Sscr. XXXV11. METEORITES. 381 



To him and to Sir William Herschel we owe almost all 

 that is known of sidereal astronomy : and in the inimi- 

 table works of that highly gifted father and son, the 

 reader will find this subject treated of in a style alto- 

 gether worthy of it, and of them. 



Sir John Herschel has discovered some new and 

 wonderful objects in the southern hemisphere. Among 

 others a beautiful planetary nebula, having a perfectly 

 sharp, well defined disc of uniform brightness, exactly 

 like a small planet with a satellite near its edge. Another 

 is mentioned as being very extraordinary from its blue 

 tint : but by far the most singular is a close double star 

 centrally involve.d in a nebulous atmosphere. 



So numerous are the objects which meet our view in 

 the heavens, that we cannot imagine a part of space 

 where some light would not strike the eye ; innumera- 

 ble stars, thousands of double and multiple systems, clus- 

 ters in one blaze with their tens of thousands of stars, 

 and the nebulae amazing us by the strangeness of their 

 forms and the incomprehensibility of their nature, till at 

 last, from the limit of our senses, even these thin and airy 

 phantoms vanish in the distance. If such remote bodies 

 shone by reflected light, we should be unconscious of 

 their existence. Each star must then be a sun, and may 

 be presumed to have its system of planets, satellites, 

 and comets, like our own ; and, for aught we know, 

 myriads of bodies may be wandering in space unseen 

 by us, of whose nature we can form no idea, and still 

 less of the part they perform in the economy of the 

 universe. Even in our own system, or at its farthest 

 limits, minute bodies may be revolving like the new 

 planets, which are so small that their masses have hith- 

 erto been inappreciable, and there may be many still 

 smaller. Nor is this an unwarranted presumption ; 

 many such do come within the sphere of the earth's 

 attraction, are ignited by the velocity with which they 

 pass through the atmosphere, and are precipitated with 

 great violence on the earth. The fall of meteoric stones 

 is much more frequent than is generally believed. 

 Hardly a year passes without some instances occurring ; 

 and if it be considered that only a small part of the earth 

 is inhabited, it may be presumed that numbers fall in 



