CoLENSo. — Presidential, Address. 145 



(1.) The large and ever-increasing number of planets now 

 known — nearly two hundred— as compared with the small 

 number known to the ancient astronomers (six or seven with 

 the moon) ; most of them also having been discovered during 

 this century ; each planet, like this globe of ours, correctly 

 and everlastingly pursuing its uniform course in its own proper 

 orbit around the sun in the solar system, without the least 

 deviation therefrom. 



(2.) The incalculable number of stars as of late years 

 revealed by their (so to speak) thickness in depth, the same 

 having been to some extent gauged. And, as I wish you all 

 to clearly understand me, let me endeavour to put this term 

 into plain language. Suppose our great New Zealand forest 

 began here on the very edge of the sea-shore in Hawke's 

 Bay and extended thence fifty miles over yonder plains to 

 the base of the Euahine Mountain - range, or even over a 

 continuous flat country to Cook Strait ; and suppose a boat 

 landing for the first time here on the beach, and officers and 

 men going up to the margin of the said big forest, they could 

 only see the outside trees forming its margin, or, at most, a 

 very little way into the forest ; and now, supposing further a 

 straight road was cut from the entrance right on to the 

 farthest end of the said forest ; and now look along this far- 

 extending vista through the trees with a glass, and for the 

 first time the beholder would know something more of the 

 expansion — of the thickness, of the depth, of the multi- 

 tude — of trees of the forest before him. Well, jusc so it is 

 with the stars. These which we see on the clearest nights 

 are but few in number in comparison with those others 

 unseen by our eyes lying far beyond them, but which, as to 

 depth and thickness, have been in part gauged by our greatest 

 modern astronomers. The greatest number of stars visible at 

 any one time to the unassisted human eye above the horizon 

 is no more than about two thousand, including every star as 

 low as the sixth magnitude, although, and very likely, some 

 of you may have believed you could see many more ; but 

 this fallacy is an optical delusion, mainly owing to their 

 scintillations. The minute invisible ones, however, com- 

 posing the groundwork of the heavens have been counted by 

 tens of thousands, or even by hundreds of thousands. With 

 telescopic aid the observable stars are too numerous for any 

 accurate determination of their number. M. Argelander, a 

 zealous German astronomer, has, however, several years ago, 

 actually published a catalogue of the exact positions of no 

 fewer than a quarter of a million of stars greater than the 

 tenth magnitude. 



Here in our southern skies we have several splendid con- 

 stellations, which many a European astronomer would rejoice 

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