Ixii REPORT — 1860. 



fact, no less than that our own Sun is not fixed in space, but that it is con- 

 stantly moving forward towards a point in the constellation Hercules, at the 

 rate, as it is supposed, of about 18,000 miles an hour, carrying with it the 

 whole planetary and cometary system ; and if our Sun moves, probably all 

 the other stars or suns move also, and the whole universe is in a perpetual 

 state of motion through space. 



The second subject, to which the attention of private observers has been 

 more particularly directed, is that of double or multiple stars, or those which, 

 being situated very close to one another, appear single to the naked eye, but 

 when viewed through powerful telescopes are seen to consist of two or more 

 stars. The measuring the angles and distances from one another of the two 

 or more component stars of these systems, has led to the discovery that many 

 of these very close stars are in fact acting as suns to one another, and revol- 

 ving round their common centre of gravity, each of them probably carrying 

 with it a whole system of planets and comets, and perhaps each carried for- 

 ward through space like our own sun. It became then a point of great in- 

 terest to determine, whether bodies so far removed from us as these systems, 

 observed Newton's law of gravity r , and to this end it was necessary to observe 

 the angles and distances of a great number of these double stars scattered 

 everywhere through the heavens, for the purpose of obtaining data to com- 

 pute their orbits. This has been done, and chiefly by private observers; and 

 the result is that these distant bodies are found to be obedient to the same 

 laws that prevail in our own system. 



The Nebula? are, as it were, systems or rings of stars scattered through space 

 at incredible distances from our star system, and perhaps from one another; 

 and there are many of these mysterious clouds of light, and there may be 

 endless invisible regions of space similarly tenanted. Now the nearest fixed 

 star of our star system whose distance has been measured, is the brightest in the 

 constellation Centaur, one of the Southern constellations, and this nearest is 

 yet so far removed, that it takes light, travelling at the rate of about 192,000 

 miles per second, three years to arrive at the earth from that star. When 

 we gaze at it, therefore, we see it only as it existed three years ago ; some 

 great convulsion of nature may have since destroyed it. But there are many 

 bright stars in our own system, whose distance is so much greater than this, 

 as a Cygni, for example, that astronomers have not succeeded in measuring it. 

 What, then, must be the distance of these nebulae, with which so much space 

 is filled; every component star in which may be a sun, with its own system 

 of planets and comets revolving round it, each planet inhabited by myriads 

 of inhabitants I What an overpowering view does this give us of the extent 

 of creation ! The component stars of these nebulas are so faint and appa- 

 rently so close together, that it is necessary to use telescopes of great power, 

 and with apertures so large as to admit a great amount of light, for their ob- 

 servation. We owe it more especially to four individuals, that telescopes 

 have been constructed, at a great cost and with great mechanical skill, suf- 



