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SUN, MOON, AND STARS. 






v . > 



■ ■ \ 



«t ' 



/■ ■ 



. i 



s ' 



SUN, MOON, AND STARS 



A BOOK FOR BEGINNERS 



BY 

AGNES GIBERNE 

AUTHOR OF 'THE UPWARD GAZE,' 'THE RECTOR'S HOME,' 

' COULYNG CASTLE,' ETC. 



WITH A PREFACE 

BY THE 

REV. C. PRITCHARD, M.A., F.R.S., etc. 

SAVILIAN PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 



' There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, 
and another glory of the stars ; for star differeth from star in glory.' 
— i Cor. xv. 21. 

* Lo, these are parts of His ways ; but how little a portion is 
heard of Him ; but the thunder of His power who can understand V 
— Job xxvi. 14. 




SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALEffi&TT54, FLEET STREET 

LONDON. MDCCCLXXX 






J?4 . / . 3* 



PREFACE. 



The pages of this little book on a great subject were 
submitted to my criticism while passing through the 
press, with a request from a friend that I would make 
any suggestions which might occur to me for its im- 
provement. Naturally, such a request was entertained, 
in the first instance, with hesitation and misgiving. 
But, after a rapid perusal of the first sheet, I found my 
interest awakened and then gradually secured ; for 
the book seemed to me to possess certain features of 
no ordinary character, and, in my judgment, held out 
the promise of supplying an undoubted want, thus 
enabling me to answer a question which I have been 
often asked, and which had as often puzzled me, to 
the effect, " Can you tell me of any little book on Astro- 
nomy suited to beginners V I think that just such a 



vi Preface. 

book is here presented to the reader. For the tale of 
the Stellar Universe is therein told with great sim- 
plicity, and perhaps with sufficient completeness; in 
an earnest and pleasant style, equally free, I think, 
from any considerable inaccuracy, or any unpardon- 
able exaggeration. We have here the outlines of 
elementary astronomy, not merely detailed without 
mathematics, but to a very great extent expressed in 
untechnical language. Success in such an attempt I 
am inclined to regard as a considerable feat, and one of 
much practical utility. 

For the science of astronomy is essentially a science 
of great magnitude and great difficulty. From the 
time of Hipparchus, some century and a half before 
the Christian era, down to the present day, its cultiva- 
tion has severely taxed the minds of a succession of 
men endowed with the rarest genius. The facts and 
the truths of the science thus secured have been of 
very slow accretion ; but like all other truths, when 
once secured and thoroughly understood, they are 
found to admit of very simple verbal expression, and 
to lie well within the general comprehension, and per- 



Preface. vii 

haps I may safely add, within the sympathies of all 
educated men and women. 

Thus the great astronomers, the original discoverers 
of the last twenty centuries, have laboured, each in 
his separate field of the vast universe of Nature, and 
other men, endowed with other gifts, have entered on 
their labours, and by systematising, correlating, and 
simplifying the expression of their results, have 
brought the whole within the grasp of cultivated men 
engaged in other branches of the varied pursuits of 
our complicated life. It is in this sort of order that 
the amelioration and civilisation of mankind have pro- 
ceeded, and, at the present moment, are, I hope and 
believe, rapidly proceeding. 

It was, I suspect, under this point of view, though 
half unconsciously so, that my attention was arrested 
by the little book now presented to the reader. For 
we have here many of the chief results of the laborious 
researches of such men as Ptolemy, Kepler, Newton, 
Herschel, Fraunhofer, Janssen, Lockyer, Schiaparelli, 
and others — no matter where accumulated, or by 
whom recorded — filtered through the mind of a 



viii Preface. 

thoughtful and cultured lady, and here presented to 
other minds in the very forms wherein they have been 
assimilated and pictured in her own. And the forms 
and pictures in the main are true. It is in this way 
that the intellectual * protoplasm ' of the human mind 
is fostered and practically disseminated. 

