NEW, VARIABLE, AND COMPOUND STARS. 109 



some vast combustion has given them a transient visibility? "Worlds and systems of 

 worlds," says Mason Good, "are not only perpetually creating, but also perpetually 

 disappearing. It is an extraordinary fact, that within the period of the last century, 

 not less than thirteen stars, in different constellations, seem to have totally perished, and 

 ten new ones to have been created. In many instances it is unquestionable, that the 

 stars themselves, the supposed habitation of other kinds or orders of intelligent beings, 

 together with the different planets by which it is probable they were surrounded, have 

 utterly vanished, and the spots which they occupied in the heavens have become blanks ! 

 What has befallen other systems, will assuredly befall our own. Of the time and the 

 manner we know nothing, but the fact is incontrovertible ; it is foretold by revelation ; 

 it is inscribed in the heavens ; it is felt through the earth. Such, then, is the awful and 

 daily text ; what then ought to be the comment ? " The current of thought upon this 

 subject, with reference to several eminent men, has run in the same channel. Vince 

 remarks: " The disappearance of some stars may be the destruction of that system at 

 the time appointed by the Deity for the probation of its inhabitants ; and the appearance 

 of new stars may be the formation of new systems for new races of beings then called 

 into existence to adore the works of their Creator." Laplace likewise observes: "As 

 to those stars which suddenly shine forth with a very vivid light, and then immediately 

 disappear, it is extremely probable that great conflagrations, produced by extraordinary 

 causes, take place on their surface. This conjecture is confirmed by their change of 

 colour, which is analogous to that presented to us on the earth by those bodies which are 

 set on fire and then gradually extinguished." It has been said, that the existence and 

 death of Alexander the Great the rise and fall of the Roman empire the destruction, 

 ty earthquake or volcano, of cities which were once the seats of commerce and the 

 arts have been handed down to us upon evidence in no respect whatever better 

 entitled to our belief, than that of the astronomical facts to which we have been 

 adverting. This is perfectly true ; yet the facts themselves may be widely apart from 

 any analogy with such terrestrial occurrences. We have choice of another theory, 

 on many accounts preferable, though not free from great difficulties. It has been con- 

 jectured, that the temporary appearance of stars may be resolvable into a periodical 

 translation from the depths of infinite space, to a station which brings them within the 

 bounds of our vision. Their sudden and brilliant burst from the dark and distant void, 

 upon this supposition, arises from a tremendous velocity; and their evanescent stay 

 within our view, may be caused by one of the narrow extremities of an orbit 



immensely elliptical lying in the direction 

 of our system. The diagram represents part 

 of this supposed orbit, that which approaches 

 our position in the universe. It is further 

 conceived, that the temporary stars of 945, 

 1264, and 1572 were not different individuals, 

 but in reality the same star. This is grounded 

 upon the close accordance of the intervals separating the periods. 



From 945 to 1264, 319 years. From 1264 to 1572, 308 years. 



It has been supposed, therefore, that the star has an orbit which it accomplishes in about 

 three hundred years. With reference to this hypothesis, it will be for the present century 

 to utter a verdict. If it be true, those who live thirty or forty years longer will see the 

 star, upon which Tycho gazed in his manhood, and Keppler when a boy, return to its 

 station in Cassiopeia, again to glitter, to wane, and vanish ! In corroboration of this 

 theory, it should be mentioned, that the stars of 945, 1264, and 1572 appeared in the 



