of Calcium.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td>2. Spectrum of Potassium.</td>
+ <td>4. Spectrum of Strontium.</td>
+ <td>6. Spectrum of Barium.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 recedes, it increases the length of the
+wave&mdash;puts a less number into an inch. If a body giving only
+the number of vibrations we call green were to approach sufficiently
+fast, it would crowd in vibrations enough to appear what we call
+blue, indigo, or even violet, according to its speed. If it receded
+sufficiently fast, it would leave behind it only vibrations enough
+to fill up the
+<a name="page_53"><span class="page">Page 53</span></a>
+space with what we call yellow, orange, or red, according 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
+cannot 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 violet, 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
+appropriate 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 receding 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It should be recognized that Professor Young, of
+<a name="page_54"><span class="page">Page 54</span></a>
+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 observing accelerated and retarded light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 millionth 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 movements taking place, the nature
+of comets, and nebul&aelig;. By the spectroscope we know that the
+atmospheres of Venus and Mars are like our own; that those of Jupiter
+and Saturn are very unlike; it tells us which stars approach and
+which recede, and just how one star differeth from another in glory
+and substance.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_55"><span class="page">Page 55</span></a>
+IV.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"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 right hand hath spanned the heavens."&mdash;<i>Isa.</i>
+xl. 12; xlviii. 13.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_56"><span class="page">Page 56</span></a>
+"Go to yon tower, where busy science plies<br>
+Her vast antenn&aelig;, feeling thro' the skies;<br>
+That little vernier, on whose slender lines<br>
+The midnight taper trembles as it shines,<br>
+A silent index, tracks the planets' march<br>
+In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch,<br>
+Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,<br>
+And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"So, till by wrong or negligence effaced,<br>
+The living index which thy Maker traced<br>
+Repeats the line each starry virtue draws<br>
+Through the wide circuit of creation's laws;<br>
+Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray<br>
+Where the dark shadows of temptation stray;<br>
+But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light,<br>
+And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_57"><span class="page">Page 57</span></a>
+IV.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We know that astronomy has what are called practical uses. If a
+ship had been driven by Euroclydon ten times fourteen days and
+nights without sun or star appearing, a moment's glance into the
+heavens from the heaving deck, by a very slightly educated sailor,
+would tell within one hundred yards where he was, and determine
+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 uncertain and easily removed; those which
+we get from the heavens are stable and exact.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In 1878 the United States steam-ship <i>Enterprise</i> was sent to
+survey the Amazon. Every night a "star party" went ashore to fix
+the exact latitude and longitude by observations of the stars. Our
+real landmarks 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Man's finest mechanism, highest thought, and broadest exercise
+of the creative faculty have been inspired by astronomy. No other
+instruments approximate in delicacy those which explore the heavens;
+no other
+<a name="page_58"><span class="page">Page 58</span></a>
+system of thought can draw such vast and certain conclusions from
+its premises. "Too low they build who build beneath the stars;" we
+should lay our foundations in the skies, and then build upward.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We have been placed on the outside of this earth, instead 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 exact. Whoever studies astronomy,
+under proper guidance and in the right spirit, grows in thought
+and feeling, and becomes more appreciative of the Creator.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Celestial Movements.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 locomotive, but quite an unlettered
+man can drive it. It is the work of genius to render difficult
+matters plain, abstruse thoughts clear.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A brief explanation of a few terms will make the principles of
+world inspection easily understood. Imagine a perfect circle thirty
+feet in diameter&mdash;that is, create
+<a name="page_59"><span class="page">Page 59</span></a>
+one (Fig. 19). Draw through it a diameter horizontally, another
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig19.jpg" width="129" height="131" alt="Figure 19">
+<br />
+Fig. 19.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+perpendicularly. The angles made by the intersecting lines are
+each said to be ninety degrees, marked thus &deg;. The arc of a
+circle included between any two of the lines is also 90&deg;. Every
+circle, great or small, is divided into these 360&deg;. If the sun
+rose in the east and came to the zenith at noon, it would have
+passed 90&deg;. When it set in the west it would have traversed
+half the circle, or 180&deg;. In Fig. 20 the angle of the lines
+measured on the graduated arc is 10&deg;. The mountain is 10&deg;
+high, the world 10&deg; in diameter, the comet moves 10&deg; a
+day, the stars are 10&deg; apart. The height of the mountain, 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 ").
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 398px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig20.jpg" width="398" height="113" alt="Figure 20">
+<br />
+Fig. 20.&mdash;Illustration of Angles.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If this star-sprent sphere were made to revolve once in twenty-four
+hours, all the stars would successively
+<a name="page_60"><span class="page">Page 60</span></a>
+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 steadily
+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 evening 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 suggest little of the magnificence of the many
+mansions.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Stars are reckoned as so many degrees, minutes, and seconds from
+each other, from the zenith, or from a given meridian, or from the
+equator. Thus the stars called the Pointers, in the Great Bear,
+are 5&deg; apart; the nearest one is 29&deg; from the Pole Star,
+which is 39&deg; 56' 29" above the horizon at Philadelphia. In
+going to England you creep up toward the north end of the earth,
+till the Pole Star is 54&deg; high. It stays near its place among
+the stars continually,
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Of whose true-fixed and resting quality<br>
+There is no fellow in the firmament."
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>How to Measure.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Suppose a telescope, fixed to a mural circle, to revolve on an axis,
+as in Fig. 21; point it horizontally at a star;
+<a name="page_61"><span class="page">Page 61</span></a>
+turn it up perpendicular to another star. Of course the two stars
+are 90&deg; apart, and the graduated scale, which is attached to the
+outer edge of the circle, shows a revolution of a quarter circle,
+or 90&deg;, But a perfect accuracy of measurement must be sought;
+for to mistake 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 immensely more at the distance of the
+stars. The correction of an inaccuracy of no greater magnitude than
+that has reduced our estimate of the distance of our sun 3,000,000
+miles.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 329px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig21.jpg" width="329" height="330" alt="Figure 21">
+<br />
+Fig. 21.&mdash;Mural Circle.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Consider the nicety of the work. Suppose the graduated scale to
+be thirty feet in circumference. Divided into 360&deg;, each would
+be one inch long. Divide each degree into 60', each one is 1/60
+of an inch long. It takes good eyesight to discern it. But each
+minute must be
+<a name="page_62"><span class="page">Page 62</span></a>
+divided into 60", and these must not only be noted, but even tenths
+and hundredths of seconds must be discerned. 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
+unreliable. It is taken to a watch-maker that every single second
+may be quickened 1/20160 part of itself. Now 1/20000 part of a
+second would be a small interval of time to measure, but it must
+be under control. If the temperature of a summer morning rises ten
+or twenty degrees we scarcely notice it; but the magnetic tastimeter
+measures 1/5000 of a degree.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Hoosac 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 mountain. 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 triangulate from the eastern portal to distant
+mountain
+<a name="page_63"><span class="page">Page 63</span></a>
+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 dropped one thousand and twenty-eight
+feet, and thus the line at the bottom was fixed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Three attempts were made&mdash;in 1867, 1870, and 1872&mdash;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 measurements in the skies.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig22.jpg" width="142" height="144" alt="Figure 22">
+<br />
+Fig. 22.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+lower line is divided into tenths of an inch. Observe 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&mdash;that is, one-hundredth. The intersection
+marks 99/100 of an inch from one end, and one-hundredth from the
+other.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 telescope
+on the mural circle, we are able to reach an exactness of 0".1, or
+1/3600 of an inch. This instrument is used to measure the declination
+of stars, or angular
+<a name="page_64"><span class="page">Page 64</span></a>
+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 measure 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 undulations of light. The shortest is of the
+violet light, 154.84 ten-millionths of an inch. By the horizontal
+pendulum Professor Root has made 1/36000000 of an inch apparent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 exactly 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
+<a name="page_65"><span class="page">Page 65</span></a>
+the star will come into the field just above the horizontal thread.
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig23.jpg" width="242" height="245" alt="Figure 23">
+<br />
+Fig. 23.&mdash;Transit of a Star noted.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But man is not reliable enough to observe and record with sufficient
+accuracy. Some, in their excitement, anticipate 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
+estimating 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-officers
+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 astronomer,
+and to others, that we owe the mechanical accuracy 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
+<a name="page_66"><span class="page">Page 66</span></a>
+over each 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 men, 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&mdash;so
+far that it may take centuries to render the swiftest movements
+appreciable&mdash;may at length be recognized and accounted for.
+</p>
+
+<table style="float: right; margin: 4px; width: 140px;">
+<tr><td class="center">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig24.jpg" width="140" height="132" alt="Figure 24">
+<br />
+Fig. 24.
+</span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<table style="float: left; margin: 4px; width: 153px;">
+<tr><td class="center">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig25.jpg" width="153" height="355" alt="Figure 25">
+<br />
+Fig. 25.&mdash;Measuring Distances.
+</span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&deg;, the divided angles give two of 45&deg; each.
+Now the base A B is equal to the perpendicular A C. Now any
+point&mdash;C, where a perpendicular, A C, and a diagonal, B C,
+meet&mdash;will be
+<a name="page_67"><span class="page">Page 67</span></a>
+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 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 feet away.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next process is to measure the 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, 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
+<a name="page_68"><span class="page">Page 68</span></a>
+one-half an inch going two feet, in going four feet they will spread
+an inch, and in going a mile, or five thousand two hundred and
+eighty feet, they will spread out one-fourth as many inches, viz.,
+thirteen hundred and twenty&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 502px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig26.jpg" width="502" height="115" alt="Figure 26">
+<br />
+Fig. 26.&mdash;Measuring Elevations.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Imagine a base line ten inches long. At each end erect a perpendicular
+line. If they are carried to infinity 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 63/10000000 of
+an inch, and the lines will come together at a distance of three
+hundred miles. That new angle differs from the former right angle
+almost infinitesimally, 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
+meeting 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 distances is easily seen
+by Fig. 27.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Let O P be the base. This would subtend a greater angle seen from
+star A than from star B. Let B be far enough away, and O P would
+become invisible, and B
+<a name="page_69"><span class="page">Page 69</span></a>
+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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig27.jpg" width="194" height="322" alt="Figure 27">
+<br />
+Fig. 27.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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&deg; apart&mdash;half
+the earth's diameter between them. The one on Cotopaxi sees it
+exactly overhead, at an angle of 90&deg; with the earth's diameter.
+The one on the coast of Africa sees its angle with the same line
+to be 89&deg; 59' 3"&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It is not necessary for two observers to actually station 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 carried
+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
+<a name="page_70"><span class="page">Page 70</span></a>
+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 instant, 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 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 angles of the same stars: it is the same angle. Sitting in
+my study here, I glance out of the window and discern separate
+bricks, in houses five hundred feet away, with my unaided eye;
+they subtend a discernible angle. 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. Not 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
+<a name="page_71"><span class="page">Page 71</span></a>
+earth's orbit on one side, as T R A (Fig. 28), and a line were
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig28.jpg" width="279" height="95" alt="Figure 28">
+<br />
+Fig. 28.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+to be drawn six months later from the same stars, touching our
+earth's orbit on the other side, as R B T, such a line would not
+diverge sufficiently from a straight line for us to detect its
+divergence. Numerous vain attempts 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 inconceivable depths
+of space, and ascertain their distance from us. We are ever impelled
+to triumph over what is declared 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 assaulted, till some ambitious
+spirits have outsoared even imagination by the certainties of
+mathematics.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 another, we reach a ground of judgment. The ascertainment
+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
+<a name="page_72"><span class="page">Page 72</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 512px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig29.jpg" width="512" height="75" alt="Figure 29">
+<br />
+Fig. 29.&mdash;Mode of Ascertaining Longitude.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So, by comparisons of the near and far stars, the approximate distance
+of a few of them has been determined. The nearest one is the brightest
+star in the Centaur, never 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
+dissolve 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 flyaway toward 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 allegiance 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 traverse 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
+<a name="page_73"><span class="page">Page 73</span></a>
+Centauri, seven and a quarter years from 61 Cygni, and forty-five
+years from the Polar Star.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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-housse of freedom. In either case the exigency
+of life and liberty was provided for forty-five years before by a
+Providence that is divine.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We do not attempt to name in miles these enormous distances; we
+must seek another yard-stick. Our astronomical unit and standard of
+measurement is the distance of the earth from the sun&mdash;92,500,000
+miles. This is the golden reed with which we measure the celestial
+city. Thus, by laying down our astronomical unit 226,000 times, we
+measure to Alpha Centauri, more than twenty millions of millions
+of miles. Doubtless other suns are as far from Alpha Centauri and
+each other as that is from ours.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The highest testimonies to the accuracy of these celestial 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 Nautical 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 parts of the
+<a name="page_74"><span class="page">Page 74</span></a>
+world. It is something more than a mere book; it is an ever-present
+manifestation of the order and harmony of the universe."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 one hundred and ninety-two minute bodies that have been
+already discovered move in paths very nearly the same&mdash;indeed
+two of them traverse the same orbit, being one hundred and eighty
+degrees apart;&mdash;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, establishing landmarks, and guiding the sailor. It
+greatly quickens and enlarges thought, excites a desire to know,
+leads to the utmost exactness, and ministers to adoration and love
+of the Maker of the innumerable suns.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_75"><span class="page">Page 75</span></a>
+V.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE SUN.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"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."&mdash;<i>Gen.</i> i. 16.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_76"><span class="page">Page 76</span></a>
+"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 similar with the sun of
+heaven, from which the Divine 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 according
+to the quality of the minds, each of which takes from the common
+influx as much as is necessary."&mdash;SWEDENBORG.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_77"><span class="page">Page 77</span></a>
+V.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>THE SUN.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Suppose we had stood on the dome of Boston Statehouse November 9th,
+1872, on the night of the great conflagration, and seen the fire
+break out; seen the engines 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 decompose 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&mdash;Albany, New York,
+Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati&mdash;and crossing the plains swifter
+than a prairie fire, making each peak of the Rocky 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
+<a name="page_78"><span class="page">Page 78</span></a>
+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 flaming globe&mdash;on fire above, below,
+around&mdash;there is nothing 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 quieted. 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 burning sun. It is but the merest hint, a million
+times too insignificant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The sun appears small and quiet to us because we are so far away.
+Seen from the various planets, the relative 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 always 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 soon by the eye.
+But that is a small part of its real diameter. So we say the earth
+has an equatorial diameter of 7925-1/2 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
+<a name="page_79"><span class="page">Page 79</span></a>
+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 the sun, we might almost say that its diameter
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig30.jpg" width="359" height="580" alt="Figure 30">
+<br />
+Fig. 30.&mdash;Relative Size of Sun as seen from Different Planets.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+is infinite, for its light and heat reach beyond our measurement.
+Its living, throbbing heart sends out pulsations, keeping all space
+full of its tides of living light.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 527px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_80"><span class="page">Page 80</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig31.jpg" width="527" height="687" alt="Figure 31">
+<br />
+Fig. 31.&mdash;Zodiacal Light.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We might say with evident truth that the far-off planets are a
+part of the sun, since the space they traverse is filled with the
+power of that controlling king; not only with light, but also with
+gravitating power.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But come to more ponderable matters. If we look
+<a name="page_81"><span class="page">Page 81</span></a>
+into our western sky soon after sunset, on a clear, moonless 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, inclined 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 surrounding 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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, coming and returning, in order that they might note the
+three minutes of total eclipse in Colorado. Each man had his work
+assigned to him, and he was drilled to attend to that and nothing
+else. Improved instruments were put into his
+<a name="page_82"><span class="page">Page 82</span></a>
+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 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 525px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig32.jpg" width="525" height="516" alt="Figure 32">
+<br />
+Fig. 32.&mdash;The Corona in 1858, Brazil.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was then settled that the corona consists of reflected light,
+sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids swirling in the vast
+seas, giving new densities and
+<a name="page_83"><span class="page">Page 83</span></a>
+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 orbital revolution, we do
+not know. That the corona cannot be in any sense an atmosphere
+of any continuous gas, is seen from the fact that the comet of
+1843, passing within 93,000 miles of the body of the sun, was not
+burned out of existence as a comet, nor in any perceptible 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 458px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig33.jpg" width="458" height="515" alt="Figure 33">
+<br />
+Fig. 33.&mdash;The Corolla in 1878, Colorado.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_84"><span class="page">Page 84</span></a>
+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 spectroscope attached. I have seen them with great distinctness
+and brilliancy with the excellent eleven-inch telescope 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 extremity 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 thunderhead.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 actually in progress. "The whole thing
+had been literally blown to shreds," he says, "by some inconceivable
+uprush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<a name="page_85"><span class="page">Page 85</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig34.jpg" width="521" height="780" alt="Figure 34">
+<br />
+Fig. 34.&mdash;Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+<a name="page_87"><span class="page">Page 87</span></a>
+left, the air&mdash;if I may use the expression&mdash;was filled
+with the flying <i>d&eacute;bris</i>, a mass of detached vertical
+fusi-form fragments, each from ten to thirty seconds (<i>i. e.</i>,
+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&mdash;brighter, and closer together
+where the pillars had formerly 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, chromatospheric 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&mdash;one hundred
+and sixty-seven miles per second&mdash;is considerably greater than
+anything hitherto recorded. *&nbsp;*&nbsp;* 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 wonderfully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing
+flame, to speak according to appearances. First, it was crowded
+down, as it were, along the solar surface; later, it arose almost
+pyramidally 50,000 miles in height; then
+<a name="page_88"><span class="page">Page 88</span></a>
+its summit 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 outward; and then, after
+an interval, followed by a corresponding in-rush."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 indistinguishable cloud." In the presence of
+these evident visions of an actual body in furious flame, we need
+hesitate no longer in accepting as true the words of St. Peter
+of the time "in which the [atmospheric] heavens shall pass away
+with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat;
+the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned
+up."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_89"><span class="page">Page 89</span></a>
+metals, some of them as yet unknown on earth, but having a record
+in the spectrum, in the denser parts below. If these fierce fires
+are a part of the Sun, as they assuredly are, its diameter would
+be from 1,060,000 to 1,260,000 miles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Let us approach even nearer. We see a clearly recognized even disk,
+of equal dimensions in every direction. This is the photosphere.
+We here reach some definitely 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 necklace, 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 hundred 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Concerning the condition of the surface of the sun many opinions
+are held. That it is hot beyond all estimate 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 composed
+of solid particles, floating in gas so condensed
+<a name="page_90"><span class="page">Page 90</span></a>
+by pressure and attraction as to shine like a solid. It has no
+sensible changes of general level, but has prodigious 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 others, for years. But it is a long way off to study an
+object. No telescope brings it nearer than 200,000 miles. Theory
+after theory has been advanced, each one satisfactory 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, beyond which
+is excessive light. They have motion of their own over the
+surface&mdash;motion rotating about an axis, upward and downward
+about the edges. They change their apparent shape as the sun carries
+them across its disk by axial revolution, being narrow as they
+present their edges to us, and rounder as we look perpendicularly
+into them (Fig. 35).
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 515px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig35.jpg" width="515" height="158" alt="Figure 35">
+<br />
+Fig. 35.&mdash;Change in Spots as rotated across the Disk, showing
+Cavities.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+These spots are also very variable in number, sometimes there being
+none for nearly two hundred days, and again whole years during which
+the sun is never without them. The period from minimum to maximum
+<a name="page_91"><span class="page">Page 91</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+These spots may be seen with almost any telescope, the eye being
+protected by deeply colored glasses.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Until within one hundred years they were supposed to be islands
+of scori&aelig; floating in the sea of molten matter. But they
+were depressed below the surface, and showed a notch when on the
+edge. Wilson originated 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_92"><span class="page">Page 92</span></a>
+great depth, and rises up tumultuously around the whirlpool, 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
+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."
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 501px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig36.jpg" width="501" height="474" alt="Figure 36">
+<br />
+Fig. 36.&mdash;Solar spot, by Langley.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A spot of 20,000 miles diameter is quite small; there was one 14,816
+miles across, visible to the naked eye for a week in 1843. This
+particular sun-spot somewhat
+<a name="page_93"><span class="page">Page 93</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 ont
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The velocities indicated by these movements are incredible. 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 thousands of miles into space. It falls again into the
+incandescent 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 fire, where one hundred
+worlds could be buried, do not usually prevent the sun's appearing
+to our far-off eyes as a perfect sphere.
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="page_94"><span class="page">Page 94</span></a>
+<i>What the Sun does for us.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 perpetually widening river,
+to every man to profit withal.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 tendency 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 may be said to be lifted momentarily and swung perpetually
+at arm's-length by the power of the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The sun warms us. It would convey but a small idea of the truth
+to state how many hundreds of millions of cubic miles of ice could
+be hailed at the sun every second without affecting its heat; but,
+if any one has any curiosity to know, it is 287,200,000 cubic miles
+of ice per second.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We journey through space which has a temperature of 200&deg; below
+zero; but we live, as it were, in a conservatory, 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,
+<a name="page_95"><span class="page">Page 95</span></a>
+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 fifty miles, the hurricane
+one hundred. The force is as the square of the velocity. It is by
+means of the sun that the merchant's white-sailed ships are blown
+safely home. So the sun carries off the miasma of the marsh, the
+pollution 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 Manchesters possible, because the
+sun lifted all that water to the hills.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Intermingled with these currents of air are the currents 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 only
+1/21500000000 part of the whole force of the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+EXPERIMENTS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 beyond
+<a name="page_96"><span class="page">Page 96</span></a>
+its usual focusing for distant objects. The farther it is drawn,
+the nearer must we hold the screen for a perfect image.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+By holding a paper near the eye-piece, the proper direction of
+the instrument 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 Mercury and Venus shown to any number of spectators.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 354px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig37.jpg" width="354" height="491" alt="Figure 37">
+<br />
+Fig. 37.&mdash;Holding Telescope to see the Sun's Spots.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 determine 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_97"><span class="page">Page 97</span></a>
+VI.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"He hangeth the earth upon nothing."&mdash;<i>Job</i> xxvi. 7.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_98"><span class="page">Page 98</span></a>
+"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 required 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 may 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 wailing world; weigh
+well the mighty impulse soon to be given, for out of the myriads
+of directions, and the myriads of impulsive forces, there comes
+but a single combination 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 wisdom, or relieve me from
+the impossible task!'"-0. M. MITCHEL, LL. D.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_99"><span class="page">Page 99</span></a>
+VI.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 sunshine. 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
+possibly Venus, and all moons except those of Uranus and Neptune,
+present their equators to the sun. The direction of orbital and
+axial revolution seen from above the North Pole would be opposite
+to that of the hands of a watch.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The speed of this orbital revolution must be proportioned to the
+distance from the sun. The attraction of the sun varies inversely
+as the square of the distance.
+<a name="page_100"><span class="page">Page 100</span></a>
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig38.jpg" width="513" height="696" alt="Figure 38">
+<br />
+Fig. 38.&mdash;Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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
+<a name="page_101"><span class="page">Page 101</span></a>
+speed when attractive power is diminished by distance. Hence Mercury
+must go 29.5 miles per second&mdash;seventy times as fast as a
+rifle-ball that goes two-fifths of a mile in a second&mdash;or
+be drawn into the sun; while Neptune, seventy-five times as far
+off, and hence attracted only 1/5626 as much, must be slowed down
+to 3.4 miles a second to prevent its flying away from the feebler
+attraction of the sun. The orbital velocity of the various planets
+in miles per second is as follows:
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <td>Mercury</td>
+ <td class="br">29.55</td>
+ <td>Jupiter</td>
+ <td>8.06</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td>Venus</td>
+ <td class="br">21.61</td>
+ <td>Saturn</td>
+ <td>5.95</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td>Earth</td>
+ <td class="br">18.38</td>
+ <td>Uranus</td>
+ <td>4.20</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td>Mars</td>
+ <td class="br">14.99</td>
+ <td>Neptune</td>
+ <td>3.36</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Hence, while the earth makes one revolution in its year, Mercury
+has made over four revolutions, or passed through four years; the
+slower Neptune has made only 1/164 of one revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The time of axial revolution 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 enormous 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&mdash;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
+<a name="page_102"><span class="page">Page 102</span></a>
+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 hereafter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The difference in the size of the planets is very noticeable. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination of its axis
+to the plane of its orbit. In Fig. 39 the rotating 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 darkness than day, and hence winter. Passing on
+to B, the world is seen illuminated equally on each side of the
+equator. Every place has its twelve hours' darkness and light at each
+revolution. But at C&mdash;the axis of the earth always preserving
+the same direction&mdash;the northern pole is shrouded in continual
+gloom. Every place
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<a name="page_103"><span class="page">Page 103</span></a>
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig39.jpg" width="750" height="610" alt="Figure 39">
+<br />
+Fig. 39.&mdash;Orbit of Earth, showing Parallelism of Axis and Seasons.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+<a name="page_105"><span class="page">Page 105</span></a>
+north of the equator gets more darkness than light, and hence winter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+necessary. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are observed to
+enlarge and contract, according as it is winter 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But the seasons of Venus present the greatest anomaly, if its assigned
+inclination of axis (75&deg;) 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 winters, springs,
+summers, and autumns to the equator in two hundred and twenty-five
+days.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+<a name="page_106"><span class="page">Page 106</span></a>
+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 sufficient time, might cause frightful extremes
+of temperature; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at
+which it is said, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Then
+a compensative diminution will follow.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, floating in a round
+pond. The axis will be inclined 7-1/2&deg; to the surface of the
+water, one side of the equator be 7-1/2&deg; below the surface,
+and the other side the same distance above. Let the half-submerged
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying in
+<a name="page_107"><span class="page">Page 107</span></a>
+the same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies were to start
+in a direct line for the sun, they would not collide with the earth
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig40.jpg" width="489" height="152" alt="Figure 40">
+<br />
+Fig. 40.&mdash;Inclination of the Planes of Orbits.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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 Venus
+and Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun at every
+revolution.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 457px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig41.jpg" width="457" height="184" alt="Figure 41">
+<br />
+Fig. 41.&mdash;Inclination of Orbits of Venus and Earth. Nodal Line,
+D B.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and Venus seen
+not from the edge but from a position somewhat above. The point E,
+where Venus crosses the plane of the earth's orbit, is called the
+ascending node. If the earth were at B when Venus is at E, Venus
+would be seen on the disk of the sun, making a transit. The same
+would be true if the earth were at D, and Venus at the descending
+node F.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This general view of the flying spheres is full of interest.
+<a name="page_108"><span class="page">Page 108</span></a>
+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, continuing to fill each other's
+sky for days with brightness, then one gradually draws ahead. They
+have all phases for each other&mdash;crescent, half, full, and
+gibbous. These hundreds of bodies fill the realm where they are
+with inexhaustible variety. Beyond are vast spaces&mdash;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 perfect 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 power. 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>The Outlook from the Earth.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We see, first of all, sun, moon, and stars rise in the east, mount
+the heavens, and set in the west. As I
+<a name="page_109"><span class="page">Page 109</span></a>
+revolve in my pivoted study-chair, and see all sides of the
+room&mdash;library, maps, photographs, telescope, and windows&mdash;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
+pyramids 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 Acropolis; and the mighty mountains of Moab
+removed to reveal 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 vibrating 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
+six hours after it is swinging toward Rome, in Italy; in twelve
+hours, toward Siam, in Asia; in nineteen hours, toward the Sandwich
+Islands; and in twenty-four, toward 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
+sufficient to compel the plane of the original direction to change
+with the turning of the earth. The law of inertia keeps it moving
+in the same direction. The same experimental proof of revolution
+is shown in a proportional degree at any point between the pole
+and the equator.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But the watchers on the Acropolis do not get turned over so as to
+see the moon at the same time every night.
+<a name="page_110"><span class="page">Page 110</span></a>
+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 minutes longer before we find the moon.
+It must be going in the same direction, and it takes us longer to
+get round to it than if if it were always in the same spot; so
+we notice a star near the moon one night&mdash;it is 13&deg; west
+of the moon the next night. The moon is going around the earth
+from west to east, and if it goes 13&deg; in one day, it will take
+a little more than twenty-seven days to go the entire circle of
+360&deg;.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 502px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig42.jpg" width="502" height="507" alt="Figure 42">
+<br />
+Fig. 42.&mdash;Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_111"><span class="page">Page 111</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 three 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 midnight
+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 toward B, the sun appears to move toward H.
+If we had observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 1876, 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.
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig43.jpg" width="48" height="96" alt="Figure 43">
+<br />
+Fig. 43.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+43. By sunset the earth had moved enough to make the sun appear
+to be at circle 2, and by the next morning at circle 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There are certain stars that have such irregular, uncertain, 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 retrograde,
+<a name="page_112"><span class="page">Page 112</span></a>
+and go on again. Some are never seen far from the sun, and others
+in all parts of the ecliptic.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 429px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig44.jpg" width="429" height="40" alt="Figure 44">
+<br />
+Fig. 44.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Venus is still in sight; Jupiter is
+45&deg; behind Venus, and Saturn is seen 90&deg; farther east.
+When A has rolled a little farther, if he is awake, he will see
+Mars before he sees the sun; or, in common language, Venus 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 514px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig45.jpg" width="514" height="325" alt="Figure 45">
+<br />
+Fig. 45. Showing Position of Planets.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The mysterious movements of advance and retreat are rendered
+intelligible by Fig. 46. The planet Mercury is at A, and, seen from
+the earth, B is located at <i>a</i>,
+<a name="page_113"><span class="page">Page 113</span></a>
+on the background of the stars it seems to be among. It remains
+apparently stationary at <i>a</i> for some time, because approaching
+the earth in nearly a straight line. Passing D to C, it appears to
+retrograde among the stars to <i>c</i>; remains apparently stationary
+for some time, then, in passing from C to E and A, appears to pass back
+among the stars to <i>a</i>. The progress of the earth, meanwhile,
+although it greatly retards the apparent motion from A to C, greatly
+hastens it from C to A.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 509px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig46.jpg" width="509" height="296" alt="Figure 46">
+<br />
+Fig. 46.&mdash;Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It is also apparent that Mercury and Venus, 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 never more than 47&deg; from the sun, and Mercury never
+more than 30&deg;; indeed, it keeps so near the sun that very few
+people have ever seen the brilliant sparkler. Observe 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 sometimes take place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_114"><span class="page">Page 114</span></a>
+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 nearly
+straight, from Mars to G; then, as the earth begins to curve around
+the sun, Mars will appear to retraverse the distance from F to
+C, and beyond. The farther the superior planet is from the earth
+the less will be the retrograde movement.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 359px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig47.jpg" width="359" height="221" alt="Figure 47">
+<br />
+Fig. 47.&mdash;Illustrating Movements of a Superior Planet.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+To account for these most simple movements, the earlier astronomers
+invented the most complex and impossible 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 accomplished by mounting them
+on subsidiary eccentric wheels in the revolving crystal sphere.
+All that was
+<a name="page_115"><span class="page">Page 115</span></a>
+needed to give them a right conception was a sinking of their world
+and themselves to an appropriate proportion, and an enlargement
+of their vision, to take in from an exalted stand-point a view
+of the simplicity of the perfect plan.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">EXPERIMENTS.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Fix a rod, or tube, or telescope pointing at a star in the cast
+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. Anyone 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 illustrated by two persons walking
+around a centre and noticing the place where the person appears
+projected on the wall beyond.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p class="bquote">PROCESSION OF STARS AND SOULS.</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"I stood upon the open casement,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And looked upon the night,<br>
+&nbsp;And saw the westward-going stars<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pass slowly out of sight.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Slowly the bright procession<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Went down the gleaming arch,<br>
+&nbsp;And my soul discerned the music<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of the long triumphal march;
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Till the great celestial army,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stretching far beyond the poles,<br>
+&nbsp;Became the eternal symbol<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of the mighty march of souls.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_116"><span class="page">Page 116</span></a>
+"Onward, forever onward,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Red Mars led on his clan;<br>
+&nbsp;And the moon, like a mail&egrave;d maiden,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Was riding in the van.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"And some were bright in beauty,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And some were faint and small,<br>
+&nbsp;But these might be, in their great heights,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The noblest of them all.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Downward, forever downward,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Behind earth's dusky shore,<br>
+&nbsp;They passed into the unknown night&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;They passed, and were no more.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"No more! Oh, say not so!<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And downward is not just;<br>
+&nbsp;For the sight is weak and the sense is dim<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That looks through heated dust.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The stars and the mail&egrave;d moon,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Though they seem to fall and die,<br>
+&nbsp;Still sweep in their embattled lines<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;An endless reach of sky.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"And though the hills of Death<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;May hide the bright array,<br>
+&nbsp;The marshalled brotherhood of souls<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Still keeps its onward way.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Upward, forever upward,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I see their march sublime,<br>
+&nbsp;And hear the glorious music<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of the conquerors of Time.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"And long let me remember<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That the palest fainting one<br>
+&nbsp;May to diviner vision be<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A bright and blazing sun."
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_117"><span class="page">Page 117</span></a>
+VII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah,
+and they died."&mdash;<i>Joshua</i> x. II.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 712px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_118"><span class="page">Page 118</span></a>
+<img src="images/swarm.jpg" width="712" height="551" alt="meteor swarm">
+<br />
+A SWARM OF METEORS MEETING THE EARTH.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Their orbits are all parallel. Those coming in direct line to the
+eye appear as stars, having no motion. Those on one side of this
+line are seen in foreshortened perspective. Those furthest from
+the centre, other things being equal, appear longest. The centre,
+called the radiant point, of these November meteors is situated
+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 an hour.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_119"><span class="page">Page 119</span></a>
+VII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before particularly considering the larger aggregations of matter
+called planets or worlds as individuals, it is best to investigate
+a part of the solar system consisting of smaller collections of
+matter scattered everywhere 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 various relations
+to each other, from independent individuality 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&mdash;a
+part of the unity of the universe.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Everyone 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
+<a name="page_120"><span class="page">Page 120</span></a>
+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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig48.jpg" width="521" height="535" alt="Figure 48">
+<br />
+Fig. 48.&mdash;Explosion of a Bolide.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+to disappear about twenty miles nearer the surface. Their average
+velocity, thirty-five, sometimes rises to one hundred miles a second.
+They exhibit different colors, according to their different chemical
+substances, which are consumed. The number of them to be seen on
+different nights is exceedingly variable; sometimes not more
+<a name="page_121"><span class="page">Page 121</span></a>
+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 matter, 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&mdash;there is collision&mdash;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&mdash;one in 20,000,000 cubic miles&mdash;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
+investigations, "that the heat which the earth receives directly
+from meteors is the same in amount which it receives from the sun
+by radiation, and that the sun receives five-sixths of its heat
+from the meteors that fall upon it."
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 435px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig49.jpg" width="435" height="211" alt="Figure 49">
+<br />
+Fig. 49.&mdash;Bolides.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_122"><span class="page">Page 122</span></a>
+In 1783 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have a telescopic view
+of a system of bodies which had turned into meteors. These were two
+larger bodies followed by several smaller ones, going in parallel
+lines till they were extinguished. They probably had been revolving
+about each other as worlds and satellites before entering our
+atmosphere. It is more than probable that the earth has many such
+bodies, too small to be visible, revolving around it as moons.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 426px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig50.jpg" width="426" height="464" alt="Figure 50">
+<br />
+Fig. 50.&mdash;Santa Rosa Aerolite.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>Aerolites.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the heat, and the
+unconsumed centre comes to the earth.
+<a name="page_123"><span class="page">Page 123</span></a>
+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 secured. On
+the evening of December 21st, 1876, a meteor 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 continued 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 estimated at from twenty to one hundred. It was
+accompanied 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 hundred 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 thousand 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_124"><span class="page">Page 124</span></a>
+planets. The chain of asteroids is an illustration of meteoric
+bodies on a large scale. They are hundreds in number&mdash;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 meteors are at the
+point of intersection at the same time, there must be collisions,
+and the lightning signs of extinction proportioned to the number
+of little bodies in a given space.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 August, another on the 11th of November. In
+a certain part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies
+sufficient 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 November meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceedingly
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_125"><span class="page">Page 125</span></a>
+should have crossed the earth's orbit early in September, 1872.
+The earth itself would arrive at the point of crossing two or three
+months later. If the law of revolution held, we might still expect
+to find some of the trailing meteoroids of the comet not gone by on
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig51.jpg" width="341" height="551" alt="Figure 51">
+<br />
+Fig. 51.&mdash;Orbit of the November Meteors and the Comet or 1866.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+our arrival. 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 diluted comet were still there.
+The prediction was verified in every respect. At the appointed
+time, place,
+<a name="page_126"><span class="page">Page 126</span></a>
+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 attraction, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Comets.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Comets will be most easily understood by the foregoing 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
+existence, motion, and continuance to the same causes as Jupiter and
+the rest of the planets. They are really planets of wider wandering,
+greater ellipticity, and less density. They have periodic times
+less than the earth, 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 reflected 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 precede 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 Neptune 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,
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<a name="page_127"><span class="page">Page 127</span></a>
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig52.jpg" width="533" height="531" alt="Figure 52">
+<br />
+Fig. 52.&mdash;Aspects of Remarkable Comets.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+or one that will carry it off into infinite space, never to return.
+One rate of speed on the curve indicates an elliptical orbit that
+returns; a greater rate of speed indicates that it will take a
+parabolic orbit, which never returns. 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
+<a name="page_128"><span class="page">Page 128</span></a>
+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 retardations of attracting bodies. A comet of
+long period may be changed to one of short period by such attraction,
+or <i>vice versa</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 hundred have been seen by telescopes invented
+since their invention. Some authorities estimate the number belonging
+to our solar system by millions; Professor Peirce says more than
+five thousand millions.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Famous Comets.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The comet of 1680 is perhaps the one that appeared in A.D. 44,
+soon after the death of Julius C&aelig;sar, 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&deg; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 comet was seen in 1531 having the same orbit. Still
+farther, by the same exact period of seventy-five years, he found
+that it was the same comet that had disturbed
+<a name="page_129"><span class="page">Page 129</span></a>
+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 finish 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 return was calculated with
+more laborious care. It came to time and passed the sun within
+three days of the predicted time, on the 16th of November, 1835.
+It passed from sight of the most powerful telescopes the following
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Biela's lost Comet.</i>&mdash;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
+<a name="page_130"><span class="page">Page 130</span></a>
+trace of it could be discovered. Probably the same influence that
+separated it into parts, separated the particles 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>The Great Comet of</i> 1843 passed nearer the sun than any known
+body. It almost grazed the sun. If it ever returns, it will be in
+A.D. 2373.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Donati's Comet of</i> 1858.&mdash;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 1875.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Encke's Comet.</i>&mdash;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 degree, 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 diminished, the attraction
+of the sun causes it to take a smaller orbit, and smaller orbits
+mean increased speed&mdash;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. Subsequent and more exact calculations
+fail to find any retardations in at least two revolutions between
+1865 and
+<a name="page_131"><span class="page">Page 131</span></a>
+1871. Indications point to a retardation of one and a half hours
+both before and since. But such discrepancy 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The truth may be this, that a kind of atmosphere exists around the
+sun, perhaps revealed by the zodiacal light, that reaches beyond
+where Encke's comet dips inside 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Of what do Comets consist?</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The unsolved problems pertaining to comets are very numerous and
+exceedingly delicate. Whence come they? Why did they not contract
+to centres of nebul&aelig;? Are there regions where attractions
+are balanced, and matter is left to contract on itself, till the
+movements of suns and planets adds or diminishes attractive 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. Indeed, 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 lying
+<a name="page_132"><span class="page">Page 132</span></a>
+there, in a spherical shell about the solar system, balanced between
+the attraction of different suns, finally feels the power that
+determines its destiny toward our sun. It would take 167,000,000
+years to come thence to our system.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The conditions of matter with which we are acquainted do not cover
+all the ground presented by these mysterious 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 spiritual, forms matter may be changed we
+cannot tell. But if we 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 matter, hundreds of miles apart; and,
+looking through thousands 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 another state of things: it
+reveals in some of these comets an incandescent gas&mdash;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 separate bodies, or matter in a liquid condition,
+capable of being vaporized by the heat of the sun, and driven off,
+<a name="page_133"><span class="page">Page 133</span></a>
+as steam from a locomotive, into a tail. Indications of this are
+found in the fact that tails grow smaller at successive returns, as
+the matter capable of such vaporization 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 master the difficulties.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Will Comets strike the Earth?</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_134"><span class="page">Page 134</span></a>
+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 solidity, the result would be far more serious.
+The mass of Donati's comet has been estimated by M. Faye to be
+1/20000 of that of the earth. If this amount of matter were dense
+as water, it would make a globe five hundred miles in diameter;
+and if as dense as Professor Peirce proved the nucleus of this
+comet to be, its impact 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." Besides, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_135"><span class="page">Page 135</span></a>
+VIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Through faith we understand that the worlds [plural] were framed
+by the word of God, so that things which were seen were not made
+of things which do appear."&mdash;<i>Heb.</i> xi. 3.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_136"><span class="page">Page 136</span></a>
+"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."&mdash;EMERSON.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+VII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<a name="page_137"><span class="page">Page 137</span></a>
+<i>THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Republic 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 question is, are there any bodies
+large enough to be seen?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The same great genius of Leverrier that gave us Neptune from the
+observed perturbations of Uranus, pointed 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 asserted
+discoveries of one had been by inexperienced observers, inclined
+to the belief in a group, or that the disturbance was caused by
+the matter reflecting the zodiacal light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the total eclipse of the sun occurred in 1878,
+<a name="page_138"><span class="page">Page 138</span></a>
+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 carefully studied, sections
+of the sky about the sun were assigned to different observers,
+who should attend to nothing but to look for a possible planet.
+It is now conceded that Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor, actually
+saw the sought-for body.
+</p>
+
+<h3>VULCAN.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The god of fire; its sign <img src="images/vulcan.gif" width="18"
+height="15" alt="Vulcan">, his hammer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Distance from the sun, 13,000,000 miles. Orbital revolution,
+about 20 days.</b>
+</p>
+
+<h3>MERCURY.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The swift messenger of the gods; sign <img src="images/mercury.gif"
+width="12" height="17" alt="Mercury">, his caduceus.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>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.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mercury shines with a white light nearly as bright as Sirius; is
+always near the horizon. When nearly between us and the sun, as
+at D (Fig. 46, p. 113), its illuminated 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 beyond the
+sun, as at E, we see its whole illuminated face like the full-moon.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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; nearest 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_139"><span class="page">Page 139</span></a>
+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
+1818 occupied seven and a half hours. The transits for the remainder
+of the century will occur:
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <td>November 7th</td>
+ <td class="br">1881</td>
+ <td>November 10th</td>
+ <td>1894</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td>May 9th</td>
+ <td class="br">1891</td>
+ <td>November 4th</td>
+ <td>1901</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>VENUS.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Goddess of beauty; its sign <img src="images/venus.gif" width="12"
+height="18" alt="Venus">, a mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Distance from the sun, 66,750,000 miles. Diameter, 7660 miles.
+Orbital Velocity, 1296 miles per minute. Axial revolution, 23h.
+21m. Orbital revolution, 224.7 days.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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. Ph&oelig;bus, Diana, Venus 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 <i>f&ecirc;te</i>, 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
+<a name="page_140"><span class="page">Page 140</span></a>
+his piercing eye caught the clear lustre of Venus smiling upon him
+at mid-day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This unusual brightness occurs when Venus 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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).
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 540px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig53.jpg" width="540" height="188" alt="Figure 53">
+<br />
+Fig. 53.&mdash;Phases of Venus, and Varions Apparent Dimensions.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 discovery was contained:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_141"><span class="page">Page 141</span></a>
+"H&aelig;c immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o. y."<br />
+(These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He first saw Venus as gibbous; a few months revealed it as crescent,
+and then he transposed his anagram into:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Cynthi&aelig; figuras &aelig;mulatur mater amorum."<br />
+(The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.)
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many things that were once supposed to be known concerning Venus are
+not confirmed by later and better observations. Venus 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
+determined. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Florence has built a kind of shrine for the telescope of Galileo.
+By it he discovered the phases of Venus, 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 became blind, but he had used his eyes to the best
+purpose of any man in his generation.
