158 



SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



nor is any costly observatory necessary in order to cultivate a more intimate acquaint 

 ance. Ferguson sought fellowship with the stars lying on his back in the fields when a 

 shepherd boy, and measured their relative distances by means of beads upon a thread. 

 Harding discovered one of the planetoids from the house-top. Upon the bridge of Prague, 

 which now spans the Moldau with its sixteen arches, Keppler was accustomed to watch 

 the stars ; and Lalande, in his old age, often took his station upon the Pont Neuf, for the 

 same purpose, ready to accommodate a passing Parisian with a peep at Algol. 



CHAPTER VHI. 



NUMBER, DISTANCE, AND MAGNITUDE OF STARS. 



HE prevailing ideas of men concerning the multitude of the stars, 

 though founded upon wrong premises, are yet in harmony with 

 the literal fact, for the conclusion drawn from the hasty obser 

 vation of the eye, which a persevering survey would at once 

 disprove, is itself established by telescopic examination. So 

 enormous is the number of the stars, yet so completely incalcu 

 lable are they, as to admit of their being joined with the sand upon 

 the sea-shore, as a figure of speech denoting a numeration which 

 we cannot define. The common phrase of the Sacred Volume, 

 the hosts of heaven, alludes to their multitude ; and the fact is 

 advanced as an illustration of the infinite grasp of the Creator's 

 mind, that he is acquainted minutely with these multitudinous 

 worlds, which immeasurably exceed our utmost estimates. " He calleth them all by 

 names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth." The 

 earliest catalogue of the stars, that of Ptolemy, enumerates only 1022 : that of Ulugh 

 Beigh, the grandson of Tamerlane, made at Samarcand, contains 1017 : but a comparison 

 of the ancient with modern catalogues exhibits a striking difference in the assigned 

 richness of the asterisms, of which a few samples may be advanced. 



Aries - 



Ursa Major 



Bootes 



Leo - 



Virgo 



Taurus 



Orion 



Ptolemy. 



- 18 stars. 



- 35 



- 23 



- 35 



- 32 



- 44 

 . 38 



Tycho Brahe. 

 21 stars. 

 56 

 28 

 40 

 39 

 43 

 62 



Hevelius. 

 27 stars. 

 73 

 52 

 50 

 50 

 51 

 62 



Flamstead. 



66 stars. 



87 



54 



95 

 110 

 141 



78 



Bode. 



148 stars. 



338 



319 



337 



411 



394 



304 



Upwards of two thousand stars have however been counted within the trapezium or un 

 equal square of Orion, and the telescope multiplies them in the heavens without end, 

 revealing points of light profusely distributed throughout all space, every point a sun 

 attended probably by a train of planets, a reasonable inference from the constitution of 

 the solar universe. Lalande in the last century registered the positions of fifty thousand, 

 the various astronomers of Europe upwards of a hundred thousand, and Struve alone has 

 since observed no less than a hundred and twenty thousand stars. But this is only a 

 feeble approximation to the whole amount within telescopic range, which a moderate com- 



