Xlii. ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. 



The following is an abstract of the Third Popular Science 

 Lecture 1904, on "The Solar System and Southern Sky," 

 by H. A. Lbnehan, f.r.a.s., Acting Government Astronomer, 

 Sydney Observatory, delivered on the 22nd September, 1904. 

 The lecturer introduced the subject by referring to the 

 small part of the astronomical regions of the whole heavens 

 that the solar system occupies, and of the immeasurable 

 distance of the stars we see outside our system, also of the 

 still more wonderful discoveries the telescope has revealed 

 to us, and is still doing. He showed that hitherto supposed 

 blank spaces in the crowded part of the Milky Way are 

 studded witJi stars which were not discernible by telescope, 

 but the long exposures of extra sensitive photographic 

 plates had revealed what the eye failed to see with the 

 same telescope. Going back to pagan times, the lecturer 

 showed the solar system in vogue during the days of 

 Ptolemy, and also the views of Aristarchus of Samos, and 

 Cleanthus of Assos, who to a certain extent anticipated 

 Copernicus ; then the Egyptian theory of the planets, 

 Mercury and Venus being satellites to the Sun, the Sun 

 being a planet revolving around the Earth. Next the 

 Oopernican system introduced by a grave browed eccle- 

 siastic, who on the foggy shores of the Baltic in the 16th 

 Century of the Christian era, thought out this system 

 which later by the combined mathematical work of Kepler 

 and Newton was perfected, and is now the system proved 

 beyond all doubt as the true one. Another astronomer of 

 note, Tycho Brahe, was induced to offer a theory which 

 had been thought out by him. Perhaps wrong deductions 

 caused him to misread certain passages of the Holy Scrip- 

 tures, or personal vanity may have induced his theories, 

 but his system only had a brief existence. Sets of views 

 were then thrown on the screen in which each system was 

 indicated, and about 21 views of the different objects of 