+</p>
+
+<h3>THE EARTH.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Its sign <img src="images/earth.gif" width="16" height="16"
+alt="Earth">.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Distance from the sun, 92,500,000 miles. Diameter, polar, 7899
+miles; equatorial, 7925-1/2 miles. Axial revolution, 23h. 56m. 4.09s.;
+orbital, 365.86. Orbital velocity per minute, 1152.8 miles.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Let us lift ourselves up a thousand miles from the earth. We see it
+as a ball hung upon nothing in empty space. As the drop of falling
+water gathers itself
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<a name="page_142"><span class="page">Page 142</span></a>
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig54.jpg" width="505" height="603" alt="Figure 54">
+<br />
+Fig. 54.&mdash;Earth and Moon in Space.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+into a sphere by its own inherent attraction, so the earth gathers
+itself into a ball. Noticing closely, we 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
+<a name="page_143"><span class="page">Page 143</span></a>
+the sunset follow over an equal space, 180&deg; behind. We are glad
+that the darkness never overtakes the morning.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>The Aurora Borealis.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+While east and west are gorgeous with sunrise and sunset, the north
+is often more glorious with its aurora borealis. We remember that
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig55.jpg" width="515" height="524" alt="Figure 55">
+<br />
+Fig. 55.&mdash;The Aurora as Waving Curtains.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+all worlds have weird 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
+<a name="page_144"><span class="page">Page 144</span></a>
+not without its inexplicable surroundings. It has 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 various forms&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>The Delicate Balance of Forces.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A soap-bubble in the wind could hardly be more flexible 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 Europe. The
+waves ran out to the Sandwich Islands, six
+<a name="page_145"><span class="page">Page 145</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The figure of the earth, even on the ocean, is irregular, in consequence
+of the greater preponderance of land&mdash;and hence greater
+density&mdash;in the northern hemisphere. These irregularities are
+often very perplexing in making exact geodetic measurements. The
+tendency of matter to fly from the centre by reason of revolution
+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 rate. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 an infinitesimal degree, or the world rotate more slowly,
+the poles would be submerged and the equator become an arid waste.
+No balance, turning to 1/1000 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 1/100
+of a second of time in two thousand years.
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="page_146"><span class="page">Page 146</span></a>
+<i>Tides.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But there is an outside influence that is constantly acting upon
+the earth, and to which it constantly responds. Two hundred and
+forty thousand miles from the earth is the moon, having 1/81 the
+mass of the world. Its attractive influence on the earth causes the
+movable 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 inversely 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 water 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 flexible 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 produce.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<a name="page_147"><span class="page">Page 147</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig56.jpg" width="562" height="155" alt="Figure 56">
+<br />
+Fig. 56.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If the earth had no axial revolution, the attractive point where
+the tide rises would be carried around the earth once in twenty-seven
+days by the moon's revolution about the earth. But since the earth
+revolves on its axis, it presents a new section to the moon's attraction
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&mdash;when both
+bodies are on one side of the earth; or in opposition, sun and
+moon being on opposite sides of the earth&mdash;we have spring or
+increased tides. When the moon is in its first or third quarter,
+<i>i. e.</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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_148"><span class="page">Page 148</span></a>
+it does not yield instantly to the moon's influence, and the crest
+of the tide is some hours behind the advancing moon.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+continents, 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-five 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 Mediterranean Sea are only about three inches.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 commerce. She takes all the loads that
+can be floated on her flowing tides, and cheerfully carries them
+in opposite directions in successive journeys.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 men as
+Laplace, Newton, and Airy have labored in vain. There are plenty
+of other worlds still to conquer.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 519px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_150"><span class="page">Page 150</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig57.jpg" width="519" height="771" alt="Figure 57">
+<br />
+Fig. 57.&mdash;Lunar Day.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="page_151"><span class="page">Page 151</span></a>
+THE MOON.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+New moon, <img src="images/new_moon.gif" width="12" height="12"
+alt="new moon">; first quarter, <img src="images/first_quarter.gif"
+width="8" height="13" alt="first quarter">; full moon, <img
+src="images/full_moon.gif" width="12" height="12" alt="full moon">;
+last quarter, <img src="images/last_quarter.gif" width="8" height="13"
+alt="last quarter">.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>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, 29-1/2 days. Axial revolution, same
+time.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+instruments 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, and 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Since, however, the moon is our nearest neighbor, a member of our
+own family in fact, it is a most interesting object of study.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A glance at its familiar face reveals its unequal illumination.
+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&mdash;so
+<a name="page_152"><span class="page">Page 152</span></a>
+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 behind 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The same peculiarities are always evident in the visible 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 behind, 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 576/1000 of the moon's surface. Our eyes
+will never see the other side of the moon. If, now, being solid,
+her axial revolution could
+<a name="page_153"><span class="page">Page 153</span></a>
+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 revolutions 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 beyond its centre of magnitude, which is the same in effect
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The moon's day, caused by the sun's light, is 29-1/2 times as long
+as ours. The sun shines unintermittingly for fifteen days, raising a
+temperature as fervid as boiling 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&mdash;crescent,
+full, and gibbous&mdash;to the moon as the moon does to us, and
+for the same causes. Lord Rosse 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 extremes of
+temperature should shun a lunar residence. The moon gives us only
+1/6180000 as much light as the sun. A sky full of moons would scarcely
+make daylight.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 508px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_154"><span class="page">Page 154</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig58.jpg" width="508" height="672" alt="Figure 58">
+<br />
+Fig. 58.&mdash;View of the Moon near the Third Quarter. From a
+Photograph by Professor Henry Draper.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There are no indications of air or water on the moon. When it occults
+a star it instantly shuts off the light and as instantly reveals
+it again. An atmosphere would gradually diminish and reveal the
+light, and by refraction
+<a name="page_155"><span class="page">Page 155</span></a>
+cause the star to be hidden 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 substance.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Telescopic Appearance.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 gravitation 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 cavities
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig59.jpg" width="227" height="127" alt="Figure 59">
+<br />
+Fig. 59.&mdash;Illumination of Craters and Peaks.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+three miles deep remain unfilled. The light of the sun falling on
+the rough body of the moon, shown in section (Fig. 59), illuminates
+the whole cavity at <i>a</i>, part of the one at <i>b</i>, casts
+a long shadow from the mountain at <i>c</i>, and touches the tip
+of the one at <i>d</i>, which appears to a distant observer as a
+point of light beyond the terminator, As the moon revolves the
+conical cavity, <i>a</i> is illuminated on the forward side only;
+the light creeps down the backward side of cavity <i>b</i> to the
+bottom; mountain <i>c</i>. comes directly under the sun and casts
+no shadow, and mountain <i>d</i> casts its long shadow over the
+plain. Knowing the time of revolution, and observing the change of
+<a name="page_156"><span class="page">Page 156</span></a>
+illumination, we can easily measure the height of mountain and depth
+of crater. An apple, with excavations and added prominences, revolved
+on its axis toward the 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 crescent forms
+to the right, showing cavities in abundance.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 544px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig60.jpg" width="544" height="474" alt="Figure 60">
+<br />
+Fig. 60.&mdash;Lunar Crater "Copernicus," after Secchi.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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,
+<a name="page_157"><span class="page">Page 157</span></a>
+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 discoveries 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This little orb, that is only 1/81 of the mass of the earth, has
+twenty-eight mountains that are higher than Mont Blanc, that "monarch
+of mountains," in Europe.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Eclipses.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 behind the earth at every revolution. Such
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig61.jpg" width="496" height="319" alt="Figure 61">
+<br />
+Fig. 61.&mdash;Eclipses; Shadows of Earth and Moon.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+successive and total darkenings would greatly derange all affairs
+dependent on light. It is easily avoided. Venus does
+<a name="page_158"><span class="page">Page 158</span></a>
+not cross the disk of the sun at every revolution, because 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&deg; 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
+orbit were pulled up one-quarter of an inch from the page behind
+the earth, and depressed as much below it between the earth and
+the sun. The point where the orbit 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 partially hide the sun; and, if it cover
+the centre, leave a ring of sunlight on every side. This is called
+an annular 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 position after the earth has made
+about eighteen revolutions,
+<a name="page_159"><span class="page">Page 159</span></a>
+and the moon two hundred and sixteen&mdash;that is, eighteen years
+after. This period, however, is disregarded by astronomers, and
+each eclipse calculated by itself to the accuracy of a second.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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!
+</p>
+
+<h3>MARS.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The god or war; Its sign <img src="images/mars.gif" width="11"
+height="17" alt="Mars">, spear and shield.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Mean distance from the sun, 141,000,000 miles. Diameter, 4211
+miles. Revolution, axial, 24h. 37m. 22.7s.; orbital, 686.98 days.
+Velocity per minute, 899 miles. Satellites, two.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 exceedingly variable; sometimes
+it scintillates, and sometimes it shines with a steady light. Its
+marked peculiarities 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 154,000,000;
+hence its mean distance is about 141,000,000. So great a change
+in its distance from the sun easily 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 conjunction within 49,000,000
+miles of each other, and at opposition be 233,000,000 miles apart.
+But Mars at perihelion may be only 128,000,000 miles from the sun,
+and earth at
+<a name="page_160"><span class="page">Page 160</span></a>
+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). Take a favorable
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig62.jpg" width="484" height="223" alt="Figure 62">
+<br />
+Fig. 62.&mdash;Apparent Size of Mars at Mean and Extreme Distances.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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 planet. The first thing that strikes the observer is
+a dazzling spot of white near the pole which happens to be toward
+him, or at both poles when the planet is so situated that they can be
+seen. When the north pole is turned toward the sun the size of the
+spot sensibly diminishes, and the spot at the south pole enlarges,
+and <i>vice versa</i>. 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
+<a name="page_161"><span class="page">Page 161</span></a>
+smaller than those of the north pole in its summer. This carrying 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 unknown. 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. Perhaps 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Satellites of Mars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The night of August 11th, 1877, is famous in modern astronomy.
+Mars has been a special object of study in all ages; but on that
+evening Professor Hall, of Washington, 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 calculated time&mdash;at
+four o'clock in the morning&mdash;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 soon emerged which
+proved to be an inner satellite. This is extraordinarily near
+<a name="page_162"><span class="page">Page 162</span></a>
+the planet&mdash;only four thousand miles from the surface&mdash;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.&mdash;a rapidity
+so much surpassing 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 12,579 miles from
+Mars, and makes its revolution in 30h. 18m. Its diameter is six
+and a quarter miles; that of the inner one is seven and a half
+miles. This can be estimated only by the amount of light given.
+</p>
+
+<h3>ASTEROIDS.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Already discovered (1879), 192. 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.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 commence work, Piazzi, an Italian astronomer of Palermo,
+<a name="page_163"><span class="page">Page 163</span></a>
+found in Taurus a star behaving like a planet. In six weeks it was
+lost in the rays 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. Olbers 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_164"><span class="page">Page 164</span></a>
+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 astronomical observation.
+</p>
+
+<h3>JUPITER.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The king of the gods; sign <img src="images/jupiter.gif" width="16"
+height="17" alt="Jupiter">, the bird of Jove.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Distance from the sun, perihelion, 457,000,000 miles; aphelion,
+503,000,000 miles. Diameter, equatorial, 87,500 miles; polar, 82,500
+miles. Volume, 1300 earths. Mass, 213 earths. Axial revolution, 9h.
+55m 20s. Orbital revolution, 11 years 317 days. Velocity, 483.6
+miles per minute.</b>
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 340px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig63.jpg" width="340" height="345" alt="Figure 63">
+<br />
+Fig. 63.&mdash;Jupiter as seen by the great Washington Telescope.
+Drawn by Mr. Holden.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Jupiter rightly wears the name of the "giant planet." His orbit
+is more nearly circular than most smaller planets. He could not
+turn short corners with facility. We know little of his surface.
+His spots and belts are
+<a name="page_165"><span class="page">Page 165</span></a>
+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 tempests
+are probably not violent. It is, however, a singular 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Satellites of Jupiter.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In one respect Jupiter seems like a minor sun&mdash;he is royally
+attended by a group of planets: we call them moons. This system
+is a favorite object of study to everyone 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. Galileo 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 representation of their appearance at successive observations 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,
+<a name="page_166"><span class="page">Page 166</span></a>
+be occulted, emerge from shadow, and eclipse the planet, in an hour's
+watching.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 497px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig64.jpg" width="497" height="256" alt="Figure 64">
+<br />
+Fig. 64.&mdash;<i>a.</i> Various Positions of Jupiter's Moons; <i>b.</i>
+Greatest Elongation of each Satellite.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">ELEMENTS OF JUPITER'S SATELLITES.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <th class="bltr" colspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Mean Distance<br />from Jupiter.</th>
+ <th class="btrb" colspan="3">Sidereal Period.</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Diameter.</th>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="bl">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="br">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Miles.</td>
+ <td class="right">Days</td>
+ <td class="right">Hrs.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Min.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Miles.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_bl">I.</td>
+ <td class="br">Io</td>
+ <td class="right_br">260,000</td>
+ <td class="right">1</td>
+ <td class="right">18</td>
+ <td class="right_br">28</td>
+ <td class="right_br">2,352</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_bl">II.</td>
+ <td class="br">Europa</td>
+ <td class="right_br">414,000</td>
+ <td class="right">3</td>
+ <td class="right">13</td>
+ <td class="right_br">43</td>
+ <td class="right_br">2,099</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_bl">III.</td>
+ <td class="br">Ganymede</td>
+ <td class="right_br">661,000</td>
+ <td class="right">7</td>
+ <td class="right">3</td>
+ <td class="right_br">59</td>
+ <td class="right_br">3,436</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_blb">IV.</td>
+ <td class="brb">Callisto</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">1,162,000</td>
+ <td class="right_bb">16</td>
+ <td class="right_bb">18</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">5</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">2,929</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 IV. 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 water on them. The mass of all
+of them is .000171 of Jupiter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_167"><span class="page">Page 167</span></a>
+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
+forty-five miles a minute, holding four other worlds in steady
+orbits, some of them at a speed of seven hundred miles a minute,
+and the whole system carried through space at five hundred 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3>SATURN.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The god or time; sign <img src="images/saturn.gif" width="14"
+height="18" alt="Saturn">, his scythe.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Mean distance from the sun, 881,000,000 miles. Diameter, polar,
+66,500 miles; equatorial, 73,300 miles. Axial revolution, 10h.
+14m. Periodic time, 29t years. Moons, eight.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 are set; it has exercised its
+ingenuity at interpreting 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_168"><span class="page">Page 168</span></a>
+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 7th, 1870, Professor Hall observed a brilliant
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig65.jpg" width="545" height="458" alt="Figure 65">
+<br />
+Fig. 65.&mdash;View of Saturn and his Rings.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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 getting 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&mdash;that of Herschel being 10h. 16m., that
+of Mr. Hall being 10h. 14m.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_169"><span class="page">Page 169</span></a>
+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 formative processes. We cannot hear
+the voice of the Creator there, but we can see matter responsive
+to the voice, and moulded by his word.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Rings of Saturn.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The eye and mind of man have worked out a problem 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 peculiar about this planet. He wrote to the Duke of Tuscany,
+"When I view Saturn it seems <i>tricorps</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Huyghens, in March, 1655, solved the problem of the triform appearance
+of Saturn. He saw them as handles 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,
+<a name="page_170"><span class="page">Page 170</span></a>
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Since that time discoveries have succeeded one another 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. Enceladus, 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 furnishes 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 discovery,
+when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge, and Dawes, with
+his 6-1/3-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&mdash;a proof, if one were needed, 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."[*]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote *: Lockyer.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. As the earth at
+one part of its orbit presents its south pole
+<a name="page_171"><span class="page">Page 171</span></a>
+to the sun, then its equator, then the north pole, so Saturn; and
+we, in the direction of the sun, see the south side of the rings
+inclined at an angle of 27&deg;; 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 being in
+Taurus, the south side of the rings will be seen at the greatest
+advantage. From 1881 till 1885 all circumstances 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
+division, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The markings of the planet are delicate, difficult of detection,
+and are not like those stark zebra stripes that are so often
+represented.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+telescopic 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We are anxious to learn the nature of such a ring.
+<a name="page_172"><span class="page">Page 172</span></a>
+Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be uniform and
+solid, and survive. Professor Peirce showed 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. Indeed, there is some evidence that
+the meteoroids are far enough apart to make the ring partially
+transparent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We look forward to the opportunities for observation in 1882 with
+the brightest hope that these difficult questions will be solved.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Satellites of Saturn.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The first discovered satellite of Saturn seen by Huyghens was in
+1655, and the last by the Bonds, father and son, of Cambridge,
+in 1848. These are eight in number, and are named:
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td colspan="2">Distant from Saturn's centre.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">I.</td>
+ <td>Mimas</td>
+ <td class="right">119,725</td>
+ <td>miles.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">II.</td>
+ <td>Enceladus</td>
+ <td class="right">153,630</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">III.</td>
+ <td>Tethys</td>
+ <td class="right">190,225</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">IV.</td>
+ <td>Dione</td>
+ <td class="right">243,670</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">V.</td>
+ <td>Rhea</td>
+ <td class="right">340,320</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">VI.</td>
+ <td>Titan</td>
+ <td class="right">788,915</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">VII.</td>
+ <td>Hyperion</td>
+ <td class="right">954,160</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right">VIII.</td>
+ <td>Japetus</td>
+ <td class="right">2,292,790</td>
+ <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Titan can be seen by almost any telescope; I., II., and III., only
+by the most powerful instrument. All except Japetus revolve nearly
+in the plane of the ring. Like the moons of Jupiter, they present
+remarkable and unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection
+<a name="page_173"><span class="page">Page 173</span></a>
+of the table reveals either an expectation that another moon will
+be discovered between V. and VI., and about three more between
+VII. and VIII., 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 enable him
+to watch the advancing line of light that marks the lunar morning
+journeying round that orb.
+</p>
+
+<h3>URANUS.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sign <img src="images/uranus.gif" width="19" height="18" alt="Uranus">;
+the initial of Herschel, and sign of the world.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Distance from the sun, 1,771,000,000 miles. Diameter, 31,700
+miles. Axial revolution unknown. Orbital, 84 years. Velocity per
+minute, 252 miles. Moons, four.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_174"><span class="page">Page 174</span></a>
+boundaries of our solar system, in the moment of its discovery,
+as much as all investigation had done in all previous ages.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sir William Herschel was engaged in mapping stars in 1781, when he
+first observed its sea-green disk. He proposed to call it <i>Georgium
+Sidus</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This planet had been seen five times by Flamsteed before its character
+was determined&mdash;once nearly a century before&mdash;and eight
+times by Le Monnier. These names, which might easily have been
+associated with a grand discovery, are associated with careless
+observation. 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 difficulty by the most powerful telescopes.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&deg;, the moon, still continuing 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&deg;;
+but its revolution would now be from east to west, or
+<a name="page_175"><span class="page">Page 175</span></a>
+retrograde. The plane of the moons of Uranus has been thus inclined
+till it has passed 10&deg; 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3>NEPTUNE.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+God of the sea; sign <img src="images/neptune.gif" width="11"
+height="18" alt="Neptune">, his trident.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<b>Distance from the sun, 2,775,000,000 miles. Diameter, 34,500
+miles. Velocity per minute, 201.6 miles. Axial revolution unknown.
+Orbital, 164.78 years. One moon.</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 observations. On applying the law of universal
+gravitation, a slight discrepancy was found between its computed
+place and its observed place. This discrepancy was exceedingly
+slight. In 1830 it was only 20"; in 1840,190"; in 1884, 2'. Two
+stars that were 2' apart would appear as one to the keenest unaided
+eye, but such 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 irregularities, 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. Another
+opportunity for immortality was heedlessly neglected. Meanwhile,
+M. Leverrier, of Paris, was working at the same problem. In the
+summer of 1846 Leverrier announced the place of the exterior planet.
+The conclusion was in striking coincidence with that of Mr.
+<a name="page_176"><span class="page">Page 176</span></a>
+Clark. 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 sought-for
+world. It would seem easy to find a world seventy-six times as large
+as the earth, and easy to recognize it when seen. The fact that
+it could be discovered only by such care conveys an overwhelming
+idea of the distance where it moves.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 254px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig66.jpg" width="254" height="255" alt="Figure 66">
+<br />
+Fig. 66.&mdash;Perturbation of Uranus.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The effect of these perturbations by an exterior planet is understood
+from Fig. 66. Uranus and Neptune were 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 hastening Uranus in his orbit D
+from C to B, and also 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 little, and that the observations did not agree;
+but, supposing the first was wrong, carelessly missed the glory
+of once more doubling the bounds of the empire of the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_177"><span class="page">Page 177</span></a>
+It is time to pause and review our knowledge of this system. The
+first view reveals a moon and earth endowed 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 tendency
+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-four 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&mdash;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 gravity, sweep
+in a vastly wider curve around the sun. Add as many moons as has
+Jupiter or Saturn, the result is the same&mdash;an orderly carrying
+of worlds through space.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&mdash;Vulcan,
+Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars&mdash;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 13,000 earths. It holds Saturn, Uranus,
+and Neptune, and all their variously related satellites and rings.
+The two thoughts that overwhelm us are distance and power. The
+period of
+<a name="page_178"><span class="page">Page 178</span></a>
+man's whole history is not sufficient for an express train to traverse
+half the distance to Neptune. Thought wearies 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 outermost of planets,
+the very last sentinel of the outposts of the king, the very sun
+grown dim and small in the distance, we have taken only one step
+of the infinite distance to the stars. They have not changed their
+relative position&mdash;they have not grown brighter by our approach.
+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 almightiness than we are able to
+think.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If we cannot solve the problems of the present existence 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 difficulty 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_179"><span class="page">Page 179</span></a>
+IX.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
+the face of the deep."&mdash;<i>Genesis</i> i. 2.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_180"><span class="page">Page 180</span></a>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"A dark<br>
+Illimitable ocean, without bound,<br>
+Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,<br>
+And time, and place are lost."&mdash;MILTON.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"It is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and
+arranged; while no material forces or properties are known to be
+capable of discharging such functions."&mdash;LIONEL BEALE.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The laws of nature do not account for their own origin."&mdash;JOHN
+STUART MILL.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_181"><span class="page">Page 181</span></a>
+IX.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The method by which the solar system came into its present form
+was sketched in vast outline by Moses. He gave us the fundamental
+idea of what is called the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that
+prodigal dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conjectures 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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, declaring
+the modes of a divine worker rather than the necessities of blind
+force, it will still be worthy of that high distinction.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_182"><span class="page">Page 182</span></a>
+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 observer. Newton could say,
+"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could
+only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and
+powerful being!" Still it is well to recognize that some of its most
+ardent defenders have advocated it as materialistic. And Laplace
+said of it to Napoleon, "I have no need of the hypothesis of a
+god."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Divine Worker than any other theory. He must fill
+matter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would
+tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a constant
+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 endow the clay with power to make
+itself in perfect form, adorn itself with delicate beauty, and
+create other vases.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The nebular hypothesis is briefly this: All the matter composing
+all the bodies of the sun, planets, and satellites once existed
+in an exceedingly diffused state;
+<a name="page_183"><span class="page">Page 183</span></a>
+rarer than any gas with which we are acquainted, filling a space
+larger than the orbit of Neptune. 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. Rotation 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 gradually
+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 Neptune 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
+planet-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
+Vulcan.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The outer planets would cool off first, become inhabitable, 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 Vulcan.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The four great classes of facts confirmatory of this hypothesis
+are as follows: 1st. All the planets move
+<a name="page_184"><span class="page">Page 184</span></a>
+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 nebul&aelig; are observable in the heavens
+which are not yet condensed into solids, but are still bright gas.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 related, 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 indefinite, 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 evolutionist may think that the same
+process is gone through, but that an ever-present and working God
+superintends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endowment
+of power that successively gives life, consciousness, mental,
+affectional, and spiritual capacity.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Is this world-theory true? and if so, is either of the
+<a name="page_185"><span class="page">Page 185</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There are some difficulties in the way of the acceptance 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
+Newcomb, 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 nebul&aelig; be actually 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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. Helmholtz, in order to account for the heat of the
+contracting sun, must have the cloud relatively cold. How he and
+his followers diffused the cloud without heat is not stated.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next difficulty is that of rotation. The laws
+<a name="page_186"><span class="page">Page 186</span></a>
+of science compel a contraction into one non-rotating body&mdash;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 Neptune, and <i>already in revolution</i>. 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 existence of which must be assumed." Professor
+Newcomb 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It is a very serious difficulty that at least one satellite does
+not revolve in the right direction. How Neptune 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A greater difficulty is presented by the recently discovered 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
+<a name="page_187"><span class="page">Page 187</span></a>
+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 rotate on their axes than for their nearest moon to
+revolve round them in its orbit; this would have falsified the
+theory." It is also asserted that the newly discovered planet Vulcan
+makes an orbital in less time than the sun makes an axial revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+argument 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 Groombridge, now
+in the Hunting Dogs of Bootes. It is thought to have a speed of
+two hundred miles per second&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The nebul&aelig; which we are able to observe are not altogether
+confirmatory of the hypothesis under consideration. 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 <i>Natural Science
+Review</i>,
+<a name="page_188"><span class="page">Page 188</span></a>
+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 density, but that they exist in a low
+state of <i>tension. This fact is fatal to the nebular theory.</i>"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the autumn of 1876 a star blazed out in Cygnus, which promised
+to throw a flood of light on the question of world-making. Its
+spectrum was like some of the fixed stars. It probably blazed ont
+by condensation from some previously invisible nebula. But its
+brilliancy 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&mdash;a star
+into a nebula, instead of <i>vice versa</i>. A possible explanation
+will be considered under variable stars.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Such are a few of the many difficulties in the way of accepting
+the nebular hypothesis, as at present explained, 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, Newcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that
+cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be reconciled 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_189"><span class="page">Page 189</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When men attempt to roll the hypothesis of evolution 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 been 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Evolution, without constant superintendence and occasional new
+inspiration of power, finds some tremendous chasms in the road
+it travels. These must be spanned by the power of a present God
+or the airy imagination
+<a name="page_190"><span class="page">Page 190</span></a>
+of man. Dr. McCosh 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?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"1. Chemical action cannot be produced by mechanical power.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be produced from unorganized
+matter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living matter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"4. Organized matter is made up of cells, and can be produced only
+by cells. Whence the first cell?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"5. A living being can be produced only from a seed or germ. Whence
+the first vegetable seed?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"6. An animal cannot be produced from a plant. Whence the first
+animal?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"7. Sensation cannot be produced in insentient matter.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"9. Consciousness&mdash;that is, a knowledge of self and its
+operations&mdash;cannot be produced out of mere matter or sensation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"10. We have no knowledge of man being generated out of the lower
+animals.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"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 entertain these by any training.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_191"><span class="page">Page 191</span></a>
+"With such tremendous gaps in the process, the theory which would
+derive all things out of matter by development is seen to be a
+very precarious one.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 conceivable to
+the mind of man, with which it can possibly be endowed, can account
+for all the facts already observed. 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_193"><span class="page">Page 193</span></a>
+X.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE STELLAR SYSTEM.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The heavens number out the glory of the strong God."&mdash;DAVID.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_194"><span class="page">Page 194</span></a>
+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 infinity, and so man and angel passed
+on, viewing the universe, until the sun was out of sight&mdash;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 appeared,
+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 transformed, 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
+ont: '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 eternities, 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 beginning.'"
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_195"><span class="page">Page 195</span></a>
+X.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 allusions 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 colonized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; and
+nightly over them marched the grand procession of their apotheosized
+divinities. There Hercules perpetually 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 explored all strange seas
+of earth, nightly sailed in the infinite 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
+<a name="page_196"><span class="page">Page 196</span></a>
+their assertion of human ability and dominion. They gathered the
+illimitable stars, and put uncountable suns into the shape of the
+Great Bear&mdash;the most colossal form of animal ferocity and
+strength&mdash;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&mdash;a perpetual type that man's ambition and expectation
+correspond to that which has always been revealed as the divine.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+situated right ascension 13' 45", declination 88&deg; 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&deg; 40', longitude 79&deg;
+22', but it would be clearer to most persons to say Chatauqua. For
+exact location of a star, right ascension and declination must be
+given; but for general indication 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 preserved.
+The brightest stars are then indicated in order by the letters of
+the Greek alphabet&mdash;Alpha (&alpha;), Beta (&beta;), Gamma
+(&gamma;), etc. After these are exhausted, the Roman alphabet is
+used in the same manner, and then numbers are resorted to; so that
+the famous star 61 Cygni is the 111th star in brightness in that
+one constellation. An acquaintance with the names, peculiarities,
+and movements of the stars visible at different seasons of the
+year is an unceasing source of pleasure. It
+<a name="page_197"><span class="page">Page 197</span></a>
+is not vision alone that is gratified, for one fine enough may
+hear the morning stars sing together, and understand the speech
+that day uttereth unto day, and the knowledge 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 successive 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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A general acquaintance with the stars will be first attempted;
+a more particular knowledge afterward. Fig. 67 (<a
+href="#page_201">page 201</a>) 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 horizon 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 &eta;,
+Mizar &zeta;, Little Alcor close to it,
+<a name="page_198"><span class="page">Page 198</span></a>
+Alioth, &epsilon; Megrez, &delta; at the junction, has been growing
+dimmer for a century, Phad, &gamma; Dubhe and Merak. It is best to
+get some facility at estimating distances in degrees. Dubhe and
+Merak, "the Pointers," are five degrees 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.
+Follow "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
+degrees 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 Hercules stands on this head.
+This is the Dragon slain by Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such
+a crop of sanguinary men.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 &alpha; of Cepheus; in A.D. 13,500, within 7&deg; of
+Vega; 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
+<a name="page_199"><span class="page">Page 199</span></a>
+of stars, but a change in the direction of the axis of the earth
+pointing to these various places as the cycles 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 discernible 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 stem of the spinning top wavers, describes
+a circle, and finally falls; the axis of the spinning earth wavers,
+describes a circle of nearly 28,000 years, and never falls.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The star &gamma; Draconis, also called Etanin, is famous in modern
+astronomy, because observations on this star led to the discovery
+of the <i>aberration of light</i>. 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 displacement of a star from this course is about
+20".43.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_200"><span class="page">Page 200</span></a>
+On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is King Cepheus,
+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 graceless 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 Medusa, 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.
+Nothing 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 invisible at will; Minerva loaned
+her buckler, impenetrable, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 every
+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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<a name="page_201"><span class="page">Page 201</span></a>
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig67.jpg" width="484" height="484" alt="Figure 67">
+<br />
+Fig. 67.&mdash;Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this
+position.&mdash;January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at 9
+o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<a name="page_202"><span class="page">Page 202</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig68.jpg" width="482" height="338" alt="Figure 68">
+<br />
+Fig. 68.&mdash;Algol is on the Meridian, 51&deg; South of Pole.&mdash;At
+10 o'clock, December 7th; 9 o'clock, December 22d; 8 o'clock, January 5th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>Equatorial Constellations.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If we turn our backs on Polaris on the 10th of November, 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 &alpha;
+Alpheratz is in her face, the three at the left cross her breast.
+&beta; and the two above mark the girdle of her loins, and &gamma;
+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 V-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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 483px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 483px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_203"><span class="page">Page 203</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig69.jpg" width="483" height="386" alt="Figure 69">
+<br />
+Fig. 69.&mdash;Capella (45&deg; from the Pole) and Rigel (100&deg;)
+are on the Meridian at 8 o'clock February 7th, 9 o'clock January
+22d, and at 10 o'clock January 7th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&deg; 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, &gamma;, represents his
+shield of the Nemean lion's hide. The three stars of his belt make
+a measure 3&deg; long; the upper one, Mintaker, is less than 30'
+south of the equinoctial. 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 August. Procyon
+rises about half an hour earlier.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 487px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 487px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_204"><span class="page">Page 204</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig70.jpg" width="487" height="434" alt="Figure 70">
+<br />
+Fig. 70&mdash;Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79&deg; south from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and at
+8 o'clock April 23d.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Fig. 70 continues eastward. Note the sickle in the head and neck
+of the Lion. The star &beta; 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&deg; on a side. The geometric
+head of Hydra is easily discernible east of Procyon: The star &gamma;
+in the Virgin is double, with a period of 145 years. &zeta; is just
+above the equinoctial. There is a fine nebula two-thirds of the
+way from &delta; to &eta;, and a little above the line connecting
+the two. Coma Berenices is a beautiful 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 486px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 486px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_205"><span class="page">Page 205</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig71.jpg" width="486" height="335" alt="Figure 71">
+<br />
+Fig. 7l.&mdash;Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70&deg; from the
+Pole, at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8 o'clock
+June 25th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and northward of the
+last. A line drawn from Polaris and Benetnasch comes east of Arcturus
+to the little triangle called his sons. Bootes drives the Great Bear
+round the pole. Arcturus and Denebola make a triangle with &alpha;,
+also called Cor Coroli, 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&mdash;&alpha;
+in the face, &beta;, &gamma;, &delta; in his shoulders, &pi; and
+&eta; in the loins, &tau; 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 &gamma; of Hercules, and the partial circle of
+the Northern Crown above. The head of Draco is seen at &beta; 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; Regulus 3h. 35m.
+Earlier.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 489px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 489px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_206"><span class="page">Page 206</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig72.jpg" width="489" height="426" alt="Figure 72">
+<br />
+Fig. 72.&mdash;Altair comes to the Meridian, 82&deg; from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock P.M. August 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and at
+8 o'clock September 18th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Fig. 72 portrays the stars eastward and southward. Scorpio is one
+of the most brilliant and easily traced constellations. Antares,
+&alpha;, in the heart, is double. In Sagittarius is the Little
+Milk-dipper, and west of it the bended bow. Vega is at the top
+of the map. Near it observe &zeta;, a double, and &epsilon;, a
+quadruple star. The point to which the solar system is tending is
+marked by the sign of the earth below &pi; Herculis. The Serpent,
+west of Hercules, and coiled round nearly to Aquila, is very traceable.
+In the right-hand lower corner is the Centaur. Below, and always
+out of our sight, is the famous &alpha; Centauri. The diamond form
+of the Dolphin is sometimes called "Job's Coffin." The ecliptic
+passes close
+<a name="page_207"><span class="page">Page 207</span></a>
+to &beta; 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 487px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 487px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig73.jpg" width="487" height="338" alt="Figure 73">
+<br />
+Fig. 73.&mdash;Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17&deg; from
+the horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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. &beta; 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. &alpha; Pegasi is in the diagonal corner
+from Alpharetz, in Andromeda. The star below Altair is &beta;
+Aquil&aelig;, and is called Alschain; the one above is &gamma;
+Aquil&aelig;, named Tarazed. This 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 11th of January.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 487px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 487px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<a name="page_208"><span class="page">Page 208</span></a>
+<img src="images/fig74.jpg" width="492" height="330" alt="Figure 74">
+<br />
+Fig. 74.&mdash;Southern Circumpolar Constellations invisible north
+of the Equator.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Fig. 74 gives the stars that are never seen by persons north of the
+earth's equator. In the Ship is brilliant Canopus, and the remarkable
+variable &eta;. Below it is the beautiful Southern Cross, near the
+pole of the southern heavens. Just below are the two first magnitude
+stars Bungala, &alpha;, and Achernar, &beta;, 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 reveals no sign of light. Here, also, are the
+two Magellanic 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_209"><span class="page">Page 209</span></a>
+For easy out-door finding of the stars above the horizon at any
+time, see star-maps at end of the book.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Characteristics of the Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 anciently 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 little lights were turned by
+clumsy machinery, held together 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
+monsters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and unity; all
+worlds carried by one force, and all harmonized 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="page_210"><span class="page">Page 210</span></a>
+<i>Number.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 tastimetre feels
+their heat, and tells us the word of their Maker is true&mdash;"they
+are innumerable."[*]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote *: <i>Telescopic Work.</i>&mdash;Look at the Hyades and
+Pleiades in Taurus. Notice the different colors of stars in them
+both. Find the cluster Pr&aelig;sepe 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 observe the distribution of stars;
+in some places perfect crowds, in others more sparsely scattered.
+Find with the naked eye the rich cluster in Perseus. Draw a line
+from Algol to &alpha; 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.]
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Double and Multiple Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+If we look up during the summer months nearly overhead at the star
+&epsilon; Lyra, east of Vega (Fig. 72), we shall see with the naked
+eye that the star appears a little
+<a name="page_211"><span class="page">Page 211</span></a>
+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 direction 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 &xi; in the Great
+Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in fifty-eight years.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the presence 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
+<a name="page_212"><span class="page">Page 212</span></a>
+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 telescope to show any distance between the stars.[*]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote *: <i>Telescopic Work.</i>&mdash;Only such work will
+be laid out here as can be done by small telescopes of from two
+to four inch object-glasses. The numbers in Fig. 75 correspond
+to those of the table.
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <th class="btlbr">No.</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Name.</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Fig.</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Dist. of<br />Parts.</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Magnitudes.</th>
+ <th class="btrb">Remarks.</th>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">1.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&epsilon; Lyr&aelig;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">72</td>
+ <td class="right_br">1' 56"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Quadruple.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">2.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&zeta; Lyr&aelig;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">72</td>
+ <td class="right_br">44</td>
+ <td class="right_br">5 & 6</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Topaz and green.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">3.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&beta; Cygni</td>
+ <td class="right_br">73</td>
+ <td class="right_br">34-1/2</td>
+ <td class="right_br">3 & 6</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Yellow and blue.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">4.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">61 Cygni</td>
+ <td class="right_br">73</td>
+ <td class="right_br">20</td>
+ <td class="right_br">5 & 6</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Nearest star but one.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">5.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Mizar</td>
+ <td class="right_br">67</td>
+ <td class="right_br">14</td>
+ <td class="right_br">3 & 4</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Both white.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">6.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Polaris</td>
+ <td class="right_br">67</td>
+ <td class="right_br">18-1/2</td>
+ <td class="right_br">2 & 9</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Test object of eye and glass.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">7.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&rho; Orionis</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Frontispiece.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">7</td>
+ <td class="right_br">5 & 8</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Yellow and blue.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">8.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&beta; Orionis</td>
+ <td class="right_br">"&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">9</td>
+ <td class="right_br">1 & 8</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Rigel.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">9.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&delta; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">"&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">10</td>
+ <td class="right_br">2 & 8</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Red and white.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">10.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&theta; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">"&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Septuple.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">11.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&lambda; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">"&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">5</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">White and violet.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">12.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&sigma; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A, B.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">11</td>
+ <td class="right_br">4 & 10</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Octuple.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">13.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Castor</td>
+ <td class="right_br">69</td>
+ <td class="right_br">5-1/2</td>
+ <td class="right_br">2 & 3</td>
+ <td class="right_br">White.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">14.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Pollux</td>
+ <td class="right_br">69</td>
+ <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Triple.</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Orange, gray, lilac.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brbl">15.</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">&gamma; Virginis</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">70</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">5</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">3 & 3</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">Both yellow.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When &gamma; Virginis was observed in 1718 by Bradley, the component
+parts were 7" asunder. He incidentally remarked in his note-book that
+the line of their connection was parallel to the line of the two
+stars Spica, or &alpha; and &delta; Virginis. By 1840 they were not
+more than 1" 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 conjectural
+<a name="page_213"><span class="page">Page 213</span></a>
+orbit, placed obliquely, and the position of the stars at the times
+mentioned, commencing at the top. The time of its complete revolution
+is one hundred and fifty years.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 509px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig75.jpg" width="509" height="261" alt="Figure 75">
+<br />
+Fig. 75.&mdash;Aspects and Revolution of Double Stars.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 planets, as doubtless they have, the movement
+is no more complicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn
+revolving about their central body, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Neptunes 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,
+<a name="page_214"><span class="page">Page 214</span></a>
+according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the octuple star
+&sigma; in Orion differs in no respect from our system, except in
+the size and distance of its separate bodies, 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 preposterous 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, and an infinite number in the course of preparation.
+Some are fine and lasting enough to be eternal mansions.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Colored Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the cloudy 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, Vega, 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 special development of anyone substance thereof
+at any time, may determine the color of a star.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_215"><span class="page">Page 215</span></a>
+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 intensity 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+That stars should change color is most natural. Many causes would
+produce this effect. The ancients said Sirius 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Clusters of Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From double and multiple we naturally come to groups and clusters.
+Allusion has been made to the Hyades, Pleiades, etc. Everyone has
+noticed the Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of compacted
+stars. It is not supposed that they are necessarily nearer together
+than the stars in the sparse regions about the pole. But the 18,000,000
+suns belonging to our system are arranged within a space represented
+by a flattened disk. If one hundred lights, three inches apart,
+are arranged on a hoop ten feet in diameter, they would be in a
+circle. Add a thousand or two more the same distance apart, filling
+up the centre, and
+<a name="page_216"><span class="page">Page 216</span></a>
+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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig76.jpg" width="244" height="291" alt="Figure 76">
+<br />
+Fig. 76.&mdash;Sprayed Cluster below &eta; in Hercules.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+see comparatively few. It would seem as if this oblate spheroidal
+arrangement was the result of a revolution of all the suns composing
+the system. Jupiter and earth are flattened at the poles for the
+same reason.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In various parts of the heavens there are small globular well-defined
+clusters, 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
+
+<span style="float: left; width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig77.jpg" width="262" height="256" alt="Figure 77">
+<br />
+Fig. 77.&mdash;Globular Cluster.
+</span>
+</span>
+
+a good telescope without a shout of wonder." Here is a cluster
+of the former class represented in Fig. 77. "The noble globular
+cluster, &omega; 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, affects it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth
+<a name="page_217"><span class="page">Page 217</span></a>
+magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imagined."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 way 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.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Nebul&aelig;.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The gorgeous clusters we have been considering appear 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 spectroscope,
+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
+nebul&aelig; are visible 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 &theta; Orionis
+into the famous trapezium, and a nine-inch instrument 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. Nebul&aelig; are of all
+conceivable shapes&mdash;circular, annular, oval, lenticular,
+<a name="page_218"><span class="page">Page 218</span></a>
+conical, spiral, snake-like, looped, and nameless. Compare the
+sprays of the Crab nebul&aelig; above &zeta; Tauri, 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 &beta;
+and &gamma; Lyr&aelig;.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 562px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig78.jpg" width="562" height="481" alt="Figure 78">
+<br />
+Fig. 78.&mdash;The great Nebula about the multiple Star &theta;
+Orionis. (See Frontispiece.)
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When Herschel was sweeping the heavens with his telescope, and
+saw but few stars, he often said to his assistant, "Prepare to
+write; the nebul&aelig; are coming." They are most abundant where
+the stars are least so. A zone about the heavens 30&deg; wide,
+with the Milky Way in the centre, would include one-fourth of the
+celestial sphere; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine-tenths
+<a name="page_219"><span class="page">Page 219</span></a>
+of the stars in this zone, and but one-tenth of the nebul&aelig;.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 463px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig79.jpg" width="463" height="520" alt="Figure 79">
+<br />
+Fig. 79.&mdash;Crab Nebula, near &zeta; Tauri. (See Frontispiece.)
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There are many unsolved problems connected with these strange bodies.
+Whether they belong to our system, or are beyond it, is not settled;
+the weight of evidence leans to the first view.
+</p>
+
+<h3>
+<a name="page_220"><span class="page">Page 220</span></a>
+<i>Variable Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 448px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig80.jpg" width="448" height="637" alt="Figure 80">
+<br />
+Fig. 80.&mdash;The Ring Nebula.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing through a period
+of eleven years. Probably every star, if examined by methods
+sufficiently delicate and exact, would be found to be variable.
+The variations of some
+<a name="page_221"><span class="page">Page 221</span></a>
+stars are so marked as to challenge investigation. &beta; Lyr&aelig;
+(Fig. 81) has two maxima and minima of light. In three days it
+rises from magnitude 4-1/2 to 3-1/2; in a week falls to 4, and
+rises to 3-1/2; and in three days more drops to 4-1/2: 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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 346px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/fig81.jpg" width="346" height="275" alt="Figure 81">
+<br />
+Fig. 81.&mdash;Constellation Lyra, showing place of the Ring Nebula.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<tt>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br />
+*&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;*
+</tt>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+lost to sight; going down even to the eleventh magnitude. But after
+five months its resurrection morning mes; and in three months
+more&mdash;eleven months in all&mdash;our Wonderful is in its full
+glory in the heavens. It its period and brilliancy are also variable.
