426 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



magnesium, and sundry other bodies in the sun, and of 

 several of the same in the fixed stars and the nebulae. 

 There is little uncertainty about these determinations. 

 Like an expert who identifies the handwriting of a crimi- 

 nal when he who penned it may have fled a thousand miles 

 away, this little instrument, by an analysis- of light that has 

 wandered a thousand years away from its source, declares 

 the nature of the luminous body that sent it forth. One 

 sort of matter exists throughout all the wide realm which 

 human vision has traversed. 



One ether extends through all. The conditions under 

 which light is propagated are identical upon Sirius and in 

 the apartment lighted by a jet of gas. 



Gravitation reigns over all. The phenomena discerned 

 in the motions and phases of the stars and the nebulae are 

 such as attest the dominance there of the same law as holds 

 the earth in its orbit, or guides an apple to the ground. 



The law of rotation reigns over all. From the revolving 

 moon to the vicissitudes of the variable stars — winking 

 night and day in regular alternation — and even to the spi- 

 ral nebulae whose stupendous gyrations have given shape 

 to their flowing vestments — every where the equilibrium 

 of celestial bodies, like that of a top or a gyroscope, is 

 maintained by rotation. 



Our own firmament of stars, which we are not permitted 

 to view as we view the nebulae, from a distance, reveals 

 even to a beholder from within the fact of its rotation, as 

 the progress of a sloop upon a river is revealed by the ap- 

 parent motions of the trees upon the banks. Madler has 

 announced the discovery of the astounding fact that the 

 entire firmament is describing a slow and majestic gyra- 

 tion about a centre which, to us, seems located in the Plei- 

 ades. In this common whirl of a million suns our sun par- 

 ticipates, and, with his retinue of planets, moves forward 



