176 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
which occupy our solar domain, they would appear as a compli- 
cated net-work formed by interlacing streams of cosmical dust. 
And amidst the streams of misty light representing cometic and 
meteoric systems, the planets would shine forth as distinctly and 
as brilliantly as the brighter stars on the background of the Milky 
Way. How wonderful are the far-reaching developments of this 
magnificent science! Again, there is no finality ; we must be ever 
learning and unlearning. There was true prophecy in the exclama- 
tion of La Place, who, although knowing more of the celestial 
mechanism than any man then living, said earnestly on his death- 
bed, “That which we know is little; that which we know not is 
immense.” At first sight it might seem as if this immensity, which 
we speak of, but cannot conceive, would paralyse study, effort and 
practical result. But no! It is the glory of true science, that 
however magnificent be the outreachings of great theories and 
principles, these principles are in themselves energetic if only true. 
And thus no advance is made in Astronomical doctrine which is 
not sooner or later utilised. I may quote as an instance from Mr. 
Lockyer’s recently published splendid volume on “ Solar Physics.” * 
On the connection between Solar and terrestrial meteorology ‘“ Mr. 
Meldrum,” he says, “a distinguished meteorologist, who lives not 
in the temperate zones of the earth, where the meteorological 
conditions are irregular, but in the torrid zone (wheré meteorological 
phenomena and among them cyclones abound) tells us that it is 
no longer correct merely to associate cyclones with the tropics. He 
tells us that the whole question of cyclones is a question of Solar 
Activity, and that if we write down in one column the number of 
cyclones in a given year, and in another column the number of 
sun-spots in any given year, there will be a strict relation between 
them—-many sun-spots, many hurricanes; few sun-spots, few 
hurricanes. And only this morning I have received a letter from 
Dr. Stewart, who tells me that Mr. Meldrum has since found that 
what is true of the storms which devastate the Indian Ocean is 
true of the storms which devastate the West Indies; and on re- 
ferring to the storms of the Indian Ocean, Mr. Meldrum points out 
that at those years where we have been quietly mapping the sun- 
spot maxima, the harbours were filled with wrecks—vessels coming 
in disabled from every part of the great Indian Ocean. Now all 
this,” continues Mr. Lockyer, “is something worth considering ; 
* See pages 423 and 431, 
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