c. B. ¥Ai:i:[.\(.. 77-C47; 



bodies give man light, and act as time measures, but they 

 form an educational apparatus which has proved of the 

 greatest value. By presenting an ever recurring series 

 of problems of every degree of difficulty, together with 

 the means of testing the accuracy of their solutions, the 

 solar system has led to one development after another of 

 the power of mathematical analysis. The Calculus, Logo- 

 rithms, and what not ? are the fruit of such efforts. A 

 volume would be needed to name the results due to the 

 study of these bodies — results by no means confined to 

 astronomy, but reaching more or less directly into every 

 department of physical research, and largely aiding in 

 the advance of civilization. 



Nor ought it to be said that I thus unduly magnify 

 man's importance. True, he is small of stature, and the 

 world in which he lives is one of the smallest among its 

 sister planets, but size has nothing to do with it. The 

 physical centre about which the snn and planets revolve is 

 only a point, too small to be visible, having as the mathe- 

 maticians tell us, neither length, breadth, nor thickness. 

 It is not the size of that point which measures its impor- 

 tance, but the forces which center upon it, and whose 

 resultant passes through it. Judged by this test, the 

 littleness of man disappears. Interests centre upon him 

 whose value surpasses the power of the mathematician 

 to estimate. 



But will there be no time in the future when all these 

 great bodies will become the abode of beings like our- 

 selves \ Possibly there will be for the planets, but not 

 for the sun, nor for the lixed stars which are themselves 

 suns. Such beings as we are, cannot exist at a tempera- 

 ture approaching that of boiling water. Long before 

 the sun reaches that condition, its light will have gone 

 out, the planets will have become colder than a present 

 arctic winter, and darkness and death will reign supreme. 



We are told there shall be a new heaven and a new 

 earth. As to what may be then, I dare not even attempt 

 to conjecture. 



Note. — The curious discovery of straight parallel lines 

 in very considerable numbers in Mars, indicates great 

 difference in the physical condition of that planet, and 

 our earth. These lines indicate something of enormous 

 length, and to be visible at all at that distance, is proof 