+The star Megrez, &delta; in the Great Bear, has been growing dim
+<a name="page_222"><span class="page">Page 222</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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, shutting off their light; they may rotate, and have
+unequally 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
+<a name="page_223"><span class="page">Page 223</span></a>
+to call down periodically vast showers; but none or all of these
+suppositions apply to all cases, if they do to any.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Temporary, New, and Lost Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Besides regular movements to right and left, up and down, to and
+from us&mdash;changes in the intensity of illumination by changes
+of distance&mdash;besides variations occurring at regular and
+ascertainable intervals, there are stars called <i>temporary</i>,
+shining awhile and then disappearing; <i>new</i>, coming to a definite
+brightness, and so remaining; and <i>lost</i>, those whose first
+appearance was not observed, but which have utterly disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In November, 1572, a new star blazed out in Cassiopeia. Its place
+is shown in Fig. 67, &chi; &gamma; being the stars
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<tt>
+&delta;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br />
+&nbsp;&gamma;&nbsp;&chi;
+</tt>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+in the seat of the chair, and &delta; being the first one 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A bright star was seen very near to the place of the <i>Pilgrim</i>,
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But we have had, within a few years, fine opportunities
+<a name="page_224"><span class="page">Page 224</span></a>
+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 plenty 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_225"><span class="page">Page 225</span></a>
+degree in a month? Besides, there would not be one chance in a
+thousand for two orbs to come directly together. They would revolve
+about each other till a kind of grazing contact of grinding worlds
+would slowly kindle the ultimate heat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It is far more likely that this star encountered an enormous stream
+of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorbed 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.
+Allusion 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, following 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another new star lately appeared in Cygnus, near the famous star
+61&mdash;the first star in the northern hemisphere 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 resemble 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 extraordinary 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
+<a name="page_226"><span class="page">Page 226</span></a>
+of the other having faded, the regular light of the glowing 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
+rainbow 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 undiscernible light, surrounded by a discernible
+immensity 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 November, 1876. But a rapid cooling
+dissipates the observable light of all colors, and leaves only
+the glowing gas of one color.
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>Movements of Stars.</i></h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We call the stars <i>fixed</i>, but motion and life are necessary
+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
+diameter, as the larger planets combine their influence on one side
+or the other.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The sun has another movement. We find the stars in Hercules gradually
+spreading from each other. Hercules's brawny limbs grow brawnier
+every century. There can be but one cause: we are approaching that
+quarter of the heavens. (See <img src="images/earth.gif" width="16"
+height="16" alt="Earth">, Fig. 72.) We are even
+<a name="page_227"><span class="page">Page 227</span></a>
+able to compute the velocity of our approach; it is four miles a
+second. The stars in the opposite quarter of the heavens in Argo
+are drawing nearer together.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 apparent space between them,
+since they are situated at various distances.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Independent of this, the stars themselves are all in motion, but so
+vast is the distance from which we observe them that it has taken
+an accumulation of centuries 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 Hunting 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Some stars have a common movement, being evidently related together.
+A large proportion of the brighter stars between Aldebaran and
+the Pleiades have a common motion eastward of about ten seconds a
+century. All the angles marked by &alpha;, &beta;, &gamma;, &chi;
+Orionis will be altered in different directions; &lambda; is moving
+toward &gamma;. &lambda; and &epsilon; will appear as a double
+star. In A.D. 50,000 Procyon will be nearer &chi; Orionis than
+Rigel now is, and Sirius will be in line with &alpha; and &chi;
+Orionis. All the stars of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch and
+Dubhe, have a common motion somewhat in the direction
+<a name="page_228"><span class="page">Page 228</span></a>
+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, and the handle will be broken square off at
+Mizar. "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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 understand 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 loan, 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.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_229"><span class="page">Page 229</span></a>
+XI.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE WORLDS AND THE WORD.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"The worlds were framed by the word of God."&mdash;<i>Heb.</i> xi., 3.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_230"><span class="page">Page 230</span></a>
+"Mysterious night! when our first parent knew thee<br>
+From report divine, and heard thy name,<br>
+Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,<br>
+This glorious canopy of light and blue?<br>
+Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,<br>
+Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,<br>
+Hesperus, with all the host of heaven, came,<br>
+And lo! creation widened in man's view.<br>
+Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed<br>
+Within thy beams, O Sun! Oh who could find,<br>
+Whilst fruit and leaf and insect stood revealed,<br>
+That to such countless worlds thou mad'st us blind!<br>
+Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?<br>
+If light conceal so much, wherefore not life?"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BLANCO WHITE.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_231"><span class="page">Page 231</span></a>
+XI.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>THE WORLDS AND THE WORD.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Men have found the various worlds to be far richer 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
+increasing 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 inexhaustible?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 crystal 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! Nay, 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 widening river of life in his Word? As we
+believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has
+<a name="page_232"><span class="page">Page 232</span></a>
+promised to be perpetually present in his Word, making it alive
+with spirit and life.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+That negative argument is strong, but the affirmative argument is
+much stronger. The Bible declares scientific truth far in advance
+of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand
+its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations:
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things
+had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in
+the realms of physics, arguments in metaphysics, and conclusions
+by the necessities of resistless logic, science has reached the
+same result.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Bible asserted from the first that creation of matter preceded
+arrangement. It was chaos&mdash;void&mdash;without form&mdash;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,
+coaled, mountained, valleyed, subsequently. All of which science
+utters ages afterward.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_233"><span class="page">Page 233</span></a>
+It is a recently discovered truth of science that the trata 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 prepared for them.
+Our slowness of geological discovery is perfectly accounted for
+by Peter. "For of this they are <i>willingly ignorant</i>, 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 recognize these geological
+subsidences, but we read them from the testimony of the rocks more
+willingly than from the testimony of the Word.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Science exults in having discovered what it is pleased to call
+an order of development on earth&mdash;tender grass, herb, tree;
+moving creatures that have life in the waters; bird, reptile, beast,
+cattle, man. The Bible gives the same order ages before, and calls
+it God's successive creations.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+During ages on ages man's wisdom held the earth to be flat. Meanwhile,
+God was saying, century after century, of himself, "He sitteth upon
+the sphere of the earth" (Gesenius).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Men racked their feeble wits for expedients to uphold
+<a name="page_234"><span class="page">Page 234</span></a>
+the earth, and the best they could devise were serpents, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Men were ever trying to number the stars. Hipparchus 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." Science has appliances of
+enumeration unknown to other ages, but the space-penetrating telescopes
+and tastimeters reveal more worlds&mdash;eighteen millions in a
+single system, and systems beyond count&mdash;till men acknowledge
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Torricelli's discovery that the air had weight was received with
+incredulity. For ages the air had propelled ships, thrust itself
+against the bodies of men, and overturned 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).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The pet science of to-day is meteorology. The fluctuations and
+variations of the weather have hitherto baffled all attempts at
+unravelling them. It has seemed that there was no law in their
+fickle changes. But at length perseverance and skill have triumphed,
+and a single man in one place predicts the weather and winds
+<a name="page_235"><span class="page">Page 235</span></a>
+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 according 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).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 <i>turned</i> to it, as clay
+to the seal. The earth's axial revolution is clearly recognized.
+Copernicus declared it early; God earlier.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+No man yet understands the balancing of the clouds, nor the suspension
+of the frozen masses of hail, any more than Job did.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Had God asked if he had perceived the <i>length</i> of the earth,
+many a man to-day could have answered yes. But the eternal ice
+keeps us from perceiving the <i>breadth</i>
+<a name="page_236"><span class="page">Page 236</span></a>
+of the earth, and shows the discriminating wisdom of the question.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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&mdash;that the sun itself obeys the law it
+enforces on the planets, and flies in an orbit of its own, from
+one end of heaven in Argo to the other in Hercules.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 em bodied 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 human 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We ask in vain, "What is matter?" No man can
+<a name="page_237"><span class="page">Page 237</span></a>
+answer. We trace it up through the worlds, till its increasing
+fineness, its growing power, and possible identity of substance,
+seem as if the next step would reveal its spirit origin. What we
+but hesitatingly stammer, the Word boldly asserts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We ask, "What is force?" No man can answer. We recognize its various
+grades, each subordinate to the higher&mdash;cohesion dissolvable
+by heat; the affinity of oxygen and hydrogen in water overcome by
+the piercing 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 measurably subservient
+to mind. Hence we partly understand 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 mastered. 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 Scriptures, "God
+is spirit."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We ask in vain what is the end of the present condition of things.
+We have read the history of our globe with great difficulty&mdash;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 with
+<a name="page_238"><span class="page">Page 238</span></a>
+a rushing noise, and the elements will be dissolved with burning
+heat, and the earth and the works therein will be burned up." 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 substance,
+its ultimate fall into the sun is certain. Whether 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. Peters description, however, seems rather to indicate an
+interference 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After thousands of years, science discovered the true way to knowledge.
+It is the Baconian way of experiment, of trial, of examining the
+actual, instead of imagining 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 favorable circumstances, there
+must be faith. The faith of
+<a name="page_239"><span class="page">Page 239</span></a>
+science is amazing; its assertions of the supersensual are astounding.
+It affirms a thousand things that cannot be physically demonstrated:
+that the flight of a rifle-ball is parabolic; that the earth has
+poles; that gages are made of particles; that there are atoms;
+that an electric 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 activities are about us,
+for the perception of which we need a hundred senses instead of
+five. These faiths have nearly 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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"Science was Faith once; Faith were science now,<br>
+Would she but lay her bow and arrows by,<br>
+And aim her with the weapons of the time."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Faith laid her bow and arrows by before men in pursuit of worldly
+knowledge discovered theirs.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 contracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all
+encircling space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars invisible
+by the largest telescope enters the tastimeter, 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
+<a name="page_240"><span class="page">Page 240</span></a>
+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 building 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Science finds matter to be capable of unknown refinement; 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
+&alpha;&sigma;&tau;&rho;&alpha;&pi;&tau;&omega;&nu; (Luke xxiv.
+4), shining with an inner light. They also look for new heavens
+and a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit for perfect beings.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When God made matter, so far as our thought permits 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 restore 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.
+<a name="page_241"><span class="page">Page 241</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"For his gayer hours<br>
+She has a voice of gladness and a smile,<br>
+And eloquence of beauty; and she glides<br>
+Into his darker musings with a mild<br>
+And gentle sympathy, that steals away<br>
+Their sharpness ere he is aware."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Distinguish clearly between certainty and surmise. The certainty is
+that the world will pass through catastrophic changes to a perfect
+world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass.
+He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable,
+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 imagine, 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
+<a name="page_242"><span class="page">Page 242</span></a>
+should there not be a finer universe than this, and disconnected
+from this world altogether&mdash;a fit home for immortal souls?
+It is a necessity.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+discovery that what men once thought to be empty space is more
+intensely active than the coarser forms of matter 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. What
+a whisper of a word we hear of <i>Him!</i> The thunder of his power
+who can comprehend?"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Science discovers that man is adapted for mastery in this world.
+He is of the highest order of visible creatures. Neither is it
+possible to imagine an order of beings generically higher to be
+connected with the conditions of the material world. This whole
+secret was 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 man 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.
+<a name="page_243"><span class="page">Page 243</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 darkness 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, Scripture affirms.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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, gentleness, 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 already. One confined, dark, peculiarly
+nourished, slightly conscious; then he was born into another&mdash;wide,
+differently nourished, and intensely
+<a name="page_244"><span class="page">Page 244</span></a>
+conscious. He knows he may be born again into a life wider yet,
+differently nourished, and even yet more intensely conscious. Science
+has no hint how a long ascending series of developments crowned
+by man may advance another step, and make man
+&iota;&sigma;&alpha;&gamma;&gamma;&epsilon;&lambda;&omicron;&sigma;&mdash;equal
+to angels. But the simplest teaching of Scripture points out a
+way so clear that a child need not miss the glorious consummation.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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, when 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&mdash;let
+us infer an attracting 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 tortured, 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 bodies fell off, earth having no hold on them, they sped
+on to their celestial home. The tendency of such souls necessitates
+such a world.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 absorbed
+<a name="page_245"><span class="page">Page 245</span></a>
+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 power 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Science and religion are not two separate departments, 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 teacher
+who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_247"><span class="page">Page 247</span></a>
+XII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE ULTIMATE FORCE.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+"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 things
+became by him, and without him was not anything made that was made
+*&nbsp;*&nbsp;* and by him all things stand together."
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+<a name="page_248"><span class="page">Page 248</span></a>
+"O thou eternal one; whose presence blight<br>
+All space doth occupy&mdash;all motion guide&mdash;<br>
+Thou from primeval nothingness didst call<br>
+First chaos, then existence. Lord, on thee<br>
+Eternity had its foundation: all<br>
+Sprung forth from thee&mdash;of light, joy, harmony,<br>
+Sole origin: all life, all beauty thine.<br>
+Thy word created all, and doth create;<br>
+Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine;<br>
+Thou art and wert, and shalt be glorious, great;<br>
+Life-giving, life-sustaining Potentate,<br>
+Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround&mdash;<br>
+Upheld by thee, by thee inspired with breath."<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;DERZHAVIN.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_249"><span class="page">Page 249</span></a>
+XII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+<i>THE ULTIMATE FORCE.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The universe is God's name writ large. Thought goes up the shining
+suns as golden stairs, and reads the consecutive syllables&mdash;all
+might, and wisdom, and beauty; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 two hundred and forty pounds to the
+cubic foot, one hundred 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
+hundreds of miles before it could be there. You have heard Niagara's
+thunder; have stood beneath the falling immensity; 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
+<a name="page_250"><span class="page">Page 250</span></a>
+water had to be lifted by main force, had 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 thundering age after age, because there is power somewhere
+to carry the immeasurable floods all the time the other way in
+the upper air.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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,
+and held it day and night for months. It toiled and grew under
+the growing weight, compacting its substance like oak to do the
+work. All over the earth this tremendous power and push of life
+goes on&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 in 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
+<a name="page_251"><span class="page">Page 251</span></a>
+flame seethes and burns, and rolls and vivifies a dozen worlds, and
+flashes life along the starry spaces for a million 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&mdash;every part is full of
+power. Fill the earth's orbit with a circle of such receptive
+worlds&mdash;seventy thousand instead of one&mdash;everyone would
+be as fully supplied with power from this central source. More.
+Fill the whole dome, the entire extent of the surrounding sphere,
+bottom, sides, top, a sphere one hundred and eighty-five million
+miles in diameter, and everyone of these uncountable worlds would
+be touched with the same power 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 alphabet in geometrical ratio; and then in
+the clustered suns, galaxies, and nebul&aelig;, power enough still
+unrepresented by single letters to require all combinations of
+the alphabet of power. What is the significance of this single
+element of power? The answer of science to-day is "correlation,"
+the constant evolution of one force from another. 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
+<a name="page_252"><span class="page">Page 252</span></a>
+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&mdash;through
+planets, suns, nebul&aelig;, concretionary vortices, and revolving
+fire-mist&mdash;there must always be mind and will beyond. Some of
+that willpower 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Go out in the falling rain, stand under the thunderous Niagara,
+feel the immeasurable rush of life, see the hanging worlds, and
+trace all this&mdash;the carried rain, the terrific thunder with
+God's bow of peace upon it, and the unfailing planets hung upon
+nothing&mdash;trace all this to the orb of day blazing in perpetual
+strength, but stop not there. Who <i>made</i> the sun? Contrivance
+fills all thought. <i>Who</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 ceaseless changes, and its maker is henceforth
+an absentee God. Is it? Let us have courage to see. For twenty
+years one devotes ten seconds every night to putting 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
+<a name="page_253"><span class="page">Page 253</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 connection, is inconceivable.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Newton said that anyone who has in philosophical matters a competent
+faculty of thinking, could not admit for a moment the possibility
+of a sun reaching through millions of miles, and exercising there
+an attractive 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 Herschel's statement. "It is but reasonable to regard gravity
+as a result of a consciousness 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 upholdeth constantly
+all things by the word of his power.
+<a name="page_254"><span class="page">Page 254</span></a>
+By him all things consist or hold together. It teaches 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 deteriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boiler,
+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 receive it, and takes it swift as light
+can leap. We said that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn
+out in five thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million.
+How can it? There have been various theories: chemical 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&mdash;another
+noon arisen on mid-day; and of whom it shall be said in the eternal
+state of unclouded brightness, where sun and moon are no more,
+"The glory of the Lord shall lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
+thereof."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But suppose matter could be dowered, that worlds could have a
+gravitation, one of two things must follow: 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
+gravity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attractive
+power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing; in
+<a name="page_255"><span class="page">Page 255</span></a>
+a few places at worlds. Every world must exert an infinitely extended
+power, but myriads of infinities cannot be in the same space. The
+solution is, one infinite power and conscious will.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 consideration 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 inside of an
+inch. But we are here looking at mountain ridges and valleys, not
+atoms. Gold can be beaten to the 1/340000 of an inch. It can be
+drawn as the coating of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the
+1/340000000 of an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon
+another.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 sweep
+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 diminished.
+<a name="page_256"><span class="page">Page 256</span></a>
+Yet uncountable myriads on myriads of atoms have gone.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 materialists preposterously endow it. It is impenetrable
+and indivisible, though some atoms are a hundred times larger than
+others. Each has definite shape; some one shape, and some another.
+They differ in weight, in quantity of combining power, in quality
+of combining power. They combine with different substances, in
+certain exact assignable quantities. Thus one atom of hydrogen
+combines with eighty of bromine, one hundred and sixty of mercury,
+two hundred and forty of boron, three hundred and twenty of silicon,
+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, sewers 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&mdash;properties which
+are expressed by the words atomicity, quantivilence, monad, dryad,
+univalent, perissad, quadrivalent, and twenty other terms, each
+expressing some endowment of power in this in visible atom. Refer
+to one more presumed ability, an ability
+<a name="page_257"><span class="page">Page 257</span></a>
+to keep themselves in exact relation of distance and power to each
+other, without touching.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 greatly increasing its bulk, some actually
+diminishing it. A philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen
+and hydrogen 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The atoms of the luminiferous ether are infinitely more diffused,
+and yet its interactive atoms can give four hundred millions of
+light-waves a second. And now, more preposterous than all, each
+atom has an attractive 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 Concord 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 conscious, is
+an impossible conception.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 water,
+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
+<a name="page_258"><span class="page">Page 258</span></a>
+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 apparent
+and at work. If, then, such a thing as an infinite 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 perhaps knowledge, set aside a little from himself, still
+possessed somewhat of his personal attributes, still responsive
+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 nothing out of which the world could be made, but God himself;
+and, reverently be it said, matter seems to retain 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 impossible
+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 understand 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&mdash;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 Romans he says&mdash;"For out of him, and through him, and
+to him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_259"><span class="page">Page 259</span></a>
+God's intimate relation to matter is explained. No wonder the forces
+respond to his will; no wonder pantheism&mdash;the idea that matter
+is God&mdash;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 migrating instinct that rises and stretches its wings
+toward a provided South&mdash;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 solitudes, and say:
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"Father, thy hand<br>
+Hath reared these venerable columns: Thou<br>
+Did'st weave this verdant roof. Thou did'st look down<br>
+Upon the naked earth, and forthwise rose<br>
+All these fair ranks of trees. They in Thy sun<br>
+Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze.
+</p>
+
+<p class="bquote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"That delicate forest flower,<br>
+With scented breath and looks so like a smile,<br>
+Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,<br>
+An emanation of the indwelling life,<br>
+A visible token of the unfolding love<br>
+That are the soul of this wide universe."&mdash;BRYANT.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_260"><span class="page">Page 260</span></a>
+Philosophy has seen the vast machine of the universe, wheel within
+wheel, in countless numbers and hopeless intricacy. But it has not
+had the spiritual insight of Ezekiel to see that they were everyone
+of them full of eyes&mdash;God's own emblem of the omniscient
+supervision.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 fragments 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 instruments. The rootlets seize the sand and turn
+it to soil, to woody fibre, leafy verdure, blooming flowers, and
+delicious 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Notwithstanding the tendency of all high-class energy to deteriorate,
+to find equilibrium, and so be strengthless and dead, there is,
+somehow, in nature a tremendous 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&mdash;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&mdash;the sun a burned-out char, a dead cinder,
+and the world one dismal silence, cold beyond measure, and dead
+beyond consciousness. The philosopher has wailed a dirge without
+<a name="page_261"><span class="page">Page 261</span></a>
+hope, a requiem without grandeur, over the world's future. But
+nature herself, to all ears attuned, sings p&aelig;ans, and shouts
+to men that the highest energy, that of life, does not deteriorate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mere nature may deteriorate. The endowments of force must spend
+themselves. Wound-up watches and worlds must run down. But nature
+sustained by unexpendable forces must abide. Nature filled with
+unexpendable forces continues in form. Nature impelled by a magnificent
+push of life must ever rise.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There is a system of laws in the universe in which the higher have
+mastery over the lower. Lower powers are constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome; higher 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 gravitation. 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 rain bows 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
+<a name="page_262"><span class="page">Page 262</span></a>
+to comprehend. The water is solid, liquid, gaseous on earth, and
+in air according to the grade of power operating upon it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 discovery or creation, there are still higher class forces to
+be made available. Once there was no air, no usable electricity.
+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 man could not read
+in ten years the library of books created in that time concerning
+the sun. But though we have solved certain problems and mysteries,
+the mysteries have increased tenfold.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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
+<a name="page_263"><span class="page">Page 263</span></a>
+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 becoming flesh, and of all high forces
+constitutionally arranged for mastery over lower. Take the ore from
+the mountain. It is loose, friable, worthless in itself. Raise it
+in capacity to cast-iron, 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 human 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 immanent God makes a plastic world.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When man shall have mastered the forces that now exist, the original
+Creator and Sustainer will say, "Behold, I create all things new."
+Nature shall be called nearer to God, be more full of his power.
+To the long-wandering &aelig;neas, his divine mother sometimes
+came to cheer his heart and to direct his steps. But the goddess
+only showed herself divine by her departure; only when he stood
+in desolation did the hero know he had
+<a name="page_264"><span class="page">Page 264</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But the evidence of the progressive refinements of habitation is no
+more clear than that of progressive refinement 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
+refinement 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 conversation and
+godliness, looking for and hastening the coming
+<a name="page_265"><span class="page">Page 265</span></a>
+of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
+and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we,
+according to his promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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 prostrate provinces till Victor Emanuel came,
+then they were developed into united Italy. The prostrate provinces
+of matter are not developed until the man is victor, 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 transformation 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 elements and builds the body,
+holds them separate until life withdraws. More life means higher
+being. Certainly 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 blazing eye&mdash;live lion&mdash;and pawing
+to get free. We have seen winged spirits yet linked to forms of
+clay, but beating 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In this grand apotheosis of man which nature teaches, progress
+lias already been made. Man has already outgrown his harmony with
+the environment of mere matter. He has given his hand to science, and
+been lifted up above the earth into the voids of infinite space. He
+<a name="page_266"><span class="page">Page 266</span></a>
+has gone on and on, till thought, wearied amidst the infinities
+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 materiel 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 feeling: every creature&mdash;not the whole
+creation&mdash;groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now,
+waiting for the adoption&mdash;the uplifting from orphanage to
+parentage&mdash;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 become 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 knowledge converge as
+they go out toward the infinite mystery; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Then 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
+<a name="page_267"><span class="page">Page 267</span></a>
+world. He comes to know God with his heart, better than he knows
+God's works by his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Every song closes with the key-note with which it began, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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, perfection of abode is
+offered. Perfection of inhabitant is necessary; and as the creative
+power is everywhere present for the various uplifts and refinements
+of matter, it is everywhere present with appropriate power for
+the uplifting and refinement of mind and spirit.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_269"><span class="page">Page 269</span></a>
+SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS.</h2>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Movements on the Sun.</i>&mdash;The discovery and measurement of
+the up-rush, down-rush, and whirl of currents about the sunspots,
+also of the determination of the velocity of rotation by means of
+the spectroscope, as described (<a href="#page_53">page 53</a>),
+is one of the most delicate and difficult achievements of modern
+science.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Movement of Stars in Line of Sight</i> (<a href="#page_51">page
+51</a>).&mdash;The following table shows this movement of stars,
+so far as at present known:
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+ <th colspan="3" class="btlbr">APROACHING.</th>
+ <th colspan="3" class="btrb">RECEDING.</th>
+</tr><tr>
+ <th class="brbl">Map.</th>
+ <th class="brb">Name.</th>
+ <th class="brb">Rate per sec.</th>
+ <th class="brb">Map.</th>
+ <th class="brb">Name.</th>
+ <th class="brb">Rate per sec.</th>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">Fig. 71</td>
+ <td class="br">Arcturus</td>
+ <td class="br">55 miles</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Fig. 69</td>
+ <td class="br">Sirius</td>
+ <td class="br">20 miles</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;71</td>
+ <td class="br">Vega</td>
+ <td class="br">50&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Fr'piece</td>
+ <td class="br">Betelguese</td>
+ <td class="br">22&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;73</td>
+ <td class="br">&alpha; Cygni</td>
+ <td class="br">39&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="br">Rigel</td>
+ <td class="br">15&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brl">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;69</td>
+ <td class="br">Pollux</td>
+ <td class="br">49&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_br">Fig. 69</td>
+ <td class="br">Castor</td>
+ <td class="br">25&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr><tr>
+ <td class="right_brbl">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;67</td>
+ <td class="brb">Dubhe</td>
+ <td class="brb">46&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+ <td class="right_brb">"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;67</td>
+ <td class="brb">Regulus</td>
+ <td class="brb">15&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Sun's Appearance.</i>&mdash;This was formerly supposed to be an
+even, regular, dazzling brightness, except where the spots appeared.
+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 innumerable number of small spots. This
+appearance of the general surface is well portrayed in the cut
+on <a href="#page_92">page 92</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Close Relation between Sun and Earth.</i>-Men always knew that
+the earth received light from the sun. They subsequently discovered
+that the earth was momentarily held by the power
+<a name="page_270"><span class="page">Page 270</span></a>
+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 (<a
+href="#page_30">p. 30-36</a>). 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Hydrogen Flames.</i>&mdash;It has been demonstrated that the
+sun flames 200,000 miles high are hydrogen in a state of flaming
+incandescence (<a href="#page_85">page 85</a>).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Sun's Distance.</i>&mdash;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 "Encyclop&aelig;dia
+Britannica," 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 perfect determination of the sun's
+distance.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Since the earth's distance is our astronomical unit of measure, it
+follows that all other distances will be changed, when expressed
+in miles, by this ascertained change of the value of the standard.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Oxygen in the Sun.</i>&mdash;In 1877 Professor Draper announced
+the discovery 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,
+<a name="page_271"><span class="page">Page 271</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Substance of Stars.</i>&mdash;Aldebaran (<i>Frontispiece</i>)
+shows salt, magnesium, hydrogen, calcium, iron, bismuth, tellurium,
+antimony, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The theory that all nebul&aelig; 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Discoveries of New Bodies.</i>&mdash;Vulcan, the planet nearest
+the sun (<a href="#page_138">page 138</a>). The two satellites of
+Mars were discovered by Mr. Hall, U. S. Naval Observatory, August
+11th, 1877 (<a href="#page_161">page 161</a>). "The outer one is
+called Diemas; the inner, Phobus.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Saturn's Rings</i> are proved to be in a state of fluidity and
+contraction (<a href="#page_171">page 171</a>).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Meteors and Comets.</i>&mdash;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 (<a href="#page_133">page
+133</a>).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Aerolites.</i>-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.
+</p>
+
+<table style="float: left; margin: 4px; width: 195px;">
+<tr><td class="center">
+<span style="font-size: smaller;">
+<img src="images/fig82.jpg" width="195" height="516" alt="Figure 82">
+<br />
+Fig. 82.&mdash;Horizontal Pendulum.
+</span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>The Horizontal Pendulum.</i>&mdash;This delicate instrument is
+<a name="page_272"><span class="page">Page 272</span></a>
+represented in Fig. 82. It consists of an upright standard, strongly
+braced; a weight, <i>m</i>, 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 slightest
+influence. The least change in the level of a base thirty-nine
+inches long that could be detected by a spirit-level is 0".1 of
+an arc&mdash;equal to raising one end 1/2068 of an inch. But the
+pendulum detects a raising of one end 1/36000000 of an inch. To
+observe the movements of the pendulum, it is kept in a dark room,
+and a ray of light is directed to the mirror, <i>m</i>, and thence
+reflected upon a screen. Thus the least movement may be enormously
+magnified, and read and measured 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 either
+is exactly overhead or underfoot, of course there is no deflection.
+The mean deflection caused by the moon at rising or setting is
+0".0174; by the sun, 0".008. Great results are expected from this
+instrument hardly known as yet: among others, whether gravitation
+acts instantly 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 <i>vice versa</i> when
+it crosses the nadir. The sun will be best studied without light,
+in the quiet and darkness of some deep mine.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<a name="page_273"><span class="page">Page 273</span></a>
+<i>Light of Unseen Stars.</i>&mdash;From careful examination, it
+appears 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Lateral Movements of Stars</i>, <a href="#page_226">page 226-28</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+<i>Future Discoveries</i>&mdash;<i>A Trans-Neptunian
+Planet.</i>&mdash;Professor Asaph Hall says: "It is known to me that
+at least two American 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 Newcomb'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 theories of these planets.
+*&nbsp;*&nbsp;* A few years ago the remark was frequently 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 planets shall stand the test of observation.
+But, after all, such a condition of things is only the natural
+result of long and accurate series of observations, which make
+evident the small inequalities in the motions, and bring to light
+the errors of theory."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Future discoveries will mostly reveal the laws and conditions of
+the higher and finer forces. Already Professor Loomis telegraphs
+twenty miles without wire, by the electric currents between mountains.
+We begin to use electricity for light, and feel after it for a
+motor. Comets and Auroras show its presence between worlds, and
+in the interstellar spaces. Let another Newton arise.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_274"><span class="page">Page 274</span></a>
+SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btlbr">Name.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Sign.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Masses.</th>
+  <th colspan="2" class="btrb">Mean Dist. from Sun.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Mean<br />Diameter<br />in Miles.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Density.<br />
+   <img src="images/earth.gif" width="16" height="16" alt="Earth">
+   = 1.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Axial<br />Revolu&shy;tion.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Gravity<br />at<br />Surface.<br />
+   <img src="images/earth.gif" width="16" height="16" alt="Earth">
+   = 1.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Periodic<br />Time.</th>
+  <th rowspan="2" class="btrb">Orbital<br />Velocity<br />in
+   Miles<br />per sec.</th>
+</tr><tr>
+  <th class="brb">Earth's<br />Dist. as 1.</th>
+  <th class="brb">Millions<br />of Miles.</th>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Sun</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/sun_face.gif" width="17" height="17"
+    alt="sun with a face"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">Unity</td>
+  <td class="br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="center_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="right_br">860,000</td>
+  <td class="br">0.255</td>
+  <td class="center_br">25 to 26d</td>
+  <td class="right_br">27.71</td>
+  <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Mercury</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/mercury.gif" width="12" height="17"
+    alt="Mercury"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/5000000(?)</td>
+  <td class="br">0.387</td>
+  <td class="center_br">35-3/4</td>
+  <td class="right_br">2,992</td>
+  <td class="br">1.21</td>
+  <td class="center_br">24h 5m(?)</td>
+  <td class="right_br">0.46</td>
+  <td class="right_br">87.97d</td>
+  <td class="right_br">29.55</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Venus</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/venus.gif" width="12" height="18" alt="Venus"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/425000</td>
+  <td class="br">0.723</td>
+  <td class="center_br">66-3/4</td>
+  <td class="right_br">7,660</td>
+  <td class="br">0.85</td>
+  <td class="center_br">23h 21m(?)</td>
+  <td class="right_br">0.82</td>
+  <td class="right_br">224.70d</td>
+  <td class="right_br">21.61</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Earth</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/earth.gif" width="16" height="16" alt="Earth"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/326800</td>
+  <td class="br">1.</td>
+  <td class="center_br">92-1/3</td>
+  <td class="right_br">7,918</td>
+  <td class="br">1.</td>
+  <td class="center_br">23h 56m 4s</td>
+  <td class="right_br">1.</td>
+  <td class="right_br">365.26d</td>
+  <td class="right_br">18.38</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Mars</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/mars.gif" width="11" height="17" alt="Mars"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/2950000</td>
+  <td class="br">1.523</td>
+  <td class="center_br">141</td>
+  <td class="right_br">4,211</td>
+  <td class="br">0.737</td>
+  <td class="center_br">24h 37m 22.7s</td>
+  <td class="right_br">0.39</td>
+  <td class="right_br">686.98d</td>
+  <td class="right_br">14.99</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Asteroids</td>
+  <td class="center_br">(No.)</td>
+  <td class="center_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="center_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="center_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="right_br">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Jupiter</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/jupiter.gif" width="16" height="17" alt="Jupiter"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/1047</td>
+  <td class="br">5.203</td>
+  <td class="center_br">480</td>
+  <td class="right_br">86,000</td>
+  <td class="br">0.243</td>
+  <td class="center_br">9h 55m 20s</td>
+  <td class="right_br">2.64</td>
+  <td class="right_br">11.86yrs</td>
+  <td class="right_br">8.06</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Saturn</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/saturn.gif" width="14" height="18" alt="Saturn"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/3501</td>
+  <td class="br">9.538</td>
+  <td class="center_br">881</td>
+  <td class="right_br">70,500</td>
+  <td class="br">0.133</td>
+  <td class="center_br">10h 14m</td>
+  <td class="right_br">1.18</td>
+  <td class="right_br">29.46yrs</td>
+  <td class="right_br">5.95</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blr">Uranus</td>
+  <td class="center_br">
+   <img src="images/uranus.gif" width="19" height="18" alt="Uranus"></td>
+  <td class="center_br">1/22600</td>
+  <td class="br">19.183</td>
+  <td class="center_br">1771</td>
+  <td class="right_br">31,700</td>
+  <td class="br">0.226</td>
+  <td class="center_br">Unknown.</td>
+  <td class="right_br">0.90</td>
+  <td class="right_br">84.02yrs</td>
+  <td class="right_br">4.20</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="blbr">Neptune</td>
+  <td class="center_brb">
+   <img src="images/neptune.gif" width="11" height="18" alt="Neptune"></td>
+  <td class="center_brb">1/19380</td>
+  <td class="brb">30.054</td>
+  <td class="center_brb">2775</td>
+  <td class="right_brb">34,500</td>
+  <td class="brb">0.204</td>
+  <td class="center_brb">Unknown.</td>
+  <td class="right_brb">0.89</td>
+  <td class="right_brb">164.78yrs</td>
+  <td class="right_brb">3.36</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_275"><span class="page">Page 275</span></a>
+EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS.</h2>
+
+<h3>SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">0.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/aries.gif" width="17" height="17" alt="Aries"></td>
+  <td>Aries</td>
+  <td class="right_br">0&deg;</td>
+  <td class="right">VI.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/libra.gif" width="19" height="11" alt="Libra"></td>
+  <td>Libra</td>
+  <td class="right_br">180&deg;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">I.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/taurus.gif" width="13" height="17" alt="Taurus"></td>
+  <td>Taurus</td>
+  <td class="right_br">30</td>
+  <td class="right">VII.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/scorpio.gif" width="18" height="17" alt="Scorpio"></td>
+  <td>Scorpio</td>
+  <td class="right_br">210</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">II.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/gemini.gif" width="17" height="16" alt="Gemini"></td>
+  <td>Gemini</td>
+  <td class="right_br">60</td>
+  <td class="right">VIII.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/sagittarius.gif" width="11" height="17"
+    alt="Sagittarius"></td>
+  <td>Sagittarius</td>
+  <td class="right_br">240</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">III.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/cancer.gif" width="21" height="16" alt="Cancer"></td>
+  <td>Cancer</td>
+  <td class="right_br">90</td>
+  <td class="right">IX.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/capricornus.gif" width="20" height="17"
+    alt="Capricornus"></td>
+  <td>Capricornus</td>
+  <td class="right_br">270</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">IV.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/leo.gif" width="17" height="18" alt="Leo"></td>
+  <td>Leo</td>
+  <td class="right_br">120</td>
+  <td class="right">X.</td>
+  <td class="center">
+   <img src="images/aquarius.gif" width="21" height="14"
+    alt="Aquarius"></td>
+  <td>Aquarius</td>
+  <td class="right_br">300</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">V.</td>
+  <td class="center"><img src="images/virgo.gif" width="21" height="17"
+   alt="Virgo"></td>
+  <td>Virgo</td>
+  <td class="right_br">150</td>
+  <td class="right">XI.</td>
+  <td class="center"><img src="images/pisces.gif" width="16" height="18"
+   alt="pisces"></td>
+  <td>Pisces</td>
+  <td class="right_br">330</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">
+   <img src="images/conjunction.gif" width="11" height="17"
+    alt="conjunction"></td>
+  <td class="br">Conjunction.</td>
+  <td class="right">S.</td>
+  <td>Seconds of Time.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right"><img src="images/quadrature.gif" width="16"
+   height="16" alt="quadrature"></td>
+  <td class="br">Quadrature.</td>
+  <td class="right">&deg;</td>
+  <td>Degrees.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right"><img src="images/opposition.gif" width="13"
+   height="15" alt="opposition"></td>
+  <td class="br">Opposition.</td>
+  <td class="right">'</td>
+  <td>Minutes of Arc.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right"><img src="images/ascending_node.gif" width="14"
+   height="17" alt="ascending node"></td>
+  <td class="br">Ascending Node.</td>
+  <td class="right">"</td>
+  <td>Seconds of Arc.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right"><img src="images/descending_node.gif" width="15"
+   height="17" alt="descending node"></td>
+  <td class="br">Descending Node.</td>
+  <td class="right">R. A.</td>
+  <td>Right Ascension.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">H.</td>
+  <td class="br">Hours.</td>
+  <td class="right">Decl. or D.</td>
+  <td>Declination.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">M.</td>
+  <td class="br">Minutes of Time.</td>
+  <td class="right">N. P. D.</td>
+  <td>Dist. From North Pole.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>OTHER ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE ALMANAC.</h3>
+
+<p class="indent">
+S., South, <i>i.e.</i>, crosses the meridian; M., morning; A, Afternoon;
+Gr. H. L. N., greatest heliocentric latitude north, <i>i.e.</i>,
+greatest distance north of the ecliptic, as seen from the sun.
+ <img src="images/conjunction.gif" width="11" height="17" alt="conjunction">
+ <img src="images/mercury.gif" width="12" height="17" alt="Mercury">
+ <img src="images/sun.gif" width="17" height="17" alt="Sun">
+ Inf., inferior conjunction; Sup., superior conjunction.
+</p>
+
+<h3>GREEK ALPHABET USED INDICATING THE STARS.</h3>
+
+<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="center">
+<tr>
+  <td class="right">&alpha;,</td>
+  <td class="br">alpha.</td>
+  <td class="right">&eta;,</td>
+  <td class="br">eta.</td>
+  <td class="right">&nu;,</td>
+  <td class="br">nu.</td>
+  <td class="right">&tau;,</td>
+  <td>tau.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">&beta;,</td>
+  <td class="br">beta.</td>
+  <td class="right">&theta;,</td>
+  <td class="br">theta.</td>
+  <td class="right">&xi;,</td>
+  <td class="br">xi.</td>
+  <td class="right">&upsilon;,</td>
+  <td>upsilon.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">&gamma;,</td>
+  <td class="br">gamma.</td>
+  <td class="right">&iota;,</td>
+  <td class="br">iota.</td>
+  <td class="right">&omicron;,</td>
+  <td class="br">omicron.</td>
+  <td class="right">&phi;,</td>
+  <td>phi.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">&delta;,</td>
+  <td class="br">delta.</td>
+  <td class="right">&kappa;,</td>
+  <td class="br">kappa.</td>
+  <td class="right">&pi;,</td>
+  <td class="br">pi.</td>
+  <td class="right">&chi;,</td>
+  <td>chi.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">&epsilon;,</td>
+  <td class="br">epsilon.</td>
+  <td class="right">&lambda;,</td>
+  <td class="br">lambda.</td>
+  <td class="right">&rho;,</td>
+  <td class="br">rho.</td>
+  <td class="right">&psi;,</td>
+  <td>psi.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="right">&zeta;,</td>
+  <td class="br">zeta.</td>
+  <td class="right">&mu;,</td>
+  <td class="br">mu.</td>
+  <td class="right">&sigma;,</td>
+  <td class="br">sigma.</td>
+  <td class="right">&omega;,</td>
+  <td>omega.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_276"><span class="page">Page 276</span></a>
+CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS.</h2>
+
+<p class="indent">
+As an aid to comprehension, every student should draw illustrative
+figures of the various circles, planes, and situations described.
+(For example, see Fig. 45, <a href="#page_112">page 112</a>.) 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+I. <i>Creative Processes.</i>&mdash;The dial-plate of the sky.
+Cause or different weights&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+II. <i>Light.</i>&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+III. <i>Astronomical Instruments.</i>&mdash;Refracting telescope.
+Reflecting; largest. Spectroscope. Spectra of sun, hydrogen, sodium,
+etc. E made G by approach; C by departure. Stars approach and recede.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+IV. <i>Celestial Measurements.</i>-Place and time by stars. Degrees,
+minutes, seconds. Mapping stars. Mural circle. Slow watch. Hoosac
+Tunnel. Fine measurements. Sidereal time. Spider-lines. Personal
+equation. Measure distance&mdash;height. Ten-inch base line. Parallax
+of sun, stars. Longitude at sea. Distance of Polaris, &alpha; Centauri,
+61 Cygni. Orbits of asteroids.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+V. <i>The Sun.</i>&mdash;World on fire. Apparent size from planets.
+Zodiacal light. Corona. Hydrogen&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+VI. <i>The Planets from Space.</i>&mdash;North Pole. Speed. Sizes.
+Axial revolution. Man's weight on. Seasons. Parallelism of axis.
+Earth near
+<a name="page_277"><span class="page">Page 277</span></a>
+sun in winter. Plane of ecliptic. Orbits inclined to. Earth rotates.
+Proof. Sun's path among stars. Position of planets. Motion&mdash;direct,
+retrograde. Experiments.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+VII. <i>Meteors.</i>&mdash;Size; number; cause of; above earth;
+velocity; colors; number in space; telescopic view of. Aerolites:
+Systems of; how many known. Comets: Orbits; number of comets; Halley's;
+Biela's lost; Encke's. Resisting medium. Whence come comets? Composed
+of what? Amount of matter in. <img src="images/earth.gif" width="16"
+height="16" alt="Earth">.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+VIII. <i>The Planets.</i>&mdash;How many? Uranus discovered? Neptune?
+Asteroids? Vulcan? Distance from sun. Periodic time. Mercury: Elements;
+shapes, as seen from earth; transits. Venus: Elements; seen by day;
+how near earth? how far from? phases; Galileo. Earth: Elements;
+in space; Aurora; balance of forces. Tides: Main and subsidiary
+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&mdash;cold; how
+much light? Craters and peaks lighted; measured. Eclipses&mdash;Why
+not every new and full moon? Periodicity. Mars: Elements; how near
+earth? How far from? Apparent size; ice-fields; which end most?
+Satellites&mdash;Asteroids: How found? When? By whom? How many?
+Jupiter: Elements; trade-winds; how much light received? Own heat.
+Satellites: How many? Colors. Saturn: Elements; habitability; rings;
+flux; satellites. Uranus: Elements; discoverer; seen by; moon's
+motion. Neptune: Elements; discovered by; how? Review system.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+IX. <i>The Nebular Hypothesis.</i>&mdash;State it; facts confirmatory.
