THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY AND SCIENCE. 169 



nobility of birth is taught to all the world by that mighty tube of fifty- 

 six feet in length, with its polished mirror of six feet diameter, which 

 swings between its huge abutments of stone in obedience to the 

 slightest touch, at Blair Castle, in Ireland. With that upward aspira- 

 tion which separates by such wide distinctions the purposes of genius 

 from the purposes of the crowd, the Earl of Eosse has transcended all 

 the modern efforts and achievements of his class in proclaiming that 

 wealth, title, and power, may be made to administer to the advance- 

 ment of the world's thought, and the amelioration and instruction of 

 its people. 



The most striking of the results obtained by the great telescope of 

 the Earl of Eosse, is a more complete knowledge of the peculiarities of 

 the lunar surface, and the discovery of hundreds of these misty and 

 mysterious nebulae, which float like cobwebs in the unfathomable arch- 

 way of the night. Grand and imposing are these revelations of a plate 

 of metal. Deep searching is its eye ; and no matter tliat the distance 

 between us and the nebulous mass be so great that a ray of light will 

 require thirty millions of years to accomplish it, the telescope discerns 

 it, paints its picture on the metal disc, and shows us, as the living fact 

 of to day, the actual aspect of the phenomena thirty millions of years 

 ago. 



No less interesting and beautiful are those revelations of the eco- 

 nomy of the fixed stars, by which we ascertain that their light has as 

 many diversities of colour as the rainbow, and that red, green, blue, 

 and white stars are as common in the fields above, as difi'erent coloured 

 flowers are in the green meadows of the earth. The multiple charac- 

 ter of many of those stars, which had been deemed to possess an unity 

 of character, is also a striking characteristic. Indeed the discovery 

 that the telescope possessed the power of separating many of the 

 steUar bodies into two, three, four, or five distinct and separate 

 stars, and that these were frequently seen to revolve around each 

 other, while in many instances each separate star burned with a dis- 

 tinct and different colour* from the rest, forms the chief feature in Sir 

 John Herschel's memorable " sweeps " of the heavens at the " Cape." 

 As many as six thousand double stars are now known ; and, in the 

 majority of instances, the constituent bodies seem to revolve around 

 each other, or in the case of triple stars, of which there are — quoting from 

 memory — about 2,020, one star serves as a centre about which the 

 others revolve. This power, which modem telescopes possess, of 



