68 



of magnetic disturbance, and the spectrum analyis of every eruption. 

 Kirchoff, Huggens, Lockyer, Janson, the late Professor Miller, all 

 confirm, by the most rigid analysis, the identity of certain metals in a 

 state of incandescence in our own sun are equally active in Sirius, Alpha- 

 Lyras, and the principal stars of the heavens, with some additions in 

 the case of Sirius, which exhibits absorptive lines of metals, of which 

 we have no corresponding substance in our own solar system. Again, 

 we have in our own solar system examples of the cosmical theory, 

 now in various stages of progress. All the superior planets, except 

 Mars, have a number of sateUites, and Saturn, in addition, a ring of 

 vapour, whilst the sun is now known to be. in its outer film, a mass of 

 gaseous cosmical vapour, and its deep centre one molten mass of 

 metals, common to the earth itself. The immense magnitude of the 

 sun is such that a cannon ball, flying at the rate of 480 miles per hour 

 would take 76 days 19 hours 40 minutes to fly across the sun's 

 diameter ; a railway train, at the rate of 500 miles a day, 1,769 days 

 22 hours 25 minutes to go over a distance equal to the diameter of the 

 sun. In conclusion, Wolleston affirms that the apparent diameter of 

 the most brilliant star in the heavens, Sirius, is not more than the 

 fifteenth part of a second of an arc, but this leaves a good margin for 

 the real dimensions of the star, since, at the distance of Sirius, such an 

 apparent diameter as this would represent a real diameter of 11,000,000 

 miles, that is, twelve times the diameter of our sun. The sun's 

 diameter is 884,967 miles ; Sirius, 10,619,604 miles. Now, the cubical 

 contents of globular bodies are found by cubing the diameter aad 

 multiplying by 5,236. The masses of globular bodies are to each 

 other as the cubes of their diameters, this found, divide the greater by 

 the less, and Sirius will be found to contain a mass of 53,977 times 

 that of the sun. Similarly, Vega in Lyra would make 75,532 million 

 earths. The imagination is appalled with such magnitudes, and sinks 

 helpless into the arms of design. 



MR. J. E. HASELWOOD ON "EVOLUTION." 



Anatomists tell us that there are in the human ear certain rudi= 

 mentai-y muscles which seem to indicate that at one time in his history 



