BIQ AND LITTLE. 185 



our own world as a wliole, of conrso ; but wo 

 may i)eilia[)S make tlio i)r()[)()rtioiis conceivable if 

 we think first of the earth as a pea, and then of 

 Jupiter as equivalent to thirteen InindreHl such 

 rolled together. Saturn, once more, though not 

 by any means so big as Jupiter, is about seven 

 liundred and fifty times as large as the earth. 

 These of course are very big planets, and in them- 

 selves they might fairly be considered nothing 

 less than positively gigantic. But, viewed l)y the 

 standard of the sun, their ruler, they dwindle 

 at once into mere babies. Jupiter is thirteen 

 hundred times as big as the earth, but the sun 

 is one million three hundred and eighty-four thou- 

 sand times as big ; in other words, it would take 

 more than a million and a quarter bodies as big as 

 our world to compose a body as big as the sun. 

 Surely here, we may well supjjose, we have 

 reached the very topmost summit of bigness. 

 Not a bit of it. Com})ared to the earth, the sun 

 is indeed inconceivably vast ; but, compared to 

 the other fixed stars about him, he is in all prob- 

 ability the merest pigmy. We cannot accurately 

 measure the stars as we can measure the planets, 

 but there is reason to believe that the star called 

 Alpha, in the constellation of the Centaur (the 

 nearest one to our own system), is nearly two and 

 a half times as big as the sun, and that Sirius, the 

 brightest star known to us, is three hundred and 