+Objections&mdash;1. Heat; 2. Rotation; 3. Retrograde; 4. Martial
+moons; 5. Star of 1876. Evolution: Gaps in; conclusion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+X. <i>The Stellar System.</i>-Motto. Man among stars; open page;
+starry poem; stars located; named. Thuban. Etanin. Constellations:
+Know them; number of stars; double; &epsilon; Lyr&aelig;, Sirius,
+Procyon, Castor, 61 Cygni, &gamma; Virginis. Colored stars; change
+color. Clusters: Two theories. Nebul&aelig;: Two visible; composed
+of; shapes; where? Variable stars. Sun. &beta; Lyr&aelig;, 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 Dipper, Southern
+Cross. Centre of gravity.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+XI. <i>The Worlds and the Word.</i>&mdash;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;
+<a name="page_278"><span class="page">Page 278</span></a>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+XII. <i>The Ultimate Force.</i>&mdash;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. Properties 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. Matter recapacitated. Refined habitations.
+Inhabitants. All force leads back to mind. Personal and infinite.
+</p>
+
+<h2>
+<a name="page_279"><span class="page">Page 279</span></a>
+GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX.</h2>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Abbreviations</b> used in astronomies, <a href="#page_275">275</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Aberration of light</b> (<i>a wandering away</i>), an apparent
+displacement of a star, owing to the progressive motion of light
+combined with that of the earth and its orbit,
+<a href="#page_199">199</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Aerolite</b> (<i>air-stone</i>), <a href="#page_122">122</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Air</b>, refraction of the, <a href="#page_40">40</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Algol</b>, the variable star, <a href="#page_222">222</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Almanac</b>, Nautical, <a href="#page_71">71</a>; explanation
+of signs used, <a href="#page_275">275</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Alphabet</b>, Greek, <a href="#page_275">275</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Altitude</b>, angular elevation of a body above the horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Angle</b>, difference in directions of two straight lines that
+meet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Annular</b> (<i>ring-shaped</i>) <b>eclipses</b>,
+<a href="#page_158">158</a>; nebul&aelig;,
+<a href="#page_218">218</a>, <a href="#page_220">220</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Aphelion</b>, the point in an orbit farthest from the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Apogee</b>, the point of an orbit which is farthest from the
+earth.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Apsis</b>, plural <i>apsides</i>, the line joining the aphelion
+and perihelion points; or the major axis of elliptical orbits.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Arc</b>, a part of a circle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Ascension, right</b>, the angular distance of a heavenly body
+from the first point of Aries, measured on the equator.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Asteroids</b> (<i>star-like</i>), <a href="#page_162">162</a>;
+orbits of interlaced, <a href="#page_74">74</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Astronomical instruments</b>, <a href="#page_43">43</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Astronomy</b>, use of, <a href="#page_57">57</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Atom</b>, size of, <a href="#page_255">255</a>; power of, <a
+href="#page_256">256</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Aurora Borealis</b>, <a href="#page_143">143</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Axis</b>, the line about which a body rotates.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Azimuth</b>, the angular distance of any point or body in the
+horizon from the north or south points.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Bailey's beads</b>, dots of light on the edge of the moon seen
+in a solar eclipse, caused by the moon's inequalities of surface.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Base line</b>, <a href="#page_68">68</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Biela's comet</b>, <a href="#page_129">129</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Binary system</b>, a double star, the component parts of which
+revolve around their centre of gravity.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Bode's law</b> of planetary distances is no law at all, but a
+study of coincidences.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Bolides</b>, small masses of matter in space. They are usually
+called meteors when luminous by contact with air,
+<a href="#page_120">120</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<a name="page_280"><span class="page">Page 280</span></a>
+<b>Celestial sphere</b>, the apparent dome in which the heavenly
+bodies seem to be set; appears to revolve, <a href="#page_3">3</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Centre of gravity</b>, the point on which a body, or two or more
+related bodies, balances.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Centrifugal force</b> (<i>centre fleeing</i>).
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Chromolithic plate</b> of spectra of metals, to face
+<a href="#page_50">50</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Circumpolar stars</b>, map of north, <a href="#page_201">201</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Colors of stars</b>, <a href="#page_214">214</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Colures</b>, the four principal meridians of the celestial sphere
+passing from the pole, one through each equinox, and one through
+each solstice.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Comets</b>, <a href="#page_126">126</a>; Halley's,
+<a href="#page_128">128</a>; Biela's lost, <a href="#page_129">129</a>;
+Encke's, <a href="#page_130">130</a>; constitution of,
+<a href="#page_131">131</a>; will they strike the earth?
+<a href="#page_133">133</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Conjunction</b>. 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
+conjunction when they are between the earth and the sun; superior
+conjunction when they are beyond the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Constellation</b>, a group of stars supposed to represent some
+figure: circumpolar, <a href="#page_201">201</a>; equatorial, for
+December, <a href="#page_202">202</a>; for January,
+<a href="#page_203">203</a>; April, <a href="#page_204">204</a>;
+June, <a href="#page_205">205</a>; September,
+<a href="#page_206">206</a>; November, <a href="#page_207">207</a>;
+southern circumpolar, <a href="#page_208">208</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Culmination</b>, the passage of a heavenly body across the meridian
+or south point of a place; it is the highest point reached in its
+path.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Cusp</b>, the extremities of the crescent form of the moon or
+an interior planet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Declination</b>, the angular distance of a celestial body north
+or south from the celestial equator.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Degree</b>, the 1/360 part of a circle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Direct motion</b>, a motion from west to east among stars.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Disk</b>, the visible surface of sun, moon, or planets.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Distance of stars</b>, <a href="#page_70">70</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Double stars</b>, <a href="#page_210">210</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Earth</b>, revolution of, <a href="#page_109">109</a>; in space,
+<a href="#page_142">142</a>; irregular figure,
+<a href="#page_145">145</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Eccentricity of an ellipse</b>, the distance of either focus
+from centre divided by half the major axis.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Eclipse</b> (<i>a disappearance</i>), <a href="#page_157">157</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Ecliptic</b>, the apparent annual path of the sun among the stars;
+plane of, <a href="#page_106">106</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Egress</b>, the passing of one body off the disk of another.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Elements</b>, the quantities which determine the motion of a
+planet: data for predicting astronomical phenomena; table of solar,
+<a href="#page_274">274</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Elements</b>, chemical, present in the sun,
+<a href="#page_270">270</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Elongation</b>, the angular distance of a planet from the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Emersion</b>, the reappearance of a body after it has been eclipsed
+or occulted by another.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<a name="page_281"><span class="page">Page 281</span></a>
+<b>Equator</b>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Equinox</b>, either of the points in which the sun, in its apparent
+annual course among the stars, crosses the equator, making days
+and nights of equal length.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Evolution</b>, materialistic, <a href="#page_182">182</a>;
+insufficient, <a href="#page_189">189</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Fizeau</b> determines the velocity of light,
+<a href="#page_23">23</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Forces</b>, delicate balance of, <a href="#page_144">144</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Galileo</b>, construction of his telescope,
+<a href="#page_43">43</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Geocentric</b>, a position of a heavenly body as seen or measured
+from the earth's centre.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Geodesy</b>, the art of measuring the earth without reference
+to the heavenly bodies.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>God</b>, relation of, to the universe, <a href="#page_258">258</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Gravitation</b>, laws of, <a href="#page_6">6</a>; extends to
+the stars, <a href="#page_13">13</a>; theories of,
+<a href="#page_253">253</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Gravity</b> on different bodies, <a href="#page_6">6</a>, <a
+href="#page_274">274</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Helical</b>, rising or setting of a star, as near to sunrise
+or sunset as it can be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Heliocentric</b>, as seen from the centre of the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Hoosac Tunnel</b>, example of accuracy, <a href="#page_62">62</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Horizontal pendulum</b>, <a href="#page_272">272</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Immersion</b>, the disappearance of one body behind another,
+or in its shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Inclination of an orbit</b>, the angle between its plane and
+the plane of the ecliptic.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Inferior conjunction</b>, when an interior planet is between
+the earth and the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Jupiter</b>, apparent path of, in 1866, <a href="#page_112">112</a>;
+elements of, <a href="#page_164">164</a>; satellites of,
+<a href="#page_165">165</a>; positions of satellites,
+<a href="#page_166">166</a>; elements of satellites,
+<a href="#page_166">166</a>; the Jovian system,
+<a href="#page_167">167</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Kepler's Laws</b>&mdash;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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Latitude</b>, the angular distance of a heavenly body from the
+ecliptic.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Light</b>, the child of force, <a href="#page_17">17</a>; number of
+vibrations of, <a href="#page_18">18</a>, <a href="#page_25">25</a>;
+velocity of, <a href="#page_22">22</a>; undulatory and musical, <a
+href="#page_26">26</a>; chemical force of, <a href="#page_30">30</a>;
+experiments with, <a href="#page_37">37</a>; approach and departure of
+a light-giving body measured, <a href="#page_51">51</a>; aberration
+of, <a href="#page_199">199</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Limb</b>, the edge of the disk of the moon, sun, or a planet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Longitude</b>. If a perpendicular be dropped from a body to
+the ecliptic, its celestial longitude is the distance of the foot
+of the perpendicular from the vertical equinox, counted toward the
+east; mode of ascertaining terrestrial, <a href="#page_72">72</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Magellanic clouds</b>, <a href="#page_208">208</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<a name="page_282"><span class="page">Page 282</span></a>
+<b>Mars</b>, <a href="#page_159">159</a>; snow spots of,
+<a href="#page_160">160</a>; satellites of, <a href="#page_161">161</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Mass</b>, the quantity of matter a body contains.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Mean distance of a planet</b>, half the sum of the aphelion and
+perihelion distances.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Measurements</b>, celestial, <a href="#page_57">57</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Mercury</b>, <a href="#page_138">138</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Meridian</b>, terrestrial, of a place, a great circle of the
+heavens passing 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Meteors</b>, <a href="#page_119">119</a>; swarm of, meeting the
+earth, <a href="#page_118">118</a>; explosion of,
+<a href="#page_120">120</a>; systems of, <a href="#page_123">123</a>;
+relation of, to comets, <a href="#page_124">124</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Micrometer</b>, any instrument for the accurate measurement of
+very small distances or angles.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Mind</b>, origin of force, <a href="#page_252">252</a>; continuous
+relation of, to the universe, <a href="#page_252">252</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Milky Way</b>, <a href="#page_210">210</a>,
+<a href="#page_215">215</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Mira</b>, the Wonderful, <a href="#page_221">221</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Moon</b>, the, <a href="#page_151">151</a>; greatest and least
+distance from the earth, <a href="#page_10">10</a>; telescopic
+appearance of, <a href="#page_155">155</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Mural circle</b>, <a href="#page_61">61</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Nadir</b>, the point in the celestial sphere directly beneath
+our feet, opposite to zenith.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Nebul&aelig;</b>, <a href="#page_217">217</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Nebular hypothesis</b>, not atheistic, <a href="#page_182">182</a>;
+stated, <a href="#page_182">182</a>; confirmatory facts,
+<a href="#page_183">183</a>; objections to, <a href="#page_185">185</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Neptune</b>, elements of, <a href="#page_175">175</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Node</b>, the point in which an orbit intersects the ecliptic,
+or other plane of reference; ascending, descending, line of, <a
+href="#page_107">107</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Occultation</b>, the hiding of a star, planet, or satellite by
+the interposition of a nearer body of greater angular magnitude.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Opposition</b>. A superior planet is in opposition when the
+sun, earth, and the planet are in a line, the earth being in the
+middle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Orbit</b>, the path of a planet, comet, or meteor around the sun,
+or of a satellite around a primary; inclination of,
+<a href="#page_106">106</a>; earth's, seen from the stars,
+<a href="#page_70">70</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Outline for students</b>, <a href="#page_276">276</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Parallax</b>, 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, <a href="#page_69">69</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Parallels</b>, imaginary circles on the earth or in the heavens
+parallel to the equator, having the poles for their centre.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Perigee</b>, nearest the earth; said of a point in an orbit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Perihelion</b>, the point of an orbit nearest the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Periodic time</b>, time of a planet's, comet's, or satellite's
+revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Personal equation</b>, <a href="#page_65">65</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Perturbation</b>, the effect of the attractions of the planets
+or other
+<a name="page_283"><span class="page">Page 283</span></a>
+bodies upon each other, disturbing their regular motion; of Saturn
+and Jupiter, <a href="#page_11">11</a>; of asteroids,
+<a href="#page_13">13</a>; of Uranus and Neptune,
+<a href="#page_176">176</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Phases</b>, the portions of the illuminated half of the moon
+or interior planet, as seen from the earth, called crescent, full,
+and gibbous.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Photosphere</b> of the sun, <a href="#page_89">89</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Planet</b> (<i>a wanderer</i>), as seen from space,
+<a href="#page_99">99</a>; speed of, <a href="#page_101">101</a>;
+size of, <a href="#page_102">102</a>; movements retrograde and
+direct, <a href="#page_112">112</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Pointers</b>, the, <a href="#page_197">197</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Pole, North</b>, movement of, <a href="#page_198">198</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Poles</b>, the extremities of an imaginary line on which a celestial
+body rotates.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Quadrant</b>, the fourth part of the circumference of a circle,
+or 90&deg;.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Quadrature</b>, a position of the moon or other body when 90&deg;
+from the sun.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Radiant point</b>, that point of the heavens from which meteors
+seem to diverge, <a href="#page_118">118</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Radius-vector</b>, an imaginary line joining the sun and a planet
+or comet in any part of its orbit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Rain</b>, weight of, <a href="#page_249">249</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Reflecting telescope</b>, <a href="#page_44">44</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Refracting telescope</b>, <a href="#page_43">43</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Refraction</b>, a bending of light by passing through any medium,
+as air, water, prism.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Retrograde motion</b>, the apparent movement of a planet from
+east to west among the stars.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Revolution</b>, the movement of bodies about their centre of
+gravity.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Rotation</b>, the motion of a body around its axis.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Satellites</b>, smaller bodies revolving around planets and stars.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Saturn</b>, elements of, <a href="#page_167">167</a>; revolution
+of, <a href="#page_168">168</a>; rings of, <a href="#page_169">169</a>;
+decreasing, <a href="#page_171">171</a>; nature of,
+<a href="#page_171">171</a>; satellites of, <a href="#page_172">172</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Seasons</b>, of the earth, <a href="#page_102">102</a>; of other
+planets, <a href="#page_105">105</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Selenography</b> (<i>lunography</i>), a description of the moon's
+surface.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Signs of the zodiac</b>, the twelve equal parts, of 30&deg; each,
+into which the zodiac is divided.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Solar system</b>, view of, <a href="#page_100">100</a>, <a
+href="#page_177">177</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Solstices</b>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Spectroscope</b>, <a href="#page_46">46</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Spectrum of sun and metals</b>, <a href="#page_50">50</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Stars</b>, chemistry of, <a href="#page_28">28</a>; distance
+of, <a href="#page_70">70-73</a>; mode of naming,
+<a href="#page_196">196</a>; number of, <a href="#page_210">210</a>;
+double and multiple, <a href="#page_210">210</a>; colored,
+<a href="#page_214">214</a>; clusters of, <a href="#page_215">215</a>;
+variable, <a href="#page_220">220</a>; temporary, new, and lost,
+<a href="#page_223">223</a>; movements of lateral,
+<a href="#page_226">226</a>; in line of sight,
+<a href="#page_269">269</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Stationary points</b>, places in a planet's orbit at which it
+has no motion among the stars.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<a name="page_284"><span class="page">Page 284</span></a>
+<b>Stellar system</b>, the, <a href="#page_195">195</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Summary of recent discoveries</b>, <a href="#page_269">269</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Sun</b>, fall of two meteoric bodies into, <a href="#page_19">19</a>;
+light from contraction of, <a href="#page_20">20</a>; as seen from
+planets, <a href="#page_79">79</a>; corona, <a href="#page_81">81</a>;
+hydrogen flames of, <a href="#page_84">84</a>; condition of, <a
+href="#page_89">89</a>; spots, <a href="#page_90">90</a>; experiments,
+<a href="#page_95">95</a>; apparent path among the stars,
+<a href="#page_111">111</a>; power of, <a href="#page_250">250</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Symbols used in astronomy</b>, <a href="#page_275">275</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Telescope</b>, refracting, <a href="#page_43">43</a>; reflecting,
+<a href="#page_44">44</a>; Cambridge equatorial,
+<a href="#page_46">46</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Telescopic work</b>, clusters, <a href="#page_210">210</a>; double
+stars, <a href="#page_212">212</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Temporary stars</b>, <a href="#page_223">223</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Terminator</b>, the boundary-line between light and darkness
+on the moon or a planet.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Tides</b>, <a href="#page_146">146</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Transit</b>, the passage of an object across some fixed line, as
+the meridian, 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, <a
+href="#page_65">65</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Ultimate force</b>, the, <a href="#page_249">249</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Uranus</b>, elements of, <a href="#page_173">173</a>; moons
+of, retrograde, <a href="#page_174">174</a>; perturbed by Neptune,
+<a href="#page_176">176</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Variable stars</b>, <a href="#page_220">220</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Venus</b>, <a href="#page_139">139</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Vernier</b>, a scale to measure very minute distances.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Vertical circle</b>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Vulcan</b>, discovery of, <a href="#page_137">137</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Worlds, the, and the Word</b>, teach the same truth,
+<a href="#page_231">231-245</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Year</b>, the, length of, on any planet, is determined by the
+periodic time.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Zenith</b>, the point in the celestial sphere directly overhead.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Zodiac</b>, a belt 18&deg; wide encircling the heavens, the
+ecliptic being the middle. In this belt the larger planets always
+appear. In the older astronomy it was divided into twelve parts
+of 30&deg; each, called signs of the zodiac.
+</p>
+
+<p class="index">
+<b>Zodiacal light</b>, <a href="#page_80">80</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="title">
+<a name="page_285"><span class="page">Page 285</span></a>
+TO FIND THE STARS IN THE SKY.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div style="width: 498px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 498px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back1.jpg" width="498" height="493" alt="Back plate 1">
+<br />
+Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this
+position.&mdash;January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at 9
+o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 492px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 492px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back2.jpg" width="492" height="347" alt="Back plate 2">
+<br />
+Algol is on the Meridian, 51&deg; South of Pole.&mdash;At 10 o'clock,
+December 7th; 9 o'clock, December 22d; 8 o'clock, January 5th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 490px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 490px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back3.jpg" width="490" height="391" alt="Back plate 3">
+<br />
+Capella (45&deg; from Pole) and Rigel (100&deg;) are on the Meridian
+at 8 o'clock February 7th, 9 o'clock January 22d, and at 10 o'clock
+January 7th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 496px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 496px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back4.jpg" width="496" height="443" alt="Back plate 4">
+<br />
+Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79&deg; south from the Pole, at
+10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and at 8 o'clock April
+23d.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 498px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 498px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back5.jpg" width="498" height="344" alt="Back plate 5">
+<br />
+Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70&deg; from the Pole, at 10 o'clock
+May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8 o'clock June 25th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 502px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 502px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back6.jpg" width="502" height="436" alt="Back plate 6">
+<br />
+Altair comes to the Meridian, 82&deg; from the Pole, at 10 o'clock
+P.M. August 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and at 8 o'clock September
+18th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<div style="width: 494px; text-align: center; margin: 1em;">
+<span style="margin: 0px; width: 494px;
+  font-size: smaller; text-align: justify; ">
+<img src="images/back7.jpg" width="494" height="344" alt="Back plate 7">
+<br />
+Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17&deg; from the horizon,
+at 8 o'clock November 4th.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #15620 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15620)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recreations in Astronomy
+       With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work
+
+Author: Henry Warren
+
+Release Date: April 14, 2005 [EBook #15620]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+[Page ii]
+[Illustration: THE CONSTELLATIONS OF ORION AND TAURUS.
+
+NOTES.--Star a in Taurus is red, has eight metals; moves east (page
+227). At o above tip of right horn is the Crab Nebula (page 219).
+In Orion, a is variable, has five metals; recedes 22 miles per
+second. b, d, e, x, r, etc., are double stars, the component parts
+of various colors and magnitudes (page 212, note). l and i are
+triple; s, octuple; th, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula (page
+218).]
+
+
+
+
+[Page iii]
+RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY
+
+WITH
+
+_DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND TELESCOPIC WORK_
+
+
+BY
+
+HENRY WHITE WARREN, D.D.
+
+AUTHOR OF "SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS; OR, KNOWLEDGE BY TRAVEL," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS
+
+
+
+[Page v]
+[Greek:
+  TAEI PSUCHAEI
+  TAEI AGAPAETAEI
+  ASTRAPOUSAEI
+  KAI
+  ISAGGEDOI]
+
+
+
+
+[Page vii]
+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 rewritten 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 important than either of the others.
+
+While nearly all men are prevented from practical experimentation
+in these high realms of knowledge, few [Page viii] 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 anyone 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 indebtedness to J. M.
+Van Vleck, LL.D., of the U.S. Nautical Almanac staff, and Professor
+of Astronomy at the Wesleyan University, for inspecting some of the
+more important 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 Newcomb, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page ix]
+CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAP.
+    I. CREATIVE PROCESSES
+   II. CREATIVE PROGRESS
+        Constitution of Light
+        Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light
+        Creative Force of Light
+  III. ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS
+        The Telescope
+        The Reflecting Telescope
+        The Spectroscope
+   IV. CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS
+        Celestial Movements
+        How to Measure
+    V. THE SUN
+        What the Sun does for us
+   VI. THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE
+        The Outlook from the Earth
+  VII. SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS
+        Aerolites
+        Comets
+        Famous Comets
+        Of what do Comets consist?
+        Will Comets strike the Earth?
+ VIII. THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS
+        Vulcan
+        Mercury
+        Venus
+        The Earth
+        The Aurora Borealis
+[Page x]
+        The Delicate Balance of Forces
+        Tides
+        The Moon
+        Telescopic Appearance
+        Eclipses
+        Mars
+        Satellites of Mars
+        Asteroids
+        Jupiter
+        Satellites of Jupiter
+        Saturn
+        Rings of Saturn
+        Satellites of Saturn
+        Uranus
+        Neptune
+   IX. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+    X. THE STELLAR SYSTEM
+        The Open Page of the Heavens
+        Equatorial Constellations
+        Characteristics of the Stars
+        Number
+        Double and Multiple Stars
+        Colored Stars
+        Clusters of Stars
+        Nebul�
+        Variable Stars
+        Temporary, New, and Lost Stars
+        Movements of Stars
+   XI. THE WORLDS AND THE WORD
+  XII. THE ULTIMATE FORCE
+ SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS
+ SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
+ EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS
+        Signs of the Zodiac
+        Other Abbreviations Used in the Almanac
+        Greek Alphabet Used Indicating the Stars
+ CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS
+ GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX
+
+
+
+
+[Page xi]
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+FIG.
+     The Constellations of Orion and Taurus
+  1. An Orbit resulting from Attraction and Projection
+  2. The Moon's Orbit about the Earth
+  3. Changes of Orbit by Mutual Attraction
+  4. Velocity of Light measured by Jupiter's Satellites
+  5. Velocity of Light measured by Fizeau's Toothed Wheel
+  6. White Light resolved into Colors
+  7. Showing amount of Light received by Different Planets
+  8. Measuring Intensities of Lights
+  9. Reflection and Diffusion of Light
+ 10. Manifold Reflections
+ 11. Refraction by Water
+ 12. Atmospherical Reflection
+ 13. Refracting Telescope
+ 14. Reflecting Telescope
+ 15. The Cambridge Equatorial Refractor
+ 16. The new Reflecting Telescope at Paris
+ 17. Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms
+ 18. Spectra of Glowing Hydrogen and of the Sun
+ 19. Illustrating Arcs and Angles
+ 20. Measuring Objects by observing Angles
+ 21. Mural Circle
+ 22. Scale to measure Hundredths of an Inch
+ 23. Spider-lines to determine Star Transits
+ 24. Illustrating Triangulation
+[Page xii]
+ 25. Measuring Distance to an Inaccessible Object
+ 26. Measuring Elevation of an Inaccessible Object
+ 27. Illustrating Parallax
+ 28. Illustrating Stellar Parallax
+ 29. Mode of Ascertaining Longitude
+ 30. Relative Size of Sun, as seen from Different Planets
+ 31. Zodiacal Light
+ 32. Corona of the Sun in 1858--Brazil
+ 33. Corona of the Sun in 1878--Colorado
+ 34. Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen
+ 35. Changes in Solar Cavities during Rotation
+ 36. Solar Spot
+ 37. Holding Telescope to see the Sun-spots
+ 38. Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets
+ 39. Orbit of Earth, illustrating Seasons
+ 40. Inclination of Planes of Planetary Orbits
+ 41. Inclination of Orbits of Earth and Venus
+ 42. Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars
+ 43. Passage of the Sun by Star Regulus
+ 44. Apparent Path of Jupiter among the Stars
+ 45. Illustrating Position of Planets
+ 46. Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet
+ 47. Apparent Movements of a Superior Planet
+ 47_a_. A Swarm of Meteors meeting the Earth
+ 48. Explosion of a Bolide
+ 49. Flight of Bolides
+ 50. The Santa Rosa Aerolite
+ 51. Orbit of November Meteors and the Comet of 1866
+ 52. Aspects of Remarkable Comets
+ 53. Phases and Apparent Dimensions of Venus
+ 54. The Earth and Moon in Space
+ 55. Aurora as Waving Curtains
+ 56. Tide resulting from Centrifugal Motion
+ 57. Lunar Landscape
+[Page xiii]
+ 58. Telescopic View of the Moon
+ 59. Illumination of Lunar Craters and Peaks
+ 60. Lunar Crater "Copernicus"
+ 61. Eclipses: Shadows of Earth and Moon
+ 62. Apparent Sizes of Mars, seen from the Earth
+ 63. Jupiter
+ 64. Various Positions of Jupiter's Satellites
+ 65. View of Saturn and his Rings
+ 66. Perturbations of Uranus
+ 67. Map: Circumpolar Constellations
+ 68. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in December
+ 69. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in January
+ 70. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in April
+ 71. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in June
+ 72. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in September
+ 73. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in November
+ 74. Southern Circumpolar Constellations
+ 75. Aspects of Double Stars
+ 76. Sprayed Star Cluster below ae in Hercules
+ 77. Globular Star Cluster in the Centaur
+ 78. Great Nebula about th Orionis
+ 79. The Crab Nebula above z Tauri
+ 80. The Ring Nebula in Lyra
+ 81. Showing Place of Ring Nebula
+ 82. The Horizontal Pendulum
+
+  COLORED PLATE REPRESENTING VARIOUS SPECTA
+  MAPS TO FIND THE STARS
+
+
+
+
+[Page 1]
+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.
+
+[Page 2]
+ "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 stars supply;
+  Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,
+    Its dome the sky."    H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+ "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. JONES.
+
+
+[Page 3]
+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
+moving 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 illuminated 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 [Page 4] read backward in proper
+order; and it has glorious volumes 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. Meteors, 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 after 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 combinations,
+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 beginning, 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 imagination.
+God creates and embodies; we create, but [Page 5] it remains in
+thought only. But the creation is as bright, strong, clear,
+enduring, and real, as if it were embodied. Every 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."
+
+In 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 power, 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 together of every particle in existence. The laws
+governing this attraction shall be two. When these particles are
+associated together, the attraction shall be in proportion to the
+mass. A given mass will pull twice [Page 6] 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 1/24 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 attraction 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 body_.
+
+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 matter 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 [Page 7] imagine, either
+in differently sized masses or in combination with other substances.
+There it is! We cannot 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 movements. It only gives an even
+effulgence, a steady unflickering 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 empty space. But we created them
+dowered with attraction. Each instantly feels the drawing influence
+of the other. They are mutually attractive, and begin to [Page 8]
+move toward each other. They hasten along an undeviating straight
+line. Their speed quickens at every mile. The attraction increases
+every moment. They fly swift as thought. They dash 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 nothing to be warmed thereby. Are our creative
+powers exhausted by this effort?
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Orbit A D, resulting from attraction, A
+C, and projectile force, A B.]
+
+No, we will create another world, and add another power to it that
+shall keep them apart. That power 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 thousand miles
+in diameter. It instantly feels the attractive power of the sun
+drawing it to itself sixty-eight [Page 9] miles a second. 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 one hundred and
+eighty-nine miles a second. 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 gravity around which both turn
+will be 1/81 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
+introduced that only the most masterly minds can follow. Introduce
+a dozen or a million bodies, and complications arise that only
+Omniscience can unravel.
+
+[Page 10]
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+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 quarter of a
+million of miles toward 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 power,
+to C. All the while the invisible elastic force of the earth is
+unweariedly maintained; and though the moon's distances vary over a
+range of 31,355 miles, the moon is always in a determinable place.
+A simple revolution 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 [Page 11] of our
+night-wandering orb has just been explained by Professor Hansen, of
+Gotha, as a curious result of the attraction of Venus.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Changes of orbit by mutual attraction.]
+
+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 other by mutual attraction, Jupiter's
+orbit bends outward, and Saturn's becomes more nearly straight, as
+shown by the dotted lines. A partial correction of this difficulty
+immediately follows. As Jupiter 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, retarded, 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
+[Page 12] Saturn; and they will be near again, be drawn together,
+hastened, and retarded, as before; their next conjunction 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 perturbations 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 will
+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 direction. 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 planets, can be calculated
+with exceeding nicety.
+
+The difficulties would be greatly increased if the orbits [Page 13]
+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.
+Nevertheless, 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 by an
+intelligent mind 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,
+affecting the entire planetary system, the periods of which are
+immensely long. The number of these oscillations is equal to that
+of all the planets, and their periods range from 50,000 to 2,000,000
+years,
+
+Looking into the open page of the starry heavens we see double
+stars, the constituent parts of which must revolve 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 [Page 14] 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
+comprehends and directs them all."
+
+
+
+
+[Page 15]
+II.
+
+CREATIVE PROGRESS.
+
+  "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."--_Genesis_
+  i., 3.
+
+  "God is light."--1 _John_, i. 5.
+
+[Page 16]
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 legitimate 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 father, 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 manifestation 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 skeleton. Skeletons are
+somewhat interesting in themselves, but far more so when covered
+with flesh, flushed with beauty, and inspired with soul. The
+universe [Page 18] has bones, 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 cannot be quiet. The
+mighty locomotive trembles with its own energy. A smitten piece
+of iron has all its infinitesimal 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 heated body commences
+a vigorous vibration among its particles, and communicates these
+vibrations to the surrounding 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 undulations, and the
+object seems to glow with a dull red light; becoming hotter, the
+vibrations increase in rapidity. 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 different 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 inflammable 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 [Page
+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 consumed 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 1,300,000 times as large 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 hundred miles per second, and striking the sun's
+atmosphere, 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. Vivid auroras appeared, not only at the north and south poles,
+but even where such spectacles are seldom seen. The electro-magnetic
+[Page 20] disturbances were more distinctly marked. "In many places
+the telegraphic wires struck work. In Washington and Philadelphia
+the electric signalmen received severe electric shocks; at a station
+in Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at Boston a
+flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's electric telegraph." There
+is the best of reason for believing that a continuous succession of
+such bodies might have gone 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 contraction goes on evolving more light, and so
+the suns flame on through the millions of years unquenched. It is
+estimated that the contraction of our sun, from filling immensity
+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 [Page 21] shall have produced all the
+heat it can, and a new force of attraction must be added, or the sun
+itself will become cold as a cinder, dead as a burned-out char.
+
+Since light and heat are the product of such enormous 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 appears 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 commence a study of its
+qualities and powers.
+
+Light is the astronomer's necessity. When the sublime 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-gathering 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 fifty minutes or years ago, more
+or less. Light is the a�rial sprite that carries our measuring-rods
+across the infinite [Page 22] spaces; light spreads out the history
+of that far-off beginning; 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Velocity of Light measured by Eclipses of
+Jupiter's Moons.]
+
+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 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 planet Jupiter. We know
+to a second when these eclipses take place, and they can be seen
+with a small telescope. But when the earth is on the opposite side
+of the sun [Page 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 184,000,000 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 result. Suppose the wheel, Fig. 5, to have one thousand 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 1/10000 of a
+second, or at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, the next tooth
+will have arrived before the eye, and each returning 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 having been traversed meanwhile. The method of
+measuring by means of a revolving mirror, used by Faucault, is held
+to be even more accurate.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Measuring the Velocity of Light.]
+
+When we take instantaneous photographs by the exposure [Page 24] of
+the sensitive plate 1/20000 part 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 Centauri
+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 goes 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
+directions, in the same place, without interference, and thus we
+see "the old moon in the arms of the new."
+
+_Constitution of Light._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 6.--White Light resolved into Colors.]
+
+Light was once supposed to be corpuscular, or consisting 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 [Page 25]
+instantly turned out of its course, some parts more and some less,
+according to the number of vibrations, and appears 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. 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
+different places from 716 to 765,000,000,000,000 of vibrations 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 differently, 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 vibrations
+numbering about 653,000,000,000,000 of [Page 25] vibrations 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 pore celestial white
+  With streakings of the morning light."
+
+Every little pansy, tender as fancy, pearled with evanescent 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 purple, and reflect each of these in other
+parts of the same tender petal. "Pansies are for thoughts," even
+more thoughts than poor Ophelia knew. An evening cloud that is
+dense enough to absorb all the faster and weaker vibrations, leaving
+only the stronger to come through, will be said to be 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 258-7/8 vibrations to the second, and its
+octave above 517-1/2. Not that sound vibrations cease [Page 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 misconstrued 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
+standing 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 keynote 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 they 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 is unapproachable by mortals; [Page 28] then the music
+swells beyond our ability to endure. 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
+mysteries, 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 simple 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
+[Page 29] they strike a substance we call colored. The rest are
+reflected, and give the impression of color. In one place on the
+flag of our nation all vibrations are destroyed except 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 narrow 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 vibrations 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 record 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 [Page 30] the
+stars whose very substance we know! If we were transported thither,
+or beyond, we should not be altogether strangers in an unknown
+realm.
+
+But the stars differ in their constituent elements; every ray that
+flashes from them bears in its very being proofs of what they are.
+Hence the eye of Omniscience, 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 unbraided sunbeam, 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 transfigures 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 engineer 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
+sunshine, falling on the scarcely lifted hills of Pennsylvania,
+caused the reedy vegetation to grow along the banks of [Page 31]
+shallow seas, accumulated vast amounts of this vegetation, sunk it
+beneath the sea, roofed it over with sand, compacted the sand into
+rock, and changed this vegetable 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. We
+mine the coal, bring out the heat, raise the steam, drive the train,
+so that in the ultimate analyses it is sunshine 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, because
+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. Naturally
+there will be as many different kinds of heat as tints of color,
+because there is as great a range of numbers of vibration. It is
+our privilege 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 [Page 32] 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 anxious 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, [Page 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 consumes 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 qualities 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 platinum 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 sun beam goes through glass without [Page 34] 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
+sweeping through them.
+
+The heat of the sun, by its intense vibrations, comes 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 flyaway every night, and our temperature would go down
+to 200� below zero. This heat comes with the light, and then,
+dissociated from it, the number of its vibrations lessened, 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 1/1000 of 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 temperature 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 locomotive 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 sunlight 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, acting [Page 35] upon the
+iron, stations its particles farther and farther apart. Since the
+bottom cannot give way the arches must rise in the middle. As they
+become longer 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 that mighty pile of granite with its
+a�rial 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 wreathing mists of morning these myriads of tons rise
+in the air, flyaway hundreds of miles, and supply all the Niagaras,
+Mississippis and Amazons of earth. The sun says to the earth, wrapped
+in the mantle of winter, [Page 36] "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 constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome by a higher, and all by the highest. Gravitation of
+earth naturally and legitimately yields to the power of the sun's
+heat, and then the waters fly into the clouds. It as naturally
+and legitimately yields to the power of mind, and the waters of the
+Red Sea are divided and stand "upright as an heap." Water naturally
+bursts into flame when a bit of potassium 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
+constitutional exercise of higher force over forces organized 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."
+
+[Page 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 apparent 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 varying amount
+of light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above
+each world, the amount received by the earth being 1.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Measuring Intensities of Light.]
+
+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 [Page 38] 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Reflection and Diffusion of Light.]
+
+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 astronomer projects straight
+lines to infinity. Take a hand-mirror, or better, 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 darkness appeared. Turn the same ray into a tumbler of water,
+[Page 39]
+it becomes 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Manifold Reflections.]
+
+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 through to the silvered back at B, and is totally
+reflected to _b_, 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 reflector
+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 secondary 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 light, and the frequency and prominence of
+each pulse-beat will be indicated by the tossing spot of light on
+the wall. If the operator becomes excited the fact will be evident
+to all observers.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
+
+Place a coin in a basin (Fig. 11), and set it so that the rim will
+conceal the coin from the eye. Pour in water, and the coin will
+[Page 40] appear 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
+atmosphere, 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.
+
+[Illustration: 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 object 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 41]
+III.
+
+ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS.
+
+  "The eyes of the Lord are in every place."--_Proverbs_ xv. 3.
+
+[Page 42]
+"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 objects 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 diameter, and penetrates the immensities of space
+thousands of times beyond where his natural eye can pierce, until he
+sees that God's immensities of worlds are infinite also."--BISHOP
+FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 43]
+III.
+
+_THE TELESCOPE._
+
+Frequent allusion has been made in the previous chapter to discovered
+results. It is necessary to understand more clearly the process by
+which such results have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments
+are of the simplest character, some most delicate and complex.
+When a man smokes a piece of glass, in order 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 constructed his own without a pattern,
+and used it to good purpose. It consists of a lens, O B (Fig. 13),
+which 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 [Page 44] find. Hence there is placed at
+R a concave lens, passing 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Refracting Telescope.]
+
+If, instead of a concave lens at R, converting the converging 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 overcome, 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 radically from the
+refracting one already described. It receives the light in a concave
+mirror, M (Fig. 14), which reflects it to the focus F, producing the
+same result as the lens of the refracting telescope. Here 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 [Page 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 coming 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Reflecting 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 instrument 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 highest 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 foundation
+on which it is placed is sunk deep in the earth, far from rail or
+other roads, and no part of the observatory 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
+follows 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 (Fig. 15). The reflector
+demands still more difficult engineering. That of Lord Rosse has
+a metallic mirror [Page 46] weighing six tons, a tube forty feet
+long, which, with its appurtenances, weighs seven tons more. It
+moves between two walls only 10� east and west. The new Paris
+reflector (Fig. 16) has a much wider range of movement.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Cambridge Equatorial.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 16.--New Paris Reflector.]
+
+_The Spectroscope._
+
+A spectrum is a collection of the colors which are dispersed by
+a prism from any given light. If it is sunlight, it is a solar
+spectrum; if the source of light is a [Page 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. Considering the infinite variety of light, and its
+easy modification and absorption, we should expect an immense number
+of spectra. A mere prism disperses the light so imperfectly that
+different orders of vibrations, perceived 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 until we get only
+a small beam of light. In order to have the colors thoroughly
+dispersed, the best instruments pass the beam of light through a
+series of prisms called a battery, each one spreading farther the
+colors which the previous ones had spread. In Fig. 17 the ray is
+seen entering through the telescope A, which renders the rays
+parallel, and passing [Page 50] through the prisms out to telescope
+B, where the 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 O 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
+examined just above where it entered the first prism.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms.]
+
+Attached to the examining telescope is a diamond-ruled scale of glass,
+enabling us to fix the position of any line with great exactness.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Spectra of glowing Hydrogen and the Sun.]
+
+In Fig. 18 is seen, in the lower part, a spectrum of the sun, with
+about a score of its thousands of lines 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 spectrum. 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 chromolithic plate.
+No. 1 represents the solar spectrum, with a few of its lines on an
+accurately graduated scale. [Page 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 always in the same place on
+the scale.
+
+A patient study of these signs of substances reveals, richer results
+than a study of the cuniform characters engraved on Assyrian slabs;
+for one is the handwriting 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 approaches 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 vibrations 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 hundred and fifty-seven
+vibrations could approach us at three hundred and sixty-four yards
+per second, it is obvious 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 [Page 52] result would
+appear if we carried our ear toward the sound fast enough to take up
+twice as many valves as though we stood still. This is apparent to
+every observer in a railway train. The whistle of an approaching
+locomotive gives one tone; it passes, and we instantly detect
+another. Let two trains, running at a speed of thirty-six yards a
+second, approach each other. 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 hundred 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.
+
+[Illustration: 1. Solar Spectrum. 2. Spectrum of Potassium. 3.
+Spectrum of Sodium. 4. Spectrum of Strontium. 5. Spectrum of Calcium.
+6. Spectrum of Barium.]
+
+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 recedes, it increases the length of the wave--puts
+a less number into an inch. If a body giving only the number of
+vibrations we call green were to approach sufficiently fast, it
+would crowd in vibrations enough to appear what we call blue, indigo,
+or even violet, according to its speed. If it receded sufficiently
+fast, it would leave behind it only vibrations enough to fill up
+[Page 53] the space with what we call yellow, orange, or red,
+according 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 cannot 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 violet, 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
+appropriate 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 receding 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 [Page 54]
+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 observing 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 millionth 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 movements taking place, the nature of
+comets, and nebul�. By the spectroscope we know that the atmospheres
+of Venus and Mars are like our own; that those of Jupiter and Saturn
+are very unlike; it tells us which stars approach and which recede,
+and just how one star differeth 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 55]
+IV.
+
+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 right hand hath spanned the heavens."--_Isa._
+xl. 12; xlviii. 13.
+
+[Page 56]
+ "Go to yon tower, where busy science plies
+  Her vast antenn�, feeling thro' the skies;
+  That little vernier, on whose slender lines
+  The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
+  A silent index, tracks the planets' march
+  In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch,
+  Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
+  And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
+
+ "So, till by wrong or negligence effaced,
+  The living index which thy Maker traced
+  Repeats 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 57]
+IV.
+
+_CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS._
+
+We know that astronomy has what are called practical uses. If a
+ship had been driven by Euroclydon ten times fourteen days and
+nights without sun or star appearing, a moment's glance into the
+heavens from the heaving deck, by a very slightly educated sailor,
+would tell within one hundred yards where he was, and determine
+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 uncertain 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 longitude by observations of the stars. Our real landmarks
+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 broadest exercise
+of the creative faculty have been inspired by astronomy. No other
+instruments approximate in delicacy those which explore the heavens;
+no other [Page 58] system of thought can draw such vast and certain
+conclusions 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, instead 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 exact. Whoever studies astronomy,
+under proper guidance and in the right spirit, grows in thought
+and feeling, 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 locomotive, but quite an unlettered
+man can drive it. It is the work of genius to render difficult
+matters plain, abstruse thoughts clear.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
+
+A brief explanation of a few terms will make the principles of
+world inspection easily understood. Imagine a perfect circle thirty
+feet in diameter--that is, create [Page 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 circle, 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 measured 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 mountain, 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 ").
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Illustration of Angles.]
+
+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 [Page 60] 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 steadily 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 evening
+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 suggest 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 given meridian, or from the
+equator. Thus the stars called the Pointers, in the Great Bear,
+are 5� apart; the nearest one is 29� from the Pole Star, which is
+39� 56' 29" above the horizon at Philadelphia. In going to England
+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; [Page 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 mistake 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 immensely more at the distance of the
+stars. The correction of an inaccuracy of no greater magnitude than
+that has reduced our estimate of the distance of our sun 3,000,000
+miles.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Mural Circle.]
+
+Consider the nicety of the work. Suppose the graduated scale to
+be thirty feet in circumference. Divided into 360�, each would
+be one inch long. Divide each degree into 60', each one is 1/60
+of an inch long. It takes good eyesight to discern it. But each
+minute must be [Page 62] divided into 60", and these must not only
+be noted, but even tenths and hundredths of seconds must be
+discerned. 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 unreliable. It is taken to a
+watch-maker that every single second may be quickened 1/20160 part
+of itself. Now 1/20000 part of a second would be a small interval of
+time to measure, but it must be under control. If the temperature of
+a summer morning rises ten or twenty degrees we scarcely notice it;
+but the magnetic tastimeter measures 1/5000 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 Hoosac 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 mountain. 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 triangulate from the eastern portal to distant
+[Page 63] mountain 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 dropped 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 measurements
+in the skies.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
+
+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. Observe 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 99/100 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 telescope
+on the mural circle, we are able to reach an exactness of 0".1, or
+1/3600 of an inch. This instrument is used to measure the declination
+of stars, or angular [Page 64] 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 measure
+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 undulations of light. The shortest is
+of the violet light, 154.84 ten-millionths of an inch. By the
+horizontal pendulum Professor Root has made 1/36000000 of an inch
+apparent.
