ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 381 



ON THE EARL OF ROSSE's TELESCOPES, AND THEIR REVELATIONS 



IN THE SIDERIAL HEAVENS. 



The following extract from a lecture delivered by the Rev. Dr. Scoresby, 

 F. R. S., at Torquay, England, answers, to some extent, the question What 

 has the gigantic telescope of Lord Rosse effected ? 



The lecturer having himself had the privilege of observing, on different 

 visits, and for considerable periods, with both the instruments, was enabkd to 

 reply, he hoped in a satisfactory manner, to this inquiry. His opportuniti s 

 of observing, he said, notwithstanding interruptions from clouds and disturbed 

 atmosphere, had been somewhat numerous, and, not unfrequently, highly in- 

 structive and delightful. Of these observations he had made records of nearly 

 60, on the moon, planets, double stars, clusters, and nebulae. He had been 

 permitted also to have free access to, and examination of, all the observatory 

 records and drawings, so that he was enabled on the best grounds, he believed, 

 to say that there had been no disappointment in the performance of the in- 

 struments ; and that the great instrument, in its peculiar qualities of superiority, 

 possesses & marvelous power in collecting light and penetrating into regions 

 of previously untouched space. In what may be called the domestic regions 

 of our planet the objects in the solar system all that other instruments may 

 reveal is within its grasp or more, though by the prodigious flood of light 

 from the brighter planets, the eye is dazzled unless a large portion is shut out. 



But in its application to the distant heavens and exploration of the nebu- 

 lous systems there, its peculiar powers have, with a steady atmosphere, their 

 highest developments and noblest triumphs. In this department that tc 

 which the instrument has been particularly directed every known object it 

 touches, when the ah* is favorable, is, as a general fact, exhibited under some 

 new aspect. It pierces into the indefinite or diffuse nebulous forms shown 

 by other instruments in a general manner, and either exhibits configurations 

 altogether unimagined, or resolves, perhaps, the nebulous patches of light into 

 clusters of stars. Guided in the general researches by the works of the 

 talented and laborious Herschels to whom astronomy and science owe a 

 deep debt of gratitude time has been economized, and the interests cf the 

 results vastly enhanced. So that many objects in which the fine instruments 

 of other observers could discern only some vague indefinite patch of light, 

 have been brought out in striking, definite, and marvelous configurations. 



Among these peculiar revelations is that of the spiral form the most strik- 

 ing and appreciable of all which we may venture to designate " The Eossean 

 Configuration" Its discovery was at once novel and splendid ; and in refer- 

 ence to the dynamical principles on which these vast aggregations of remote 

 suns are whirled about within their respective systems and sustained against 

 interferences, promises to be of the greatest importance. 



One of the most splendid nebulae of this class the G-reat Spiral or Whirl- 

 pool has been figured hi the Philosophical Transactions for 1850. It may be 

 considered as the grand type and example of a class ; for near 40 more, with 

 spiral characteristics, have been observed, and about 20 of them carefully 



