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What becomes of these vast streams of tiny particles ] Whence 

 come they ? AVhither do they tend 1 What use do they subserve 

 in the economy of the universe? Time will not serve this 

 •evening for the discussion of all these questions, tempting though 

 they may be. There is still ample room for speculation when our 

 positive knowledge is exhausted. It is worthy of remark, 

 however, that these systems of meteors must be enormously more 

 crowded near the sun than at a distance from him. That a halo 

 of nebulous light surrounds the sun, which is seen with singularly 

 beautiful effect during eclipses. Further, this light is sunlight 

 reflected from solid particles. Enormous muititudes of these 

 particles are doubtless drawn within the sphere of his attraction, 

 And go to increase the light and heat which he dispenses to the 

 worlds around him. 



And now permit me to address myself for a few minutes to 

 the question — whence come these comets and meteor streams 1 

 Far beyond the limit of the sun's enormous mass, at an 

 almost unimaginable distance beyond the orbit of the furthest 

 planet of our system, there exist masses of nebulous, faintly 

 luminous matter, scarcely perceptible, even the brightest of 

 them, to the naked eye. By means of the telescope, however, 

 five thousand such nebulte have been discovered. For a long 

 time it was debated whether these faintly luminous objects were 

 not really clusters of stars rendered indistinct by their enormous 

 distance. As telescopes increased in size and magnifying power 

 many of these starmists Avere resolved into such masses of con- 

 gregated suns. The appearance which the celebrated Dumb 

 Bell nebula in Orion presents when viewed through telescopes of 

 different powers is now before you. Lastly, behold it as viewed 

 through the enormous telescope of Lord Eosse, and mark that 

 what was before but a cloud of light becomes in this an aggre- 

 gate of a thousand radiant points. Seeing that this was the 

 result of viewing these nebulous masses by means of increased 

 telescopic power, it was thought that by-and-bye all nebulae 

 Avould be resolved into stars. 



