THE EARTH AT ITS BEGINNING 



tions in the stars. It will see that some are balls like the 

 Earth, the Sun, and the Moon. If these balls are studied 

 attentively we shall discover that one of them, Jupiter, is 

 a great deal hotter than the earth, though a great deal 

 cooler than the Sun ; and that another of them, Mars, is 

 a great deal colder than the earth, but a great deal 

 warmer than the Moon. Perhaps we might now begin to 

 surmise that the Sun coming first, Jupiter next, the Earth 

 next, Mars next, and the Moon last, were all like stages 

 in the history of one of these balls ; and that, for 

 example, any one ball began by being as hot as the Sun, 

 and ended, after passing through stages like Jupiter, the 

 Earth, and Mars, in being as cold and lifeless as the 

 Moon. 



But if one had a very good telescope, and could 

 examine those more distant specks of light which we call 

 stars, we perhaps could spy a little earlier into the history 

 of these great balls. For example, among the blazing 

 lights of the heavens the stars which we know to be 

 suns there are others which are not balls at all. There 

 are the Pleiades, for instance, of whom the Prophet Amos 

 wrote, "Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and 

 Orion " (Amos v. 8). The seven stars (in the Authorised 

 Version rendered Pleiades), 1 when seen through a great 

 telescope, are caught in a mesh or a veil of something 

 that may be starry matter, but of the exact nature of 



1 It has been cogently suggested that by the " seven stars " the 

 biblical writer meant the constellation of the Great Bear; but 

 Mr. E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., of Greenwich Observatory, is of opinion 

 that the Pleiades were signified. 



