TEMPORARY STARS. 



155 



transition of the cosmical vapor into clusters of stars, of an 

 agglomerative force, of a concentration to a central nucleus, 

 and of hypotheses of a gradual formation of solid bodies out 

 of a vaporous fluid — views which were generally received in 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century, but which at pres- 

 ent, owing to the ever-changing fluctuations in the world of 

 thought, are in many respects exposed to new doubts. 



Among newly-appeared temporary stars, the following 

 (though with variable degrees of certainty) may be reckoned. 

 I have arranged them according to the order in which they 

 respectively appeared. 



(a) 



<*) 



(c) 

 (d) 



(e) 

 (/ 

 (g) 

 (h) 



h 

 * 



(0 



(»> 

 (») 



a 



h 



(*) 







(«) 



(») 



134 B.C in Scorpio. 



EXPLANATORY REMARKS. 



(a) This star first appeared in July, 134 years before our era. Wo 

 have taken it from the Chinese Records of Ma-tuan-lin, for the transla- 

 tion of which we are indebted to the learned linguist Edward Biot 

 (Connaissance des Temps pour Van 1846, p. 61). Its place was between 

 /? and p of Scorpio. Among the extraordinary foreign-looking stars of 

 these records, called also guest-stars {iloiles hdtes, " Ke-sing," strangers 

 of a singular aspect), which are distinguished by the observers from 

 comets with tails, fixed new stars and advancing tailless comets are cer- 

 tainly sometimes mixed up. But in the record of their motion (Ke-sing 



tails of comets (the vapory radiation from their nuclei) with the galaxy 

 to which I have already alluded. (Cosmos, vol. i., p. 103.) 



