Double Stars. 143 



condition of social relations, and the larger proportion of per- 

 sons who share with us the advantages of civilization, and con- 

 tribute their mental and moral forces to the common stock. 

 We love to trace the past through the pages of a delightful 

 work like Mr. Wright's Domestic Manners of the English, which 

 will commend itself to all readers, but in proportion as his 

 admirable descriptions bring the old times home to us, not like 

 the figures on a faded tapestry, but with the vividness of actu- 

 ality, we are glad that we are workers in the present, and, as 

 we trust, servants of the future, by sowing seed that may here- 

 after bear serviceable fruit. 



DOUBLE STAES, 



BY THE EEV. T. W. WEBB, E.E.A.S. 



If on some transparent night, when the moon is absent, and 

 "the firmament glows with living sapphires/' we take our 

 stand in the open air and gaze around us and above us, as silent 

 worshippers in the great Temple of Creation, our first impres- 

 sion will probably be, as it was with Abraham in the plain of 

 Mamre, that of the presence of multitudes innumerable. A 

 more concentrated attention to any circumscribed portion of 

 the sky will reduce our estimate, and we shall find that the 

 number of stars which we can actually reckon will be but 

 moderate, or even few in proportion ; but a general view, in 

 restoring liberty to our gaze, will bring back our first impres- 

 sion in all its strength. When the eye is relieved from the 

 immediate effort of counting, and especially when we can give 

 our attention to those oblique pencils, to which, as astronomers 

 know, the retina is peculiarly sensitive, we shall detect unnum- 

 bered glimpses and sparklings over the whole ground of the 

 firmament. If now we take some common telescope, even of 

 the smallest dimensions, and point it to those twinkling regions, 

 we shall find our surmise converted into certainty by the dis- 

 tinct appearance of stars in many places where we had only 

 suspected them; if we lay aside our instrument for larger ones, 

 we shall perceive that every successive increase of aperture 

 brings fresh discoveries into view, till at length, in using the 

 great reflectors and achromatics of the present day, we find that 

 the faint points of light, revealed in their space-penetrating 

 fields could literally be numbered by millions. 



Amid such inconceivable profusion, it must of course be a 

 frequent occurrence that two stars are found in very close 

 proximity to each other, constituting the objects so well known 



