j2 VESTIGES OF THE 



at the time of the Inrtli of Moses, he would only as yet 

 liave accomplislieil half his journey. 



It has long been concluded amongst astronomers, that 

 the stai's, though they only appear to our eyes as brilliant 

 })oints, are all to be considered as suns, representing so 

 many solar systems, each bearing a general resemblance 

 to our own. The stars have a brilliancy and apparent 

 magnitude which we may safely presume to be in pro- 

 portion to their actual size and the distance at which 

 they are placed from us. Attempts have been made to 

 ascertain the distance of some of the stars by calculations 

 founded on parallax, it being previously understood that 

 if a parallax of so much as one second, or the 36ootli of 

 a degree, could be ascertained in any one instance, the 

 distance might be assumed in that instance as not less 

 than 19,200,000 millions of miles 1 In the case of the 

 most brilliant star, Sirius, even this minute parallax 

 could not be found ; from which, of course, it was to be 

 inferred that the distance of that star is something be- 

 yond the vast distance which has been stated. In some 

 others, on which the experiment has been tried, no 

 sensible parallax could be detected ; from wliich the same 

 inference was to be made in their case. But a sensible 

 parallax of about one second has been ascertained in the 

 case of the double star, ua, of the constellation of tli(> 

 Centaur,''' and one of the third of that amount for the 

 double star. 61 (,*ygni; which gave reason to presume 

 that the distance of the former might be about nineteen 

 millions of millions of miles, and the latter of much 

 greater amount, if we suppose that similar intervals 

 exist between all the stars, we shall readily see that the 

 space occupied hj even the comparatively small number 



* By I\lr. Ileiidcrsoii, Professor of Astronomy in the lul.inburgli 

 Uiiiver.sitv, aiul l^icuteiiant ^leadows. 