And then, there is still another point of view from 
which this general dissemination of great truths in a 
simple style assumes an aspect of practical import- 
ance. I allude to the influences of this process on the 
imaginative or poetic side of our complex nature, and 
in support of the remark, I shall quote from the pages 
of a work recently published by the Professor of 
Poetry in the University of Oxford : * Every new 
province of knowledge which science conquers, 
poetry may in turn enter into and possess. But 
this can only be done gradually. Before imagination 
can take up and mould the results of science, these 
must cease to be difficult, laborious, abstruse. The 
knowledge of them must have become to the poet 
himself, and in some measure to his audience, familiar, 
habitual, spontaneous. And here we see how finely 



Preface. ix 

science and poetry may interact and minister to each 
other. . . . Some beginning of such a reconciling 
process we may see here and there in those poems of 
In Memoriain> in which the Poet Laureate has finely 
inwrought new truths of science into the texture of 
yearning affection and spiritual meditation. . . / 

Wordsworth, in one of his prefaces, has stated so 
clearly the truth on this subject, that I cannot do 
better than give his words : * If the time should ever 
come/ he says, * when what is now science becomes 
familiarised to men, then the remotest discoveries of 
the chemist, the botanist, the mineralogist, will be as 
proper objects of the poet's art as any upon which it 
can be employed. He will be ready to follow the 
steps of the man of science, he will be at his side, 
carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of 
science itself. The poet will lend his divine spirit to 
aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being 
thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the 
household of man/* 

* ' On Poetic Interpretation of Nature/ by J. C. Shairp, LL.D ., 
etc., etc., Edinburgh. David Douglas, 1877. 



x Preface. 

It is for reasons such as those stated above, that I 
heartily commend this little book to the attention of 
those of my countrymen and countrywomen who take 
an interest in the advancement of the intellectual 
progress and culture of society. The story of the 
Kosmos is told by the authoress in her own language, 
after her own method, and with no guidance of mine : 
in the main, I believe, as I have said, the story is cor- 
rect ; but I must disavow the responsibility of every 
detail. 

C. PRITCHARD. 
Oxford, 
September 2, 1879. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



LITTLE remains to me, as needing still to be said 
about my little book, after the most kind words of 
Professor Pritchard. 

For years past I have had it in my mind to endeavour 
to supply some day,sofar as might be, that of which there 
appeared to be a serious want — a plain and easily-to- 
be-understood Introduction to Astronomy. My wish 
has been to make it, not merely a text-book for 
school use, though possibly it may serve for that also, 
but a volume of sufficient interest for general read- 
ing ; not merely a book adapted for intelligent boys 
and girls, though I hope it may be found serviceable 
for them also, but a volume fitted for * beginners ' of 
all kinds, whether children, working-men, or even 
grown people of the educated classes, who should 



xii Authors Preface. 

have a desire to enter for the first time on the study 
of this fascinating science. The attempt, such as it 
is, has been at last accomplished. 

I trust that a second underlying object or thought 
may not be found to have been altogether fruitless. 
In the Book of Nature, side by side with the Book of 
Revelation, we may learn some things about our 
Father in Heaven. It would be happiness to feel 
that I had helped any, however slightly, to look 
upward through Nature unto Nature's God. 

I have, lastly, to express my warm gratitude to 
Professor Pritchard, for the time and trouble he has 
so generously expended, in looking through the 
proof-sheets of a work, by one who, as a perfect 
stranger, had and could have no manner of claim 
upon him. A request, made through a mutual friend, 
with doubt and uncertainty on my part, has met with 
a fulness of response and kindness, utterly unex- 
pected, and for which no words of thanks seem half 
sufficient. 

Abergeldie, Eastbourne, 
September 5, 1879. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 



CHAPTER FACE" 

I. THE EARTH ONE OF A FAMILY I 

II. THE HEAD OF OUR FAMILY - - - - II 

- III. WHAT BINDS THE FAMILY TOGETHER - - 23 

iv. the leading members of our family. — first 

group ------ 37 

v. the leading members of our family.— second 

GROUP ------ 46 

VI. OUR PARTICULAR FRIEND AND ATTENDANT - 56 

VII. VISITORS ------ 68 

VIII. LITTLE SERVANTS 76 

IX. NEIGHBOURING FAMILIES 85 

X. OUR NEIGHBOURS' MOVEMENTS 9$ 



xiv Contents. 

