April 14, 1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



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[ PI..A 1N1Y V f ORDED -£XACTI^ DESCRIBED 



N ■Li.'J.SaTIATED 



^ . EofSCIENCE 



LONDON: FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1882. 



Contents op No. 24. 



rAGB FASB 



1 hf Glories of the Star-lit Ueavont. The New Moon in April 613 



Hv R. a. Proclor. With an Illiis- Venus in April, 1882 513 



^rativeMap 507 The New Comet 613 



Tl.' Beetle's View of Life. By Rapid Motions Photographed: 511 



Crant Allen 608 ' Elephants 614 



Mr Muvbridge and Rowing. Bv ; Weather Diagram 619 



ilif Editor ;. 609 Canals on the Planet Mars 619 



Ih-ions at Sea. B^ the Editor .. 510 Were the Egj-ptians Aware of the 



_ 1. 19 with a Three-ineh Telescope. i Motion of the Earth? ...519 



Kv "A Fellow of the Royal Astro- (Mr. Mattieu Williams on Cod 



:uieal Society." (i(/,M(ra<«(«... 511 "Sounds" and " Scientitic Pri- 



Amnteur Electrician — Elec- vilege " — Correspondence 530 



:-)c3l Generators 511 Answers to Correspondents 521 



Three Cold Days of April. By Our WTiist Column 623 



iio Editor 612 Onr Chess Column 524 



; I .' Eclipse of May 17 513 Our Mathematical Column 626 



',' Our Exchange and Sixpenny Sale Columns appear on Page VII. — in our 

 advertising columns this week. 



THE GLORIES OF THE STAR-LIT 

 HEAVENS. 



By R. a. Proctor. 



ON a dark, clear night, 

 When all tlte .stars shine, 

 And the immeasurable heavens 

 Break open to their highest, 



the glories of the stellar depths seem revealed in their 

 fullest splendour. Yet how small a portion is seen. 

 " These are but a part of God's ways ; they utter but a 

 ■whisper of His Glory." If the eye could gain gradually 

 in light-gathering power, until it attained something like 

 the range of the great gauging telescopes of the Herschels, 

 how utterly would what we see now seem lost in the incon- 

 ceivable glories thus gradually unfolded. Even the revela- 

 tions of the telescope, save as the}' appeal to the mind's 

 eye, would be as nothing to the splendid scene re- 

 vealed, when witliin the spaces which now show black 

 between the familiar stars of our constellations, thousands 

 of brilliant orbs would be revealed. The milky luminosity 

 of the Galaxy would be seen aglow with millions of suns, 

 its richer portions blazing so resplendently that no eye 

 could bear to gaze long upon the wondrous display. But 

 with every increase of power more and more myriads of 

 Stars would break into view, until at last the scene would 

 be unbearable in its splendour. The eye would seek for 

 darkness as for rest. The mind would ask for a scene less 

 oppressive in the magnificence of its inner meaning ; for 

 even as seen, wonderful though the display would be, the 

 glorious scene would scarce express the millionth part of 

 its real nature, as recognised by a mind conscious that 

 each point of light was a sun like ours, each sun the centre 

 of a scheme of worlds such as that globe on which we 

 "live and move and have our being." 



Who shall pretend to picture a scene so glorious ? If 

 the electric light could be applied to illumine fifty million 

 lamps over the surface of a black domed vault, and those 

 lamps were here gathered in rich clu.stering groups, 



there stre^vn more sparsely, after the way in which the 

 stars are spread over the vault of lieaven, something like 

 the grandeur of the scene which we have imagined would 

 be realised — but no human hands could ever produce 

 such an exhibition of celestial imagery. As for maps, it is 

 obviously impossible by any maps which could be drawn, 

 no matter what th<'ir scale or plan, to present any thing- 

 even approaching to a correct picture of tlie heavenly host. 

 There is no way even of showing their numerical wealth in 

 a single picture. 



Take, for example, the chart of r)24,198 stars which I 

 drew eight years ago, of which a portion is roughly 

 presented in the illustrative map. Here the points and 

 discs representing stars congregate together so closely, in 

 places, that there is no room for more to be shown, and 

 those which are shown are but inadequately presented. 

 Yet what does this chart show of the heavenly host, 

 regarded merely in their numerical aspect 1 The stars 

 here charted are only those which can be seen, or rather 

 only those which have been seen, with a telescope 2| inches- 

 in aperture, such a telescope as can be seen in every 

 optician's window. I say only those which hacc been 

 seen, because I know from my own observations that 

 Argelander and his assistant observers, had they cared 

 to turn their telescope to the heavens only on the 

 darkest and clearest nights, could certainly have seen and 

 charted half-a-million stars at least, instead of the 324,000 

 which they have actually included in their survey of the 

 Northern heavens. In the Southern heavens at least as 

 many could be seen. A million stars within the range of 

 a telescope absolutely insignificant compared with the 

 gauging telescopes of the Herschels, which again in light 

 gathering power were feeble compared with the mighty 

 Parsonstown reflector ! 



Utterly hopeless would it be to attempt to delineate the 

 stellar host within the range of these noble instruments, 

 when alreatly we see the method of charting fail us for 

 the work of the puny tube which Argelander employed. 

 Y'et how impressive is the scene roughly depicted in 

 our chart ! Each one of the points there shown represents 

 a sun, and tells us therefore of a solar system, of a system 

 in which such a globe as this earth would be but as a point, 

 and regions exceeding in extent the mightiest kingdoms 

 over which the monarchs of earth have ruled would be- 

 utterly as nothing. 



When we pass onward from these glories to the vaster 

 glories revealed by more powerful telescopes, we seem to 

 lose ourselves in the contemplation of the mysteries of 

 infinite space, infinite power, infinite wisdom. Yet it is 

 not till we have learned to look on all that the telescope 

 reveals as in its turn nothhig compared with the real 

 universe, that we have rightly learned the lessons which 

 the heavens teach, so far, at least, as it lies within our 

 feeble powers to study the awful teaching of the stars. The 

 range of the puny instruments man can fashion is no 

 measure, we may be well assured, of the universe as it is. 

 The domain of telescopically visible space, compared with. 

 which the whole range of the visible universe of stars 

 seems but a point, can be in turn but as a point compared 

 with those infinite realms of star-strewn space which lie on 

 every side of our universe, beyond the range, — millions of 

 times farther than the extremest scope, — of the instruments 

 by which man has extended the powers of visions given to 

 him by the Almighty. The tinite — for after all, infinite 

 though it seems to us, the region of space through which 

 we can extend our survey is but finite — can never bear any 

 proportion to the infinite save that of infinite disproportion. 

 All that we can see is as nothing compared with that 

 which is ; all we can know is as nothing : though our know- 



