
OTHER WORLDS INHABITED 3 
distant that, as computed by Prof. Bickerton,! “it 
would take the swiftest express train forty millions 
of years to get to the nearest star’”—while even 
light, with its enormous velocity, would take over 
four years to travel from it to us, and probably 
thousands of years to reach us from one of the 
most distant suns. 
Yet all through this stupendous universe, as 
Bickerton says, ‘‘the spectroscope reveals identity 
of matter and community of motion.” 
Not only are the same elements that exist on this 
earth found in the stars, but, as Sir Norman 
Lockyer tells us*—and the statement, as we shall 
see, is one of the greatest importance—they are 
found in gradually increasing numbers, ‘as we come 
down from the hottest stars to the cooler ones.” 
The number of spectral lines, as he says, gradually 
increases, ‘‘ and with the number of lines the number 
of chemical, elements; “The full sienifiicance of: 
these statements will be revealed in the next two 
chapters. 
1“ The Romance of the Heavens,” 1901, p. 162. 
2“ Tnorganic Evolution as studied by Spectrum Analysis,” 1900, 
p- 159. 
