387 
“A MESSAGE FROM THE STARS.” 
Miller. The same gas constitutes, according to the wide 
researches of Father Secchi, the principal element of a numerous 
class of stars, of which a Lyrse is the type. The iron of Lenarto 
has no douBt come from such an atmosphere, in which hydrogen 
greatly prevailed. This meteorite may be looked upon as hold- 
ing within it, and bearing to us, hydrogen of the stars . 
“It has been found difficult on trial to impregnate malleable, 
iron with more than an equal volume of hydrogen, under the 
pressure of our atmosphere. Now the meteoric iron examined 
gave up about three times that amount without being fully 
exhausted. The inference is, therefore, that the meteorite has 
been extruded from a dense atmosphere of hydrogen gas, for 
which we must look beyond the light cometary matter floating 
about within the limits of the solar system.” 
The series of results which are described in this paper, 
though differing in their general character, have yet a strict 
relation to each other. When carefully studied, it will be seen 
that the sponge and the sugar sucking up water are only 
modified examples of the dense metals absorbing gases. It is 
by the cautious questioning of nature, and by closely inspecting 
the phenomena which are constantly occurring around us, that 
we advance to a knowledge of sublimer truths. Priestley’s 
observation on the porosity of stoneware tubes, was the germ of 
that discovery which may without any poetical exaggeration 
be described as 
A MESSAGE FROM THE STARS. 
F F 
VOL. VI. — NO. XXV. 
