DISCOVERY 



369 



apjiear the most remarkable of its kind that has been 

 put on record. 



On November ii, 1572, the day it was first dis- 

 covered by Tycho Brahe, its brightness was as great 

 as that of Sirius, and it rapidly increased until it was 

 brighter than Jupiter, and soon became visible in the 

 daytime. After this, however, it gradually faded away 

 and disappeared after a lapse of sixteen months. 



Coming to modern times, the most notable new stars 

 previous to the recent discovery of Mr. Denning was 

 Nova Aurigae, discovered by Dr. Thos. D. Anderson, 

 of Edinburgh, in 1S92 ; and Nova Persei, which was 

 first disco\-ered by the same astronomer on the 

 morning of February 22, 1901, and later in the 

 evening of the same day by Mr. Ivor Gregg and 

 Dr. J. Ellard Gore. 



There are many theories to account for these sudden 

 outbursts in space, of which perhaps the best known 

 is that of Prof. A. VV. Bickcrton, which is known 

 as the Grazitig Contact Theory or the Theory of the 

 Third Body. 



In this theory the origin of the new star is said to 

 be that the innumerable bodies forming the stars of 

 the Milky Way travel in two great streams in opposite 

 directions, and from time to time two of these suns 

 meet with an appulse or grazing collision, pieces of the 

 colliding stars being torn off, and, becoming explosively 

 hot, coalesce into a new and third body of great 

 brilliance, which makes what we call the new star, 

 and the two colliding suns pass on their way. 



What seems most extraordinary to the uninitiated 

 is the fact that the collision, or whatever it may be 

 that caused the outburst which we see as a new star, 

 probably occurred some hundred or even two hundred 

 years previously, the light of the mighty explosion 

 having taken that interval of time to cross space even 

 at the tremendous speed of 186,330 miles per second, 

 or about 670,000,000 miles an hour. From this we 

 see that an appulse of two suns may be now taking 

 place in the region of the Galaxy which will not 

 be viewed by either the present generation or the 

 next. 



The part of Prof. Bickcrton's theory which assumes 

 two great opposing streams of stars in the Milky 

 Way has been confirmed by the observations of Prof. 

 Kapteyn and other distinguished astronomers, but the 

 portion dealing with the grazing contact of two suns 

 still awaits substantiation. It was the new star which 

 flashed out suddenly in Corona Borealis in 1866, and 

 which was called the " blaze star," that led to the 

 investigation of these phenomena ; and it would seem 

 that in most cases of this kind the "new stars" are 

 mainly due to the revival from some unknown cause 

 of a star already existing in space; 



It is of course not necessary, if we accept the grazing 



contact theory, to bind ourselves down to appulses of 

 sohd bodies ; the temporary star might equally well 

 be due to a collision between a star and a nebula, or 

 even between two nebukc. 



It may occur to some readers that if it be possible 

 for collisions to take place in space it might one day 

 happen that our own Sun would meet with an appulse 

 from some unknown and possibly dark body. This 

 contingency has not been overlooked by astronomers, 

 but it has been found that whilst the suns in the 

 region of the Galaxy lie in comparatively close juxta- 

 position there are no suns lying in close proximity to 

 our own luminary. The late Mr. J. Ellard Gore, 

 F.R.A.S., calculated that the chances against our Sun 

 colliding with another body in space was 15,000,000 

 to I, so that we need hardly fear the possibility of 

 ourselves making a " temporary star " for the benefit 

 of possible astronomers in another system in space ! 



The Hieroglyphs of 

 Central America 



By Lewis Spence, F.R.A.I. 



Aullwr 0/ " The Civilisalion of Ancient Mexico," " Myths 0/ Mexico 

 and Peru," etc. 



The strange system of writing anciently in use among 

 the civilised peoples of Central America has not suc- 

 ceeded in attracting the same degree of popular interest 

 in this country as the scripts of Egypt or Assyria, 

 yet its claims upon the imagination arc, perhaps, no 

 less strong than those of hieroglyphic or cuneiform. 

 Our grandfathers waxed enthusiastic over the amateur 

 explorations of Stephens among the crumbling cities 

 of Yucatan and Chiapas, but although the governments 

 of the United States, France, and Germany have 

 freely encouraged research in American archaeology 

 and its cultivation flourishes abroad, it still languishes 

 among us. It is regrettable that British readers 

 should remain unfamiliar with results so surprising 

 and so creditable to human perseverance as those 

 which have recently attended the discovery of the 

 general purport of the Maya glyphic system. For 

 the pursuit of this quest a far greater degree of effort 

 and a higher ingenuity have been needful than was 

 the case in the unriddling of the ancient writings of 

 Egypt or Sumeria. That the quaint symbols of the 

 ancient Maya have so far met with only partial inter- 



