Pope. — On the Southern Stars and other Celestial Objects, ■ 16? 



of coui'se, show either that the change in the angle and the distance of the 

 two stars of this double is owing to the proper motion of one, or both, of 

 the components, or that 6 Eridani is a binary system. The latter alterna- 

 tive appears to me to be by far the more probable. 



232 Reticuli of the Melbourne Catalogue is a fine star of a magnificent 

 scarlet colour. It is of magnitude Q^. There is a distant companion 

 white star of the eleventh magnitude. The E. A. of 232 Reticuli, is 4hrs. 

 35min. 15-15secs., and the declination 62° 20' 0-63" S. The spectrum of 

 this star is very remarkable. It belongs to Secchi's fourth class. The 

 typical star of this division is small — invisible, in fact, to the naked 

 eye ; it is variable both in light and colour ;' it is a very distinct red, 

 ruby, crimson, or scarlet ; and its spectrum consists of bands of light, some- 

 times containing faint bright lines, with dark spaces between the bright 

 brands. 232 PieticuH, though so smaU, gives a fine spectrum when the 

 spectroscope is used with the reflector, because the light is not spread out 

 over the whole length of the spectrum, but is concentrated in certain parts 

 of it. Thus the red part of the spectrum is very bright, but the place of the 

 orange is occupied by a very thick black " bar." The yellow, again, is ^jretty 

 bright, and so is part of the green, but towards the violet end of the spec- 

 trum the light is very faint, and the colours are quite cut out for large spaces 

 by intervals of almost complete darkness. I failed to notice here what is 

 said to be characteristic of this class of stars — a gradually diminishing 

 blackness of the bars in the direction of the violet end of the spectrum ; nor 

 could I distinguish any bright lines in any part of the spectrum. The study 

 and observation of stars of this class is none the less interesting to us, 

 because in the present state of our knowledge their spectra are unintelligible, 

 for it is generally felt by those who have been in the habit of observing 

 them, that there is a great secret of nature waiting to be discovered in con- 

 nection with them. Their being for the most part so very variable both in 

 light and colour, the strongly-pronounced red colour of all of them, and 

 their strange and beautiful spectra, all point to the conclusion, that the man 

 who succeeds in " reading the riddle " of the nature and constitution of the 

 red variable stars, will have made a very important contribution to our 

 knowledge of the process by which suns and systems are evolved 0ut of the 

 primordial nebula, or whatever the substance may be, from which such 

 systems are formed, and to which, perchance, when their mission is fulfilled, 

 they again return. In the meantime these red stars seem to set anything, 

 even like rational conjecture, at defiance. 



a Argus {Canopus.) — This great star, the only rival of Sirius, is a 

 hydrogen, or first-class star. In its spectrum, the F. and C. hydrogen lines, 

 and that near G., are broad and distinct, though less so than in the spectrum 



