242 TIME, SPACE, AND INVISIBLE WORLDS. 



amounts to demonstration, it yet is significant that all discovery 

 hitherto tends but to confirm the conclusion that matter in the 

 Stars is mainly and generically the same as that which is contained 

 in Earth and Sun. The delay in arriving at just conclusions arises 

 from the differences existing amongst the Stars, caused chiefly, we 

 doubt not, by their diff'erences in development and temperature, 

 the spectra ever changing according to dissociation or combination 

 of their elements. Many years ago a difference was thought to 

 have been detected between Sun matter and Earth matter. An 

 unknown element was detected in the Sun, the lines of which 

 could not be matched by any substance upon Earth. This new 

 element was therefore called " Helium," because peculiar to the 

 Sun. Strange to say, this substance has, within the past year, been 

 shown by Professor Ramsay to be identical with a hitherto undis- 

 covered element, existing in some earthy matter which he was 

 examining. It may here be mentioned that spectrum analysis can 

 detect the presence of some invisible substances to one eighteen- 

 millionth of a grain or even much less. Thus, to recognise a new 

 element as existing in the Sun, 92 millions of miles distant, and 

 then, after many years, to identify, for the first time, the same 

 element under our very feet, savours of romance even in science 

 (justifying the adage that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction), 

 and is also, to say the least, a curious link in the long chain of 

 evidence which subordinates all other laws to the greater law of 

 Continuity. 



That no Sun or Star exists to or for itself, we take to be as 

 absolutely certain as that " no man liveth to himself." All 

 observation and scrunity of the Heavens, together with analogy, 

 combine to show a wonderful unity and inter-dependence of Suns 

 and Planets, existing, so far as we can see, throughout the Universe. 

 Dark planets we cannot, of course, see ; but, remembering that 

 our Sun was at one time surrounded by eight brilliant miniature 

 Suns, now all cooled or cooling down, we understand well what is 

 meant when the telescope shows us tiny points of light sheltering 

 under the wings of larger stars like Vega, Aldebaran, Rigel, and 

 Regulus. Then there are fine double Suns like Castor, a 37 mag. 

 revolving round the 27 mag. in 1,000 years; Gamma in Leo, a 

 3-5 mag. round a 2"o mag. in 407 years; Gamma in Virgo, 3*25 



