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Sidereal Astronomy . 
[January, 
during the immense repose of Nature, in these hours of 
night when the humanity surrounding us is sleeping in anti- 
cipated death, our looks and our thoughts rise by means of 
the marvellous telescope towards these celestial lights which 
shine on high for other worlds, and radiate around them 
heat, activity, and life, the contrast is so great that we 
seem to be in a dream. Here is death, above is light ; 
here is lethargy, above is movement ; here is shadow, above 
is splendour ; here is heavy and dull matter, above is 
devouring flame and sidereal life. How poor is our sun 
by the side of its grand brothers, of its elders in space ! 
How miserable is our world by the side of those which float 
above on the rapid and multiplied wings of such an at- 
traction ! What delicious hours might contemplative minds 
and curious souls pass directing a telescope towards the 
heavens, if the most learned men, if the cleverest women in 
the world, were not universally ignorant of the most ele- 
mentary faCts of astronomy, and if they did not always live 
and revolve in the same monotonous circle, without troubling 
themselves about the marvels that divine Nature holds in 
reserve for those who comprehend them ! 
DireCt, for example, a telescope towards the beautiful star 
of the second magnitude, 7 Andromedse. It appears to the 
naked eye like an ordinary star ; but suddenly, to telescopic 
vision, it shines on the dark background as a double sun, 
orange and green. Nothing is more striking than this effeCt. 
The contrast is splendid, and nothing more beautiful can be 
imagined. To myself the double star 7 Andromedae, Saturn’s 
ring, and the mountains of the moon in her first quarter, 
are the three most profound and the most captivating recol- 
lections which remain to me of my first observations in 
astronomy. With a sufficiently powerful telescope we dis- 
tinguish, at the side of the little emerald-green sun 7 Andro- 
medae, a third — smaller, and of a sapphire-blue colour. We 
have, then, under our eyes a remarkably curious and won- 
derful triple star : for a hundred years that the two principal 
stars here coupled have been observed, they have remained 
immovable and in the same place with regard to each other, 
at 63° N. and at 11" angular distance. The third star was 
only discovered in 1842, and since that time it has already 
revolved 26 degrees. If this movement continues on an 
average, it will revolve round the emerald sun in a period of 
about 460 years. The orbital movement of the green and 
blue couple round the orange sun would be incomparably 
more slow, according to the third law of Kepler (the 
squares of the time are to each other as the calculated 
