COLOURED STARS. 413 



identity in physical constitution, and their white light has 

 furnished poetry with one of its commonest images. 



But the astronomer, armed with his wonder-revealing glass, 

 has discovered that innumerable stars are exquisitely coloured ; 

 that some are blue, and others green, and others red. If on 

 a clear night you examine Perseus with your telescope, you 

 will find that the star Eta is of a glowing red. In the system 

 of Ophiuchus you will encounter a blue star ; in that of Draco, 

 a deep red star ; Taurus has a large red and a small bluish 

 star; and in Argo, a blue sun is attended by a dark-red 

 satellite. 



The stars occur in double, triple, or multiple groups or 

 clusters ; and the systems so constituted differ from what we 

 presumptuously call the Solar System in their colouring ; and 

 in this variety or diversity, yet another variety is visible. The 

 binary coloured systems are not all composed of blue and 

 red suns. In that of Gamma Andromedas the great central 

 orb is of an orange hue, the moon revolving round it green 

 as emerald. What results from the marriage of these two 

 colours from this union of orange and emerald? Do we 

 not see in it, says a French astronomer,* a combination, if the 

 phrase is allowable, full of youth (assoriimeni pkin dejeunesse} 

 a grand, a magnificent orange-coloured sun in the midst of 

 the firmament next to it, a resplendent emerald, which inter- 

 weaves with the gold its greenish gleams ? 



The following lively picture is borrowed from the graphic 

 pages of M. Flammarion. 



* Flammarion, "Les Merveilles Celestes," pp. 160, 161. 



