190 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
lates the apparently giddy proceedings of society’s neophyte, so it appears 
possible on this new hypothesis to show that all this apparent stellar 
disorder conforms to laws as completely as the most carefully watched 
young lady. 
Besides these variables which have been long out, it occasionally happens 
that a star blazes forth before the astonished gaze of beholders, and for a 
time monopolizes all attention. But after a little while, sometimes only a 
few weeks, sometimes a year or so, this meteor-like sun gradually loses its 
brilliancy, and passes away altogether, or becomes a very insignificant little 
star; the temporary star having no longer any existence except in history. 
The celestial temporaries have one advantage over our earthly stars, they 
are sufficiently rare that it is seldom any one is eut out by the appearance 
of a rival. Two of these stars have however appeared within the last 
twelve years. 
But there appear several reasons to suppose that there is quite another 
class of stars, modest retiring suns, of altogether an unobtrusive character. 
Suns which have put up their shutters, and retired from business, Suns 
with very little vitality, or perhaps altogether dead suns. 
. In addition to all these varieties of stars there is a very wonderful class 
of bodies called nebule. These are delicate luminous clouds, probably con- 
sisting of masses of glowing gas. Some of them are of very definite 
structure, spherical, spindle-shaped, spiral, comet-like, and frequently 
strewn all over with brilliant stars. Some of them are so large that the 
size of our whole Solar System would be hardly a sufficient unit to measure 
them with. Most of these nebule are spread out in two sheets covering a 
large part of the celestial sphere at the poles of the galactic circle. . 
As in the human family so with the stellar inhabitant of space, many 
are associated into well-marked groups; as we have families, tribes, nations, 
and the whole race, so we have our solar family, our multiple star-system, 
and probably, by the recent researches of Proctor, the whole visible heavens 
is a definite and connected system, consisting chiefly of a vast ring of stars, 
with nebular caps at both its poles. 
All of these bodies appear to be moving indiscriminately about, without 
common direction or purpose, although certain pairs and groups seem to 
have considerable community of motion. But they move fast in those 
celestial regions, they quite out-do our Canterbury snail ways, a thousand 
times as fast as our fastest railway train is only a walking star, and I feel 
afraid to tell you how fast some can run, And every star is pulling hard 
at allits near neighbours, The nearest star to our sun must have a velocity 
of sixty miles an hour to escape the sun’s attraction. 
But amidst all this flying about, this indescribable hurry, these powerful 
attractions, surely you will say there must occasionally be collisions. The 
