326 NEWCOMB 



question of temperature should not enter. The thinking 

 man who does this under circumstances most favorable for 

 calm thought will form a new conception of the wonder of 

 ttie universe. If summer or autumn be chosen, the stupen- 

 dous arch of the Milky Way will pass near the zenith, and 

 the constellation Lyra, led by its beautiful blue Vega of 

 the first magnitude, may be not very far from that point. 

 South of it will be seen the constellation Aquila, marked by 

 the bright Altair, between two smaller but conspicuous stars. 

 The bright Arcturus will be somewhere in the west, and, if 

 the observation is not made too early in the season, Alde- 

 baran will be seen somewhere in the east. When attention 

 is concentrated on the scene the thousands of stars on each 

 side of the Milky Way will fill the mind with the conscious- 

 ness of a stupendous and all-embracing frame, beside which 

 all human affairs sink into insignificance. A new idea will 

 be formed of such a well-known fact of astronomy as the 

 motion of the solar system in space, by reflecting that, dur- 

 ing all human history, the sun, carrying the earth with it, 

 has been flying towards a region in or just south of the 

 constellation Lyra, with a speed beyond all that art can pro- 

 duce on earth, without producing any change apparent to 

 ordinary vision in the aspect of the constellation. Not only 

 Lyra and Aquila, but every one of the thousand stars which 

 form the framework of the sky, were seen by our earliest 

 ancestors just as we see them now. Bodily rest may be 

 obtained at any time by ceasing from our labors, and weary 

 systems may find nerve rest at any summer resort; but I 

 know of no way in which complete rest can be obtained for 

 the weary soul in which the mind can be so entirely re- 

 lieved of the burden of all human anxiety as by the con- 

 templation of the spectacle presented by the starry heavens 

 under the conditions just described. As we make a feeble 

 attempt to learn what science can tell us about the structure 

 of this starry frame, I hope the reader will allow me to at 

 least fancy him contemplating it in this way. 



The first question which may suggest itself to the inquiring 

 reader is: How is it possible by any methods of observa- 

 tion yet known to the astronomer to learn anything about 

 the universe as a whole? We may commence by answering 



