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distinctly is there marked the impress of the same creating 
hand that made our sun and our earth, and the other attend- 
ing planets. How impossible also it seems for the most 
unimpassioned philosopher to avoid exclaiming with the 
Psalmist, “ Such knowledge is too excellent for me : I cannot 
attain unto it. Whither shall I go then from thy presence ? If I 
climb up into heaven, thou are there ; if I go down to hell, 
thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and 
remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall 
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” 
There is only one other stellar discovery (also due to the 
spectroscope), which I feel it necessary to mention, namely 
that relating to the velocity of the motion of the stars, as 
compared with that of the earth’s velocity in its orbit. 
I need scarcely explain that the sense of colour depends on 
the number of vibrations made on the eye in a given time, or 
on the length of the wave corresponding to that colour. 
If then the velocity of a star be not insensible when com- 
pared with the velocity of light, the number of vibrations 
reaching the eye in a given time for a particular colour in the 
spectrum, or for a particular absorption-band, will not be the 
same for a star in motion and for one at rest, and the effect 
will be a slight displacement of any absorption-band, as 
compared with the chemical substance which is its terrestrial 
analogue. 
This displacement will therefore be a measure of the velocity 
of the star with regard to the earth, and the latter can be 
calculated Avitliout much difficulty. 
Dr. Huggins has bestowed great attention on this difficult 
class of observations, and has been very successful in measur- 
ing within narrow limits of error, the velocities of several of 
the brightest stars. 
For instance in the case of Sirius he found that the rela- 
tive motion, with regard to the earth in motion, was about 41 ’4 
miles per second, and, as the earth’s motion of recess in the 
direction of a line drawn to the star, Avas about 12 miles, there 
remain 29’4 miles per second, as the actual velocity of Sirius 
away from the earth. 
This I consider to be a result which can be relied upon as 
being derived from observations, difficult indeed, but of which 
the probable orrors can be rigorously determined. 
Such considerations enlarge our vicAvs of the immense scale 
on which the operations of naturo in tho Cosmos, or, as I 
should prefer to say, the operations of the Almighty architect 
of the earth and the heavens, are carried on. There is a unity 
