MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



the nebulous matter may be sufficiently dense to bring 

 the surface of a star to incandescence. That obviously 

 would mean the annihilation of all life on the globe, 

 even though the entire mechanism of the solar system 

 were not disrupted. 



feWe know that we are at present far removed from 

 any one of the myriad of dark stars, else their pres- 

 ence would make itself known though a gravitational 

 effect on the orbits of the planets. But it seems quite 

 within the possibilities that a nebula might be spread 

 out net-like in our course without revealing its pres- 

 ence until we were fairly enmeshed in its substance. 

 The probability is not one to cause even the most 

 timorous to lie awake of nights. But that it is a pos- 

 sibility, and one that in the course of the ages will 

 become a reality, the observation of the new star in 

 Perseus seems strongly to suggest. 



Very likely the human race will be extinct before 

 this happens. But in any event we cannot suppose 

 that the snuffing out of life on a fifth rate planet such 

 as ours, in connection with a minor solar system, can 

 be of any conceivable consequence in the cosmic 

 scheme of a universe of a hundred million or perhaps 

 a thousand million suns. 'A fly on the window pane 

 bears a larger relation to the size of our globe than 

 the globe itself bears to the space compassed within 

 the sphere of the visible stars. 