+
+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 exactly 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 [Page 65] the star will come into
+the field just above the horizontal 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Transit of a Star noted.]
+
+But man is not reliable enough to observe and record with sufficient
+accuracy. Some, in their excitement, anticipate 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
+estimating 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-officers
+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 astronomer,
+and to others, that we owe the mechanical accuracy 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 [Page 66] over each 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 men, 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 accounted for.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
+
+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 perpendicular A C. Now any point--C, where
+a perpendicular, A C, and a diagonal, B C, meet--will be [Page 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 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 feet away.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Measuring Distances.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Measuring Elevations.]
+
+The next process is to measure the 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, 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 [Page 68] one-half an
+inch going two feet, in going four feet they will spread an inch,
+and in going a mile, or five thousand 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 infinity 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 63/10000000 of
+an inch, and the lines will come together at a distance of three
+hundred miles. That new angle differs from the former right angle
+almost infinitesimally, 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
+meeting 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 distances is easily seen
+by Fig. 27.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 27.]
+
+Let O P be the base. This would subtend a greater angle seen from
+star A than from star B. Let B be far enough away, and O P would
+become invisible, and B [Page 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 diameter 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� 59' 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 station 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 carried
+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 [Page
+70] 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 instant, 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
+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 angles of the same stars: it is the same angle. Sitting in my
+study here, I glance out of the window and discern separate bricks,
+in houses five hundred feet away, with my unaided eye; they subtend
+a discernible angle. 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. Not 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 [Page 71] earth's orbit on one
+side, as T R A (Fig. 28), and a line were to be drawn six months
+later from the same stars, touching our earth's orbit on the other
+side, as R B T, such a line would not diverge sufficiently from a
+straight line for us to detect its divergence. Numerous vain
+attempts 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 inconceivable depths of space, and ascertain
+their distance from us. We are ever impelled to triumph over what is
+declared 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
+assaulted, till some ambitious spirits have outsoared even
+imagination by the certainties of mathematics.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 28.]
+
+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 another, we reach a ground of judgment. The ascertainment
+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 [Page 72] 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Mode of Ascertaining Longitude.]
+
+So, by comparisons of the near and far stars, the approximate distance
+of a few of them has been determined. The nearest one is the brightest
+star in the Centaur, never 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
+dissolve 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 flyaway toward 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 allegiance 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 traverse 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 [Page 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-housse 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 astronomical unit and standard of
+measurement is the distance 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 astronomical unit 226,000 times, we
+measure to Alpha Centauri, more than twenty millions of millions
+of miles. Doubtless 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 celestial 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 Nautical 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 parts of the [Page 74] 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 one hundred and ninety-two 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,
+establishing landmarks, and guiding the sailor. It greatly quickens
+and enlarges thought, excites a desire to know, leads to the utmost
+exactness, and ministers to adoration and love of the Maker of
+the innumerable suns.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 75]
+V.
+
+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.
+
+[Page 76]
+"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 similar with the sun of
+heaven, from which the Divine 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 according
+to the quality of the minds, each of which takes from the common
+influx as much as is necessary."--SWEDENBORG.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 77]
+V.
+
+_THE SUN._
+
+Suppose we had stood on the dome of Boston Statehouse November 9th,
+1872, on the night of the great conflagration, and seen the fire
+break out; seen the engines 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 decompose 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 Rocky 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 [Page 78] 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 flaming
+globe--on fire above, below, around--there is nothing 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
+quieted. 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 burning 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 relative 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 always 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Relative Size of Sun as seen from Different
+Planets.]
+
+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 soon by the eye.
+But that is a small part of its real diameter. So we say the earth
+has an equatorial diameter of 7925-1/2 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 [Page 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 the sun, we might almost say that its diameter is
+infinite, for its light and heat reach beyond our measurement. Its
+living, throbbing heart sends out pulsations, keeping all space full
+of its tides of living light.
+
+[Page 80]
+[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Zodiacal Light.]
+
+We might say with evident truth that the far-off planets are a
+part of the sun, since the space they traverse 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 [Page 81] into our
+western sky soon after sunset, on a clear, moonless 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, inclined 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 surrounding 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, coming and returning, in order that they might note the
+three minutes of total eclipse in Colorado. Each man had his work
+assigned to him, and he was drilled to attend to that and nothing
+else. Improved instruments were put into his [Page 82] 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 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 32.--The Corona in 1858, Brazil.]
+
+It was then settled that the corona consists of reflected light,
+sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids swirling in the vast
+seas, giving new densities and [Page 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 orbital revolution, we do not know. That the corona cannot
+be in any sense an atmosphere of any continuous gas, is seen from
+the fact that the comet of 1843, passing within 93,000 miles of the
+body of the sun, was not burned out of existence as a comet, nor in
+any perceptible 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 33.--The Corolla in 1878, Colorado.]
+ [Page 84] 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 spectroscope attached. I have seen them
+ with great distinctness and brilliancy with the excellent
+ eleven-inch telescope 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 extremity 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
+ thunderhead.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen.]
+
+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 actually in progress. "The whole thing
+had been literally blown to shreds," he says, "by some inconceivable
+uprush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had [Page 87]
+left, the air--if I may use the expression--was filled with the
+flying _d�bris_, 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 formerly
+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,
+chromatospheric 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
+wonderfully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing flame, to speak
+according to appearances. First, it was crowded down, as it were,
+along the solar surface; later, it arose almost pyramidally 50,000
+miles in height; then [Page 88] its summit 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 outward; and then, after an interval, followed by a
+corresponding 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 indistinguishable cloud." In the presence of
+these evident visions of an actual body in furious flame, we need
+hesitate no longer in accepting as true the words of St. Peter
+of the time "in which the [atmospheric] heavens shall pass away
+with a great noise, and the elements 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 [Page 89] metals, some of them as yet
+unknown on earth, but having a record in the spectrum, in the denser
+parts below. If these fierce fires are a part of the Sun, as they
+assuredly are, its diameter would be from 1,060,000 to 1,260,000
+miles.
+
+Let us approach even nearer. We see a clearly recognized even disk,
+of equal dimensions in every direction. This is the photosphere.
+We here reach some definitely 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 necklace, 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 hundred 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 estimate 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 composed
+of solid particles, floating in gas so condensed [Page 90] by
+pressure and attraction as to shine like a solid. It has no sensible
+changes of general level, but has prodigious 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 others,
+for years. But it is a long way off to study an object. No telescope
+brings it nearer than 200,000 miles. Theory after theory has been
+advanced, each one satisfactory 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, beyond 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 across its disk by axial
+revolution, being narrow as they present their edges to us, and
+rounder as we look perpendicularly into them (Fig. 35).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Change in Spots as rotated across the Disk,
+showing Cavities.]
+
+These spots are also very variable in number, sometimes there being
+none for nearly two hundred days, and again whole years during which
+the sun is never without them. The period from minimum to maximum
+[Page 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
+scori� floating in the sea of molten matter. But they were depressed
+below the surface, and showed a notch when on the edge. Wilson
+originated 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 [Page 92]
+great depth, and rises up tumultuously around the whirlpool, 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 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."
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Solar spot, by Langley.]
+
+A spot of 20,000 miles diameter is quite small; there was one 14,816
+miles across, visible to the naked eye for a week in 1843. This
+particular sun-spot somewhat [Page 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 ont
+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 incredible. 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 thousands of miles into space. It falls again into the
+incandescent 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 fire, where one hundred
+worlds could be buried, do not usually prevent the sun's appearing
+to our far-off eyes as a perfect sphere.
+
+[Page 94]
+_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 perpetually 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 tendency 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 may 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 millions of cubic miles of ice could
+be hailed at the sun every second without affecting 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 conservatory, 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,
+[Page 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 fifty miles, the
+hurricane one hundred. The force is as the square of the velocity.
+It is by means of the sun that the merchant's white-sailed ships are
+blown safely home. So the sun carries off the miasma of the marsh,
+the pollution 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 Manchesters possible, because
+the sun lifted all that water to the hills.
+
+Intermingled with these currents of air are the currents 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 only
+1/21500000000 part 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 beyond [Page 96] its usual focusing for distant objects. The
+farther it is drawn, the nearer must we hold the screen for a
+perfect image.
+
+By holding a paper near the eye-piece, the proper direction of
+the instrument 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 Mercury and Venus shown to any number of spectators.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Holding Telescope to see the Sun'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 determine 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 97]
+VI.
+
+THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE.
+
+"He hangeth the earth upon nothing."--_Job_ xxvi. 7.
+
+[Page 98]
+"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 required 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 may 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 wailing world; weigh
+well the mighty impulse soon to be given, for out of the myriads
+of directions, and the myriads of impulsive forces, there comes
+but a single combination 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 wisdom, or relieve me from
+the impossible task!'"-0. M. MITCHEL, LL. D.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 sunshine. 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
+possibly Venus, and all moons except those of Uranus and Neptune,
+present their equators to the sun. The direction of orbital and
+axial revolution seen from above the North Pole would be opposite
+to that of the hands of a watch.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets.]
+
+The speed of this orbital revolution must be proportioned to the
+distance from the sun. The attraction of the sun varies inversely
+as the square of the distance. [Page 100] 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
+[Page 101] speed when attractive power is diminished by distance.
+Hence Mercury must go 29.5 miles per second--seventy 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 attracted only 1/5626 as much, must be slowed down to 3.4
+miles a second to prevent its flying away from the feebler
+attraction of the sun. The orbital velocity of the various planets
+in miles per second is as follows:
+
+  Mercury  29.55  |  Jupiter  8.06
+  Venus    21.61  |  Saturn   5.95
+  Earth    18.38  |  Uranus   4.20
+  Mars     14.99  |  Neptune  3.36
+
+Hence, while the earth makes one revolution in its year, Mercury
+has made over four revolutions, or passed through four years; the
+slower Neptune has made only 1/164 of one revolution.
+
+The time of axial revolution 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 enormous 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 [Page 102] 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
+hereafter.
+
+The difference in the size of the planets is very noticeable. 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Orbit of Earth, showing Parallelism of
+Axis and Seasons.]
+
+The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination of its axis
+to the plane of its orbit. In Fig. 39 the rotating 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 darkness than day, and hence winter. Passing on
+to B, the world is seen illuminated 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 northern pole is shrouded in continual
+gloom. Every place [Page 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
+necessary. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are observed to
+enlarge and contract, according as it is winter 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 anomaly, 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 winters, 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. [Page 106] 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 sufficient time, might cause frightful extremes of
+temperature; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at which it
+is said, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Then a
+compensative diminution will follow.
+
+Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, floating in a round
+pond. The axis will be inclined 7-1/2� to the surface of the water,
+one side of the equator be 7-1/2� below the surface, and the other
+side the same distance above. Let the half-submerged 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Inclination of the Planes of Orbits.]
+
+If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying in [Page 107] the
+same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies were to start in a
+direct line for the sun, 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 Venus and
+Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun at every
+revolution.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Inclination of Orbits of Venus and Earth.
+Nodal Line, D B.]
+
+Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and Venus seen
+not from the edge but from a position somewhat above. The point E,
+where Venus crosses the plane of the earth's orbit, is called the
+ascending node. If the earth were at B when Venus is at E, Venus
+would be seen on the disk of the sun, making a transit. The same
+would be true if the earth were at D, and Venus at the descending
+node F.
+
+This general view of the flying spheres is full of interest. [Page
+108] 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, continuing 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 perfect 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 power. 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 [Page 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 pyramids 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 Acropolis; and the
+mighty mountains of Moab removed to reveal 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 vibrating 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 six hours after it is swinging toward Rome, in
+Italy; in twelve hours, toward Siam, in Asia; in nineteen hours,
+toward the Sandwich Islands; and in twenty-four, toward 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 sufficient to compel the plane of the original
+direction to change with the turning of the earth. The law of
+inertia keeps it moving in the same direction. The same experimental
+proof of revolution is shown in a proportional 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. [Page 110] 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 minutes longer before we find the moon. It must be going in
+the same direction, and it takes us longer to get round to it than
+if 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 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�.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars.]
+
+[Page 111]
+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 three 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 midnight
+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 toward B, the sun appears to move toward H.
+If we had observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 1876, 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 circle 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 43.]
+
+There are certain stars that have such irregular, uncertain, 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 retrograde, [Page 112] and go on again. Some are never seen far
+from the sun, and others in all parts of the ecliptic.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 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 Venus is still in sight; Jupiter is
+45� behind Venus, and Saturn is seen 90� farther east. When A has
+rolled a little farther, if he is awake, he will see Mars before
+he sees the sun; or, in common language, Venus 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 45. Showing Position of Planets.]
+
+The mysterious movements of advance and retreat are rendered
+intelligible by Fig. 46. The planet Mercury is at A, and, seen from
+the earth, B is located at _a_, [Page 113] on the background of the
+stars it seems to be among. It remains apparently stationary at _a_
+for some time, because 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 motion from A to C, greatly hastens it from C to A.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet.]
+
+It is also apparent that Mercury and Venus, 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 never 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. Observe 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
+sometimes take place.
+
+[Page 114]
+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 nearly
+straight, from Mars to G; then, as the earth begins to curve around
+the sun, Mars will appear to retraverse the distance from F to
+C, and beyond. The farther the superior planet is from the earth
+the less will be the retrograde movement.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Illustrating Movements of a Superior Planet.]
+
+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 impossible 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 accomplished by mounting them
+on subsidiary eccentric wheels in the revolving crystal sphere.
+All that was [Page 115] needed to give them a right conception was a
+sinking of their world and themselves to an appropriate proportion,
+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 cast
+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. Anyone 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 illustrated by two 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.
+
+[Page 116]
+  "Onward, forever onward,
+     Red Mars led on his clan;
+   And the moon, like a mail�d 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 mail�d 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 117]
+VII.
+
+SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS.
+
+"The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah,
+and they died."--_Joshua_ x. II.
+
+[Page 118]
+[Illustration: A SWARM OF METEORS MEETING THE EARTH.
+
+Their orbits are all parallel. Those coming in direct line to the
+eye appear as stars, having no motion. Those on one side of this
+line are seen in foreshortened perspective. Those furthest from
+the centre, other things being equal, appear longest. The centre,
+called the radiant point, of these November meteors is situated
+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 an hour.]
+
+
+
+
+[Page 119]
+VII.
+
+_SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS._
+
+Before particularly considering the larger aggregations of matter
+called planets or worlds as individuals, it is best to investigate
+a part of the solar system consisting of smaller collections of
+matter scattered everywhere 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 various relations
+to each other, from independent individuality 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Explosion of a Bolide.]
+
+Everyone 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 [Page 120] 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 about twenty miles nearer
+the surface. Their average velocity, thirty-five, sometimes rises to
+one hundred miles a second. They exhibit different colors, according
+to their different chemical substances, which are consumed. The
+number of them to be seen on different nights is exceedingly
+variable; sometimes not more [Page 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 matter, 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 investigations, "that the heat which the
+earth receives directly from meteors is the same in amount which it
+receives from the sun by radiation, and that the sun receives
+five-sixths of its heat from the meteors that fall upon it."
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Bolides.]
+
+[Page 121]
+In 1783 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have a telescopic view
+of a system of bodies which had turned into meteors. These were two
+larger bodies followed by several smaller ones, going in parallel
+lines till they were extinguished. They probably had been revolving
+about each other as worlds and satellites before entering our
+atmosphere. It is more than probable that the earth has many such
+bodies, too small to be visible, revolving around it as moons.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Santa Rosa Aerolite.]
+
+_Aerolites._
+
+Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the heat, and the
+unconsumed centre comes to the earth. [Page 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 secured. On the evening
+of December 21st, 1876, a meteor 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 continued 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 estimated at from twenty to one hundred. It was
+accompanied 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 hundred 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 thousand 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 [Page 124] 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 meteors are at the point of intersection at the
+same time, there must be collisions, and the lightning signs of
+extinction 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 August, another on the 11th of November. In
+a certain part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies
+sufficient 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 November meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceedingly
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Orbit of the November Meteors and the Comet
+or 1866.]
+
+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 [Page 125] should have crossed the earth's orbit
+early in September, 1872. The earth itself would arrive at the point
+of crossing two or three months later. If the law of revolution
+held, we might still expect to find some of the trailing meteoroids
+of the comet not gone by on our arrival. 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 diluted
+comet were still there. The prediction was verified in every
+respect. At the appointed time, place, [Page 126] 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 attraction, 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 foregoing 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
+existence, motion, and continuance to the same causes as Jupiter and
+the rest of the planets. They are really planets of wider wandering,
+greater ellipticity, and less density. They have periodic times
+less than the earth, 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 reflected 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 precede 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 Neptune 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, [Page 127] or one that will
+carry it off into infinite space, never to return. One rate of speed
+on the curve indicates an elliptical orbit that returns; a greater
+rate of speed indicates that it will take a parabolic orbit, which
+never returns. 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
+[Page 128] 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 retardations of
+attracting bodies. A comet of long period may be changed to one of
+short period by such attraction, or _vice versa_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Aspects of Remarkable Comets.]
+
+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 hundred have been seen by telescopes invented
+since their invention. Some authorities estimate the number belonging
+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 C�sar, 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 comet was seen in 1531 having the same orbit. Still
+farther, by the same exact period of seventy-five years, he found
+that it was the same comet that had disturbed [Page 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 finish 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 return was calculated with more
+laborious care. It came to time and passed the sun within three days
+of the predicted time, on the 16th of November, 1835. It passed from
+sight of the most powerful telescopes the following 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.
+
+_Biela's 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 [Page 130] trace of it could
+be discovered. Probably the same influence that separated it into
+parts, separated the particles 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_ 1843 passed nearer the sun than any known
+body. It almost grazed the sun. If it ever returns, it will be in
+A.D. 2373.
+
+_Donati's 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 1875.
+
+_Encke's 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 degree, 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 diminished, the attraction of
+the sun causes it to take a smaller 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. Subsequent and more exact calculations fail
+to find any retardations in at least two revolutions between 1865
+and [Page 131] 1871. Indications point to a retardation of one and a
+half hours both before and since. But such discrepancy 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 exists around the
+sun, perhaps revealed by the zodiacal light, that reaches beyond
+where Encke's comet dips inside 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 nebul�? Are there regions where attractions are balanced,
+and matter is left to contract on itself, till the movements of
+suns and planets adds or diminishes attractive 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. Indeed, 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 lying [Page 132] there, in a spherical
+shell about the solar system, balanced between the attraction of
+different suns, finally 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 acquainted do not cover
+all the ground presented by these mysterious 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 spiritual, forms matter may be changed we
+cannot tell. But if we 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 matter, hundreds of miles apart; and,
+looking through thousands 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 another 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 separate bodies, or matter in a liquid condition,
+capable of being vaporized by the heat of the sun, and driven off,
+[Page 133] as steam from a locomotive, into a tail. Indications of
+this are found in the fact that tails grow smaller at successive
+returns, as the matter capable of such vaporization 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 master the difficulties.
+
+_Will 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 [Page 134] 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 solidity, the
+result would be far more serious. The mass of Donati's comet has
+been estimated by M. Faye to be 1/20000 of that of the earth. If
+this amount of matter were dense as water, it would make a globe
+five hundred miles in diameter; and if as dense as Professor Peirce
+proved the nucleus of this comet to be, its impact 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." Besides, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 135]
+VIII.
+
+THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS.
+
+"Through faith we understand that the worlds [plural] were framed
+by the word of God, so that things which were seen were not made
+of things which do appear."--_Heb._ xi. 3.
+
+[Page 136]
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 137]
+VII.
+
+_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 Republic 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 question is, are there any bodies
+large enough to be seen?
+
+The same great genius of Leverrier that gave us Neptune from the
+observed perturbations of Uranus, pointed 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 asserted
+discoveries of one had been by inexperienced observers, inclined
+to the belief in a group, or that the disturbance was caused by
+the matter reflecting the zodiacal light.
+
+When the total eclipse of the sun occurred in 1878, [Page 138]
+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 carefully studied, sections of the sky
+about the sun were assigned to different observers, who should
+attend to nothing but to look for a possible planet. It is now
+conceded that Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor, actually saw the
+sought-for body.
+
+
+VULCAN.
+
+The god of fire; its sign [Symbol], his hammer.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 13,000,000 MILES. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, ABOUT
+20 DAYS.
+
+
+MERCURY.
+
+The swift messenger of the gods; sign [Symbol], his caduceus.
+
+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 between us and the sun, as
+at D (Fig. 46, p. 113), its illuminated 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 beyond 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; nearest 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.
+
+[Page 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
+1818 occupied seven and a half hours. The transits for the remainder
+of the century will occur:
+
+  November 7th   1881  |  November 10th   1894
+  May 9th        1891  |  November 4th    1901
+
+
+VENUS.
+
+Goddess of beauty; its sign [Symbol], a mirror.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 66,750,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 7660 MILES.
+ORBITAL VELOCITY, 1296 MILES PER MINUTE. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 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, Venus 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 _f�te_, 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 [Page 140] his piercing eye caught the clear lustre
+of Venus smiling upon him at mid-day.
+
+This unusual brightness occurs when Venus 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).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Phases of Venus, and Varions 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 discovery was contained:
+
+[Page 141]
+  "H�c immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o. y."
+ (These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.)
+
+He first saw Venus as gibbous; a few months revealed it as crescent,
+and then he transposed his anagram into:
+
+  "Cynthi� figuras �mulatur mater amorum."
+ (The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.)
+
+Many things that were once supposed to be known concerning Venus are
+not confirmed by later and better observations. Venus 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
+determined. 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 Venus, 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 became blind, but he had used his eyes to the best
+purpose of any man in his generation.
+
+
+THE EARTH.
+
+Its sign [Symbol].
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 92,500,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR, 7899
+MILES; EQUATORIAL, 7925-1/2 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 23H. 56M.
+4.09S.; ORBITAL, 365.86. ORBITAL VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 1152.8 MILES.
+
+Let us lift ourselves up a thousand miles from the earth. We see it
+as a ball hung upon nothing in empty space. As the drop of falling
+water gathers itself [Page 142] into a sphere by its own inherent
+attraction, so the earth gathers itself into a ball. Noticing
+closely, we 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 [Page 143] the sunset follow over an equal space,
+180� behind. We are glad that the darkness never overtakes the
+morning.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Earth and Moon in Space.]
+
+_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 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
+[Page 144]
+not without its inexplicable surroundings. It has 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 various 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 55.--The Aurora as Waving Curtains.]
+
+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 flexible 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 Europe. The
+waves ran out to the Sandwich Islands, six [Page 145] 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 irregular, in consequence
+of the greater preponderance of land--and hence greater density--in the
+northern hemisphere. These irregularities are often very perplexing
+in making exact geodetic measurements. The tendency of matter to
+fly from the centre by reason of revolution 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 rate. 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 an infinitesimal degree, or the world rotate more slowly,
+the poles would be submerged and the equator become an arid waste.
+No balance, turning to 1/1000 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 1/100
+of a second of time in two thousand years.
+
+[Page 146]
+_Tides._
+
+But there is an outside influence that is constantly acting upon
+the earth, and to which it constantly responds. Two hundred and
+forty thousand miles from the earth is the moon, having 1/81 the
+mass of the world. Its attractive influence on the earth causes the
+movable 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 inversely 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 water 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 flexible 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 produce.
+
+[Page 147]
+[Illustration: Fig. 56.]
+
+If the earth had no axial revolution, the attractive point where
+the tide rises would be carried around the earth once in twenty-seven
+days by the moon's revolution about the earth. But since the earth
+revolves on its axis, it presents a new section to the moon's attraction
+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 increased tides.
+When the moon is in its first or third quarter, _i. e._, 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 [Page 148] it does not yield instantly
+to the moon's influence, and the crest of the tide is some hours
+behind the advancing 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
+continents, 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-five 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 Mediterranean 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 commerce. She takes all the loads that
+can be floated on her flowing tides, and cheerfully carries them
+in opposite 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 men as
+Laplace, Newton, and Airy have labored in vain. There are plenty
+of other worlds still to conquer.
+
+
+[Page 150]
+[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Lunar Day.]
+
+[Page 151]
+THE MOON.
+
+New moon, [Symbol]; first quarter, [Symbol]; full moon, [Symbol];
+last quarter, [Symbol].
+
+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, 29-1/2 DAYS. AXIAL 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
+instruments 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, and 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 interesting object of study.
+
+A glance at its familiar face reveals its unequal illumination.
+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 [Page
+152] 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 behind 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 visible 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 behind, 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 576/1000 of the moon's surface. Our eyes
+will never see the other side of the moon. If, now, being solid,
+her axial revolution could [Page 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 revolutions 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 beyond its centre of magnitude, which is the same
+in effect 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 29-1/2 times as long
+as ours. The sun shines unintermittingly for fifteen days, raising a
+temperature as fervid as boiling 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 gibbous--to the moon as the moon does to us, and for the same
+causes. Lord Rosse 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 extremes of temperature should
+shun a lunar residence. The moon gives us only 1/6180000 as much
+light as the sun. A sky full of moons would scarcely make daylight.
+
+[Page 154]
+[Illustration: Fig. 58.--View of the Moon near the Third Quarter.
+From a Photograph by Professor Henry Draper.]
+
+There are no indications of air or water on the moon. When it occults
+a star it instantly shuts off the light and as instantly reveals
+it again. An atmosphere would gradually diminish and reveal the
+light, and by refraction [Page 155] cause the star to be hidden 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 substance.
+
+_Telescopic Appearance._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Illumination of Craters and Peaks.]
+
+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 gravitation 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 cavities three miles deep
+remain unfilled. The light of the sun falling on the rough body
+of the moon, shown in section (Fig. 59), illuminates the whole
+cavity at _a_, part of the one at _b_, 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 _c_. comes directly under
+the sun and casts no shadow, and mountain _d_ casts its long shadow
+over the plain. Knowing the time of revolution, and observing the
+change of [Page 156] illumination, we can easily measure the height
+of mountain and depth of crater. An apple, with excavations and
+added prominences, revolved on its axis toward the 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 crescent forms to the right, showing cavities
+in abundance.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Lunar Crater "Copernicus," after Secchi.]
+
+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,
+[Page 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 discoveries 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 1/81 of the mass of the earth, has
+twenty-eight mountains that are higher than Mont Blanc, that "monarch
+of mountains," in Europe.
+
+_Eclipses._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Eclipses; Shadows of Earth and Moon.]
+
+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 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 [Page 158] not
+cross the disk of the sun at every revolution, because 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 orbit were pulled
+up one-quarter of an inch from the page behind the earth, and
+depressed as much below it between the earth and the sun. The point
+where the orbit 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 partially hide the sun; and, if it cover
+the centre, leave a ring of sunlight on every side. This is called
+an annular 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 position after the earth has made
+about eighteen revolutions, [Page 159] and the moon two hundred and
+sixteen--that is, eighteen years after. This period, however, is
+disregarded 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 or war; Its sign [Symbol], spear and shield.
+
+MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 141,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 4211 MILES.
+REVOLUTION, AXIAL, 24H. 37M. 22.7S.; ORBITAL, 686.98 DAYS. VELOCITY
+PER MINUTE, 899 MILES. SATELLITES, TWO.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 62.--Apparent Size of Mars at Mean and Extreme
+Distances.]
+
+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 exceedingly variable; sometimes
+it scintillates, and sometimes it shines with a steady light. Its
+marked peculiarities 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 154,000,000;
+hence its mean distance is about 141,000,000. So great a change
+in its distance from the sun easily 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 conjunction within 49,000,000
+miles of each other, and at opposition be 233,000,000 miles apart.
+But Mars at perihelion may be only 128,000,000 miles from the sun,
+and earth at [Page 160] 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). 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 planet. The first thing that
+strikes the observer is a dazzling spot of white near the pole which
+happens to be toward him, or at both poles when the planet is so
+situated that they can be seen. When the north pole is turned toward
+the sun the size of the spot sensibly diminishes, 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 [Page 161] than those of the north pole
+in its summer. This carrying 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 unknown. 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. Perhaps 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 11th, 1877, is famous in modern astronomy.
+Mars has been a special object of study in all ages; but on that
+evening Professor Hall, of Washington, 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 calculated 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 soon emerged which proved
+to be an inner satellite. This is extraordinarily near [Page 162]
+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 surpassing 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 12,579 miles from Mars,
+and makes its revolution in 30h. 18m. Its diameter is six and a
+quarter miles; that of the inner one is seven and a half miles. This
+can be estimated only by the amount of light given.
+
+
+ASTEROIDS.
+
+ALREADY DISCOVERED (1879), 192. 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 commence work, Piazzi, an Italian astronomer of Palermo, [Page
+163] found in Taurus a star behaving like a planet. In six weeks it
+was lost in the rays 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. Olbers
+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.
+
+[Page 164]
+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 astronomical observation.
+
+
+JUPITER.
+
+The king of the gods; sign [Symbol], the bird of Jove.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, PERIHELION, 457,000,000 MILES; APHELION,
+503,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, EQUATORIAL, 87,500 MILES; POLAR, 82,500
+MILES. VOLUME, 1300 EARTHS. MASS, 213 EARTHS. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 9H.
+55M 20S. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, 11 YEARS 317 DAYS. VELOCITY, 483.6
+MILES PER MINUTE.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Jupiter as seen by the great Washington
+Telescope. Drawn by Mr. Holden.]
+
+Jupiter rightly wears the name of the "giant planet." His orbit
+is more nearly circular than most smaller planets. He could not
+turn short corners with facility. We know little of his surface.
+His spots and belts are [Page 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 tempests are probably not violent. It is,
+however, a singular 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 everyone 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. Galileo 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
+representation of their appearance at successive observations 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, [Page 166] be occulted, emerge from shadow,
+and eclipse the planet, in an hour's watching.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 64.--_a._ Various Positions of Jupiter's Moons;
+_b._ Greatest Elongation of each Satellite.]
+
+                ELEMENTS OF JUPITER'S SATELLITES.
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |               | Mean Distance |                  |          |
+ |               | from Jupiter. | Sidereal Period. | Diameter.|
+ |               |---------------+------------------+----------|
+ |               |     Miles.    |  Days Hrs. Min.  |  Miles.  |
+ |   I. Io       |     260,000   |    1   18   28   |   2,352  |
+ |  II. Europa   |     414,000   |    3   13   43   |   2,099  |
+ | III. Ganymede |     661,000   |    7    3   59   |   3,436  |
+ |  IV. Callisto |   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 IV. 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 water on them. The mass of all
+of them is .000171 of Jupiter.
+
+[Page 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
+forty-five miles a minute, holding four other worlds in steady
+orbits, some of them at a speed of seven hundred miles a minute,
+and the whole system carried through space at five hundred 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 or time; sign [Symbol], his scythe.
+
+MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 881,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR,
+66,500 MILES; EQUATORIAL, 73,300 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 10H.
+14M. PERIODIC TIME, 29T 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 are set; it has exercised its
+ingenuity at interpreting 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 65.--View of Saturn and his Rings.]
+
+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 [Page 168] 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 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 getting
+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 10h. 16m., that of Mr. Hall being
+10h. 14m.
+
+[Page 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 formative 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 problem 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 peculiar 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 handles 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, [Page 170]
+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 another 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. Enceladus, 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 furnishes 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 discovery,
+when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge, and Dawes, with
+his 6-1/3-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 needed, 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."[*]
+
+[Footnote *: Lockyer.]
+
+Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. As the earth at
+one part of its orbit presents its south pole [Page 171] to the sun,
+then its equator, then the north pole, so Saturn; 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 being in Taurus, the south
+side of the rings will be seen at the greatest advantage. From 1881
+till 1885 all circumstances 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 division, 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
+telescopic 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. [Page 172]
+Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be uniform and
+solid, and survive. Professor Peirce showed 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. Indeed, 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, father 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 III., only
+by the most powerful instrument. All except Japetus revolve nearly
+in the plane of the ring. Like the moons of Jupiter, they present
+remarkable and unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection
+[Page 173] of the table reveals either an expectation that another
+moon will be discovered between V. and VI., and about three more
+between VII. and VIII., 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 enable him
+to watch the advancing line of light that marks the lunar morning
+journeying round that orb.
+
+
+URANUS.
+
+Sign [Symbol]; the initial of Herschel, and sign of the world.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 1,771,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 31,700 MILES.
+AXIAL REVOLUTION UNKNOWN. ORBITAL, 84 YEARS. VELOCITY 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
+[Page 174] 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 century before--and eight times by
+Le Monnier. These names, which might easily have been associated
+with a grand discovery, are associated with careless observation.
+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 difficulty 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 continuing 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 [Page 175]
+retrograde. 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 [Symbol], his trident.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 2,775,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 34,500 MILES.
+VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 201.6 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION 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 observations. On applying the law of universal
+gravitation, a slight discrepancy was found between its computed
+place and its observed place. This discrepancy was exceedingly
+slight. In 1830 it was only 20"; in 1840,190"; in 1884, 2'. Two
+stars that were 2' apart would appear as one to the keenest unaided
+eye, but such 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 irregularities, 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. Another
+opportunity for immortality was heedlessly neglected. Meanwhile,
+M. Leverrier, of Paris, was working at the same problem. In the
+summer of 1846 Leverrier announced the place of the exterior planet.
+The conclusion was in striking coincidence with that of Mr. [Page
+176] Clark. 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
+sought-for world. It would seem easy to find a world seventy-six
+times as large as the earth, and easy to recognize it when seen. The
+fact that it could be discovered only by such care conveys an
+overwhelming idea of the distance where it moves.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Perturbation of Uranus.]
+
+The effect of these perturbations by an exterior planet is understood
+from Fig. 66. Uranus and Neptune were 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 hastening Uranus in his orbit D
+from C to B, and also 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 little, and that the observations did not agree;
+but, supposing the first was wrong, carelessly missed the glory
+of once more doubling the bounds of the empire of the sun.
+
+[Page 177]
+It is time to pause and review our knowledge of this system. The
+first view reveals a moon and earth endowed 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 tendency
+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-four 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 gravity, 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,
+Venus, 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 13,000 earths. It holds Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and
+all their variously related satellites and rings. The two thoughts
+that overwhelm us are distance and power. The period of [Page 178]
+man's whole history is not sufficient for an express train to
+traverse half the distance to Neptune. Thought wearies 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 outermost of
+planets, the very last sentinel of the outposts of the king, the
+very sun grown dim and small in the distance, we have taken only one
+step of the infinite distance to the stars. They have not changed
+their relative position--they have not grown brighter by our
+approach. 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 almightiness than we are able to
+think.
+
+If we cannot solve the problems of the present existence 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 difficulty 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 179]
+IX.
+
+THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+
+"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
+the face of the deep."--_Genesis_ i. 2.
+
+[Page 180]
+                                "A dark
+    Illimitable ocean, without bound,
+    Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
+    And time, and place are lost."--MILTON.
+
+"It is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and
+arranged; 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 181]
+IX.
+
+_THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS._
+
+The method by which the solar system came into its present form
+was sketched in vast outline by Moses. He gave us the fundamental
+idea of what is called the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that
+prodigal dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conjectures 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, declaring
+the modes of a divine worker rather than the necessities 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 [Page 182] 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 observer. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system of the
+sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and
+dominion of an intelligent and powerful being!" Still it is well to
+recognize that some of its most ardent defenders have advocated it
+as materialistic. 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 Divine Worker than any other theory. He must fill
+matter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would
+tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a constant
+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 endow 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 matter composing
+all the bodies of the sun, planets, and satellites once existed
+in an exceedingly diffused state; [Page 183] rarer than any gas with
+which we are acquainted, filling a space larger than the orbit of
+Neptune. 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. Rotation 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 gradually 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 Neptune 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 planet-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 Vulcan.
+
+The outer planets would cool off first, become inhabitable, 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 Vulcan.
+
+The four great classes of facts confirmatory of this hypothesis
+are as follows: 1st. All the planets move [Page 184] 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 nebul� are observable in the heavens
+which are not yet condensed 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 related, 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 indefinite, 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 evolutionist may think that the same
+process is gone through, but that an ever-present and working God
+superintends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endowment
+of power that successively gives life, consciousness, mental,
+affectional, and spiritual capacity.
+
+Is this world-theory true? and if so, is either of the [Page 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 acceptance 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 Newcomb,
+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
+nebul� be actually 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. Helmholtz, in order to account for the heat of the
+contracting 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 [Page 186] 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 Neptune,
+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
+existence of which must be assumed." Professor Newcomb 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 satellite does
+not revolve in the right direction. How Neptune 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 discovered 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 [Page 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 rotate on their axes than for their nearest
+moon to revolve round them in its orbit; this would have falsified
+the theory." It is also asserted that the newly discovered 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
+argument 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 Groombridge, 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 nebul� which we are able to observe are not altogether confirmatory
+of the hypothesis under consideration. 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 Review_, [Page 188]
+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 density, 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 question of world-making. Its
+spectrum was like some of the fixed stars. It probably blazed ont
+by condensation from some previously invisible nebula. But its
+brilliancy 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 possible 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 explained, 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, Newcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that
+cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be reconciled 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.
+
+[Page 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 evolution 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 been 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 occasional new
+inspiration of power, finds some tremendous chasms in the road
+it travels. These must be spanned by the power of a present God
+or the airy imagination [Page 190] of man. Dr. McCosh 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 mechanical power.
+
+"2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be produced from unorganized
+matter.
+
+"3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living matter.
+
+"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 entertain these by any training.
+
+[Page 191]
+"With such tremendous gaps in the process, the theory which would
+derive all things out of matter by development 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 conceivable to
+the mind of man, with which it can possibly be endowed, can account
+for all the facts already observed. 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 193]
+X.
+
+THE STELLAR SYSTEM.
+
+"The heavens number out the glory of the strong God."--DAVID.
+
+[Page 194]
+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 infinity, 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 appeared,
+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 transformed, 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
+ont: '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 eternities, 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 beginning.'"
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 allusions 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 colonized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; and
+nightly over them marched the grand procession of their apotheosized
+divinities. There Hercules perpetually 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 explored all strange seas
+of earth, nightly sailed in the infinite 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 [Page 196]
+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
+situated right ascension 13' 45", 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 Chatauqua. For exact
+location of a star, right ascension and declination must be given;
+but for general indication 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 preserved.
+The brightest stars are then indicated in order by the letters of
+the Greek alphabet--Alpha (a), Beta (b), Gamma (g), etc. After
+these are exhausted, the Roman alphabet is used in the same manner,
+and then numbers are resorted to; so that the famous star 61 Cygni
+is the 111th star in brightness in that one constellation. An
+acquaintance with the names, peculiarities, and movements of the
+stars visible at different seasons of the year is an unceasing
+source of pleasure. It [Page 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 uttereth unto day, and
+the knowledge 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 successive 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 attempted;
+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 horizon
+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 ae, Mizar z, Little Alcor close to it,
+[Page 198] Alioth, e Megrez, d at the junction, has been growing
+dimmer for a century, Phad, g Dubhe and Merak. It is best to get
+some facility at estimating distances in degrees. Dubhe and Merak,
+"the Pointers," are five degrees 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. Follow "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
+degrees 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 Hercules stands on this head. This
+is the Dragon slain by Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such a crop
+of sanguinary 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 Vega; 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 [Page 199] of stars, but a change in the
+direction of the axis of the earth pointing to these various places
+as the cycles 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 discernible 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 stem of the spinning top wavers, describes a circle, and
+finally falls; the axis of the spinning earth wavers, describes a
+circle of nearly 28,000 years, and never falls.
+
+The star g 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 displacement of a star from this course is about 20".43.
+
+[Page 200]
+On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is King Cepheus,
+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 graceless 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 Medusa, 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.
+Nothing 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 invisible at will; Minerva loaned
+her buckler, impenetrable, 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible.
+In this position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at
+9 o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]
+
+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 every
+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 [Page 201] 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.
+
+[Page 202]
+[Illustration: 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 November, 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. b and the
+two above mark the girdle of her loins, and g 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 V-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.
+
+[Page 203]
+[Illustration: 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, g, represents his shield of the
+Nemean lion's hide. The three stars of his belt make a measure
+3� long; the upper one, Mintaker, is less than 30' south of the
+equinoctial. 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 August. Procyon rises about half an
+hour earlier.
+
+[Page 204]
+[Illustration: Fig. 70--Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79� south
+from the Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and
+at 8 o'clock April 23d.]
+
+Fig. 70 continues eastward. Note the sickle in the head and neck
+of the Lion. The star b 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 g in the
+Virgin is double, with a period of 145 years. z is just above the
+equinoctial. There is a fine nebula two-thirds of the way from d to
+ae, and a little above the line connecting the two. Coma Berenices
+is a beautiful 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.
+
+[Page 205]
+[Illustration: Fig. 7l.--Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70� from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8
+o'clock June 25th.]
+
+Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and northward of the
+last. A line drawn from Polaris and Benetnasch comes east of Arcturus
+to the little triangle called his sons. Bootes drives the Great
+Bear round the pole. Arcturus and Denebola make a triangle with
+a, also called Cor Coroli, 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, b, g, d; in his shoulders, p; and ae; in the loins, t 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 g of Hercules, and
+the partial circle of the Northern Crown above. The head of Draco
+is seen at b 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;
+Regulus 3h. 35m. Earlier.
+
+[Page 206]
+[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Altair comes to the Meridian, 82� from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock P.M. August 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. Vega is at the top of the map. Near
+it observe z, a double, and e, a quadruple star. The point to which
+the solar system is tending is marked by the sign of the earth
+below p; Herculis. The Serpent, west of Hercules, and coiled round
+nearly to Aquila, is very traceable. In the right-hand lower corner
+is the Centaur. Below, and always out of our sight, is the famous
+a Centauri. The diamond form of the Dolphin is sometimes called
+"Job's Coffin." The ecliptic passes close [Page 207] to b 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17�
+from the horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.]
+
+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. b 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 Alpharetz,
+in Andromeda. The star below Altair is b Aquil�, and is called
+Alschain; the one above is g Aquil�, named Tarazed. This 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 11th of January.
+
+[Page 208]
+[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Southern Circumpolar Constellations invisible
+north of the Equator.]
+
+Fig. 74 gives the stars that are never seen by persons north of
+the earth's equator. In the Ship is brilliant Canopus, and the
+remarkable variable ae. Below it is the beautiful Southern Cross,
+near the pole of the southern heavens. Just below are the two first
+magnitude stars Bungala, a, and Achernar, b, 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 reveals no sign of light. Here, also, are the
+two Magellanic 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.
+
+[Page 209]
+For easy out-door finding of the stars above the horizon 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 anciently 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 little lights were turned by
+clumsy machinery, held together 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
+monsters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and unity; all
+worlds carried by one force, and all harmonized 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.
+
+[Page 210]
+_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 tastimetre
+feels their heat, and tells us the word of their Maker is true--"they
+are innumerable."[*]
+
+[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Look at the Hyades and Pleiades
+in Taurus. Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find
+the cluster Pr�sepe 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 observe the distribution of stars; in some places
+perfect crowds, in others 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._
+
+If we look up during the summer months nearly overhead at the star
+e Lyra, east of Vega (Fig. 72), we shall see with the naked eye
+that the star appears a little [Page 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
+direction 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 x in the Great Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in
+fifty-eight years.
