Other Suns Than OursRidtard A. Proctor. 



51 



laree some of them arc and can imagine how brightly 

 they shine. Yon can scarcely fall to admit the prob- 

 niiility that circling around those orb3 there are worlds 

 In which life may exist. Wo can easily calculate how 

 much liirht the various stars of that cluster arc capable of 

 giving to these orbs that circle around them. The sky of 

 those worlds must bo covered, not as our sky is with 

 Stars, but with suns. There is a wonderful display of 

 their powrr to the inhabitants of such a world. [Prof. 

 Proctor here quoted, that passage from the poet White, 

 in which these lines occur : 



Why should we thus shun death with eenseloss strife ; 

 If light may thus deceive, why may not life JJ 



Now we shall have another picture of star clusters, 

 showing the enormous variety that they represent. 



This picture will give place to another, showing the 

 nature of one of these great clusters. 



As wo find in our solar system orbs of different charac- 

 ter, as we find all these forms ard variety in this one 

 system, So in each one of these infinitely varied systems 

 to say nothing of the infinite varieties, as in the col- 

 ored, double, and variable stars tbere is a variety cor- 

 responding to that in our own system. Now we will have 

 a picture showing a much greater scene of glory. There 

 you have the great nebul.i of Andromeda, which Las 

 been considered as made of multitudinous suns, and 

 where the glory of the scene must be so enhanced that 

 the gazers must turn away from those suns, unable 

 to enduro their brilliancy. 



Now T propose to present to you as clearly and suc- 

 cinctly as I cau, the views I have been led to with regard 

 to the distribution of the stars iu space and the rules I 

 would suggest as to their observation. Sir William Her- 

 eehel said it was the great object ot his ambition to as- 

 certain the constitution of the stellar heavens. Here 

 we have a picture representing the northern stars of the 

 Milky Way. I think that their aspect, that the appear- 

 ance of the Milky Way forces us to the conclusion that 

 it is not made out of stars, spreading further and fur- 

 ther out into space, and by the combined luster making 

 that appearance, but that it is a complicated system of 

 stars, and that when we come to analyze it 

 we may expect to flud there varieties corre- 

 sponding to those which are exhibited in all 

 parts of the universe ; that we are not to 

 look tbere for uniformity or to assume that there is a 

 uniformity where all the stars have been marked by 

 variety, but that we are to find in these that there is a 

 great variety. We shull have the picture of the southern 

 heavens brought on the screen and there you will see other 

 evidences of that variety. There you see the Magellanic 

 clouds of light, with great openings i:i rhem and a great 

 rift in them in the lower p:irt. That great rift will be 

 shown bet'cr in the next picture. There you see the two 

 branches, extremities of the Milky Way, branching out 

 into space, and between the two that great space. 

 STARS OF DIFFERENT SIZES MIXED IN SPACE. 



I must remind you of the utter incorrectness of the 

 common account of the Milky Way that it is divided 

 into two branches. I may say that the ordinary text- 

 bonk account is not more incorrect than the description 

 of the lad who said that the Milky Way was a kind of 

 cloud in the heavens called the trade winds or the 

 aurora borealis. The book says the Milky Way goes 

 right around the heavens and is divided into two parts 

 along half its extent. This division is not along half its 

 extent, but tlieie are multitudinous nodules of lighf. 



The principles on which my application depends are 

 Very simple. Suppose you were traveling on an open 



flat surface, and perceived a number of trees along tho 

 horizon, all of the same size. Suppose you took an opera- 

 glass and found a number of smaller objects rosemblinflT 

 the other trwfe. Now there are two theories which you 

 might ferni iu explanation of that appearance. You 

 might conceive that those smaller trees were really aa 

 largo as the others but at a much greater distance ; or 

 you might suppose that these smaller trees were really 

 smaller were young trees. You might test it in this 

 way. If you found in looking around tho horizon that 

 they were more thickly clustered in some parts 

 than in others, then you would find much to 

 show whether they belonged to the same clumps 

 as tho smaller ones. If you were traveling at random ic 

 would bo a very astonishing thing if just behind each 

 clump of largo trees there should be another clump 

 much smaller and lying in the same line. If you find thia 

 appearance repeated several times, there would be no 

 doubt of it. You would so have learuedthis fact, although 

 it would not lie particularly interesting, you would have* 

 learned the facD that each clumo of trees was made UD 

 of different kinds of objects. Now apply 

 that to tho case of the starj. If you look at 

 the star depths, you sea the stars clustered together 

 iu clusters of large stars. If you find others that ara 

 much smaller, and if you find that those which look 

 much smaller are as richly spread as the others, you can, 

 make the same inference; not that the smaller stars are 

 lying further away, but that they are really mixed up 

 with the large stars in the same clump. You cannot 

 suppose that, placed as the earth is, at random in the 

 heart of the star system, that one cluster of larse stars 

 would have just behind it, but at an enormous distance 

 another cluster of smaller ones. You are bound to be- 

 lieve that stars that are different in siza are mixed in 

 space. 



AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DEPTHS OF SPACE. 



We shall have another picture brought on the screen, 

 and there you will see how I map the stars visible to 

 the eye. You will see that there are clusterings there, 

 and you will notice that they form a festoon of light, 

 which corresponds to the Milky Way. I was able to 

 apply to this map, having a map of au equal surface, a 

 plan by which equal parts of the heavens are repre- 

 sented in equal space on the map. In order to know 

 what proportion any part will bear in the number of 

 stars, I take a portion of this map, say where tho stars 

 are thickly spread, and weigh it, so as to know what 

 proportion it bears to the map of the whole heavens, 

 and then count the stars on it. Then I know what the 

 proportion of stars is there. 



Now, if you take the Milky Way and weigh It and 

 count the stars on it, you find that the stars are so 

 thickly spread there that it would require 5,000 more 

 stars to make certain other parts appear equal to it. 

 Then again there are spaces where the stars are spread 

 so poorly that 4,030 stars would have to be obliterated 

 from the parts just shown, to make those other parts 

 equal. 



Here tho southern stars are brought into view. There 

 you recognize a much greater peculiarity of the distri- 

 bution of stars. That cljud is the great Magellanio 

 cloud. It seems as if that bore the same relation to 

 that section that the sun does to o ur planets. I would 

 not for a moment think of that for a theory, but then 

 it has more to say in Its favor than 

 that of Madl?r, -which Is that one star in 

 the Pleiades is the center of tho whole stellar system. 

 There you see the upper rich region and the lower rich 

 region, and you see also this comparatively poverty- 



