ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 327 



and recognizes in the universe, how a subtle matter, through 

 which may be conveyed every touch from the finger of the Supreme, 

 and how this all-penetrating agent, entering into man as matter, 

 animates him into life, filling him with the transparency of existence, 

 and clothing him with intelligence. These suggestions we must leave. 

 They are philosophical visions, in which, if we travelled too far, all 

 our harder and baser ..arguments might dissolve and disappear. 



ACCURACY OF MODERN ASTRONOMICAL CALCULATIONS. 



On the establishment of the American Nautical Almanac in 1849, 

 it was found that all the large lunar ephemerides, or tables used 

 by European astronomers, were imperfect, and it was consequently 

 deemed expedient to prepare a new set of tables for use in the prep- 

 aration of the Almanac in question. The work was accordingly 

 entered upon and completed. A recent writer in the North Ameri- 

 can Review publishes the following striking illustration of the accu- 

 racy of the tables thus prepared, and of the fidelity with which they 

 give the moon's position : 



" The smallest round object visible to the unassisted eye subtends 

 an angle of about a minute, and two such objects will, to an ordinary 

 eye, seem like a single object if their distance apart is less than 

 three minutes. To the naked eye the two stars, E L?/rce, present 

 the appearance of a single star somewhat elongated ; their distance 

 apart is something more than three and a half minutes, yet this seem- 

 ingly inappreciable space must be divided into sixty portions, in order 

 that each portion may be equal to the average difference between 

 the real position of the moon and that predicted from theory in the 

 tables in question. Now the time of the rising of the theoretical moon 

 will very seldom differ half a second from that of the real one. 



" An example of the amount by which a planet must wander from 

 its assigned orbit, to produce a commotion in the astronomical world, 

 is furnished by those anomalies in the motion of Uranus which led 

 to the discovery of Neptune. After being for thirty years a source 

 of perplexity to astronomers, they were measured with such accuracy 

 as to indicate, within a degree, the direction of the planet producing 

 them. Yet if two stars, visible to the naked eye, had moved through 

 the heavens during those thirty years, one keeping in the position of 

 the actual Uranus, the other in that of the theoretical Uranus, the 

 naked eye could at no time have perceived any indication that the 

 two did not form a single star." 



THE EXTENT OF OUR SYSTEM OF STARS. 



One cosmical question which theoretical considerations have greatly 

 aided us in limiting, is that of the infinite extent of our system of 

 stars. To the reflective astronomer, as he sounds depth after depth 

 of the starry systems, to all appearance bottomless, no subject of 

 speculation would appear more attractive. As in all other questions 

 which we are not able to solve by direct experiment, we must begin 

 by asking what consequences would follow from the affirmative and 

 the negative of the question respectively. Starting from the hypoth- 

 esis that infinite space was scattered with stars, mathematicians had 



