353 



ceived at the present time with peculiar indulgence and interest, 

 in consequence not only of the brilliant deductive discovery 

 lately made of the new planet exterior to Uranus, but also 

 of the extraordinary and exciting intelligence which has just 

 arrived from Dorpat, of the presumed discovery, by Pro- 

 fessor Miidler, of a central cluster (the Pleiades), and of a 

 central sun (Alcinoe, called also Eta Tauri) : around which 

 cluster, and which sun or star, it is believed by Madler that 

 our own sun and all the other stars of our sidereal system, in- 

 cluding the milky way, but exclusive of the more distant 

 nebulae, are moving in enormous orbits, under the combined 

 influences of their own mutual attractions, all regulated by 

 the same great law. 



Sir William Hamilton exhibited Professor Miidler's work, 

 Die Centralsonne, Dorpat, 1846, in which, as a first provi- 

 sional attempt to determine the orbit of our own sun, with the 

 help of the proper motions of a great number of stars, com- 

 bined with Bessel's parallax of 61 Cygni, Madler assigns to 

 what he regards as the Central Sun, Alcinoe, a distance 

 amounting to thirty-four million times the distance of our 

 sun from us ; concluding, also, but still only as first approxi- 

 mations, that the period of our sun's revolution is about 

 eighteen millions of years, and that its orbit has now an in- 

 clination to the ecliptic of about 84 degrees, with an ascend- 

 ing node, of which the present longitude is nearly 237°. 



A chart of observed places of Le Verrier's Planet was also 

 exhibited by Sir William Hamilton ; and was illustrated by 

 comparison with Bremiker's Star- Map, which also was laid 

 upon the table. 



