106 Mr. David Gill on the Distances of the Fixed Stars. [May 23, 



ought to hold, when they appeal to the Governments of their respective 

 countries for the liberal devotion of the national means in furtherance 

 of the great objects they propose to accomplish. They enable them 

 not only to hold out but to redeem their promises, when they profess 

 themselves productive labourers in a higher and richer field than that 

 of mere material and physical advantages. 



" It is then, when they become (if I may venture on such a figure 

 without irreverence) the messengers from heaven to earth of such 

 stupendous announcements as must strike every one who hears them 

 with almost awful admiration, that they may claim to be listened to 

 when they repeat in every variety of urgent instance that these are 

 not the last of such announcements which they shall have to com- 

 municate, that there are yet behind, to search out and to declare, not 

 only secrets of nature which shall increase the wealth or power of 

 man, but truths which shall ennoble the age and country in which 

 they are divulged, and, by dilating the intellect, react on the moral 

 character of mankind. Such truths are things quite as worthy of 

 struggles and sacrifices as many of the objects for which nations 

 contend and exhaust their physical and moral energies and resources. 

 They are gems of real and durable glory in the diadems of princes, 

 and conquests which, while they leave no tears behind them, continue 

 for ever unalienable." 



ID. G.] 