+
+Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the presence 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 [Page 212] 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 telescope to show
+any distance between the stars.[*]
+
+[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Only such work will be laid out
+here as can be done by small telescopes of from two to four inch
+object-glasses. The numbers in Fig. 75 correspond to those of the
+table.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+|   |            |             |Dist. of|Magni-|                     |
+|No.|     Name.  |     Fig.    | Parts. |tudes.|       Remarks.      |
+|---|------------|-------------|--------|------|---------------------|
+| 1.| e Lyr�     |      72     | 1' 56" |      |Quadruple.           |
+| 2.| z Lyr�     |      72     |    44  |5 & 6 |Topaz and green.     |
+| 3.| b Cygni    |      73     |  34-1/2|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     |  18-1/2|2 & 9 |Test object of eye   |
+|   |            |             |        |      | and glass.          |
+| 7.| r Orionis  |Frontispiece.|     7  |5 & 8 |Yellow and blue.     |
+| 8.| b Orionis  |      "      |     9  |1 & 8 | Rigel.              |
+| 9.| d    "     |      "      |    10  |2 & 8 | Red and white.      |
+|10.| th   "     |      "      |        |      |Septuple.            |
+|11.| l    "     |      "      |     5  |      |White and violet.    |
+|12.| s    "     |      " A, B.|    11  |4 & 10|Octuple.             |
+|13.| Castor     |      69     |   5-1/2|2 & 3 |White.               |
+|14.| Pollux     |      69     |        |Triple|Orange, gray, lilac. |
+|15.| g Virginis |      70     |     5  |3 & 3 |Both yellow.         |
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+]
+
+When g Virginis was observed in 1718 by Bradley, the component
+parts were 7" asunder. He incidentally remarked in his note-book
+that the line of their connection was parallel to the line of the
+two stars Spica, or a and d Virginis. By 1840 they were not more
+than 1" 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 conjectural [Page 213] orbit, placed obliquely, and the
+position of the stars at the times mentioned, commencing at the top.
+The time of its complete revolution is one hundred and fifty years.
+
+[Illustration: 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 planets, as doubtless they have, the movement
+is no more complicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn
+revolving about their central body, 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 Neptunes 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,
+[Page 214]
+according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the octuple star
+s in Orion differs in no respect from our system, except in the
+size and distance of its separate bodies, 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
+preposterous 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,
+and an infinite number in the course of preparation. Some are fine
+and lasting enough to be eternal mansions.
+
+_Colored Stars._
+
+In the cloudy 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, Vega, 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 special development of anyone substance thereof
+at any time, may determine the color of a star.
+
+[Page 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 intensity 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 Sirius 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. Everyone has
+noticed the Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of compacted
+stars. It is not supposed that they are necessarily nearer together
+than the stars in the sparse regions about the pole. But the 18,000,000
+suns belonging to our system are arranged within a space represented
+by a flattened disk. If one hundred lights, three inches apart,
+are arranged on a hoop ten feet in diameter, they would be in a
+circle. Add a thousand or two more the same distance apart, filling
+up the centre, and [Page 216] 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 arrangement was the result of a revolution of
+all the suns composing the system. Jupiter and earth are flattened
+at the poles for the same reason.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Sprayed Cluster below ae in Hercules.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 77.--Globular Cluster.]
+
+In various parts of the heavens there are small globular well-defined
+clusters, 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 cluster,
+o 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, affects
+it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth
+[Page 217]
+magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imagined."
+
+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 way 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.
+
+_Nebul�._
+
+The gorgeous clusters we have been considering appear 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 spectroscope,
+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
+nebul� are visible 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 th Orionis into the
+famous trapezium, and a nine-inch instrument 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. Nebul� are of all conceivable
+shapes--circular, annular, oval, lenticular, [Page 218] conical,
+spiral, snake-like, looped, and nameless. Compare the sprays of the
+Crab nebul� above z Tauri, 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 b and g Lyr�.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 78.--The great Nebula about the multiple Star
+th Orionis. (See Frontispiece.)]
+
+When Herschel was sweeping the heavens with his telescope, and
+saw but few stars, he often said to his assistant, "Prepare to
+write; the nebul� 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 celestial
+sphere; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine-tenths
+[Page 219]
+of the stars in this zone, and but one-tenth of the nebul�.
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Crab Nebula, near z Tauri. (See Frontispiece.)]
+
+There are many unsolved problems connected with these strange bodies.
+Whether they belong to our system, or are beyond it, is not settled;
+the weight of evidence leans to the first view.
+
+[Page 220]
+_Variable Stars._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 80.--The Ring Nebula.]
+
+Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing through a period
+of eleven years. Probably every star, if examined by methods
+sufficiently delicate and exact, would be found to be variable.
+The variations of some [Page 221] stars are so marked as to
+challenge investigation. b Lyr� (Fig. 81) has two maxima and minima
+of light. In three days it rises from magnitude 4-1/2 to 3-1/2; in a
+week falls to 4, and rises to 3-1/2; and in three days more drops to
+4-1/2: 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Constellation Lyra, showing place of the
+Ring Nebula.]
+
+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
+lost to sight; going down even to the eleventh magnitude. But after
+five months its resurrection morning mes; and in three months
+more--eleven months in all--our Wonderful is in its full glory
+in the heavens. It its period and brilliancy are also variable.
+The star Megrez, d in the Great Bear, has been growing dim [Page
+222] 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, shutting off their light; they may rotate, and have
+unequally 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 [Page 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, up and down, to and
+from us--changes in the intensity of illumination by changes of
+distance--besides variations occurring at regular and ascertainable
+intervals, there are stars called _temporary_, shining awhile and
+then disappearing; _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 Cassiopeia. Its place
+is shown in Fig. 67, ch g being the stars
+
+  d    *
+   g ch
+
+in the seat of the chair, and d being the first one 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 opportunities [Page 224]
+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 plenty 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
+[Page 225] degree in a month? Besides, there would not be one chance
+in a thousand for two orbs to come directly together. They would
+revolve about each other till a kind of grazing contact of grinding
+worlds would slowly kindle the ultimate heat.
+
+It is far more likely that this star encountered an enormous stream
+of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorbed 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.
+Allusion 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, following 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 hemisphere 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 resemble 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 extraordinary
+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 [Page 226] of the other having faded, the regular light of
+the glowing 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 rainbow 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 undiscernible light, surrounded
+by a discernible immensity 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 November, 1876. But a rapid
+cooling dissipates the observable 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 necessary 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 diameter, 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. Hercules's brawny limbs grow brawnier
+every century. There can be but one cause: we are approaching that
+quarter of the heavens. (See [Symbol], Fig. 72.) We are even [Page
+227] able to compute the velocity of our approach; it is four miles
+a second. The stars in the opposite quarter of the heavens in Argo
+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 apparent 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 observe them that it has taken
+an accumulation of centuries 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 Hunting 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 evidently related together.
+A large proportion of the brighter stars between Aldebaran and
+the Pleiades have a common motion eastward of about ten seconds
+a century. All the angles marked by a, b, g, ch Orionis will be
+altered in different directions; l is moving toward g. l and e
+will appear as a double star. In A.D. 50,000 Procyon will be nearer
+ch Orionis than Rigel now is, and Sirius will be in line with a and
+ch Orionis. All the stars of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch
+and Dubhe, have a common motion somewhat in the direction [Page 228]
+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, and the handle will be broken square
+off at Mizar. "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 understand 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 loan, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 229]
+XI.
+
+THE WORLDS AND THE WORD.
+
+"The worlds were framed by the word of God."--_Heb._ xi., 3.
+
+[Page 230]
+  "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 dew,
+  Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
+  Hesperus, with all the host of heaven, came,
+  And lo! creation widened in man's view.
+  Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
+  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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 231]
+XI.
+
+_THE WORLDS AND THE WORD._
+
+Men have found the various worlds to be far richer 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
+increasing 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 inexhaustible?
+
+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 crystal 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! Nay, 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 widening river of life in his Word? As we
+believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has
+[Page 232] 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 scientific truth far in advance
+of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand
+its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations:
+
+The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things
+had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in
+the realms of physics, arguments 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, coaled,
+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.
+
+[Page 233]
+It is a recently discovered truth of science that the trata 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 prepared 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 recognize 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 waters; 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 century, of himself, "He sitteth upon
+the sphere of the earth" (Gesenius).
+
+Men racked their feeble wits for expedients to uphold [Page 234] the
+earth, and the best they could devise were serpents, 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. Hipparchus 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." Science has appliances
+of enumeration unknown to other ages, but the space-penetrating
+telescopes and tastimeters reveal more worlds--eighteen millions
+in a single system, and systems beyond count--till men acknowledge
+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 received with
+incredulity. For ages the air had propelled ships, thrust itself
+against the bodies of men, and overturned 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 fluctuations and
+variations of the weather have hitherto baffled all attempts at
+unravelling them. It has seemed that there was no law in their
+fickle changes. But at length perseverance and skill have triumphed,
+and a single man in one place predicts the weather and winds [Page
+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 according 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.
+Copernicus declared it early; God earlier.
+
+No 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 had 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_ [Page 236] 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 planets, 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 em bodied 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 human 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 [Page 237] answer. We
+trace it up through the worlds, till its increasing fineness, its
+growing power, and possible identity 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 piercing 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 measurably subservient to
+mind. Hence we partly understand 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 mastered. 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 Scriptures, "God
+is spirit."
+
+We ask in vain what is the end of the present condition 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 with [Page 238] a rushing noise, and the elements will be
+dissolved with burning heat, and the earth and the works therein
+will be burned up." 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 substance, its ultimate fall into the sun is
+certain. Whether 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. Peters description,
+however, seems rather to indicate an interference 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 experiment, of trial, of examining the
+actual, instead of imagining 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 favorable circumstances, there
+must be faith. The faith of [Page 239] science is amazing; its
+assertions of the supersensual are astounding. It affirms a thousand
+things that cannot be physically demonstrated: that the flight of a
+rifle-ball is parabolic; that the earth has poles; that gages are
+made of particles; that there are atoms; that an electric 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 activities are about us, for the perception of which we
+need a hundred senses instead of five. These faiths have nearly 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 lay her bow and arrows by,
+  And aim 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 contracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all
+encircling space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars invisible
+by the largest telescope enters the tastimeter, 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 [Page 240] 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 building 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 refinement; 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 astrapton (Luke xxiv.
+4), shining with an inner light. They also look for new heavens and
+a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit for perfect beings.
+
+When God made matter, so far as our thought permits 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 restore 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. [Page
+241] 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 glides
+  Into his darker musings with a mild
+  And gentle sympathy, that steals away
+  Their sharpness ere he 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 catastrophic changes to a perfect
+world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass.
+He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable,
+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 imagine, 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 [Page 242] should there not be a
+finer universe than this, and disconnected 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
+discovery that what men once thought to be empty space is more
+intensely active than the coarser forms of matter 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. What
+a whisper 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 creatures. Neither is it
+possible to imagine an order of beings generically higher to be
+connected with the conditions of the material world. This whole
+secret was 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 man 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. [Page 243] 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 darkness 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, Scripture 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, gentleness, 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 already. One confined, dark, peculiarly
+nourished, slightly conscious; then he was born into another--wide,
+differently nourished, and intensely [Page 244] conscious. He knows
+he may be born again into a life wider yet, differently nourished,
+and even yet more intensely conscious. Science has no hint how a
+long ascending series of developments crowned by man may advance
+another step, and make man isaggelos--equal to angels. But the
+simplest teaching of Scripture points out a way so clear that a
+child need not miss the glorious 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, when 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 attracting 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 tortured, 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
+bodies 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 absorbed [Page 245] 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 power 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 departments, 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 teacher
+who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 247]
+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 things
+became by him, and without him was not anything made that was made
+* * * and by him all things stand together."
+
+[Page 248]
+ "O thou eternal one; whose presence blight
+  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."
+                                     DERZHAVIN.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 beauty; 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 two hundred and forty pounds to the
+cubic foot, one hundred 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
+hundreds of miles before it could be there. You have heard Niagara's
+thunder; have stood beneath the falling immensity; 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
+[Page 250] water had to be lifted by main force, had 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 thundering 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,
+and held it day and night for months. It toiled and grew under the
+growing weight, compacting its substance like oak to do the work.
+All over the earth this tremendous 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 in 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 [Page 251] flame seethes and
+burns, and rolls and vivifies a dozen worlds, and flashes life along
+the starry spaces for a million 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 instead of one--everyone would be as fully
+supplied with power from this central source. More. Fill the whole
+dome, the entire extent of the surrounding sphere, bottom, sides,
+top, a sphere one hundred and eighty-five million miles in diameter,
+and everyone of these uncountable worlds would be touched with the
+same power 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 alphabet in geometrical ratio; and then in the
+clustered suns, galaxies, and nebul�, power enough still
+unrepresented by single letters to require all combinations of the
+alphabet of power. What is the significance of this single element
+of power? The answer of science to-day is "correlation," the
+constant evolution of one force from another. 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 [Page
+252] 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, nebul�, concretionary vortices, and revolving
+fire-mist--there must always be mind and will beyond. Some of that
+willpower 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 thunderous 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 ceaseless changes, and its maker is henceforth
+an absentee God. Is it? Let us have courage to see. For twenty
+years one devotes ten seconds every night to putting 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
+[Page 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 connection, is inconceivable.
+
+Newton said that anyone who has in philosophical matters a competent
+faculty of thinking, could not admit for a moment the possibility
+of a sun reaching through millions of miles, and exercising there
+an attractive 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 Herschel's statement. "It is but reasonable to regard gravity
+as a result of a consciousness 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 upholdeth constantly
+all things by the word of his power. [Page 254] By him all things
+consist or hold together. It teaches 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
+deteriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boiler, 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 receive it, and takes it swift as light can leap. We
+said that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in five
+thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million. How can it?
+There have been various theories: chemical 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
+unclouded 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 follow: 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
+gravity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attractive
+power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing; in [Page 255] a few
+places at worlds. Every world must exert an infinitely extended
+power, but myriads of infinities cannot 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 consideration 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 inside of an
+inch. But we are here looking at mountain ridges and valleys, not
+atoms. Gold can be beaten to the 1/340000 of an inch. It can be
+drawn as the coating of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the
+1/340000000 of an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon
+another.
+
+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 sweep
+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 diminished. [Page 256] 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 materialists preposterously endow it. It is impenetrable
+and indivisible, though some atoms are a hundred times larger than
+others. Each has definite shape; some one shape, and some another.
+They differ in weight, in quantity of combining power, in quality
+of combining power. They combine with different substances, in
+certain exact assignable quantities. Thus one atom of hydrogen
+combines with eighty of bromine, one hundred and sixty of mercury,
+two hundred and forty of boron, three hundred and twenty of silicon,
+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, sewers 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, dryad,
+univalent, perissad, quadrivalent, and twenty other terms, each
+expressing some endowment of power in this in visible atom. Refer
+to one more presumed ability, an ability [Page 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 greatly increasing its bulk, some actually
+diminishing it. A philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen
+and hydrogen 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 four hundred millions of
+light-waves a second. And now, more preposterous than all, each
+atom has an attractive 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 Concord 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 conscious, 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 water,
+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 [Page 258] 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 apparent and at work. If, then, such a
+thing as an infinite 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 perhaps
+knowledge, set aside a little from himself, still possessed somewhat
+of his personal attributes, still responsive 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 nothing out of which the
+world could be made, but God himself; and, reverently be it said,
+matter seems to retain 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 impossible 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 understand 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 Romans he says--"For out of
+him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory
+forever. Amen."
+
+[Page 259]
+God's intimate relation to matter is explained. No wonder the forces
+respond to his will; no wonder pantheism--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
+migrating 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 solitudes, and say:
+
+                       "Father, thy hand
+  Hath reared these venerable columns: Thou
+  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.
+
+[Page 260]
+Philosophy has seen the vast machine of the universe, wheel within
+wheel, in countless numbers and hopeless intricacy. But it has
+not had the spiritual insight of Ezekiel to see that they were
+everyone of them full of eyes--God's own emblem of the omniscient
+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 fragments 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 instruments. The rootlets seize the sand and turn
+it to soil, to woody fibre, leafy verdure, blooming flowers, and
+delicious 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 strengthless and dead, there is,
+somehow, in nature a tremendous 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 dismal silence, cold beyond measure, and dead beyond
+consciousness. The philosopher has wailed a dirge without [Page 261]
+hope, a requiem without grandeur, over the world's future. But
+nature herself, to all ears attuned, sings p�ans, 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 unexpendable forces must abide. Nature filled with
+unexpendable 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 powers are constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome; higher 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 gravitation. 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 rain bows 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
+[Page 262] to comprehend. The water is solid, liquid, gaseous on
+earth, and in air according to the grade of power operating 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 discovery or creation, there are still higher class forces to
+be made available. Once there was no air, no usable electricity.
+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 man could not read
+in ten years the library of books created in that time concerning
+the sun. But though we have solved certain problems and mysteries,
+the mysteries have increased 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
+[Page 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 becoming flesh, and of all
+high forces constitutionally arranged for mastery over lower. Take
+the ore from the mountain. It is loose, friable, worthless in
+itself. Raise it in capacity to cast-iron, 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 human 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 immanent God makes a plastic world.
+
+When man shall have mastered the forces that now exist, the original
+Creator and Sustainer will say, "Behold, I create all things new."
+Nature shall be called nearer to God, be more full of his power.
+To the long-wandering �neas, his divine mother sometimes came to
+cheer his heart and to direct his steps. But the goddess only showed
+herself divine by her departure; only when he stood in desolation
+did the hero know he had [Page 264] 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 refinement 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
+refinement 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 conversation and
+godliness, looking for and hastening the coming [Page 265] of the
+day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
+and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we,
+according to his promise, 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 prostrate provinces till Victor Emanuel came,
+then they were developed into united Italy. The prostrate provinces
+of matter are not developed until the man is victor, 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 transformation 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 elements and builds the body,
+holds them separate until life withdraws. More life means higher
+being. Certainly 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 blazing eye--live lion--and pawing to get
+free. We have seen winged spirits yet linked to forms of clay,
+but beating 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
+lias already been made. Man has already outgrown his harmony with
+the environment of mere matter. He has given his hand to science, and
+been lifted up above the earth into the voids of infinite space. He
+[Page 266] has gone on and on, till thought, wearied amidst the
+infinities 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 materiel 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 feeling: every creature--not
+the whole creation--groaneth and travaileth in pain together until
+now, waiting for the adoption--the uplifting from orphanage to
+parentage--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 become 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 knowledge converge
+as they go out toward the infinite mystery; 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.
+
+Then 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 [Page 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 began, 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, perfection of abode is
+offered. Perfection of inhabitant is necessary; and as the creative
+power is everywhere present for the various uplifts and refinements
+of matter, it is everywhere present with appropriate power for
+the uplifting and refinement of mind and spirit.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 269]
+SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+_Movements on the Sun._--The discovery and measurement of the up-rush,
+down-rush, and whirl of currents about the sunspots, 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 following
+table shows this movement of stars, so far as at present known:
+
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+|        APROACHING.           ||          RECEDING.            |
+|------------------------------||-------------------------------|
+|  Map. |   Name.   |   Rate   ||  Map.  |   Name.   |  Rate    |
+|       |           | per sec. ||        |           | per sec. |
+|-------|-----------|----------||--------|-----------|----------|
+|Fig. 71|Arcturus   | 55 miles ||Fig. 69 |Sirius     | 20 miles |
+| "   72|Vega       | 50   "   ||Fr'piece|Betelguese | 22   "   |
+| "   73|a Cygni    | 39   "   ||    "   |Rigel      | 15   "   |
+| "   69|Pollux     | 49   "   ||Fig. 69 |Castor     | 25   "   |
+| "   67|Dubhe      | 46   "   || "   70 |Regulus    | 15   "   |
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+
+_Sun's Appearance._--This was formerly supposed to be an even,
+regular, dazzling brightness, except where the spots appeared.
+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 innumerable number of small spots. This
+appearance of the general surface is well portrayed in the cut
+on page 92.
+
+_Close Relation between 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 [Page 270] 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 "Encyclop�dia Britannica," 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 perfect determination of the sun's distance.
+
+Since the earth's distance is our astronomical unit of measure, 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 discovery
+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, [Page 271] 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, antimony, 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 nebul� 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._--Vulcan, the planet nearest the sun
+(page 138). The two satellites of Mars were discovered by Mr. Hall,
+U. S. Naval Observatory, August 11th, 1877 (page 161). "The outer
+one is called Diemas; 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Horizontal Pendulum.]
+
+_The Horizontal Pendulum._--This delicate instrument is [Page 272]
+represented 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 slightest influence.
+The least change in the level of a base thirty-nine inches long that
+could be detected by a spirit-level is 0".1 of an arc--equal to
+raising one end 1/2068 of an inch. But the pendulum detects a
+raising of one end 1/36000000 of an inch. To observe the movements
+of the pendulum, 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 enormously magnified, and read and
+measured 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 either is exactly overhead or
+underfoot, of course there is no deflection. The mean deflection
+caused by the moon at rising or setting is 0".0174; by the sun,
+0".008. Great results are expected from this instrument hardly known
+as yet: among others, whether gravitation acts instantly 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.
+
+[Page 273]
+_Light of Unseen Stars._--From careful examination, it appears
+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 American 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 Newcomb'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 theories of
+these planets. * * * A few years ago the remark was frequently 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 planets shall stand the test of observation.
+But, after all, such a condition of things is only the natural
+result of long and accurate series of observations, which make
+evident the small inequalities 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 Loomis telegraphs
+twenty miles without wire, by the electric currents between mountains.
+We begin to use electricity for light, and feel after it for a
+motor. Comets and Auroras show its presence between worlds, and
+in the interstellar spaces. Let another Newton arise.
+
+[Page 274]
+               SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
+|           |        |            |     Mean Dist.    |         |        |
+|           |        |            |     from Sun.     |         |        |
+|           |        |            |-------------------|  Mean   |Density.|
+|           |        |            | Earth's|          |Diameter |[Earth] |
+|   Name.   | Sign.  |   Masses.  |  Dist. | Millions |in Miles.|  = 1.  |
+|           |        |            |  as 1. | of Miles.|         |        |
+|-----------|--------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|
+| Sun       |[Symbol]|    Unity   |        |          | 860,000 | 0.255  |
+| Mercury   |[Symbol]|1/5000000(?)|  0.387 |    35-3/4|   2,992 | 1.21   |
+| Venus     |[Symbol]|  1/425000  |  0.723 |    66-3/4|   7,660 | 0.85   |
+| Earth     |[Symbol]|  1/326800  |  1.    |    92-1/3|   7,918 | 1.     |
+| Mars      |[Symbol]|  1/2950000 |  1.523 |   141    |   4,211 | 0.737  |
+| Asteroids |  (No.) |            |        |          |         |        |
+| Jupiter   |[Symbol]|   1/1047   |  5.203 |   480    |  86,000 | 0.243  |
+| Saturn    |[Symbol]|   1/3501   |  9.538 |   881    |  70,500 | 0.133  |
+| Uranus    |[Symbol]|  1/22600   | 19.183 |  1771    |  31,700 | 0.226  |
+| Neptune   |[Symbol]|  1/19380   | 30.054 |  2775    |  34,500 | 0.204  |
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ -------------------------------------------------------------
+|           |               | Gravity  |           |          |
+|           |     Axial     |    at    |           | Orbital  |
+|           |    Revolu-    | Surface. |  Periodic | Velocity |
+|   Name.   |     tion      | [Earth]  |    Time.  | in Miles |
+|           |               |   = 1    |           | per sec. |
+|-----------|---------------|----------|-----------|----------|
+| Sun       | 25 to 26d     |  27.71   |           |          |
+| Mercury   | 24h 5m(?)     |   0.46   |   87.97d  |  29.55   |
+| Venus     | 23h 21m(?)    |   0.82   |  224.70d  |  21.61   |
+| Earth     | 23h 56m 4s    |   1.     |  365.26d  |  18.38   |
+| Mars      | 24h 37m 22.7s |   0.39   |  686.98d  |  14.99   |
+| Asteroids |               |          |           |          |
+| Jupiter   |  9h 55m 20s   |   2.64   |  11.86yrs |   8.06   |
+| Saturn    |    10h 14m    |   1.18   |  29.46yrs |   5.95   |
+| Uranus    |    Unknown.   |   0.90   |  84.02yrs |   4.20   |
+| Neptune   |    Unknown.   |   0.89   | 164.78yrs |   3.36   |
+ -------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Page 275]
+              EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS.
+
+                     SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
+
+   0. [Symbol] Aries     0�  |   VI. [Symbol] Libra        180�
+   I. [Symbol] Taurus   30   |  VII. [Symbol] Scorpio      210
+  II. [Symbol] Gemini   60   | VIII. [Symbol] Sagittarius  240
+ III. [Symbol] Cancer   90   |   IX. [Symbol] Capricornus  270
+  IV. [Symbol] Leo     120   |    X. [Symbol] Aquarius     300
+   V. [Symbol] Virgo   150   |   XI. [Symbol] Pisces       330
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ [Symbol]  Conjunction.      |          S.  Seconds of Time.
+ [Symbol]  Quadrature.       |           �  Degrees.
+ [Symbol]  Opposition.       |           '  Minutes of Arc.
+ [Symbol]  Ascending Node.   |           "  Seconds of Arc.
+ [Symbol]  Descending Node.  |       R. A.  Right Ascension.
+       H.  Hours.            | Decl. or D.  Declination.
+       M.  Minutes of Time.  |    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. [Symbols]
+Inf., inferior conjunction; Sup., superior conjunction.
+
+              GREEK ALPHABET USED INDICATING THE STARS.
+
+      a, alpha.    | ae, eta.    | n, nu.       | t, tau.
+      b, beta.     | th, theta.  | x, xi.       | u, upsilon.
+      g, gamma.    | i, iota.    | o, omicron.  | ph, phi.
+      d, delta.    | k, kappa.   | p, pi.       | ch, chi.
+      e, epsilon.  | l, lambda.  | r, rho.      | ps, psi.
+      z, zeta.     | m, mu.      | s, sigma.    | o, omega.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 276]
+CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS.
+
+As an aid to comprehension, every student should draw illustrative
+figures of the various circles, planes, and situations described.
+(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 or 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,
+minutes, 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 [Page 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;
+colors; number in space; telescopic view of. Aerolites: Systems
+of; how many known. Comets: Orbits; number of comets; Halley's;
+Biela's lost; Encke's. Resisting medium. Whence come comets? Composed
+of what? Amount of matter in. [Symbol].
+
+VIII. _The Planets._--How many? Uranus discovered? Neptune? Asteroids?
+Vulcan? Distance from sun. Periodic time. Mercury: Elements; shapes,
+as seen from earth; transits. Venus: Elements; seen by day; how
+near earth? how far from? phases; Galileo. Earth: Elements; in
+space; Aurora; balance of forces. Tides: Main and subsidiary 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; habitability; rings; flux; satellites. Uranus:
+Elements; discoverer; seen by; moon's motion. Neptune: Elements;
+discovered by; how? Review system.
+
+IX. _The Nebular Hypothesis._--State it; facts confirmatory.
+Objections--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 Lyr�, Sirius, Procyon, Castor,
+61 Cygni, g Virginis. Colored stars; change color. Clusters: Two
+theories. Nebul�: Two visible; composed of; shapes; where? Variable
+stars. Sun. b Lyr�, 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 Dipper, 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; [Page 278] 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. Properties
+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. Matter
+recapacitated. Refined habitations. Inhabitants. All force leads
+back to mind. Personal and infinite.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 279]
+GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX.
+
+ABBREVIATIONS used in astronomies, 275.
+ABERRATION OF LIGHT (_a wandering away_), an apparent
+  displacement of a star, owing to the progressive motion of light
+  combined with that of the earth and 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 in directions of two straight lines that meet.
+ANNULAR (_ring-shaped_) ECLIPSES, 158; nebul�, 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
+  solar 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
+  revolve 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.
+[Page 280]
+CELESTIAL SPHERE, the apparent dome in which the heavenly bodies
+  seem to be set; appears to revolve, 3.
+CENTRE OF GRAVITY, the point on which a body, or two or more
+  related 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
+  passing from the pole, one through each equinox, and one through
+  each solstice.
+COMETS, 126; Halley's, 128; Biela's lost, 129; Encke's, 130;
+  constitution 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
+  conjunction 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
+  interior planet.
+DECLINATION, the angular distance of a celestial body north or south
+  from the celestial equator.
+DEGREE, the 1/360 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
+  divided by half the major axis.
+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.
+[Page 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
+  annual 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 plane
+  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;
+  velocity of, 22; undulatory and musical, 26; chemical force of, 30;
+  experiments 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 the
+  perpendicular from the vertical equinox, counted toward the east;
+  mode of ascertaining terrestrial, 72.
+MAGELLANIC CLOUDS, 208.
+[Page 282]
+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
+  perihelion distances.
+MEASUREMENTS, celestial, 57.
+MERCURY, 138.
+MERIDIAN, terrestrial, of a place, a great circle of the heavens
+  passing 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;
+  telescopic appearance of, 155.
+MURAL CIRCLE, 61.
+NADIR, the point in the celestial sphere directly beneath our feet,
+  opposite to zenith.
+NEBUL�, 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
+  interposition 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
+[Page 283]
+  bodies upon each other, disturbing their regular motion; of Saturn
+  and Jupiter, 11; of asteroids, 13; of Uranus and Neptune, 176.
+PHASES, the portions of the illuminated half of the moon or
+  interior planet, as seen from the earth, called crescent, full, and
+  gibbous.
+PHOTOSPHERE of the sun, 89.
+PLANET (_a wanderer_), 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 joining 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;
+  decreasing, 171; nature of, 171; satellites of, 172.
+SEASONS, of the earth, 102; of other planets, 105.
+SELENOGRAPHY (_lunography_), 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 in a planet's orbit at which it has no
+  motion among the stars.
+[Page 284]
+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
+  meridian, 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
+  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 THE STARS IN THE 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.
+
+[Illustration: Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this
+position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at 9 o'clock;
+and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]
+
+[Illustration: 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.]
+
+[Illustration: Capella (45� from 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.]
+
+[Illustration: Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79� south from the
+Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and at 8 o'clock
+April 23d.]
+
+[Illustration: Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70� from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8 o'clock June
+25th.]
+
+[Illustration: Altair comes to the Meridian, 82� from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock P.M. August 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and
+at 8 o'clock September 18th.]
+
+[Illustration: Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17� from the
+horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Recreations in Astronomy
+       With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work
+
+Author: Henry Warren
+
+Release Date: April 14, 2005 [EBook #15620]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+[Page ii]
+[Illustration: THE CONSTELLATIONS OF ORION AND TAURUS.
+
+NOTES.--Star a in Taurus is red, has eight metals; moves east (page
+227). At o above tip of right horn is the Crab Nebula (page 219).
+In Orion, a is variable, has five metals; recedes 22 miles per
+second. b, d, e, x, r, etc., are double stars, the component parts
+of various colors and magnitudes (page 212, note). l and i are
+triple; s, octuple; th, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula (page
+218).]
+
+
+
+
+[Page iii]
+RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY
+
+WITH
+
+_DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND TELESCOPIC WORK_
+
+
+BY
+
+HENRY WHITE WARREN, D.D.
+
+AUTHOR OF "SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS; OR, KNOWLEDGE BY TRAVEL," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS
+
+
+
+[Page v]
+[Greek:
+  TAEI PSUCHAEI
+  TAEI AGAPAETAEI
+  ASTRAPOUSAEI
+  KAI
+  ISAGGEDOI]
+
+
+
+
+[Page vii]
+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 rewritten 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 important than either of the others.
+
+While nearly all men are prevented from practical experimentation
+in these high realms of knowledge, few [Page viii] 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 anyone 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 indebtedness to J. M.
+Van Vleck, LL.D., of the U.S. Nautical Almanac staff, and Professor
+of Astronomy at the Wesleyan University, for inspecting some of the
+more important 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 Newcomb, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page ix]
+CONTENTS.
+
+  CHAP.
+    I. CREATIVE PROCESSES
+   II. CREATIVE PROGRESS
+        Constitution of Light
+        Chemistry of Suns revealed by Light
+        Creative Force of Light
+  III. ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS
+        The Telescope
+        The Reflecting Telescope
+        The Spectroscope
+   IV. CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS
+        Celestial Movements
+        How to Measure
+    V. THE SUN
+        What the Sun does for us
+   VI. THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE
+        The Outlook from the Earth
+  VII. SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS
+        Aerolites
+        Comets
+        Famous Comets
+        Of what do Comets consist?
+        Will Comets strike the Earth?
+ VIII. THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS
+        Vulcan
+        Mercury
+        Venus
+        The Earth
+        The Aurora Borealis
+[Page x]
+        The Delicate Balance of Forces
+        Tides
+        The Moon
+        Telescopic Appearance
+        Eclipses
+        Mars
+        Satellites of Mars
+        Asteroids
+        Jupiter
+        Satellites of Jupiter
+        Saturn
+        Rings of Saturn
+        Satellites of Saturn
+        Uranus
+        Neptune
+   IX. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+    X. THE STELLAR SYSTEM
+        The Open Page of the Heavens
+        Equatorial Constellations
+        Characteristics of the Stars
+        Number
+        Double and Multiple Stars
+        Colored Stars
+        Clusters of Stars
+        Nebulae
+        Variable Stars
+        Temporary, New, and Lost Stars
+        Movements of Stars
+   XI. THE WORLDS AND THE WORD
+  XII. THE ULTIMATE FORCE
+ SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS
+ SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
+ EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS
+        Signs of the Zodiac
+        Other Abbreviations Used in the Almanac
+        Greek Alphabet Used Indicating the Stars
+ CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS
+ GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX
+
+
+
+
+[Page xi]
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+FIG.
+     The Constellations of Orion and Taurus
+  1. An Orbit resulting from Attraction and Projection
+  2. The Moon's Orbit about the Earth
+  3. Changes of Orbit by Mutual Attraction
+  4. Velocity of Light measured by Jupiter's Satellites
+  5. Velocity of Light measured by Fizeau's Toothed Wheel
+  6. White Light resolved into Colors
+  7. Showing amount of Light received by Different Planets
+  8. Measuring Intensities of Lights
+  9. Reflection and Diffusion of Light
+ 10. Manifold Reflections
+ 11. Refraction by Water
+ 12. Atmospherical Reflection
+ 13. Refracting Telescope
+ 14. Reflecting Telescope
+ 15. The Cambridge Equatorial Refractor
+ 16. The new Reflecting Telescope at Paris
+ 17. Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms
+ 18. Spectra of Glowing Hydrogen and of the Sun
+ 19. Illustrating Arcs and Angles
+ 20. Measuring Objects by observing Angles
+ 21. Mural Circle
+ 22. Scale to measure Hundredths of an Inch
+ 23. Spider-lines to determine Star Transits
+ 24. Illustrating Triangulation
+[Page xii]
+ 25. Measuring Distance to an Inaccessible Object
+ 26. Measuring Elevation of an Inaccessible Object
+ 27. Illustrating Parallax
+ 28. Illustrating Stellar Parallax
+ 29. Mode of Ascertaining Longitude
+ 30. Relative Size of Sun, as seen from Different Planets
+ 31. Zodiacal Light
+ 32. Corona of the Sun in 1858--Brazil
+ 33. Corona of the Sun in 1878--Colorado
+ 34. Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen
+ 35. Changes in Solar Cavities during Rotation
+ 36. Solar Spot
+ 37. Holding Telescope to see the Sun-spots
+ 38. Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets
+ 39. Orbit of Earth, illustrating Seasons
+ 40. Inclination of Planes of Planetary Orbits
+ 41. Inclination of Orbits of Earth and Venus
+ 42. Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars
+ 43. Passage of the Sun by Star Regulus
+ 44. Apparent Path of Jupiter among the Stars
+ 45. Illustrating Position of Planets
+ 46. Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet
+ 47. Apparent Movements of a Superior Planet
+ 47_a_. A Swarm of Meteors meeting the Earth
+ 48. Explosion of a Bolide
+ 49. Flight of Bolides
+ 50. The Santa Rosa Aerolite
+ 51. Orbit of November Meteors and the Comet of 1866
+ 52. Aspects of Remarkable Comets
+ 53. Phases and Apparent Dimensions of Venus
+ 54. The Earth and Moon in Space
+ 55. Aurora as Waving Curtains
+ 56. Tide resulting from Centrifugal Motion
+ 57. Lunar Landscape
+[Page xiii]
+ 58. Telescopic View of the Moon
+ 59. Illumination of Lunar Craters and Peaks
+ 60. Lunar Crater "Copernicus"
+ 61. Eclipses: Shadows of Earth and Moon
+ 62. Apparent Sizes of Mars, seen from the Earth
+ 63. Jupiter
+ 64. Various Positions of Jupiter's Satellites
+ 65. View of Saturn and his Rings
+ 66. Perturbations of Uranus
+ 67. Map: Circumpolar Constellations
+ 68. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in December
+ 69. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in January
+ 70. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in April
+ 71. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in June
+ 72. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in September
+ 73. Map of Constellations on the Meridian in November
+ 74. Southern Circumpolar Constellations
+ 75. Aspects of Double Stars
+ 76. Sprayed Star Cluster below ae in Hercules
+ 77. Globular Star Cluster in the Centaur
+ 78. Great Nebula about th Orionis
+ 79. The Crab Nebula above z Tauri
+ 80. The Ring Nebula in Lyra
+ 81. Showing Place of Ring Nebula
+ 82. The Horizontal Pendulum
+
+  COLORED PLATE REPRESENTING VARIOUS SPECTA
+  MAPS TO FIND THE STARS
+
+
+
+
+[Page 1]
+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.
+
+[Page 2]
+ "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 stars supply;
+  Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,
+    Its dome the sky."    H. W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+ "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. JONES.
+
+
+[Page 3]
+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
+moving 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 illuminated 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 [Page 4] read backward in proper
+order; and it has glorious volumes 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. Meteors, 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 after 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 combinations,
+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 beginning, 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 imagination.
+God creates and embodies; we create, but [Page 5] it remains in
+thought only. But the creation is as bright, strong, clear,
+enduring, and real, as if it were embodied. Every 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."
+
+In 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 power, 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 together of every particle in existence. The laws
+governing this attraction shall be two. When these particles are
+associated together, the attraction shall be in proportion to the
+mass. A given mass will pull twice [Page 6] 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 1/24 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 attraction 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 body_.
+
+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 matter 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 [Page 7] imagine, either
+in differently sized masses or in combination with other substances.
+There it is! We cannot 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 movements. It only gives an even
+effulgence, a steady unflickering 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 empty space. But we created them
+dowered with attraction. Each instantly feels the drawing influence
+of the other. They are mutually attractive, and begin to [Page 8]
+move toward each other. They hasten along an undeviating straight
+line. Their speed quickens at every mile. The attraction increases
+every moment. They fly swift as thought. They dash 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 nothing to be warmed thereby. Are our creative
+powers exhausted by this effort?
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Orbit A D, resulting from attraction, A
+C, and projectile force, A B.]
+
+No, we will create another world, and add another power to it that
+shall keep them apart. That power 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 thousand miles
+in diameter. It instantly feels the attractive power of the sun
+drawing it to itself sixty-eight [Page 9] miles a second. 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 one hundred and
+eighty-nine miles a second. 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 gravity around which both turn
+will be 1/81 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
+introduced that only the most masterly minds can follow. Introduce
+a dozen or a million bodies, and complications arise that only
+Omniscience can unravel.
+
+[Page 10]
+[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
+
+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 quarter of a
+million of miles toward 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 power,
+to C. All the while the invisible elastic force of the earth is
+unweariedly maintained; and though the moon's distances vary over a
+range of 31,355 miles, the moon is always in a determinable place.
+A simple revolution 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 [Page 11] of our
+night-wandering orb has just been explained by Professor Hansen, of
+Gotha, as a curious result of the attraction of Venus.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Changes of orbit by mutual attraction.]
+
+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 other by mutual attraction, Jupiter's
+orbit bends outward, and Saturn's becomes more nearly straight, as
+shown by the dotted lines. A partial correction of this difficulty
+immediately follows. As Jupiter 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, retarded, 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
+[Page 12] Saturn; and they will be near again, be drawn together,
+hastened, and retarded, as before; their next conjunction 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 perturbations 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 will
+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 direction. 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 planets, can be calculated
+with exceeding nicety.
+
+The difficulties would be greatly increased if the orbits [Page 13]
+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.
+Nevertheless, 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 by an
+intelligent mind 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,
+affecting the entire planetary system, the periods of which are
+immensely long. The number of these oscillations is equal to that
+of all the planets, and their periods range from 50,000 to 2,000,000
+years,
+
+Looking into the open page of the starry heavens we see double
+stars, the constituent parts of which must revolve 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 [Page 14] 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
+comprehends and directs them all."
+
+
+
+
+[Page 15]
+II.
+
+CREATIVE PROGRESS.
+
+  "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."--_Genesis_
+  i., 3.
+
+  "God is light."--1 _John_, i. 5.
+
+[Page 16]
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 legitimate 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 father, 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 manifestation 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 skeleton. Skeletons are
+somewhat interesting in themselves, but far more so when covered
+with flesh, flushed with beauty, and inspired with soul. The
+universe [Page 18] has bones, 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 cannot be quiet. The
+mighty locomotive trembles with its own energy. A smitten piece
+of iron has all its infinitesimal 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 heated body commences
+a vigorous vibration among its particles, and communicates these
+vibrations to the surrounding 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 undulations, and the
+object seems to glow with a dull red light; becoming hotter, the
+vibrations increase in rapidity. 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 different 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 inflammable 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 [Page
+19] arm of a whirling wheel; drive it against the air five hundred
+feet per second, the mercury rises 16 deg.. 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 deg.
+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 consumed 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 1,300,000 times as large 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 hundred miles per second, and striking the sun's
+atmosphere, 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. Vivid auroras appeared, not only at the north and south poles,
+but even where such spectacles are seldom seen. The electro-magnetic
+[Page 20] disturbances were more distinctly marked. "In many places
+the telegraphic wires struck work. In Washington and Philadelphia
+the electric signalmen received severe electric shocks; at a station
+in Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at Boston a
+flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's electric telegraph." There
+is the best of reason for believing that a continuous succession of
+such bodies might have gone 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 contraction goes on evolving more light, and so
+the suns flame on through the millions of years unquenched. It is
+estimated that the contraction of our sun, from filling immensity
+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 [Page 21] shall have produced all the
+heat it can, and a new force of attraction must be added, or the sun
+itself will become cold as a cinder, dead as a burned-out char.
+
+Since light and heat are the product of such enormous 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 deg.
+below zero, through utter darkness, and appears 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 commence a study of its
+qualities and powers.
+
+Light is the astronomer's necessity. When the sublime 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-gathering 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 fifty minutes or years ago, more
+or less. Light is the aerial sprite that carries our measuring-rods
+across the infinite [Page 22] spaces; light spreads out the history
+of that far-off beginning; 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Velocity of Light measured by Eclipses of
+Jupiter's Moons.]
+
+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 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 planet Jupiter. We know
+to a second when these eclipses take place, and they can be seen
+with a small telescope. But when the earth is on the opposite side
+of the sun [Page 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 184,000,000 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 result. Suppose the wheel, Fig. 5, to have one thousand 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 1/10000 of a
+second, or at the rate of 180,000 miles a second, the next tooth
+will have arrived before the eye, and each returning 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 having been traversed meanwhile. The method of
+measuring by means of a revolving mirror, used by Faucault, is held
+to be even more accurate.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Measuring the Velocity of Light.]
+
+When we take instantaneous photographs by the exposure [Page 24] of
+the sensitive plate 1/20000 part 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 Centauri
+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 goes 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
+directions, in the same place, without interference, and thus we
+see "the old moon in the arms of the new."
+
+_Constitution of Light._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 6.--White Light resolved into Colors.]
+
+Light was once supposed to be corpuscular, or consisting 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 [Page 25]
+instantly turned out of its course, some parts more and some less,
+according to the number of vibrations, and appears 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. 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
+different places from 716 to 765,000,000,000,000 of vibrations 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 differently, 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 vibrations
+numbering about 653,000,000,000,000 of [Page 25] vibrations 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 pore celestial white
+  With streakings of the morning light."
+
+Every little pansy, tender as fancy, pearled with evanescent 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 purple, and reflect each of these in other
+parts of the same tender petal. "Pansies are for thoughts," even
+more thoughts than poor Ophelia knew. An evening cloud that is
+dense enough to absorb all the faster and weaker vibrations, leaving
+only the stronger to come through, will be said to be 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 258-7/8 vibrations to the second, and its
+octave above 517-1/2. Not that sound vibrations cease [Page 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 misconstrued 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
+standing 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 keynote 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 they 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 is unapproachable by mortals; [Page 28] then the music
+swells beyond our ability to endure. 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
+mysteries, 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 simple 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
+[Page 29] they strike a substance we call colored. The rest are
+reflected, and give the impression of color. In one place on the
+flag of our nation all vibrations are destroyed except 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 narrow 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 vibrations 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 record 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 [Page 30] the
+stars whose very substance we know! If we were transported thither,
+or beyond, we should not be altogether strangers in an unknown
+realm.
