HOW ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS ARE MADE. 75 



ets are existing. As, however, they move but very slowly, and at the 

 same time emit but little light, it has not yet been possible to dis- 

 cern them among the millions of little fixed stars. But, when once 

 the entire heaven s, even to the very smallest of visible stars, shall have 

 been photographed, and if this work be repeated after a period of 

 about ten years, the charts thus obtained will solve the problem as to 

 the most remote planets, and the latter must be found. Ay even 

 more. The photographic plate is superior to the observant eye, in 

 perceiving and reproducing the smallest stars, inasmuch as it shows 

 objects in those places in the heavens where, with the most powerful 

 telescopes, nothing more is to be seen. 



In this connection the brothers Henry have recently made a most 

 singular discovery. On the 16th of November they directed their 

 large photographic telescope to that spot in the heavens where the star 

 Maja is in the Pleiades, and afterward found on their plate, besides 

 numerous stars, a spiral, nebulous spot, which, to a certain extent, 

 seemed to come from the star Maja. As, even with the greatest tele- 

 scopes of the observatory at Paris, no signs of such vapor could be 

 perceived in that particular part of the heavens, a new photograph 

 was taken on the 8th of December ; this also showed the vapor, and a 

 third picture, obtained the following day, once more bespoke its pres- 

 ence. 



There can, then, be no doubt as to the existence of a spiral-like 

 nebulous spot in the vicinity of that star, but of which the eye, even 

 with the aid of a most powerful telescope, can perceive naught. What 

 wonderful prospects for the future here open to view ! A veritable 

 astronomy of the invisible begins. Celestial orbs, ever veiled from 

 our direct gaze, are rendered perceptible ay, trace their own picture. 

 Therein lies the highest triumph of the human mind, that it is able, in 

 the true sense of the word, to force Nature to reveal her secrets ; that 

 a ray of light, called into being in the most remote depths of space, 

 created at a time ere perhaps the foot of man had ever trodden the 

 earth, should to-day itself trace on a plate the outline and the form of 

 that orb from which it emanated myriads of years ago. Translated 

 for the Popular Science Monthly from Die Gartenlaube. 



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HOW ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS ARE MADE. 



By JOSEPH DAWSON. 



WHATEVER may be our individual views or prejudices in rela- 

 tion to the use and abuse of alcoholic liquors, the process of 

 their manufacture is a very interesting chemical operation. Proof- 

 spirit is defined by the United States internal revenue laws to be that 

 mixture of alcohol and water which contains one half of its volume of 



