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the earth, in the direction of the constellation Hercules; and, if so, the constellation itself must likewise be supposed to move.

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Again," pursued the village astronomer, "there are motions reported of the double stars, such as are wholly new to those who have thought only of our solar system. The double stars attract a large share of the attention of our modern labourers. They are held, of course, as double solar systems; but what amazes us is, that, besides moving upon their axes, and along with their constellations and nebulæ, some, at least, of these solar systems are said to revolve round others; that is, of the double stars, one round the other; and this, in long but very various periods. One of the stars, or solar systems, of Castor, revolves round the other in a period of forty-two of our solar years; a small star, or solar system, in Leonis, round another solar system in twelve hundred of the same years; a star in Boötes, in sixteen hundred and eightyone years; another, in Serpentes, in three hundred and seventy-five years; and another, in Virgo, in seven hundred and eight years."

"I confess," said Mrs. Mowbray, "that after all, I am sometimes at a loss for the proofs of what astronomers say of the stars. Why should they not be, what more ignorant people have believed them, merely lights in the sky?"

"Judging of all the heavenly bodies by means of those which are nearest to us, the sun and planets show us, by their own phenomena, that the stars also are globular, solid, and have systematic motions."

"But how do you prove that they are more distant than the planets?"

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The planets, in their evolutions, are seen to hide them, or, in other words, to pass in front of them." Why must they be larger than the earth?"

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Because, at the distance at which they are, if they were smaller than the earth, they would be invisible." "How are you made certain that they have any light of their own, and do not shine, like the planets, with reflected light?"

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Because, being more distant than the planets, they appear much smaller than them, and yet shine more brightly."

To these answers Mr. Gubbins added several observations upon the variety of colour, figure, brightness, and apparent magnitude, as well as numbers of the stars, and the explanations proposed; spoke of the six degrees of magnitude established by astronomers; of the different velocities of the stars upon their axes, and of the alleged appearance of new stars, and disappearance of old ones; and, upon being asked what is the number of fixed stars, or of those distinct stars which shine in what is now called our own heaven, or within our own nebula, replied; that the number of those which are visible to the naked eye, however numberless it may appear to us, does not really exceed a thousand; while, if we add to these what are discovered by the telescope, the total number is three thousand.

"And now," concluded Mr. Gubbins, "let us finish our inquiries concerning the stars with a reflection, and with a comparison which the former may excuse, and seem even to invite! We may contemplate the heavenly bodies, their vastness, and the multitude and beauty, as well as magnitude and inexhaustible series.

of their appearance, till we begin to think that in these alone consisted the substance and glory of creation; and that, as to the objects, animate and inanimate, which may be presumed to cover the surfaces, as well as fill the interiors of all these shining objects, they are insignificant in the great account! But how different from such a conclusion is the truth; and with what hesitation must we not pronounce, even at last, between the wonders of the heavens, and those of only the globe which we inhabit! Are the heavens, for example, filled with myriads of stars? Is their space immeasurable, and are even the stars themselves of magnitudes which we can scarcely bring into our comprehension? But, if so, is all this more amazing, than that upon the earth we tread, there should exist (to say nothing of mankind, and of myriads of conspicuous plants and animals), not merely from inch to inch, but from line to line, and from point to point, myriads of plants and living creatures, all exquisitely formed, and as to the latter, all endowed with sense and motion; and that all exceed the powers of the microscope, just as the greatness of the heavens bids defiance to the telescope? I will mention a small and solitary example, the counterpart of endless others!

"In the course of last winter,' says a curious employer of the microscope, having observed, on a dry and frozen gravel walk, a variety of small hollows, of a greenish colour, it occurred to me that the tint might have been occasioned by the scum upon water during the summer rains; and if so, that it would probably contain animalculæ. I accordingly scraped off a little of the frozen surface, and mixed it with water that had been boiled, and in which I had previously ascertained

that there were no animalculæ. In a few hours, I examined a drop of this water, and found as yet no animalculæ ; but I discovered a number of minute fibres, apparently vegetable, and to the existence of which the green tint I had at first remarked was probably owing. I found these fibres transparent; and, when viewed in a certain degree of shade, I observed them to be marked, throughout their whole length, in the most delicate and regular manner, with divisions like globules in a hollow tube, each of which was separated from another by a space of exactly similar dimensions. In the course of a day or two, I again examined the water, and found in it a variety of animalculæ, some of which were the most minute I had ever observed; except, perhaps, those found in an infusion of pepper. The highest powers of a good microscope gave me no information as to their form or structure, except that they were of an oval form, and moved about with considerable activity. Having near me, at the time, some sea-sand, which I had been examining, I put a few grains of it into the drop, with the view of forming some idea of the comparative size of these minute creatures. I found, that instead of many thousands only, there were from one to three millions of these animalculæ necessary, to make up the size of a single grain of sand! But, in this calculation itself, I had by no means taken the smallest of the animalculæ discernible in the fluid. Many were much smaller than those from which I had made my estimate; so, that I had thus a simple means of proving to demonstration, the existence of animated beings from one to three millions of times less than a grain of seasand!

"It is thus," added, finally, Mr. Gubbins, " that in the examination of Nature, we pass alternately through

'—all forms,

The vast, and the minute;'

and are for ever at a loss upon which to bestow the greater share of admiration! In the course of what we have been now saying, at one moment we have had before us millions upon millions of clouds of stars, or clouds of solar systems, forming as it were globules in the heavens, each of so great a magnitude that millions upon millons of miles go for nothing in their immeasurable measurement; and each comprising within itself thousands upon thousands of solar systems, and millions upon millions of habitable worlds, with all their plants and animals*! But, again, throwing down our eyes upon the pathway under our feet, we find plants and animals contained in particles of compound matter so small as themselves to escape human observation, except in the philosophic mood ;-we find, I say, in those small particles, millions of millions of animals so small as scarcely to form, in their united bulk, the equivalent of a grain of sea-sand; and as imperfectly to be discovered and counted, through the microscope, as the stars through the other instrument!"

*The reader has seen, in the preceding chapter, that the comet of 1680, which, belonging to the solar system, could not quit its bounds, carried a tail, therefore, within those bounds, of a hundred and eighty-three millions of miles in length; a length which, at the same time, cannot be supposed more than insignificant, as compared with the space occupied by the system, and by the system only. But we have at least three thousand solar systems (three thousand single and double stars), as it appears, visible within our nebula, and in our Northern Hemisphere of that nebula alone! Suppose, therefore, only six thousand solar systems, with all the spaces which they occupy, and all the spaces intervening, in the sole confines only of one single nebula,—one nebula among the millions upon millions!

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