+
+But the stars differ in their constituent elements; every ray that
+flashes from them bears in its very being proofs of what they are.
+Hence the eye of Omniscience, 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 unbraided sunbeam, 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 transfigures 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 engineer 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
+sunshine, falling on the scarcely lifted hills of Pennsylvania,
+caused the reedy vegetation to grow along the banks of [Page 31]
+shallow seas, accumulated vast amounts of this vegetation, sunk it
+beneath the sea, roofed it over with sand, compacted the sand into
+rock, and changed this vegetable 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. We
+mine the coal, bring out the heat, raise the steam, drive the train,
+so that in the ultimate analyses it is sunshine 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, because
+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. Naturally
+there will be as many different kinds of heat as tints of color,
+because there is as great a range of numbers of vibration. It is
+our privilege 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 [Page 32] 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 anxious 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, [Page 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 consumes 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 qualities 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 platinum 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 deg.
+only six per cent. can go through glass, the other ninety-four per
+cent. being absorbed by it.
+
+The heat of the sun beam goes through glass without [Page 34] 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
+sweeping through them.
+
+The heat of the sun, by its intense vibrations, comes 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 flyaway every night, and our temperature would go down
+to 200 deg. below zero. This heat comes with the light, and then,
+dissociated from it, the number of its vibrations lessened, 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 1/1000 of 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 temperature 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 locomotive 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 sunlight 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, acting [Page 35] upon the
+iron, stations its particles farther and farther apart. Since the
+bottom cannot give way the arches must rise in the middle. As they
+become longer 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 that 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 wreathing mists of morning these myriads of tons rise
+in the air, flyaway hundreds of miles, and supply all the Niagaras,
+Mississippis and Amazons of earth. The sun says to the earth, wrapped
+in the mantle of winter, [Page 36] "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 constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome by a higher, and all by the highest. Gravitation of
+earth naturally and legitimately yields to the power of the sun's
+heat, and then the waters fly into the clouds. It as naturally
+and legitimately yields to the power of mind, and the waters of the
+Red Sea are divided and stand "upright as an heap." Water naturally
+bursts into flame when a bit of potassium 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
+constitutional exercise of higher force over forces organized 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."
+
+[Page 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 apparent 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 varying amount
+of light received by each planet is also shown in fractions above
+each world, the amount received by the earth being 1.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Measuring Intensities of Light.]
+
+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 [Page 38] 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Reflection and Diffusion of Light.]
+
+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 astronomer projects straight
+lines to infinity. Take a hand-mirror, or better, 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 darkness appeared. Turn the same ray into a tumbler of water,
+[Page 39]
+it becomes 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Manifold Reflections.]
+
+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 through to the silvered back at B, and is totally
+reflected to _b_, 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 reflector
+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 secondary 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 light, and the frequency and prominence of
+each pulse-beat will be indicated by the tossing spot of light on
+the wall. If the operator becomes excited the fact will be evident
+to all observers.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
+
+Place a coin in a basin (Fig. 11), and set it so that the rim will
+conceal the coin from the eye. Pour in water, and the coin will
+[Page 40] appear 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
+atmosphere, 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.
+
+[Illustration: 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 object 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 41]
+III.
+
+ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS.
+
+  "The eyes of the Lord are in every place."--_Proverbs_ xv. 3.
+
+[Page 42]
+"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 objects 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 diameter, and penetrates the immensities of space
+thousands of times beyond where his natural eye can pierce, until he
+sees that God's immensities of worlds are infinite also."--BISHOP
+FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 43]
+III.
+
+_THE TELESCOPE._
+
+Frequent allusion has been made in the previous chapter to discovered
+results. It is necessary to understand more clearly the process by
+which such results have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments
+are of the simplest character, some most delicate and complex.
+When a man smokes a piece of glass, in order 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 constructed his own without a pattern,
+and used it to good purpose. It consists of a lens, O B (Fig. 13),
+which 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 [Page 44] find. Hence there is placed at
+R a concave lens, passing 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Refracting Telescope.]
+
+If, instead of a concave lens at R, converting the converging 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 overcome, 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 radically from the
+refracting one already described. It receives the light in a concave
+mirror, M (Fig. 14), which reflects it to the focus F, producing the
+same result as the lens of the refracting telescope. Here 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 [Page 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 coming 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Reflecting 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 instrument 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 highest 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 foundation
+on which it is placed is sunk deep in the earth, far from rail or
+other roads, and no part of the observatory 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
+follows 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 (Fig. 15). The reflector
+demands still more difficult engineering. That of Lord Rosse has
+a metallic mirror [Page 46] weighing six tons, a tube forty feet
+long, which, with its appurtenances, weighs seven tons more. It
+moves between two walls only 10 deg. east and west. The new Paris
+reflector (Fig. 16) has a much wider range of movement.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Cambridge Equatorial.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 16.--New Paris Reflector.]
+
+_The Spectroscope._
+
+A spectrum is a collection of the colors which are dispersed by
+a prism from any given light. If it is sunlight, it is a solar
+spectrum; if the source of light is a [Page 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. Considering the infinite variety of light, and its
+easy modification and absorption, we should expect an immense number
+of spectra. A mere prism disperses the light so imperfectly that
+different orders of vibrations, perceived 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 until we get only
+a small beam of light. In order to have the colors thoroughly
+dispersed, the best instruments pass the beam of light through a
+series of prisms called a battery, each one spreading farther the
+colors which the previous ones had spread. In Fig. 17 the ray is
+seen entering through the telescope A, which renders the rays
+parallel, and passing [Page 50] through the prisms out to telescope
+B, where the 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 O 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
+examined just above where it entered the first prism.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Spectroscope, with Battery of Prisms.]
+
+Attached to the examining telescope is a diamond-ruled scale of glass,
+enabling us to fix the position of any line with great exactness.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Spectra of glowing Hydrogen and the Sun.]
+
+In Fig. 18 is seen, in the lower part, a spectrum of the sun, with
+about a score of its thousands of lines 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 spectrum. 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 chromolithic plate.
+No. 1 represents the solar spectrum, with a few of its lines on an
+accurately graduated scale. [Page 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 always in the same place on
+the scale.
+
+A patient study of these signs of substances reveals, richer results
+than a study of the cuniform characters engraved on Assyrian slabs;
+for one is the handwriting 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 approaches 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 vibrations 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 hundred and fifty-seven
+vibrations could approach us at three hundred and sixty-four yards
+per second, it is obvious 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 [Page 52] result would
+appear if we carried our ear toward the sound fast enough to take up
+twice as many valves as though we stood still. This is apparent to
+every observer in a railway train. The whistle of an approaching
+locomotive gives one tone; it passes, and we instantly detect
+another. Let two trains, running at a speed of thirty-six yards a
+second, approach each other. 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 hundred 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.
+
+[Illustration: 1. Solar Spectrum. 2. Spectrum of Potassium. 3.
+Spectrum of Sodium. 4. Spectrum of Strontium. 5. Spectrum of Calcium.
+6. Spectrum of Barium.]
+
+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 recedes, it increases the length of the wave--puts
+a less number into an inch. If a body giving only the number of
+vibrations we call green were to approach sufficiently fast, it
+would crowd in vibrations enough to appear what we call blue, indigo,
+or even violet, according to its speed. If it receded sufficiently
+fast, it would leave behind it only vibrations enough to fill up
+[Page 53] the space with what we call yellow, orange, or red,
+according 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 cannot 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 violet, 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
+appropriate 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 receding 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 [Page 54]
+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 observing 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 millionth 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 movements 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 Jupiter and Saturn
+are very unlike; it tells us which stars approach and which recede,
+and just how one star differeth 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 55]
+IV.
+
+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 right hand hath spanned the heavens."--_Isa._
+xl. 12; xlviii. 13.
+
+[Page 56]
+ "Go to yon tower, where busy science plies
+  Her vast antennae, feeling thro' the skies;
+  That little vernier, on whose slender lines
+  The midnight taper trembles as it shines,
+  A silent index, tracks the planets' march
+  In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch,
+  Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns,
+  And marks the spot where Uranus returns.
+
+ "So, till by wrong or negligence effaced,
+  The living index which thy Maker traced
+  Repeats 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 57]
+IV.
+
+_CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS._
+
+We know that astronomy has what are called practical uses. If a
+ship had been driven by Euroclydon ten times fourteen days and
+nights without sun or star appearing, a moment's glance into the
+heavens from the heaving deck, by a very slightly educated sailor,
+would tell within one hundred yards where he was, and determine
+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 uncertain 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 longitude by observations of the stars. Our real landmarks
+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 broadest exercise
+of the creative faculty have been inspired by astronomy. No other
+instruments approximate in delicacy those which explore the heavens;
+no other [Page 58] system of thought can draw such vast and certain
+conclusions 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, instead 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 exact. Whoever studies astronomy,
+under proper guidance and in the right spirit, grows in thought
+and feeling, 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 locomotive, but quite an unlettered
+man can drive it. It is the work of genius to render difficult
+matters plain, abstruse thoughts clear.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
+
+A brief explanation of a few terms will make the principles of
+world inspection easily understood. Imagine a perfect circle thirty
+feet in diameter--that is, create [Page 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  deg.. The arc of a circle included between any two
+of the lines is also 90 deg.. Every circle, great or small, is divided
+into these 360 deg.. If the sun rose in the east and came to the zenith
+at noon, it would have passed 90 deg.. When it set in the west it would
+have traversed half the circle, or 180 deg.. In Fig. 20 the angle of the
+lines measured on the graduated arc is 10 deg.. The mountain is 10 deg.
+high, the world 10 deg. in diameter, the comet moves 10 deg. a day, the
+stars are 10 deg. apart. The height of the mountain, 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 ").
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Illustration of Angles.]
+
+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 [Page 60] 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 steadily 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 evening
+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 suggest 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 given meridian, or from the
+equator. Thus the stars called the Pointers, in the Great Bear,
+are 5 deg. apart; the nearest one is 29 deg. from the Pole Star, which is
+39 deg. 56' 29" above the horizon at Philadelphia. In going to England
+you creep up toward the north end of the earth, till the Pole Star
+is 54 deg. 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; [Page 61] turn it up
+perpendicular to another star. Of course the two stars are 90 deg.
+apart, and the graduated scale, which is attached to the outer edge
+of the circle, shows a revolution of a quarter circle, or 90 deg., But a
+perfect accuracy of measurement must be sought; for to mistake 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 immensely more at the distance of the
+stars. The correction of an inaccuracy of no greater magnitude than
+that has reduced our estimate of the distance of our sun 3,000,000
+miles.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Mural Circle.]
+
+Consider the nicety of the work. Suppose the graduated scale to
+be thirty feet in circumference. Divided into 360 deg., each would
+be one inch long. Divide each degree into 60', each one is 1/60
+of an inch long. It takes good eyesight to discern it. But each
+minute must be [Page 62] divided into 60", and these must not only
+be noted, but even tenths and hundredths of seconds must be
+discerned. 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 unreliable. It is taken to a
+watch-maker that every single second may be quickened 1/20160 part
+of itself. Now 1/20000 part of a second would be a small interval of
+time to measure, but it must be under control. If the temperature of
+a summer morning rises ten or twenty degrees we scarcely notice it;
+but the magnetic tastimeter measures 1/5000 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 Hoosac 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 mountain. 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 triangulate from the eastern portal to distant
+[Page 63] mountain 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 dropped 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 measurements
+in the skies.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
+
+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. Observe 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 99/100 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 telescope
+on the mural circle, we are able to reach an exactness of 0".1, or
+1/3600 of an inch. This instrument is used to measure the declination
+of stars, or angular [Page 64] 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 measure
+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 undulations of light. The shortest is
+of the violet light, 154.84 ten-millionths of an inch. By the
+horizontal pendulum Professor Root has made 1/36000000 of an inch
+apparent.
+
+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 exactly 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 [Page 65] the star will come into
+the field just above the horizontal 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Transit of a Star noted.]
+
+But man is not reliable enough to observe and record with sufficient
+accuracy. Some, in their excitement, anticipate 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
+estimating 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-officers
+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 astronomer,
+and to others, that we owe the mechanical accuracy 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 [Page 66] over each 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 men, 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 accounted for.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 24.]
+
+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 deg., the divided angles give two of 45 deg. each. Now the
+base A B is equal to the perpendicular A C. Now any point--C, where
+a perpendicular, A C, and a diagonal, B C, meet--will be [Page 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 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 feet away.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Measuring Distances.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Measuring Elevations.]
+
+The next process is to measure the 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, 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 [Page 68] one-half an
+inch going two feet, in going four feet they will spread an inch,
+and in going a mile, or five thousand 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 infinity 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 63/10000000 of
+an inch, and the lines will come together at a distance of three
+hundred miles. That new angle differs from the former right angle
+almost infinitesimally, 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
+meeting 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 distances is easily seen
+by Fig. 27.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 27.]
+
+Let O P be the base. This would subtend a greater angle seen from
+star A than from star B. Let B be far enough away, and O P would
+become invisible, and B [Page 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 deg. apart--half the earth's diameter between them. The one
+on Cotopaxi sees it exactly overhead, at an angle of 90 deg. with the
+earth's diameter. The one on the coast of Africa sees its angle with
+the same line to be 89 deg. 59' 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 station 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 carried
+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 [Page
+70] 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 instant, 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
+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 angles of the same stars: it is the same angle. Sitting in my
+study here, I glance out of the window and discern separate bricks,
+in houses five hundred feet away, with my unaided eye; they subtend
+a discernible angle. 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. Not 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 [Page 71] earth's orbit on one
+side, as T R A (Fig. 28), and a line were to be drawn six months
+later from the same stars, touching our earth's orbit on the other
+side, as R B T, such a line would not diverge sufficiently from a
+straight line for us to detect its divergence. Numerous vain
+attempts 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 inconceivable depths of space, and ascertain
+their distance from us. We are ever impelled to triumph over what is
+declared 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
+assaulted, till some ambitious spirits have outsoared even
+imagination by the certainties of mathematics.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 28.]
+
+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 another, we reach a ground of judgment. The ascertainment
+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 [Page 72] 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Mode of Ascertaining Longitude.]
+
+So, by comparisons of the near and far stars, the approximate distance
+of a few of them has been determined. The nearest one is the brightest
+star in the Centaur, never 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
+dissolve 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 flyaway toward 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 allegiance 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 traverse 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 [Page 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-housse 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 astronomical unit and standard of
+measurement is the distance 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 astronomical unit 226,000 times, we
+measure to Alpha Centauri, more than twenty millions of millions
+of miles. Doubtless 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 celestial 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 Nautical 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 parts of the [Page 74] 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 one hundred and ninety-two 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,
+establishing landmarks, and guiding the sailor. It greatly quickens
+and enlarges thought, excites a desire to know, leads to the utmost
+exactness, and ministers to adoration and love of the Maker of
+the innumerable suns.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 75]
+V.
+
+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.
+
+[Page 76]
+"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 similar with the sun of
+heaven, from which the Divine 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 according
+to the quality of the minds, each of which takes from the common
+influx as much as is necessary."--SWEDENBORG.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 77]
+V.
+
+_THE SUN._
+
+Suppose we had stood on the dome of Boston Statehouse November 9th,
+1872, on the night of the great conflagration, and seen the fire
+break out; seen the engines 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 decompose 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 Rocky 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 [Page 78] 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 flaming
+globe--on fire above, below, around--there is nothing 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
+quieted. 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 burning 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 relative 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 always 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Relative Size of Sun as seen from Different
+Planets.]
+
+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 soon by the eye.
+But that is a small part of its real diameter. So we say the earth
+has an equatorial diameter of 7925-1/2 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 [Page 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 the sun, we might almost say that its diameter is
+infinite, for its light and heat reach beyond our measurement. Its
+living, throbbing heart sends out pulsations, keeping all space full
+of its tides of living light.
+
+[Page 80]
+[Illustration: Fig. 31.--Zodiacal Light.]
+
+We might say with evident truth that the far-off planets are a
+part of the sun, since the space they traverse 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 [Page 81] into our
+western sky soon after sunset, on a clear, moonless 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, inclined 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 surrounding 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, coming and returning, in order that they might note the
+three minutes of total eclipse in Colorado. Each man had his work
+assigned to him, and he was drilled to attend to that and nothing
+else. Improved instruments were put into his [Page 82] 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 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 32.--The Corona in 1858, Brazil.]
+
+It was then settled that the corona consists of reflected light,
+sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids swirling in the vast
+seas, giving new densities and [Page 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 orbital revolution, we do not know. That the corona cannot
+be in any sense an atmosphere of any continuous gas, is seen from
+the fact that the comet of 1843, passing within 93,000 miles of the
+body of the sun, was not burned out of existence as a comet, nor in
+any perceptible 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 33.--The Corolla in 1878, Colorado.]
+ [Page 84] 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 spectroscope attached. I have seen them
+ with great distinctness and brilliancy with the excellent
+ eleven-inch telescope 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 extremity 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
+ thunderhead.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 34.--Solar Prominences of Flaming Hydrogen.]
+
+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 actually in progress. "The whole thing
+had been literally blown to shreds," he says, "by some inconceivable
+uprush from beneath. In place of the quiet cloud I had [Page 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 formerly
+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,
+chromatospheric 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
+wonderfully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing flame, to speak
+according to appearances. First, it was crowded down, as it were,
+along the solar surface; later, it arose almost pyramidally 50,000
+miles in height; then [Page 88] its summit 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 outward; and then, after an interval, followed by a
+corresponding 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 indistinguishable cloud." In the presence of
+these evident visions of an actual body in furious flame, we need
+hesitate no longer in accepting as true the words of St. Peter
+of the time "in which the [atmospheric] heavens shall pass away
+with a great noise, and the elements 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 [Page 89] metals, some of them as yet
+unknown on earth, but having a record in the spectrum, in the denser
+parts below. If these fierce fires are a part of the Sun, as they
+assuredly are, its diameter would be from 1,060,000 to 1,260,000
+miles.
+
+Let us approach even nearer. We see a clearly recognized even disk,
+of equal dimensions in every direction. This is the photosphere.
+We here reach some definitely 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 necklace, 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 hundred 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 estimate 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 composed
+of solid particles, floating in gas so condensed [Page 90] by
+pressure and attraction as to shine like a solid. It has no sensible
+changes of general level, but has prodigious 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 others,
+for years. But it is a long way off to study an object. No telescope
+brings it nearer than 200,000 miles. Theory after theory has been
+advanced, each one satisfactory 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, beyond 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 across its disk by axial
+revolution, being narrow as they present their edges to us, and
+rounder as we look perpendicularly into them (Fig. 35).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Change in Spots as rotated across the Disk,
+showing Cavities.]
+
+These spots are also very variable in number, sometimes there being
+none for nearly two hundred days, and again whole years during which
+the sun is never without them. The period from minimum to maximum
+[Page 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
+originated 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 [Page 92]
+great depth, and rises up tumultuously around the whirlpool, 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 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."
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 36.--Solar spot, by Langley.]
+
+A spot of 20,000 miles diameter is quite small; there was one 14,816
+miles across, visible to the naked eye for a week in 1843. This
+particular sun-spot somewhat [Page 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 ont
+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 incredible. 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 thousands of miles into space. It falls again into the
+incandescent 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 fire, where one hundred
+worlds could be buried, do not usually prevent the sun's appearing
+to our far-off eyes as a perfect sphere.
+
+[Page 94]
+_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 perpetually 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 tendency 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 may 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 millions of cubic miles of ice could
+be hailed at the sun every second without affecting 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 deg. below
+zero; but we live, as it were, in a conservatory, 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,
+[Page 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 fifty miles, the
+hurricane one hundred. The force is as the square of the velocity.
+It is by means of the sun that the merchant's white-sailed ships are
+blown safely home. So the sun carries off the miasma of the marsh,
+the pollution 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 Manchesters possible, because
+the sun lifted all that water to the hills.
+
+Intermingled with these currents of air are the currents 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 only
+1/21500000000 part 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 beyond [Page 96] its usual focusing for distant objects. The
+farther it is drawn, the nearer must we hold the screen for a
+perfect image.
+
+By holding a paper near the eye-piece, the proper direction of
+the instrument 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 Mercury and Venus shown to any number of spectators.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Holding Telescope to see the Sun'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 determine 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 97]
+VI.
+
+THE PLANETS, AS SEEN FROM SPACE.
+
+"He hangeth the earth upon nothing."--_Job_ xxvi. 7.
+
+[Page 98]
+"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 required 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 may 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 wailing world; weigh
+well the mighty impulse soon to be given, for out of the myriads
+of directions, and the myriads of impulsive forces, there comes
+but a single combination 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 wisdom, or relieve me from
+the impossible task!'"-0. M. MITCHEL, LL. D.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 sunshine. 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
+possibly Venus, and all moons except those of Uranus and Neptune,
+present their equators to the sun. The direction of orbital and
+axial revolution seen from above the North Pole would be opposite
+to that of the hands of a watch.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Orbits and Comparative Sizes of the Planets.]
+
+The speed of this orbital revolution must be proportioned to the
+distance from the sun. The attraction of the sun varies inversely
+as the square of the distance. [Page 100] 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
+[Page 101] speed when attractive power is diminished by distance.
+Hence Mercury must go 29.5 miles per second--seventy 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 attracted only 1/5626 as much, must be slowed down to 3.4
+miles a second to prevent its flying away from the feebler
+attraction of the sun. The orbital velocity of the various planets
+in miles per second is as follows:
+
+  Mercury  29.55  |  Jupiter  8.06
+  Venus    21.61  |  Saturn   5.95
+  Earth    18.38  |  Uranus   4.20
+  Mars     14.99  |  Neptune  3.36
+
+Hence, while the earth makes one revolution in its year, Mercury
+has made over four revolutions, or passed through four years; the
+slower Neptune has made only 1/164 of one revolution.
+
+The time of axial revolution 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 enormous 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 [Page 102] 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
+hereafter.
+
+The difference in the size of the planets is very noticeable. 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Orbit of Earth, showing Parallelism of
+Axis and Seasons.]
+
+The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination of its axis
+to the plane of its orbit. In Fig. 39 the rotating 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 darkness than day, and hence winter. Passing on
+to B, the world is seen illuminated 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 northern pole is shrouded in continual
+gloom. Every place [Page 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
+necessary. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are observed to
+enlarge and contract, according as it is winter 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 anomaly, if its assigned
+inclination of axis (75 deg.) 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 winters, 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. [Page 106] 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 sufficient time, might cause frightful extremes of
+temperature; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at which it
+is said, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Then a
+compensative diminution will follow.
+
+Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, floating in a round
+pond. The axis will be inclined 7-1/2 deg. to the surface of the water,
+one side of the equator be 7-1/2 deg. below the surface, and the other
+side the same distance above. Let the half-submerged 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Inclination of the Planes of Orbits.]
+
+If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying in [Page 107] the
+same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies were to start in a
+direct line for the sun, 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 Venus and
+Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun at every
+revolution.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Inclination of Orbits of Venus and Earth.
+Nodal Line, D B.]
+
+Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and Venus seen
+not from the edge but from a position somewhat above. The point E,
+where Venus crosses the plane of the earth's orbit, is called the
+ascending node. If the earth were at B when Venus is at E, Venus
+would be seen on the disk of the sun, making a transit. The same
+would be true if the earth were at D, and Venus at the descending
+node F.
+
+This general view of the flying spheres is full of interest. [Page
+108] 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, continuing 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 perfect 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 power. 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 [Page 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 pyramids 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 Acropolis; and the
+mighty mountains of Moab removed to reveal 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 vibrating 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 six hours after it is swinging toward Rome, in
+Italy; in twelve hours, toward Siam, in Asia; in nineteen hours,
+toward the Sandwich Islands; and in twenty-four, toward 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 sufficient to compel the plane of the original
+direction to change with the turning of the earth. The law of
+inertia keeps it moving in the same direction. The same experimental
+proof of revolution is shown in a proportional 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. [Page 110] 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 minutes longer before we find the moon. It must be going in
+the same direction, and it takes us longer to get round to it than
+if if it were always in the same spot; so we notice a star near the
+moon one night--it is 13 deg. west of the moon the next night. The moon
+is going around the earth from west to east, and if it goes 13 deg. in
+one day, it will take a little more than twenty-seven days to go the
+entire circle of 360 deg..
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars.]
+
+[Page 111]
+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 three 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 midnight
+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 toward B, the sun appears to move toward H.
+If we had observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 1876, 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 circle 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 43.]
+
+There are certain stars that have such irregular, uncertain, 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 retrograde, [Page 112] and go on again. Some are never seen far
+from the sun, and others in all parts of the ecliptic.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 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 Venus is still in sight; Jupiter is
+45 deg. behind Venus, and Saturn is seen 90 deg. farther east. When A has
+rolled a little farther, if he is awake, he will see Mars before
+he sees the sun; or, in common language, Venus 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 45. Showing Position of Planets.]
+
+The mysterious movements of advance and retreat are rendered
+intelligible by Fig. 46. The planet Mercury is at A, and, seen from
+the earth, B is located at _a_, [Page 113] on the background of the
+stars it seems to be among. It remains apparently stationary at _a_
+for some time, because 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 motion from A to C, greatly hastens it from C to A.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Apparent Movements of an Inferior Planet.]
+
+It is also apparent that Mercury and Venus, 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 never more than 47 deg. from the sun, and Mercury never more
+than 30 deg.; indeed, it keeps so near the sun that very few people
+have ever seen the brilliant sparkler. Observe 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
+sometimes take place.
+
+[Page 114]
+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 nearly
+straight, from Mars to G; then, as the earth begins to curve around
+the sun, Mars will appear to retraverse the distance from F to
+C, and beyond. The farther the superior planet is from the earth
+the less will be the retrograde movement.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Illustrating Movements of a Superior Planet.]
+
+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 impossible 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 accomplished by mounting them
+on subsidiary eccentric wheels in the revolving crystal sphere.
+All that was [Page 115] needed to give them a right conception was a
+sinking of their world and themselves to an appropriate proportion,
+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 cast
+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. Anyone 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 illustrated by two 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.
+
+[Page 116]
+  "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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 117]
+VII.
+
+SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS.
+
+"The Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah,
+and they died."--_Joshua_ x. II.
+
+[Page 118]
+[Illustration: A SWARM OF METEORS MEETING THE EARTH.
+
+Their orbits are all parallel. Those coming in direct line to the
+eye appear as stars, having no motion. Those on one side of this
+line are seen in foreshortened perspective. Those furthest from
+the centre, other things being equal, appear longest. The centre,
+called the radiant point, of these November meteors is situated
+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 an hour.]
+
+
+
+
+[Page 119]
+VII.
+
+_SHOOTING-STARS, METEORS, AND COMETS._
+
+Before particularly considering the larger aggregations of matter
+called planets or worlds as individuals, it is best to investigate
+a part of the solar system consisting of smaller collections of
+matter scattered everywhere 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 various relations
+to each other, from independent individuality 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 48.--Explosion of a Bolide.]
+
+Everyone 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 [Page 120] 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 about twenty miles nearer
+the surface. Their average velocity, thirty-five, sometimes rises to
+one hundred miles a second. They exhibit different colors, according
+to their different chemical substances, which are consumed. The
+number of them to be seen on different nights is exceedingly
+variable; sometimes not more [Page 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 matter, 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 investigations, "that the heat which the
+earth receives directly from meteors is the same in amount which it
+receives from the sun by radiation, and that the sun receives
+five-sixths of its heat from the meteors that fall upon it."
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 49.--Bolides.]
+
+[Page 121]
+In 1783 Dr. Schmidt was fortunate enough to have a telescopic view
+of a system of bodies which had turned into meteors. These were two
+larger bodies followed by several smaller ones, going in parallel
+lines till they were extinguished. They probably had been revolving
+about each other as worlds and satellites before entering our
+atmosphere. It is more than probable that the earth has many such
+bodies, too small to be visible, revolving around it as moons.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 50.--Santa Rosa Aerolite.]
+
+_Aerolites._
+
+Sometimes the bodies are large enough to bear the heat, and the
+unconsumed centre comes to the earth. [Page 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 secured. On the evening
+of December 21st, 1876, a meteor 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 continued 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 estimated at from twenty to one hundred. It was
+accompanied 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 hundred 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 thousand 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 [Page 124] 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 meteors are at the point of intersection at the
+same time, there must be collisions, and the lightning signs of
+extinction 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 August, another on the 11th of November. In
+a certain part of the first there is an agglomeration of bodies
+sufficient 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 November meteors and the comet of 1866 is an exceedingly
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Orbit of the November Meteors and the Comet
+or 1866.]
+
+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 [Page 125] should have crossed the earth's orbit
+early in September, 1872. The earth itself would arrive at the point
+of crossing two or three months later. If the law of revolution
+held, we might still expect to find some of the trailing meteoroids
+of the comet not gone by on our arrival. 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 diluted
+comet were still there. The prediction was verified in every
+respect. At the appointed time, place, [Page 126] 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 attraction, 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 foregoing 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
+existence, motion, and continuance to the same causes as Jupiter and
+the rest of the planets. They are really planets of wider wandering,
+greater ellipticity, and less density. They have periodic times
+less than the earth, 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 reflected 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 precede 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 Neptune 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, [Page 127] or one that will
+carry it off into infinite space, never to return. One rate of speed
+on the curve indicates an elliptical orbit that returns; a greater
+rate of speed indicates that it will take a parabolic orbit, which
+never returns. 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
+[Page 128] 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 retardations of
+attracting bodies. A comet of long period may be changed to one of
+short period by such attraction, or _vice versa_.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Aspects of Remarkable Comets.]
+
+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 hundred have been seen by telescopes invented
+since their invention. Some authorities estimate the number belonging
+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 deg. 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 comet was seen in 1531 having the same orbit. Still
+farther, by the same exact period of seventy-five years, he found
+that it was the same comet that had disturbed [Page 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 finish 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 return was calculated with more
+laborious care. It came to time and passed the sun within three days
+of the predicted time, on the 16th of November, 1835. It passed from
+sight of the most powerful telescopes the following 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.
+
+_Biela's 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 [Page 130] trace of it could
+be discovered. Probably the same influence that separated it into
+parts, separated the particles 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_ 1843 passed nearer the sun than any known
+body. It almost grazed the sun. If it ever returns, it will be in
+A.D. 2373.
+
+_Donati's 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 1875.
+
+_Encke's 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 degree, 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 diminished, the attraction of
+the sun causes it to take a smaller 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. Subsequent and more exact calculations fail
+to find any retardations in at least two revolutions between 1865
+and [Page 131] 1871. Indications point to a retardation of one and a
+half hours both before and since. But such discrepancy 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 exists around the
+sun, perhaps revealed by the zodiacal light, that reaches beyond
+where Encke's comet dips inside 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 nebulae? Are there regions where attractions are balanced,
+and matter is left to contract on itself, till the movements of
+suns and planets adds or diminishes attractive 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. Indeed, 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 lying [Page 132] there, in a spherical
+shell about the solar system, balanced between the attraction of
+different suns, finally 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 acquainted do not cover
+all the ground presented by these mysterious 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 spiritual, forms matter may be changed we
+cannot tell. But if we 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 matter, hundreds of miles apart; and,
+looking through thousands 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 another 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 separate bodies, or matter in a liquid condition,
+capable of being vaporized by the heat of the sun, and driven off,
+[Page 133] as steam from a locomotive, into a tail. Indications of
+this are found in the fact that tails grow smaller at successive
+returns, as the matter capable of such vaporization 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 master the difficulties.
+
+_Will 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 [Page 134] 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 solidity, the
+result would be far more serious. The mass of Donati's comet has
+been estimated by M. Faye to be 1/20000 of that of the earth. If
+this amount of matter were dense as water, it would make a globe
+five hundred miles in diameter; and if as dense as Professor Peirce
+proved the nucleus of this comet to be, its impact 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." Besides, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 135]
+VIII.
+
+THE PLANETS AS INDIVIDUALS.
+
+"Through faith we understand that the worlds [plural] were framed
+by the word of God, so that things which were seen were not made
+of things which do appear."--_Heb._ xi. 3.
+
+[Page 136]
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 137]
+VII.
+
+_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 Republic 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 question is, are there any bodies
+large enough to be seen?
+
+The same great genius of Leverrier that gave us Neptune from the
+observed perturbations of Uranus, pointed 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 asserted
+discoveries of one had been by inexperienced observers, inclined
+to the belief in a group, or that the disturbance was caused by
+the matter reflecting the zodiacal light.
+
+When the total eclipse of the sun occurred in 1878, [Page 138]
+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 carefully studied, sections of the sky
+about the sun were assigned to different observers, who should
+attend to nothing but to look for a possible planet. It is now
+conceded that Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor, actually saw the
+sought-for body.
+
+
+VULCAN.
+
+The god of fire; its sign [Symbol], his hammer.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 13,000,000 MILES. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, ABOUT
+20 DAYS.
+
+
+MERCURY.
+
+The swift messenger of the gods; sign [Symbol], his caduceus.
+
+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 between us and the sun, as
+at D (Fig. 46, p. 113), its illuminated 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 beyond 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; nearest 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.
+
+[Page 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
+1818 occupied seven and a half hours. The transits for the remainder
+of the century will occur:
+
+  November 7th   1881  |  November 10th   1894
+  May 9th        1891  |  November 4th    1901
+
+
+VENUS.
+
+Goddess of beauty; its sign [Symbol], a mirror.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 66,750,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 7660 MILES.
+ORBITAL VELOCITY, 1296 MILES PER MINUTE. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 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, Venus 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 [Page 140] his piercing eye caught the clear lustre
+of Venus smiling upon him at mid-day.
+
+This unusual brightness occurs when Venus 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).
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Phases of Venus, and Varions 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 discovery was contained:
+
+[Page 141]
+  "Haec immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o. y."
+ (These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.)
+
+He first saw Venus 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 Venus are
+not confirmed by later and better observations. Venus 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
+determined. 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 Venus, 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 became blind, but he had used his eyes to the best
+purpose of any man in his generation.
+
+
+THE EARTH.
+
+Its sign [Symbol].
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 92,500,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR, 7899
+MILES; EQUATORIAL, 7925-1/2 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 23H. 56M.
+4.09S.; ORBITAL, 365.86. ORBITAL VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 1152.8 MILES.
+
+Let us lift ourselves up a thousand miles from the earth. We see it
+as a ball hung upon nothing in empty space. As the drop of falling
+water gathers itself [Page 142] into a sphere by its own inherent
+attraction, so the earth gathers itself into a ball. Noticing
+closely, we 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 [Page 143] the sunset follow over an equal space,
+180 deg. behind. We are glad that the darkness never overtakes the
+morning.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Earth and Moon in Space.]
+
+_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 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
+[Page 144]
+not without its inexplicable surroundings. It has 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 various 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 55.--The Aurora as Waving Curtains.]
+
+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 flexible 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 Europe. The
+waves ran out to the Sandwich Islands, six [Page 145] 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 irregular, in consequence
+of the greater preponderance of land--and hence greater density--in the
+northern hemisphere. These irregularities are often very perplexing
+in making exact geodetic measurements. The tendency of matter to
+fly from the centre by reason of revolution 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 rate. 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 an infinitesimal degree, or the world rotate more slowly,
+the poles would be submerged and the equator become an arid waste.
+No balance, turning to 1/1000 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 1/100
+of a second of time in two thousand years.
+
+[Page 146]
+_Tides._
+
+But there is an outside influence that is constantly acting upon
+the earth, and to which it constantly responds. Two hundred and
+forty thousand miles from the earth is the moon, having 1/81 the
+mass of the world. Its attractive influence on the earth causes the
+movable 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 inversely 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 water 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 flexible 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 produce.
+
+[Page 147]
+[Illustration: Fig. 56.]
+
+If the earth had no axial revolution, the attractive point where
+the tide rises would be carried around the earth once in twenty-seven
+days by the moon's revolution about the earth. But since the earth
+revolves on its axis, it presents a new section to the moon's attraction
+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 increased tides.
+When the moon is in its first or third quarter, _i. e._, 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 [Page 148] it does not yield instantly
+to the moon's influence, and the crest of the tide is some hours
+behind the advancing 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
+continents, 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-five 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 Mediterranean 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 commerce. She takes all the loads that
+can be floated on her flowing tides, and cheerfully carries them
+in opposite 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 men as
+Laplace, Newton, and Airy have labored in vain. There are plenty
+of other worlds still to conquer.
+
+
+[Page 150]
+[Illustration: Fig. 57.--Lunar Day.]
+
+[Page 151]
+THE MOON.
+
+New moon, [Symbol]; first quarter, [Symbol]; full moon, [Symbol];
+last quarter, [Symbol].
+
+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, 29-1/2 DAYS. AXIAL 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
+instruments 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, and 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 interesting object of study.
+
+A glance at its familiar face reveals its unequal illumination.
+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 [Page
+152] 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 behind 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 visible 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 behind, 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 576/1000 of the moon's surface. Our eyes
+will never see the other side of the moon. If, now, being solid,
+her axial revolution could [Page 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 revolutions 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 beyond its centre of magnitude, which is the same
+in effect 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 29-1/2 times as long
+as ours. The sun shines unintermittingly for fifteen days, raising a
+temperature as fervid as boiling 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 gibbous--to the moon as the moon does to us, and for the same
+causes. Lord Rosse 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 extremes of temperature should
+shun a lunar residence. The moon gives us only 1/6180000 as much
+light as the sun. A sky full of moons would scarcely make daylight.
+
+[Page 154]
+[Illustration: Fig. 58.--View of the Moon near the Third Quarter.
+From a Photograph by Professor Henry Draper.]
+
+There are no indications of air or water on the moon. When it occults
+a star it instantly shuts off the light and as instantly reveals
+it again. An atmosphere would gradually diminish and reveal the
+light, and by refraction [Page 155] cause the star to be hidden 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 substance.
+
+_Telescopic Appearance._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Illumination of Craters and Peaks.]
+
+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 gravitation 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 cavities three miles deep
+remain unfilled. The light of the sun falling on the rough body
+of the moon, shown in section (Fig. 59), illuminates the whole
+cavity at _a_, part of the one at _b_, 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 _c_. comes directly under
+the sun and casts no shadow, and mountain _d_ casts its long shadow
+over the plain. Knowing the time of revolution, and observing the
+change of [Page 156] illumination, we can easily measure the height
+of mountain and depth of crater. An apple, with excavations and
+added prominences, revolved on its axis toward the 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 crescent forms to the right, showing cavities
+in abundance.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Lunar Crater "Copernicus," after Secchi.]
+
+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,
+[Page 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 discoveries 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 1/81 of the mass of the earth, has
+twenty-eight mountains that are higher than Mont Blanc, that "monarch
+of mountains," in Europe.
+
+_Eclipses._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Eclipses; Shadows of Earth and Moon.]
+
+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 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 [Page 158] not
+cross the disk of the sun at every revolution, because 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 deg. 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 orbit were pulled
+up one-quarter of an inch from the page behind the earth, and
+depressed as much below it between the earth and the sun. The point
+where the orbit 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 partially hide the sun; and, if it cover
+the centre, leave a ring of sunlight on every side. This is called
+an annular 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 position after the earth has made
+about eighteen revolutions, [Page 159] and the moon two hundred and
+sixteen--that is, eighteen years after. This period, however, is
+disregarded 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 or war; Its sign [Symbol], spear and shield.
+
+MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 141,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 4211 MILES.
+REVOLUTION, AXIAL, 24H. 37M. 22.7S.; ORBITAL, 686.98 DAYS. VELOCITY
+PER MINUTE, 899 MILES. SATELLITES, TWO.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 62.--Apparent Size of Mars at Mean and Extreme
+Distances.]
+
+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 exceedingly variable; sometimes
+it scintillates, and sometimes it shines with a steady light. Its
+marked peculiarities 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 154,000,000;
+hence its mean distance is about 141,000,000. So great a change
+in its distance from the sun easily 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 conjunction within 49,000,000
+miles of each other, and at opposition be 233,000,000 miles apart.
+But Mars at perihelion may be only 128,000,000 miles from the sun,
+and earth at [Page 160] 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). 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 planet. The first thing that
+strikes the observer is a dazzling spot of white near the pole which
+happens to be toward him, or at both poles when the planet is so
+situated that they can be seen. When the north pole is turned toward
+the sun the size of the spot sensibly diminishes, 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 [Page 161] than those of the north pole
+in its summer. This carrying 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 unknown. 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. Perhaps 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 11th, 1877, is famous in modern astronomy.
+Mars has been a special object of study in all ages; but on that
+evening Professor Hall, of Washington, 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 calculated 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 soon emerged which proved
+to be an inner satellite. This is extraordinarily near [Page 162]
+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 surpassing 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 12,579 miles from Mars,
+and makes its revolution in 30h. 18m. Its diameter is six and a
+quarter miles; that of the inner one is seven and a half miles. This
+can be estimated only by the amount of light given.
+
+
+ASTEROIDS.
+
+ALREADY DISCOVERED (1879), 192. 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 commence work, Piazzi, an Italian astronomer of Palermo, [Page
+163] found in Taurus a star behaving like a planet. In six weeks it
+was lost in the rays 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. Olbers
+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.
+
+[Page 164]
+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 astronomical observation.
+
+
+JUPITER.
+
+The king of the gods; sign [Symbol], the bird of Jove.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, PERIHELION, 457,000,000 MILES; APHELION,
+503,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, EQUATORIAL, 87,500 MILES; POLAR, 82,500
+MILES. VOLUME, 1300 EARTHS. MASS, 213 EARTHS. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 9H.
+55M 20S. ORBITAL REVOLUTION, 11 YEARS 317 DAYS. VELOCITY, 483.6
+MILES PER MINUTE.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 63.--Jupiter as seen by the great Washington
+Telescope. Drawn by Mr. Holden.]
+
+Jupiter rightly wears the name of the "giant planet." His orbit
+is more nearly circular than most smaller planets. He could not
+turn short corners with facility. We know little of his surface.
+His spots and belts are [Page 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 tempests are probably not violent. It is,
+however, a singular 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 everyone 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. Galileo 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
+representation of their appearance at successive observations 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, [Page 166] be occulted, emerge from shadow,
+and eclipse the planet, in an hour's watching.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 64.--_a._ Various Positions of Jupiter's Moons;
+_b._ Greatest Elongation of each Satellite.]
+
+                ELEMENTS OF JUPITER'S SATELLITES.
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |               | Mean Distance |                  |          |
+ |               | from Jupiter. | Sidereal Period. | Diameter.|
+ |               |---------------+------------------+----------|
+ |               |     Miles.    |  Days Hrs. Min.  |  Miles.  |
+ |   I. Io       |     260,000   |    1   18   28   |   2,352  |
+ |  II. Europa   |     414,000   |    3   13   43   |   2,099  |
+ | III. Ganymede |     661,000   |    7    3   59   |   3,436  |
+ |  IV. Callisto |   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 IV. 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 water on them. The mass of all
+of them is .000171 of Jupiter.
+
+[Page 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
+forty-five miles a minute, holding four other worlds in steady
+orbits, some of them at a speed of seven hundred miles a minute,
+and the whole system carried through space at five hundred 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 or time; sign [Symbol], his scythe.
+
+MEAN DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 881,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR,
+66,500 MILES; EQUATORIAL, 73,300 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 10H.
+14M. PERIODIC TIME, 29T 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 are set; it has exercised its
+ingenuity at interpreting 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 65.--View of Saturn and his Rings.]
+
+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 [Page 168] 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 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 getting
+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 10h. 16m., that of Mr. Hall being
+10h. 14m.
+
+[Page 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 formative 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 problem 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 peculiar 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 handles 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, [Page 170]
+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 another 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. Enceladus, 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 furnishes 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 discovery,
+when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge, and Dawes, with
+his 6-1/3-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 needed, 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."[*]
+
+[Footnote *: Lockyer.]
