THAT STELLAR HAYSTACK. 



tance from the sun to the earth, the radius required passes 

 far beyond our planetary system into stellar space. 



The researches on the parallax of the stars have shown, 

 that stars like 61 Cygni and a Centauri are distant less than 

 half a million times the distance from the earth to the sun. 



At a million times the distance earth-sun we, there- 

 fore, are beyond the distance for which it has been possible 

 to estimate stellar distances by the most refined astronomical 

 researches. 



But the radius of the globe to hold our 38 element hay- 

 stack must be 



I 000 000000 000000 000000 



times as large as this distance of the ordinary stars! 



From such a distance no light has ever reached human 

 eye, even by means of the great speculum, six feet in 

 diameter, of the Earl of Rosse at Parsonstown, Ireland. 



We give it up. We cannot convey any tangible concep- 

 tion of the number presented. It is infinite for the mind of 

 finite man. 



But if the haystack has a base inconceivably larger than 

 the stellar world visible to us, and if the chance of our 

 conclusion being in error is no greater than that of finding 

 a single needle in this infinite haystack, may we not say that 

 our conclusion is proved true with greater certainty than 

 any other scientific conclusion ever drawn about nature! 



We, therefore, are entitled to state this conclusion once 

 more in words (see pp. 217 and 218) : 



The atomic weight of all chemical elements are 

 exactly commensurable; 



the greatest common divisor of all is half a unit, 

 the atomic weight of carbon-diamond being taken at 

 12 exactly; 



therefore, the atoms of the chemical elements are 

 composed of but one kind of primitive atoms, of 

 pantogen, the atomic weight of which is exactly half 

 our unit; and 



the great majority of element-atoms consist of an 

 even number of such pan-atoms. 



