74 



exploded it ; its sun perished, and with it of necessity its 

 planets. 



In describing the solar system I think I sufficiently 

 demonstrated the vital tie between the sun and its sa- 

 tellites; the former appearing as the source of heat and 

 light, necessary for the support of vegetation on the pla- 

 nets; the latter acting as the grand laboratory of oxo- 

 hydrogen needed for the solar fire. When this connec- 

 tion ceases and this tie is broken, the system itself pe- 

 rishes. This is the result we can observe in the cloud- 

 mass of Aquarius : - - a perished sun, extinct planets, a 

 dissipated system, with only dim outlines of its former 

 shapes. 



The photograph of the cloud in Andromeda presents 

 a different picture. Though the form is also oval, cosmic 

 life is still in evidence. By the side of the mass we 

 notice two small stars, very small it is true but never- 

 theless spheroidal, and solar by their spectrum. In the 

 middle are two peculiar planetary bodies of which one, 

 though oval, points in the direction opposite to that ol 

 the general mass, and the other preserves a globular 

 shape, showing that it is as yet only losing and has not 

 yet lost its vitality. 



Judging from the spectral analysis one might indeed take 

 the cloud in Andromeda as a system in process of for- 

 mation, but from phenomena which have been observed 

 this view can be disproved. In 1885 in the thickest por- 

 tion of the cloud appeared a star of the 6-th magnitude, 

 which was reduced in six months to a star of the 11-th 

 magnitude, and at the present time has become invisible 

 even through a powerful telescope. 



If in any cloud there still exist living stars this means 

 that the mass has not yet lost its significance as a solar 

 system in the Universe, and the spectrum of such a mass 

 is entirely unlike that of those cloud-masses which are 

 totally extinct. If, however, the cloud in Andromeda was 

 a system in formation then the stars appearing in it 

 would increase and not, as in fact, diminish ; the dimi- 



