228 GENERAL MOVEMENT OF THE STARS. 



the new developments that our author has . given to his researches, 

 have led Professor Peters to admit the validity of the conclusions 

 deduced from them; for the second and forthcoming number of the 

 new publication of Professor Peters, Zeitschrift fur populate Mitthei- 

 lungen, designed as a continuation of the Annuaries published by Schu- 

 macher from 1836 to 1844, is to contain, it seems, an article by M. 

 Mueller on the Central Sun. 



Having thus cursorily exhibited the results obtained by M. Handler 

 in the principal object of his labors, it is proper now to pass in 

 review certain consequences which he has deduced from his researches 

 at the end of his Untersuchungen. It should be remarked, however, 

 that he presents them only as first views, still quite uncertain, which 

 furnish at the most but very rough approximations towards the values 

 of the elements to which they relate. 



■ As the mean proper movement of Alcyone ought, from what has 

 been said, to correspond to the angular movement of the Sun taken 

 in a contrary direction, if first we adopt, agreeably to the earlier re- 

 searches of the author, 0".0673 as the annual value of that movement, 

 this quantity being the 19,256,000th part of the circle, it would 

 thence result that the complete revolution of the sun and all the fixed 

 stars around the central point would be accomplished in about 19 

 millions of years. According to the later valuation, 0".047 of this 

 annual proper movement, the period of revolution would be still 

 longer, or about 27^ millions of years for such of the stars as are not 

 in the vicinity of the central body, nor at the extreme exterior 

 limits of the circuits of the Milky Way. It is evident, more- 

 over, that the value of the proper movement of the central point 

 is still quite uncertain, and we may observe in the table of the proper 

 movements of each of the Pleiades given by M. Handler, (p. 259 of the 

 14th vol. of Observations of Dorpat,) four stars of that group whose 

 secular proper movement is smaller by some tenths of a second than 

 that of Alcyone. The smallest, which is 3". 9 only, would correspond 

 to the star designated by the letter Z; but that star is only of the sixth 

 magnitude, and its angle of direction is 39°, so that it can by no 

 means be regarded as constituting the central star. 



The author admits that the subordinate systems should have shorter 

 revolutions. He shows that the non-existence of any star having an 

 annual parallax of several seconds of a degree proves that our Sun has 

 no other star associated with it, and belongs to no partial multiple 

 system. He has concluded from his researches on the double stars, 

 that there can scarcely be any system of this sort where the companion 

 is distant from the principal star more than six minutes of a degree. 

 The case of a considerable number of stars being close to one another, 

 is hence the only one where there is any likelihood of a partial 

 physical system. Thus, for the largest number of stars there exists 

 only a common bond, and with the exception of perturbations com- 

 paratively insignificant, resulting from certain conjunctions of stars 

 among themselves, they exert no particular action on one another, 

 nor on the system of planets. 



"We have already seen that M. Mredler is not disposed to admit, in 



general, "that the distances of the stars are inversely proportional to 



