THE LAW OF EQUILIBRIUM 153 



stantial margin of his absolute speed must logically be 

 held in reserve, as it were, to admit of the introduction 

 of possible new discoveries. 



According to Newcomb, the pole moves 20" per 

 annum on the scroll of the celestial sphere. Taking the 

 sun's annual movement of 186,000,000 miles as the base 

 line, the question arises as to how distant the Vertex 

 must be to possess this parallax, or in other words, to 

 make the distance 186,000,000 miles subtend an angle of 

 only 20 seconds. To ascertain this we need simply divide 

 the 186,000,000 by 20 and multiply the quotient by the 

 number of seconds in a radian, yielding as a result, 1,918,- 

 000,000,000 miles, which is precisely the same value we 

 found by the other process. 



Again, it may be interposed that if, indeed, the 

 system be falling at the rate specified, it would in the pre- 

 cessional period fall a sheer height equivalent to the full 

 length of the sun's orbit practically twice as low as the 

 Vertex. This is precisely what I contend. But the Ver- 

 tex is no more riveted to one spot than a horse drawing a 

 vehicle. It is merely the crossing place of gravitational 

 strands that, real and powerful though they are, are yet 

 as imponderable, as elusive, as mobile as the rays of 

 light itself. The Vertex, in fine, is a wili-o '-the-wisp, 

 beckoning the system on and on forever, and, indeed, the 

 Gravisphere itself should be conceived of as in the pro- 

 cess of falling in an enormous spiral curve on the order 

 of a hundred trillions of miles in diameter and a coil 

 period of some two millions of years. 



If the reader has acquired the impression that I 

 identify the Vertex with the center of the stellar universe, 

 he is mistaken. There may be such a center, perhaps; 

 but if so, it is as shifting as the clouds, since all things are 

 in motion. The Vertex is for the system a proximate cen- 

 ter only, just as the earth is for the meteors that fall in 

 upon it. The garden of the sky, indeed, is crowded with 

 these umbels of forces carrying, perched on their stems, 

 their planetary efflorescences. Beyond that Vertex is 

 another far more distant, beyond that again, another 



