no l7itelligetice a7td Miscellaneous Articles. 



telescope, which is preserved under a glass case with the greatest 

 care, is (considering its great age) in almost perfect condition. It 

 is much to be regretted that individuals do not, before repeating 

 unfounded statements, make inquiries as to their accuracy, which 

 could easily have been done in this instance. 

 I am. Gentlemen, 



Your obedient Servant, 



Charles Richard Welp, 



Assistant Secretary. 



THE CENTRAL SUN. 



Professor Miidler of Dorpat, has published a pamphlet, in 

 which he announces his belief that the centre of the great nebula 

 in which our system lies, or of the congeries of stars v.hich form the 

 Milky Way, is in the Pleiades; and that the star Alcyone is more likely 

 than any other to merit the title of the Central Sun. This question 

 is not like that of an asserted planet — one which can soon be settled 

 in the affirmative. If within the next half-century opinion on the 

 subject should have arrived at something like either positive recep- 

 tion or positive rejection, it is perhaps as much as can now be ex- 

 pected. Meanwhile the pamphlet is before us {Die Central Sonne, 

 Leipzig, 1847), and its leading points are, shortly, as follows: — 



The observations of astronomers have made it highly probable, 

 and Professor Miidler considers it as an established fact, that New- 

 ton's law of gravitation reigns throughout the sidereal space and 

 governs the movements of all stars ; which he thinks chiefly proved 

 by the nature of the orbits of binary systems. 



Setting out from this fundamental principle, he shows that, what- 

 ever may be the form of a system of fixed stars, the proper move- 

 ments of the indi\ddual bodies must be accelerated as the distance 

 from the central point increases, and that all the times of revolution 

 of these different bodies around their common centre are nearly 

 equal, as long as the mass in the centre of attraction has not too 

 considerable a predominance over all the other masses. 



By a very extensive and laborious set of observations and com- 

 parisons, the Professor found that the group of the Pleiades forms 

 the only point in the heavens to which the preceding conclusion is 

 applicable ; that really the velocity of the true proper movements of 

 the fixed stars increases insensiblxj from this group in all directions ; 

 and that, moreover, most of them are moving in the same sense. 



He therefore assigns the Pleiades as the central group of that 

 stellar system which is terminated by the Milky Way (to which our 

 own and all the isolated suns belong), and tlie star Alcyone as that 

 body which, most probably, is the proper central sun of this system. 



From the proper movement and parallax of Gl Cygni (taking the 

 latter = 0"'34S3), he attempts to deduce the distance of Alcyone 

 from our sun, and obtains the following ajiproximate results : — 



The parallax of Alcyone = 0"'006097, or the distance from the sun 

 34 millions of radii of the earth's orbit. 