+
+Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. As the earth at
+one part of its orbit presents its south pole [Page 171] to the sun,
+then its equator, then the north pole, so Saturn; and we, in the
+direction of the sun, see the south side of the rings inclined at an
+angle of 27 deg.; 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 being in Taurus, the south
+side of the rings will be seen at the greatest advantage. From 1881
+till 1885 all circumstances 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 division, 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
+telescopic 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. [Page 172]
+Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be uniform and
+solid, and survive. Professor Peirce showed 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. Indeed, 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, father 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 III., only
+by the most powerful instrument. All except Japetus revolve nearly
+in the plane of the ring. Like the moons of Jupiter, they present
+remarkable and unaccountable variations of brilliancy. An inspection
+[Page 173] of the table reveals either an expectation that another
+moon will be discovered between V. and VI., and about three more
+between VII. and VIII., 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 enable him
+to watch the advancing line of light that marks the lunar morning
+journeying round that orb.
+
+
+URANUS.
+
+Sign [Symbol]; the initial of Herschel, and sign of the world.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 1,771,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 31,700 MILES.
+AXIAL REVOLUTION UNKNOWN. ORBITAL, 84 YEARS. VELOCITY 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
+[Page 174] 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 century before--and eight times by
+Le Monnier. These names, which might easily have been associated
+with a grand discovery, are associated with careless observation.
+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 difficulty 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 deg., the moon, still continuing 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 deg.;
+but its revolution would now be from east to west, or [Page 175]
+retrograde. The plane of the moons of Uranus has been thus inclined
+till it has passed 10 deg. 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 [Symbol], his trident.
+
+DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 2,775,000,000 MILES. DIAMETER, 34,500 MILES.
+VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 201.6 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION 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 observations. On applying the law of universal
+gravitation, a slight discrepancy was found between its computed
+place and its observed place. This discrepancy was exceedingly
+slight. In 1830 it was only 20"; in 1840,190"; in 1884, 2'. Two
+stars that were 2' apart would appear as one to the keenest unaided
+eye, but such 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 irregularities, 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. Another
+opportunity for immortality was heedlessly neglected. Meanwhile,
+M. Leverrier, of Paris, was working at the same problem. In the
+summer of 1846 Leverrier announced the place of the exterior planet.
+The conclusion was in striking coincidence with that of Mr. [Page
+176] Clark. 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
+sought-for world. It would seem easy to find a world seventy-six
+times as large as the earth, and easy to recognize it when seen. The
+fact that it could be discovered only by such care conveys an
+overwhelming idea of the distance where it moves.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 66.--Perturbation of Uranus.]
+
+The effect of these perturbations by an exterior planet is understood
+from Fig. 66. Uranus and Neptune were 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 hastening Uranus in his orbit D
+from C to B, and also 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 little, and that the observations did not agree;
+but, supposing the first was wrong, carelessly missed the glory
+of once more doubling the bounds of the empire of the sun.
+
+[Page 177]
+It is time to pause and review our knowledge of this system. The
+first view reveals a moon and earth endowed 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 tendency
+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-four 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 gravity, 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,
+Venus, 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 13,000 earths. It holds Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and
+all their variously related satellites and rings. The two thoughts
+that overwhelm us are distance and power. The period of [Page 178]
+man's whole history is not sufficient for an express train to
+traverse half the distance to Neptune. Thought wearies 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 outermost of
+planets, the very last sentinel of the outposts of the king, the
+very sun grown dim and small in the distance, we have taken only one
+step of the infinite distance to the stars. They have not changed
+their relative position--they have not grown brighter by our
+approach. 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 almightiness than we are able to
+think.
+
+If we cannot solve the problems of the present existence 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 difficulty 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 179]
+IX.
+
+THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
+
+"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
+the face of the deep."--_Genesis_ i. 2.
+
+[Page 180]
+                                "A dark
+    Illimitable ocean, without bound,
+    Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
+    And time, and place are lost."--MILTON.
+
+"It is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and
+arranged; 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 181]
+IX.
+
+_THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS._
+
+The method by which the solar system came into its present form
+was sketched in vast outline by Moses. He gave us the fundamental
+idea of what is called the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that
+prodigal dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conjectures 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, declaring
+the modes of a divine worker rather than the necessities 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 [Page 182] 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 observer. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system of the
+sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and
+dominion of an intelligent and powerful being!" Still it is well to
+recognize that some of its most ardent defenders have advocated it
+as materialistic. 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 Divine Worker than any other theory. He must fill
+matter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would
+tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a constant
+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 endow 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 matter composing
+all the bodies of the sun, planets, and satellites once existed
+in an exceedingly diffused state; [Page 183] rarer than any gas with
+which we are acquainted, filling a space larger than the orbit of
+Neptune. 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. Rotation 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 gradually 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 Neptune 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 planet-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 Vulcan.
+
+The outer planets would cool off first, become inhabitable, 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 Vulcan.
+
+The four great classes of facts confirmatory of this hypothesis
+are as follows: 1st. All the planets move [Page 184] 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 nebulae are observable in the heavens
+which are not yet condensed 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 related, 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 indefinite, 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 evolutionist may think that the same
+process is gone through, but that an ever-present and working God
+superintends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endowment
+of power that successively gives life, consciousness, mental,
+affectional, and spiritual capacity.
+
+Is this world-theory true? and if so, is either of the [Page 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 acceptance 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 Newcomb,
+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 actually 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. Helmholtz, in order to account for the heat of the
+contracting 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 [Page 186] 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 Neptune,
+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
+existence of which must be assumed." Professor Newcomb 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 satellite does
+not revolve in the right direction. How Neptune 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 discovered 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 [Page 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 rotate on their axes than for their nearest
+moon to revolve round them in its orbit; this would have falsified
+the theory." It is also asserted that the newly discovered 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
+argument 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 Groombridge, 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 altogether confirmatory
+of the hypothesis under consideration. 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 Review_, [Page 188]
+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 density, 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 question of world-making. Its
+spectrum was like some of the fixed stars. It probably blazed ont
+by condensation from some previously invisible nebula. But its
+brilliancy 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 possible 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 explained, 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, Newcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that
+cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be reconciled 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.
+
+[Page 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 evolution 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 been 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 occasional new
+inspiration of power, finds some tremendous chasms in the road
+it travels. These must be spanned by the power of a present God
+or the airy imagination [Page 190] of man. Dr. McCosh 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 mechanical power.
+
+"2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be produced from unorganized
+matter.
+
+"3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living matter.
+
+"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 entertain these by any training.
+
+[Page 191]
+"With such tremendous gaps in the process, the theory which would
+derive all things out of matter by development 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 conceivable to
+the mind of man, with which it can possibly be endowed, can account
+for all the facts already observed. 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 193]
+X.
+
+THE STELLAR SYSTEM.
+
+"The heavens number out the glory of the strong God."--DAVID.
+
+[Page 194]
+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 infinity, 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 appeared,
+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 transformed, 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
+ont: '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 eternities, 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 beginning.'"
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 allusions 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 colonized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; and
+nightly over them marched the grand procession of their apotheosized
+divinities. There Hercules perpetually 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 explored all strange seas
+of earth, nightly sailed in the infinite 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 [Page 196]
+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
+situated right ascension 13' 45", declination 88 deg. 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 deg. 40', longitude 79 deg. 22', but
+it would be clearer to most persons to say Chatauqua. For exact
+location of a star, right ascension and declination must be given;
+but for general indication 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 preserved.
+The brightest stars are then indicated in order by the letters of
+the Greek alphabet--Alpha (a), Beta (b), Gamma (g), etc. After
+these are exhausted, the Roman alphabet is used in the same manner,
+and then numbers are resorted to; so that the famous star 61 Cygni
+is the 111th star in brightness in that one constellation. An
+acquaintance with the names, peculiarities, and movements of the
+stars visible at different seasons of the year is an unceasing
+source of pleasure. It [Page 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 uttereth unto day, and
+the knowledge 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 successive 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 attempted;
+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 horizon
+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 ae, Mizar z, Little Alcor close to it,
+[Page 198] Alioth, e Megrez, d at the junction, has been growing
+dimmer for a century, Phad, g Dubhe and Merak. It is best to get
+some facility at estimating distances in degrees. Dubhe and Merak,
+"the Pointers," are five degrees 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. Follow "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
+degrees 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 Hercules stands on this head. This
+is the Dragon slain by Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such a crop
+of sanguinary 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 deg. of Vega; 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 [Page 199] of stars, but a change in the
+direction of the axis of the earth pointing to these various places
+as the cycles 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 discernible 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 stem of the spinning top wavers, describes a circle, and
+finally falls; the axis of the spinning earth wavers, describes a
+circle of nearly 28,000 years, and never falls.
+
+The star g 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 displacement of a star from this course is about 20".43.
+
+[Page 200]
+On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is King Cepheus,
+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 graceless 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 Medusa, 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.
+Nothing 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 invisible at will; Minerva loaned
+her buckler, impenetrable, 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible.
+In this position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at
+9 o'clock; and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]
+
+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 every
+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 [Page 201] 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.
+
+[Page 202]
+[Illustration: Fig. 68.--Algol is on the Meridian, 51 deg. 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 November, 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. b and the
+two above mark the girdle of her loins, and g 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 V-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.
+
+[Page 203]
+[Illustration: Fig. 69.--Capella (45 deg. from the Pole) and Rigel
+(100 deg.) 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 deg. 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, g, represents his shield of the
+Nemean lion's hide. The three stars of his belt make a measure
+3 deg. long; the upper one, Mintaker, is less than 30' south of the
+equinoctial. 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 August. Procyon rises about half an
+hour earlier.
+
+[Page 204]
+[Illustration: Fig. 70--Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79 deg. south
+from the Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and
+at 8 o'clock April 23d.]
+
+Fig. 70 continues eastward. Note the sickle in the head and neck
+of the Lion. The star b 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 deg. on a side. The geometric head of
+Hydra is easily discernible east of Procyon: The star g in the
+Virgin is double, with a period of 145 years. z is just above the
+equinoctial. There is a fine nebula two-thirds of the way from d to
+ae, and a little above the line connecting the two. Coma Berenices
+is a beautiful 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.
+
+[Page 205]
+[Illustration: Fig. 7l.--Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70 deg. from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8
+o'clock June 25th.]
+
+Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and northward of the
+last. A line drawn from Polaris and Benetnasch comes east of Arcturus
+to the little triangle called his sons. Bootes drives the Great
+Bear round the pole. Arcturus and Denebola make a triangle with
+a, also called Cor Coroli, 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, b, g, d; in his shoulders, p; and ae; in the loins, t 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 g of Hercules, and
+the partial circle of the Northern Crown above. The head of Draco
+is seen at b 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;
+Regulus 3h. 35m. Earlier.
+
+[Page 206]
+[Illustration: Fig. 72.--Altair comes to the Meridian, 82 deg. from
+the Pole, at 10 o'clock P.M. August 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. Vega is at the top of the map. Near
+it observe z, a double, and e, a quadruple star. The point to which
+the solar system is tending is marked by the sign of the earth
+below p; Herculis. The Serpent, west of Hercules, and coiled round
+nearly to Aquila, is very traceable. In the right-hand lower corner
+is the Centaur. Below, and always out of our sight, is the famous
+a Centauri. The diamond form of the Dolphin is sometimes called
+"Job's Coffin." The ecliptic passes close [Page 207] to b 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 73.--Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17 deg.
+from the horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.]
+
+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. b 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 Alpharetz,
+in Andromeda. The star below Altair is b Aquilae, and is called
+Alschain; the one above is g Aquilae, named Tarazed. This 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 11th of January.
+
+[Page 208]
+[Illustration: Fig. 74.--Southern Circumpolar Constellations invisible
+north of the Equator.]
+
+Fig. 74 gives the stars that are never seen by persons north of
+the earth's equator. In the Ship is brilliant Canopus, and the
+remarkable variable ae. Below it is the beautiful Southern Cross,
+near the pole of the southern heavens. Just below are the two first
+magnitude stars Bungala, a, and Achernar, b, 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 reveals no sign of light. Here, also, are the
+two Magellanic 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.
+
+[Page 209]
+For easy out-door finding of the stars above the horizon 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 anciently 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 little lights were turned by
+clumsy machinery, held together 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
+monsters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and unity; all
+worlds carried by one force, and all harmonized 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.
+
+[Page 210]
+_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 tastimetre
+feels their heat, and tells us the word of their Maker is true--"they
+are innumerable."[*]
+
+[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Look at the Hyades and Pleiades
+in Taurus. Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find
+the cluster Praesepe 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 observe the distribution of stars; in some places
+perfect crowds, in others 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._
+
+If we look up during the summer months nearly overhead at the star
+e Lyra, east of Vega (Fig. 72), we shall see with the naked eye
+that the star appears a little [Page 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
+direction 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 x in the Great Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in
+fifty-eight years.
+
+Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the presence 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 [Page 212] 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 telescope to show
+any distance between the stars.[*]
+
+[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Only such work will be laid out
+here as can be done by small telescopes of from two to four inch
+object-glasses. The numbers in Fig. 75 correspond to those of the
+table.
+
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+|   |            |             |Dist. of|Magni-|                     |
+|No.|     Name.  |     Fig.    | Parts. |tudes.|       Remarks.      |
+|---|------------|-------------|--------|------|---------------------|
+| 1.| e Lyrae     |      72     | 1' 56" |      |Quadruple.           |
+| 2.| z Lyrae     |      72     |    44  |5 & 6 |Topaz and green.     |
+| 3.| b Cygni    |      73     |  34-1/2|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     |  18-1/2|2 & 9 |Test object of eye   |
+|   |            |             |        |      | and glass.          |
+| 7.| r Orionis  |Frontispiece.|     7  |5 & 8 |Yellow and blue.     |
+| 8.| b Orionis  |      "      |     9  |1 & 8 | Rigel.              |
+| 9.| d    "     |      "      |    10  |2 & 8 | Red and white.      |
+|10.| th   "     |      "      |        |      |Septuple.            |
+|11.| l    "     |      "      |     5  |      |White and violet.    |
+|12.| s    "     |      " A, B.|    11  |4 & 10|Octuple.             |
+|13.| Castor     |      69     |   5-1/2|2 & 3 |White.               |
+|14.| Pollux     |      69     |        |Triple|Orange, gray, lilac. |
+|15.| g Virginis |      70     |     5  |3 & 3 |Both yellow.         |
+ --------------------------------------------------------------------
+]
+
+When g Virginis was observed in 1718 by Bradley, the component
+parts were 7" asunder. He incidentally remarked in his note-book
+that the line of their connection was parallel to the line of the
+two stars Spica, or a and d Virginis. By 1840 they were not more
+than 1" 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 conjectural [Page 213] orbit, placed obliquely, and the
+position of the stars at the times mentioned, commencing at the top.
+The time of its complete revolution is one hundred and fifty years.
+
+[Illustration: 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 planets, as doubtless they have, the movement
+is no more complicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn
+revolving about their central body, 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 Neptunes 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,
+[Page 214]
+according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the octuple star
+s in Orion differs in no respect from our system, except in the
+size and distance of its separate bodies, 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
+preposterous 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,
+and an infinite number in the course of preparation. Some are fine
+and lasting enough to be eternal mansions.
+
+_Colored Stars._
+
+In the cloudy 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, Vega, 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 special development of anyone substance thereof
+at any time, may determine the color of a star.
+
+[Page 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 intensity 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 Sirius 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. Everyone has
+noticed the Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of compacted
+stars. It is not supposed that they are necessarily nearer together
+than the stars in the sparse regions about the pole. But the 18,000,000
+suns belonging to our system are arranged within a space represented
+by a flattened disk. If one hundred lights, three inches apart,
+are arranged on a hoop ten feet in diameter, they would be in a
+circle. Add a thousand or two more the same distance apart, filling
+up the centre, and [Page 216] 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 arrangement was the result of a revolution of
+all the suns composing the system. Jupiter and earth are flattened
+at the poles for the same reason.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 76.--Sprayed Cluster below ae in Hercules.]
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 77.--Globular Cluster.]
+
+In various parts of the heavens there are small globular well-defined
+clusters, 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 cluster,
+o 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, affects
+it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth
+[Page 217]
+magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imagined."
+
+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 way 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.
+
+_Nebulae._
+
+The gorgeous clusters we have been considering appear 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 spectroscope,
+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 visible 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 th Orionis into the
+famous trapezium, and a nine-inch instrument 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, lenticular, [Page 218] conical,
+spiral, snake-like, looped, and nameless. Compare the sprays of the
+Crab nebulae above z Tauri, 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 b and g Lyrae.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 78.--The great Nebula about the multiple Star
+th Orionis. (See Frontispiece.)]
+
+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 deg. wide, with the
+Milky Way in the centre, would include one-fourth of the celestial
+sphere; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine-tenths
+[Page 219]
+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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 79.--Crab Nebula, near z Tauri. (See Frontispiece.)]
+
+There are many unsolved problems connected with these strange bodies.
+Whether they belong to our system, or are beyond it, is not settled;
+the weight of evidence leans to the first view.
+
+[Page 220]
+_Variable Stars._
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 80.--The Ring Nebula.]
+
+Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing through a period
+of eleven years. Probably every star, if examined by methods
+sufficiently delicate and exact, would be found to be variable.
+The variations of some [Page 221] stars are so marked as to
+challenge investigation. b Lyrae (Fig. 81) has two maxima and minima
+of light. In three days it rises from magnitude 4-1/2 to 3-1/2; in a
+week falls to 4, and rises to 3-1/2; and in three days more drops to
+4-1/2: 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 81.--Constellation Lyra, showing place of the
+Ring Nebula.]
+
+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
+lost to sight; going down even to the eleventh magnitude. But after
+five months its resurrection morning mes; and in three months
+more--eleven months in all--our Wonderful is in its full glory
+in the heavens. It its period and brilliancy are also variable.
+The star Megrez, d in the Great Bear, has been growing dim [Page
+222] 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, shutting off their light; they may rotate, and have
+unequally 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 [Page 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, up and down, to and
+from us--changes in the intensity of illumination by changes of
+distance--besides variations occurring at regular and ascertainable
+intervals, there are stars called _temporary_, shining awhile and
+then disappearing; _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 Cassiopeia. Its place
+is shown in Fig. 67, ch g being the stars
+
+  d    *
+   g ch
+
+in the seat of the chair, and d being the first one 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 opportunities [Page 224]
+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 plenty 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
+[Page 225] degree in a month? Besides, there would not be one chance
+in a thousand for two orbs to come directly together. They would
+revolve about each other till a kind of grazing contact of grinding
+worlds would slowly kindle the ultimate heat.
+
+It is far more likely that this star encountered an enormous stream
+of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorbed 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.
+Allusion 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, following 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 hemisphere 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 resemble 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 extraordinary
+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 [Page 226] of the other having faded, the regular light of
+the glowing 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 rainbow 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 undiscernible light, surrounded
+by a discernible immensity 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 November, 1876. But a rapid
+cooling dissipates the observable 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 necessary 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 diameter, 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. Hercules's brawny limbs grow brawnier
+every century. There can be but one cause: we are approaching that
+quarter of the heavens. (See [Symbol], Fig. 72.) We are even [Page
+227] able to compute the velocity of our approach; it is four miles
+a second. The stars in the opposite quarter of the heavens in Argo
+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 apparent 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 observe them that it has taken
+an accumulation of centuries 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 Hunting 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 evidently related together.
+A large proportion of the brighter stars between Aldebaran and
+the Pleiades have a common motion eastward of about ten seconds
+a century. All the angles marked by a, b, g, ch Orionis will be
+altered in different directions; l is moving toward g. l and e
+will appear as a double star. In A.D. 50,000 Procyon will be nearer
+ch Orionis than Rigel now is, and Sirius will be in line with a and
+ch Orionis. All the stars of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch
+and Dubhe, have a common motion somewhat in the direction [Page 228]
+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, and the handle will be broken square
+off at Mizar. "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 understand 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 loan, 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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 229]
+XI.
+
+THE WORLDS AND THE WORD.
+
+"The worlds were framed by the word of God."--_Heb._ xi., 3.
+
+[Page 230]
+  "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 dew,
+  Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
+  Hesperus, with all the host of heaven, came,
+  And lo! creation widened in man's view.
+  Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
+  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.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 231]
+XI.
+
+_THE WORLDS AND THE WORD._
+
+Men have found the various worlds to be far richer 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
+increasing 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 inexhaustible?
+
+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 crystal 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! Nay, 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 widening river of life in his Word? As we
+believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has
+[Page 232] 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 scientific truth far in advance
+of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand
+its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations:
+
+The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things
+had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in
+the realms of physics, arguments 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, coaled,
+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.
+
+[Page 233]
+It is a recently discovered truth of science that the trata 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 prepared 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 recognize 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 waters; 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 century, of himself, "He sitteth upon
+the sphere of the earth" (Gesenius).
+
+Men racked their feeble wits for expedients to uphold [Page 234] the
+earth, and the best they could devise were serpents, 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. Hipparchus 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." Science has appliances
+of enumeration unknown to other ages, but the space-penetrating
+telescopes and tastimeters reveal more worlds--eighteen millions
+in a single system, and systems beyond count--till men acknowledge
+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 received with
+incredulity. For ages the air had propelled ships, thrust itself
+against the bodies of men, and overturned 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 fluctuations and
+variations of the weather have hitherto baffled all attempts at
+unravelling them. It has seemed that there was no law in their
+fickle changes. But at length perseverance and skill have triumphed,
+and a single man in one place predicts the weather and winds [Page
+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 according 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.
+Copernicus declared it early; God earlier.
+
+No 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 had 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_ [Page 236] 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 planets, 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 em bodied 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 human 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 [Page 237] answer. We
+trace it up through the worlds, till its increasing fineness, its
+growing power, and possible identity 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 piercing 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 measurably subservient to
+mind. Hence we partly understand 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 mastered. 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 Scriptures, "God
+is spirit."
+
+We ask in vain what is the end of the present condition 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 with [Page 238] a rushing noise, and the elements will be
+dissolved with burning heat, and the earth and the works therein
+will be burned up." 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 substance, its ultimate fall into the sun is
+certain. Whether 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. Peters description,
+however, seems rather to indicate an interference 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 experiment, of trial, of examining the
+actual, instead of imagining 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 favorable circumstances, there
+must be faith. The faith of [Page 239] science is amazing; its
+assertions of the supersensual are astounding. It affirms a thousand
+things that cannot be physically demonstrated: that the flight of a
+rifle-ball is parabolic; that the earth has poles; that gages are
+made of particles; that there are atoms; that an electric 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 activities are about us, for the perception of which we
+need a hundred senses instead of five. These faiths have nearly 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 lay her bow and arrows by,
+  And aim 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 contracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all
+encircling space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars invisible
+by the largest telescope enters the tastimeter, 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 [Page 240] 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 building 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 refinement; 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 astrapton (Luke xxiv.
+4), shining with an inner light. They also look for new heavens and
+a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit for perfect beings.
+
+When God made matter, so far as our thought permits 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 restore 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. [Page
+241] 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 glides
+  Into his darker musings with a mild
+  And gentle sympathy, that steals away
+  Their sharpness ere he 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 catastrophic changes to a perfect
+world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass.
+He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable,
+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 imagine, 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 [Page 242] should there not be a
+finer universe than this, and disconnected 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
+discovery that what men once thought to be empty space is more
+intensely active than the coarser forms of matter 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. What
+a whisper 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 creatures. Neither is it
+possible to imagine an order of beings generically higher to be
+connected with the conditions of the material world. This whole
+secret was 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 man 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. [Page 243] 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 darkness 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, Scripture 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, gentleness, 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 already. One confined, dark, peculiarly
+nourished, slightly conscious; then he was born into another--wide,
+differently nourished, and intensely [Page 244] conscious. He knows
+he may be born again into a life wider yet, differently nourished,
+and even yet more intensely conscious. Science has no hint how a
+long ascending series of developments crowned by man may advance
+another step, and make man isaggelos--equal to angels. But the
+simplest teaching of Scripture points out a way so clear that a
+child need not miss the glorious 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, when 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 attracting 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 tortured, 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
+bodies 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 absorbed [Page 245] 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 power 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 departments, 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 teacher
+who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 247]
+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 things
+became by him, and without him was not anything made that was made
+* * * and by him all things stand together."
+
+[Page 248]
+ "O thou eternal one; whose presence blight
+  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."
+                                     DERZHAVIN.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 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 beauty; 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 two hundred and forty pounds to the
+cubic foot, one hundred 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
+hundreds of miles before it could be there. You have heard Niagara's
+thunder; have stood beneath the falling immensity; 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
+[Page 250] water had to be lifted by main force, had 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 thundering 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,
+and held it day and night for months. It toiled and grew under the
+growing weight, compacting its substance like oak to do the work.
+All over the earth this tremendous 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 in 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 [Page 251] flame seethes and
+burns, and rolls and vivifies a dozen worlds, and flashes life along
+the starry spaces for a million 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 instead of one--everyone would be as fully
+supplied with power from this central source. More. Fill the whole
+dome, the entire extent of the surrounding sphere, bottom, sides,
+top, a sphere one hundred and eighty-five million miles in diameter,
+and everyone of these uncountable worlds would be touched with the
+same power 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 alphabet 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
+alphabet of power. What is the significance of this single element
+of power? The answer of science to-day is "correlation," the
+constant evolution of one force from another. 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 [Page
+252] 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, concretionary vortices, and revolving
+fire-mist--there must always be mind and will beyond. Some of that
+willpower 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 thunderous 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 ceaseless changes, and its maker is henceforth
+an absentee God. Is it? Let us have courage to see. For twenty
+years one devotes ten seconds every night to putting 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
+[Page 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 connection, is inconceivable.
+
+Newton said that anyone who has in philosophical matters a competent
+faculty of thinking, could not admit for a moment the possibility
+of a sun reaching through millions of miles, and exercising there
+an attractive 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 Herschel's statement. "It is but reasonable to regard gravity
+as a result of a consciousness 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 upholdeth constantly
+all things by the word of his power. [Page 254] By him all things
+consist or hold together. It teaches 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
+deteriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boiler, 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 receive it, and takes it swift as light can leap. We
+said that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in five
+thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million. How can it?
+There have been various theories: chemical 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
+unclouded 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 follow: 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
+gravity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attractive
+power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing; in [Page 255] a few
+places at worlds. Every world must exert an infinitely extended
+power, but myriads of infinities cannot 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 consideration 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 inside of an
+inch. But we are here looking at mountain ridges and valleys, not
+atoms. Gold can be beaten to the 1/340000 of an inch. It can be
+drawn as the coating of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the
+1/340000000 of an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon
+another.
+
+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 sweep
+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 diminished. [Page 256] 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 materialists preposterously endow it. It is impenetrable
+and indivisible, though some atoms are a hundred times larger than
+others. Each has definite shape; some one shape, and some another.
+They differ in weight, in quantity of combining power, in quality
+of combining power. They combine with different substances, in
+certain exact assignable quantities. Thus one atom of hydrogen
+combines with eighty of bromine, one hundred and sixty of mercury,
+two hundred and forty of boron, three hundred and twenty of silicon,
+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, sewers 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, dryad,
+univalent, perissad, quadrivalent, and twenty other terms, each
+expressing some endowment of power in this in visible atom. Refer
+to one more presumed ability, an ability [Page 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 greatly increasing its bulk, some actually
+diminishing it. A philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen
+and hydrogen 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 four hundred millions of
+light-waves a second. And now, more preposterous than all, each
+atom has an attractive 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 Concord 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 conscious, 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 water,
+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 [Page 258] 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 apparent and at work. If, then, such a
+thing as an infinite 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 perhaps
+knowledge, set aside a little from himself, still possessed somewhat
+of his personal attributes, still responsive 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 nothing out of which the
+world could be made, but God himself; and, reverently be it said,
+matter seems to retain 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 impossible 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 understand 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 Romans he says--"For out of
+him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory
+forever. Amen."
+
+[Page 259]
+God's intimate relation to matter is explained. No wonder the forces
+respond to his will; no wonder pantheism--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
+migrating 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 solitudes, and say:
+
+                       "Father, thy hand
+  Hath reared these venerable columns: Thou
+  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.
+
+[Page 260]
+Philosophy has seen the vast machine of the universe, wheel within
+wheel, in countless numbers and hopeless intricacy. But it has
+not had the spiritual insight of Ezekiel to see that they were
+everyone of them full of eyes--God's own emblem of the omniscient
+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 fragments 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 instruments. The rootlets seize the sand and turn
+it to soil, to woody fibre, leafy verdure, blooming flowers, and
+delicious 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 strengthless and dead, there is,
+somehow, in nature a tremendous 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 dismal silence, cold beyond measure, and dead beyond
+consciousness. The philosopher has wailed a dirge without [Page 261]
+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 unexpendable forces must abide. Nature filled with
+unexpendable 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 powers are constitutionally arranged
+to be overcome; higher 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 gravitation. 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 rain bows 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
+[Page 262] to comprehend. The water is solid, liquid, gaseous on
+earth, and in air according to the grade of power operating 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 discovery or creation, there are still higher class forces to
+be made available. Once there was no air, no usable electricity.
+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 man could not read
+in ten years the library of books created in that time concerning
+the sun. But though we have solved certain problems and mysteries,
+the mysteries have increased 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
+[Page 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 becoming flesh, and of all
+high forces constitutionally arranged for mastery over lower. Take
+the ore from the mountain. It is loose, friable, worthless in
+itself. Raise it in capacity to cast-iron, 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 human 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 immanent God makes a plastic world.
+
+When man shall have mastered the forces that now exist, the original
+Creator and Sustainer will say, "Behold, I create all things new."
+Nature shall be called nearer to God, be more full of his power.
+To the long-wandering AEneas, his divine mother sometimes came to
+cheer his heart and to direct his steps. But the goddess only showed
+herself divine by her departure; only when he stood in desolation
+did the hero know he had [Page 264] 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 refinement 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
+refinement 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 conversation and
+godliness, looking for and hastening the coming [Page 265] of the
+day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
+and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we,
+according to his promise, 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 prostrate provinces till Victor Emanuel came,
+then they were developed into united Italy. The prostrate provinces
+of matter are not developed until the man is victor, 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 transformation 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 elements and builds the body,
+holds them separate until life withdraws. More life means higher
+being. Certainly 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 blazing eye--live lion--and pawing to get
+free. We have seen winged spirits yet linked to forms of clay,
+but beating 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
+lias already been made. Man has already outgrown his harmony with
+the environment of mere matter. He has given his hand to science, and
+been lifted up above the earth into the voids of infinite space. He
+[Page 266] has gone on and on, till thought, wearied amidst the
+infinities 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 materiel 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 feeling: every creature--not
+the whole creation--groaneth and travaileth in pain together until
+now, waiting for the adoption--the uplifting from orphanage to
+parentage--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 become 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 knowledge converge
+as they go out toward the infinite mystery; 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.
+
+Then 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 [Page 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 began, 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, perfection of abode is
+offered. Perfection of inhabitant is necessary; and as the creative
+power is everywhere present for the various uplifts and refinements
+of matter, it is everywhere present with appropriate power for
+the uplifting and refinement of mind and spirit.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 269]
+SUMMARY OF LATEST DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+_Movements on the Sun._--The discovery and measurement of the up-rush,
+down-rush, and whirl of currents about the sunspots, 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 following
+table shows this movement of stars, so far as at present known:
+
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+|        APROACHING.           ||          RECEDING.            |
+|------------------------------||-------------------------------|
+|  Map. |   Name.   |   Rate   ||  Map.  |   Name.   |  Rate    |
+|       |           | per sec. ||        |           | per sec. |
+|-------|-----------|----------||--------|-----------|----------|
+|Fig. 71|Arcturus   | 55 miles ||Fig. 69 |Sirius     | 20 miles |
+| "   72|Vega       | 50   "   ||Fr'piece|Betelguese | 22   "   |
+| "   73|a Cygni    | 39   "   ||    "   |Rigel      | 15   "   |
+| "   69|Pollux     | 49   "   ||Fig. 69 |Castor     | 25   "   |
+| "   67|Dubhe      | 46   "   || "   70 |Regulus    | 15   "   |
+ ---------------------------------------------------------------
+
+_Sun's Appearance._--This was formerly supposed to be an even,
+regular, dazzling brightness, except where the spots appeared.
+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 innumerable number of small spots. This
+appearance of the general surface is well portrayed in the cut
+on page 92.
+
+_Close Relation between 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 [Page 270] 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 "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 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 perfect determination of the sun's distance.
+
+Since the earth's distance is our astronomical unit of measure, 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 discovery
+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, [Page 271] 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, antimony, 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 nebulae 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._--Vulcan, the planet nearest the sun
+(page 138). The two satellites of Mars were discovered by Mr. Hall,
+U. S. Naval Observatory, August 11th, 1877 (page 161). "The outer
+one is called Diemas; 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.
+
+[Illustration: Fig. 82.--Horizontal Pendulum.]
+
+_The Horizontal Pendulum._--This delicate instrument is [Page 272]
+represented 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 slightest influence.
+The least change in the level of a base thirty-nine inches long that
+could be detected by a spirit-level is 0".1 of an arc--equal to
+raising one end 1/2068 of an inch. But the pendulum detects a
+raising of one end 1/36000000 of an inch. To observe the movements
+of the pendulum, 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 enormously magnified, and read and
+measured 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 either is exactly overhead or
+underfoot, of course there is no deflection. The mean deflection
+caused by the moon at rising or setting is 0".0174; by the sun,
+0".008. Great results are expected from this instrument hardly known
+as yet: among others, whether gravitation acts instantly 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.
+
+[Page 273]
+_Light of Unseen Stars._--From careful examination, it appears
+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 American 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 Newcomb'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 theories of
+these planets. * * * A few years ago the remark was frequently 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 planets shall stand the test of observation.
+But, after all, such a condition of things is only the natural
+result of long and accurate series of observations, which make
+evident the small inequalities 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 Loomis telegraphs
+twenty miles without wire, by the electric currents between mountains.
+We begin to use electricity for light, and feel after it for a
+motor. Comets and Auroras show its presence between worlds, and
+in the interstellar spaces. Let another Newton arise.
+
+[Page 274]
+               SOME ELEMENTS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
+|           |        |            |     Mean Dist.    |         |        |
+|           |        |            |     from Sun.     |         |        |
+|           |        |            |-------------------|  Mean   |Density.|
+|           |        |            | Earth's|          |Diameter |[Earth] |
+|   Name.   | Sign.  |   Masses.  |  Dist. | Millions |in Miles.|  = 1.  |
+|           |        |            |  as 1. | of Miles.|         |        |
+|-----------|--------|------------|--------|----------|---------|--------|
+| Sun       |[Symbol]|    Unity   |        |          | 860,000 | 0.255  |
+| Mercury   |[Symbol]|1/5000000(?)|  0.387 |    35-3/4|   2,992 | 1.21   |
+| Venus     |[Symbol]|  1/425000  |  0.723 |    66-3/4|   7,660 | 0.85   |
+| Earth     |[Symbol]|  1/326800  |  1.    |    92-1/3|   7,918 | 1.     |
+| Mars      |[Symbol]|  1/2950000 |  1.523 |   141    |   4,211 | 0.737  |
+| Asteroids |  (No.) |            |        |          |         |        |
+| Jupiter   |[Symbol]|   1/1047   |  5.203 |   480    |  86,000 | 0.243  |
+| Saturn    |[Symbol]|   1/3501   |  9.538 |   881    |  70,500 | 0.133  |
+| Uranus    |[Symbol]|  1/22600   | 19.183 |  1771    |  31,700 | 0.226  |
+| Neptune   |[Symbol]|  1/19380   | 30.054 |  2775    |  34,500 | 0.204  |
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ -------------------------------------------------------------
+|           |               | Gravity  |           |          |
+|           |     Axial     |    at    |           | Orbital  |
+|           |    Revolu-    | Surface. |  Periodic | Velocity |
+|   Name.   |     tion      | [Earth]  |    Time.  | in Miles |
+|           |               |   = 1    |           | per sec. |
+|-----------|---------------|----------|-----------|----------|
+| Sun       | 25 to 26d     |  27.71   |           |          |
+| Mercury   | 24h 5m(?)     |   0.46   |   87.97d  |  29.55   |
+| Venus     | 23h 21m(?)    |   0.82   |  224.70d  |  21.61   |
+| Earth     | 23h 56m 4s    |   1.     |  365.26d  |  18.38   |
+| Mars      | 24h 37m 22.7s |   0.39   |  686.98d  |  14.99   |
+| Asteroids |               |          |           |          |
+| Jupiter   |  9h 55m 20s   |   2.64   |  11.86yrs |   8.06   |
+| Saturn    |    10h 14m    |   1.18   |  29.46yrs |   5.95   |
+| Uranus    |    Unknown.   |   0.90   |  84.02yrs |   4.20   |
+| Neptune   |    Unknown.   |   0.89   | 164.78yrs |   3.36   |
+ -------------------------------------------------------------
+
+[Page 275]
+              EXPLANATION OF ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOLS.
+
+                     SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC
+
+   0. [Symbol] Aries     0 deg.  |   VI. [Symbol] Libra        180 deg.
+   I. [Symbol] Taurus   30   |  VII. [Symbol] Scorpio      210
+  II. [Symbol] Gemini   60   | VIII. [Symbol] Sagittarius  240
+ III. [Symbol] Cancer   90   |   IX. [Symbol] Capricornus  270
+  IV. [Symbol] Leo     120   |    X. [Symbol] Aquarius     300
+   V. [Symbol] Virgo   150   |   XI. [Symbol] Pisces       330
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ [Symbol]  Conjunction.      |          S.  Seconds of Time.
+ [Symbol]  Quadrature.       |            deg.  Degrees.
+ [Symbol]  Opposition.       |           '  Minutes of Arc.
+ [Symbol]  Ascending Node.   |           "  Seconds of Arc.
+ [Symbol]  Descending Node.  |       R. A.  Right Ascension.
+       H.  Hours.            | Decl. or D.  Declination.
+       M.  Minutes of Time.  |    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. [Symbols]
+Inf., inferior conjunction; Sup., superior conjunction.
+
+              GREEK ALPHABET USED INDICATING THE STARS.
+
+      a, alpha.    | ae, eta.    | n, nu.       | t, tau.
+      b, beta.     | th, theta.  | x, xi.       | u, upsilon.
+      g, gamma.    | i, iota.    | o, omicron.  | ph, phi.
+      d, delta.    | k, kappa.   | p, pi.       | ch, chi.
+      e, epsilon.  | l, lambda.  | r, rho.      | ps, psi.
+      z, zeta.     | m, mu.      | s, sigma.    | o, omega.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 276]
+CHAUTAUQUA OUTLINE FOR STUDENTS.
+
+As an aid to comprehension, every student should draw illustrative
+figures of the various circles, planes, and situations described.
+(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 or 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,
+minutes, 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 [Page 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;
+colors; number in space; telescopic view of. Aerolites: Systems
+of; how many known. Comets: Orbits; number of comets; Halley's;
+Biela's lost; Encke's. Resisting medium. Whence come comets? Composed
+of what? Amount of matter in. [Symbol].
+
+VIII. _The Planets._--How many? Uranus discovered? Neptune? Asteroids?
+Vulcan? Distance from sun. Periodic time. Mercury: Elements; shapes,
+as seen from earth; transits. Venus: Elements; seen by day; how
+near earth? how far from? phases; Galileo. Earth: Elements; in
+space; Aurora; balance of forces. Tides: Main and subsidiary 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; habitability; rings; flux; satellites. Uranus:
+Elements; discoverer; seen by; moon's motion. Neptune: Elements;
+discovered by; how? Review system.
+
+IX. _The Nebular Hypothesis._--State it; facts confirmatory.
+Objections--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 Lyrae, Sirius, Procyon, Castor,
+61 Cygni, g Virginis. Colored stars; change color. Clusters: Two
+theories. Nebulae: Two visible; composed of; shapes; where? Variable
+stars. Sun. b Lyrae, 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 Dipper, 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; [Page 278] 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. Properties
+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. Matter
+recapacitated. Refined habitations. Inhabitants. All force leads
+back to mind. Personal and infinite.
+
+
+
+
+[Page 279]
+GLOSSARY OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS AND INDEX.
+
+ABBREVIATIONS used in astronomies, 275.
+ABERRATION OF LIGHT (_a wandering away_), an apparent
+  displacement of a star, owing to the progressive motion of light
+  combined with that of the earth and 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 in 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
+  solar 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
+  revolve 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.
+[Page 280]
+CELESTIAL SPHERE, the apparent dome in which the heavenly bodies
+  seem to be set; appears to revolve, 3.
+CENTRE OF GRAVITY, the point on which a body, or two or more
+  related 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
+  passing from the pole, one through each equinox, and one through
+  each solstice.
+COMETS, 126; Halley's, 128; Biela's lost, 129; Encke's, 130;
+  constitution 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
+  conjunction 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
+  interior planet.
+DECLINATION, the angular distance of a celestial body north or south
+  from the celestial equator.
+DEGREE, the 1/360 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
+  divided by half the major axis.
+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.
+[Page 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
+  annual 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 plane
+  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;
+  velocity of, 22; undulatory and musical, 26; chemical force of, 30;
+  experiments 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 the
+  perpendicular from the vertical equinox, counted toward the east;
+  mode of ascertaining terrestrial, 72.
+MAGELLANIC CLOUDS, 208.
+[Page 282]
+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
+  perihelion distances.
+MEASUREMENTS, celestial, 57.
+MERCURY, 138.
+MERIDIAN, terrestrial, of a place, a great circle of the heavens
+  passing 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;
+  telescopic appearance of, 155.
+MURAL CIRCLE, 61.
+NADIR, the point in the celestial sphere directly beneath 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
+  interposition 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
+[Page 283]
+  bodies upon each other, disturbing their regular motion; of Saturn
+  and Jupiter, 11; of asteroids, 13; of Uranus and Neptune, 176.
+PHASES, the portions of the illuminated half of the moon or
+  interior planet, as seen from the earth, called crescent, full, and
+  gibbous.
+PHOTOSPHERE of the sun, 89.
+PLANET (_a wanderer_), 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 deg..
+QUADRATURE, a position of the moon or other body when 90 deg. from
+  the sun.
+RADIANT POINT, that point of the heavens from which meteors seem
+  to diverge, 118.
+RADIUS-VECTOR, an imaginary line joining 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;
+  decreasing, 171; nature of, 171; satellites of, 172.
+SEASONS, of the earth, 102; of other planets, 105.
+SELENOGRAPHY (_lunography_), a description of the moon's
+  surface.
+SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC, the twelve equal parts, of 30 deg. 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 in a planet's orbit at which it has no
+  motion among the stars.
+[Page 284]
+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
+  meridian, 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 deg. wide encircling the heavens, the ecliptic being
+  the middle. In this belt the larger planets always appear. In
+  the older astronomy it was divided into twelve parts of 30 deg.
+  each, called signs of the zodiac.
+ZODIACAL LIGHT, 80.
+
+
+
+
+TO FIND THE STARS IN THE 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.
+
+[Illustration: Circumpolar Constellations. Always visible. In this
+position.--January 20th, at 10 o'clock; February 4th, at 9 o'clock;
+and February 19th, at 8 o'clock.]
+
+[Illustration: Algol is on the Meridian, 51 deg. South of Pole.--At 10
+o'clock, December 7th; 9 o'clock, December 22d; 8 o'clock, January
+5th.]
+
+[Illustration: Capella (45 deg. from Pole) and Rigel (100 deg.) are on
+the Meridian at 8 o'clock February 7th, 9 o'clock January 22d, and
+at 10 o'clock January 7th.]
+
+[Illustration: Regulus comes on the Meridian, 79 deg. south from the
+Pole, at 10 o'clock March 23d, 9 o'clock April 8th, and at 8 o'clock
+April 23d.]
+
+[Illustration: Arcturus comes to the Meridian, 70 deg. from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock May 25th, 9 o'clock June 9th, and at 8 o'clock June
+25th.]
+
+[Illustration: Altair comes to the Meridian, 82 deg. from the Pole,
+at 10 o'clock P.M. August 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2d, and
+at 8 o'clock September 18th.]
+
+[Illustration: Fomalhaut comes to the Meridian, only 17 deg. from the
+horizon, at 8 o'clock November 4th.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren
+
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