729 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Variation 

 Variety 



silent night, during the sleep of terrestrial 

 Nature, in those nocturnal hours when hu- 

 manity around us is asleep in anticipated 

 death, our gaze and our thoughts are ele- 

 vated by the aid of the marvelous telescope 

 towards these celestial lights which are lit 

 up on high from other worlds, and radiate 

 around them heat, activity, and life, the 

 contrast is so great that we think we dream. 

 Here night, above light; here lethargy, above 

 motion; here shadows, above splendor; here 

 heavy and dark matter, above the devouring 

 flame and the sidereal life. FLAMMABION 

 Popular Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 9, p. 638. 

 (A.) 



3613. Cycles of Revolu- 

 tion of Stellar Systems. Notwithstanding 

 the enormous distances which separate these 

 stars [of one system] from each other, yet 

 vaster distances, or rather distances of a 

 higher order of vastness, separate that sys- 

 tem of stars from the surrounding parts of 

 the galaxy. It presents to us, also, the 

 wonderful thought that cycles of revolution 

 must exist within that system, compared 

 with which the longest periods of motion 

 recognized within our solar system must be 

 regarded as absolutely insignificant. We are 

 shown in such star-systems an order of 

 created things unlike any that before we 

 had known. One other form of evidence 

 has been given to show the infinite variety 

 which pervades every part of the universe. 

 PROCTOR Expanse of Heaven, p. 296. (L. 

 G. & Co., 1897.) 



3614. Stars and Nebulce 



Intermingled in Same Great Group. There 

 is no maintaining nebulae to be simply re- 

 mote worlds of stars, in the face of an ag- 

 glomeration like the Nubecula Major, con- 

 taining in its (certainly capacious) bosom 

 both stars and nebulae. Add the evidence 

 of the spectroscope to the effect that a large 

 proportion of these perplexing objects are 

 gaseous, with the intimate relation obvious- 

 ly subsisting between the mode of their scat- 

 tering and the lie of the Milky Way, and it 

 becomes impossible to resist the conclusion 

 that both nebular and stellar systems are 

 parts of a single scheme. CLERKE History 

 of Astronomy, pt. ii, ch. 12, p. 505. (Bl., 

 1893.) 



3615. 



The Heavens Trans- 



figured, Science is only beginning to pene- 

 trate into the starry immensity. Even yes- 

 terday we were ignorant of the number of 

 the real double stars now observed, the di- 

 versity of their motions, and their propor- 

 tion in the organization of the heavens. 

 We may estimate that about one-fifth of the 

 suns of which the universe is composed are 

 not single, like that which illuminates us, 

 but associated in binary, ternary, or multi- 

 ple systems. Thus the double stars are 

 veritable suns, gigantic and powerful, gov- 

 erning, in the regions illuminated by their 

 splendor, systems different from that of 

 which we form part. The sky is no longer 



a gloomy desert; its ancient solitudes have 

 given place to regions peopled like those 

 in which the earth gravitates; the darkness, 

 the silence and death which reigned in these 

 depths have given place to light, to motion, 

 and to life; thousands and millions of suns 

 pour out in great waves into space the ener- 

 gy, the heat, and the different undulations 

 which emanate from their~foci ; the universe 

 is transfigured to our thoughts ; suns succeed 

 to suns, worlds to worlds, universes to uni- 

 verses; tremendous proper motions carry all 

 these systems through the endless regions of 

 immensity; and everywhere, out to and be- 

 yond the farthest limits where the fatigued 

 imagination may rest its wings, everywhere 

 is developed in infinite variety the divine 

 creation in which our microscopical planet is 

 but an insignificant province. FLAMMARION 

 Popular Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 8, p. 640. (A.) 



3616. Varying Length of 



Years. What inexhaustible variety distin- 

 guishes the planets from each other! On 

 the moon, for example, there are but twelve 

 days and twelve nights in a year, and yet 

 their year is of the same length as ours. Here 

 we count 365 days in a year. On Jupiter 

 the year is nearly twelve times longer than 

 ours, and the day less than half the terres- 

 trial day; hence it follows that there are 

 no less than 10,455 days in the year of that 

 world! On Saturn the disproportion is still 

 more extraordinary; for its year, thirty 

 times longer than ours, contains 25,217 days. 

 And what shall we say of Neptune, whose 

 year lasts for a century and a half 165 of 

 our rapid years! If biology is there regu- 

 lated in the same proportions, a young girl 

 of seventeen years on Neptune would really 

 have lived 2,800 of our years; she would 

 have lived nearly a thousand years before 

 Christ was born in Judea; she would have 

 been contemporary with Romulus, Julius 

 Caesar, Constantine, Clovis, Charlemagne, 

 Francois I., Louis XIV., Robespierre and 

 she would still be only seventeen! Le- 

 thargic fiancee, she will marry in three or 

 four hundred years a young man of her 

 dreams aged himself more than three thou- 

 sand terrestrial years. FLAMMARION Popu- 

 lar Astronomy, bk. i, ch. 2, p. 13. (A.) 



3617. VARIETY IN UNITY-Simi- 



larity in Structure of Diverse Parts. The 

 similar framework of bones in the hand of 

 a man, wing of a bat, fin of the porpoise, 

 and leg of the horse the same number of 

 vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and 

 of the elephant and innumerable other 

 such facts, at once explain themselves on 

 the theory of descent with slow and slight 

 successive modifications. The similarity of 

 pattern m the wing and in the leg of a bat, 

 tho used for such different purpose, in the 

 jaws and legs of a crab, in the petals, sta- 

 mens, and pistils of a flower, is likewise, to 

 a large extent, intelligible on the view of 

 the gradual modification of parts or organs. 



