Stellar and Planetary Evolution. 69 



hidden beauties and wonders of the skies several philosophers, 

 eminent astromoners as well, had grasped the idea that the 

 central sun of our solar system, and those far-off stars which are 

 the suns of other systems enormously distant from us, may have 

 been compacted into globular bodies like our own sun and 

 celestial planets by the gradual condensation of what were termed 

 vapours. And these speculations have to a very great extent 

 received what may be regarded as fairly convincing proof since 

 the introduction of that magic tube the telescope, and in more 

 recent years the spectroscope, as well as the photographic 

 camera, by which means we have succeeded in piercing the 

 depths of celestial space in every conceivable direction, and to 

 such an extent as to bring to light hosts ;of mysterious 

 cloudlike objects which astronomers have termed nebulae. The 

 celebrated astronomer Herschel in his extensive physical re- 

 searches discovered that those nebulous masses were to be found 

 distributed through interstellar space at astounding distances 

 from us, many of them being buried at such remote depths as 

 to be utterly beyond the reach of even our . most powerful 

 telescopes, by which they could (where possible to get glimpse of 

 them) only reveal themselves to us as filmy, flimsy, non-ponderable 

 bodies, nebulous clouds, or mists of greater or less extent, the 

 matter of which they were composed being assumed to be a 

 chaotic description of luminous fluid, resembling to a great 

 extent that luminous matter which is usually driven off from 

 comets as they approach the region of our sun. A great number 

 of the shapeless nebulae were found to be of truly enormous 

 extent, and among what are known as the planetary nebulae 

 some were found which would fill up a space fully as great as 

 that occupied by our own sun and his entire system of planets 

 and satellites — in point of fact, a great spherical mass, having a 

 diameter of upwards of six thousand millions of miles. The 

 distances at which those nebulous masses are located in space 

 were next considered, and it was stated that they were situated 

 at such immense distances from us that we have never yet 

 succeeded in measuring even the distance of the nearest of those 



