136 COSMOS. 



while, every where around, the luminous asteroids proclaim 

 the existence of one common material universe. 



If we compare the volume of the innermost of Saturn's sat- 

 ellites, or that of Ceres, with the immense volume of the Sun, 

 all relations of magnitude vanish from our minds. The ex- 

 tinction of suddenly resplendent stars in Cassiopeia, Cygnus, 

 and Serpentarius have already led to the assumption of other 

 and non-luminous cosmical bodies. We now know that the 

 meteoric asteroids, spherically agglomerated into small masses, 

 revolve round the Sun, intersect, like comets, the orbits of the 

 luminous larger planets, and become ignited either in the vi- 

 cinity of our atmosphere or in. its upper strata. 



The only media by which we are brought in connection 

 with other planetary bodies, and with all portions of the uni- 

 verse beyond our atmosphere, are light and heat (the latter 

 of which can scarcely be separated from the former),* and 

 those mysterious powers of attraction exercised by remote 

 masses, according to the quantity of their constituents, upon 

 our globe, the ocean, and the strata of our atmosphere. An- 

 other and different kind of cosmical, or, rather, material mode 

 of contact is, however, opened to us, if we admit falling stars 

 and meteoric stones to be planetary asteroids. They not only 

 act upon us merely from a distance by the excitement of lumin- 

 ous or calorific vibrations, or in obedience to the laws of mu- 

 tual attraction, but they acquire an actual material existence 

 for us, reaching our atmosphere from the remoter regions of 

 universal space, and remaining on the earth itself Meteoric 

 stones are the only means by which we can be brought in pos- 

 sible contact with that which is foreign to our own planet. 

 Accustomed to gain our knowledge of what is not telluric 

 solely through measurement, calculations, and the deductions 

 of reason, we experience a sentiment of astonishment at find- 

 ing that we may examine, weigh, and analyze bodies that ap- 



* The following remarkable passage on the radiation of heat from 

 the fixed stars, and on their low combustion arid vitality — one of Kep- 

 ler's many aspirations — occurs in the Paralipom. in Vitell. Astron. para 

 Optica, 1604, Propos. xxxii., p. 25 : " Lucis proprium est calor, sydera 

 omnia calefaciunt. De syderum luce claritatis ratio testatur, calorem 

 universorum in minori esse proportione ad calorem unius solis, quam 

 ut ab homine, cujus est certa caloris meusura, uterquo simul percipi et 

 judicari possit. De cincindularum lucula tenuissima negare non potes, 

 quin cum calore sit. Vivunt enim et moventur, hoc autem non sine 

 calefactione perficitur. Sic neque putrescentium lignorum lux sno ca« 

 lore destituitur ; nam ipsa puetredo quidam lentus ignis est. Inest et 

 stirpibus suus calor." (Compare Kepler, Epit. Astron. Copernicance, 

 1618, t. i., lib. i., p. 35.) 