PART II. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. MORE ABOUT THE SOLAR SYSTEM - - 113 

II. MORE ABOUT THE SUN - - - - 1 26 

III. YET MORE ABOUT THE SUN - - - 1 38 

IV. MORE ABOUT THE MOON - - - - 148 
V. YET MORE ABOUT THE MOON - - 157 

VI. MERCURY, VENUS, AND MARS - - 169 

VII. JUPITER - - - - - 183 

VIII. SATURN - 197 

IX. URANUS AND NEPTUNE - 206 

X. COMETS AND METEORITES - - - 215 

XI. MORE ABOUT COMETS AND METEORITES - - 223 

PART III. 

1. MANY SUNS - - - - - 235 

II. SOME PARTICULAR SUNS - 244 

III. DIFFERENT KINDS OF SUNS - - -255 

IV. GROUPS AND CLUSTERS OF SUNS - - - 264 

V. THE MILKY WAY - - - - - 27 1 
VI. A WHIRLING UNIVERSE - - - 280 

VII. READING THE LIGHT - - - 288 

TABLE OF SUBJECTS - - - " 2 97 



PART I. 



SUN, MOON, AND STARS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EARTH ONE OF A FAMILY. 

* The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's : but the earth 
hath He given to the children of men.' — Ps. cxv. 16. 

WHAT is this earth of ours ? 

Something very great — and yet something very 
little. Something very great, compared with the 
things upon the earth ; something very little, com- 
pared with the things outside the earth. 

And as our journey ings together are for a while to 
be away from earth, we shall find ourselves obliged to 
count her as something quite small in the great 
universe, where so many larger and mightier things 
are to be found, — if indeed they are mightier. 

Not that we have to say good-bye altogether to our 

i 



The Earth one of a Family. 



old home. We must linger about her for a while 
before starting, and afterwards it will be often needful 
to come back, with speed swifter than the flight of 
light, that we may compare notes on the sizes and 
conditions of other places visited by us. 
But first of all : what is this earth of ours ? 

It was rather a pleasant notion which men held in 
olden days, that we — that great and important " We " 
which loves to perch itself upon a height — stood firm 
and fixed at the very centre of everything. 

The earth was supposed to be a vast flat plain, 
reaching nobody could tell how far. The sun rose 
and set for us alone ; and the thousands of stars 
twinkled in the sky at night for nobody's good except 
ours ; and the blue sky overhead was a crystal cover- 
ing for the men of our earth, and nothing more. In 
fact, people seem to have counted themselves not 
merely to have had a kind of kingship over the lower 
animals of our earth, but to have been kings over the 
whole universe. Sun, stars, and sky, as well as earth, 
were made for man, and for man only. 

This was the common belief, though even in 
those olden days there were some who knew better. 
But the world in general knows better now. 

Earth the centre of the universe ! Why, she is not 



The Earth one of a Family. 



that of even the particular family in the heavens to 
which she belongs. For we do not stand alone. The 
earth is one of a family of worlds, and that family is 
called The Solar System. And so far is our earth 
from being the head of the family, that she is not 
even one of the more important members. She is 
merely one of the little sisters, as it were. 

Men not only believed the earth, in past days, to 
be at the centre of the universe, but also they believed 
her to remain there without change. Sun, moon, 
stars, planets, sky, might move, but never the earth. 
The solid ground beneath their feet, that at least was 
firm. Every day the sun rose and set, and every 
night the stars in like manner rose and set. But this 
was easily explained. We on our great earth stood 
firm and still, while sun, moon, stars, went circling 
round us once in every twenty-four hours, just for our 
sole and particular convenience. What an important 
personage man must have felt himself then in God's 
great universe ! 

Once again, we know better now ! 

For it is the earth that moves, and not the sun ; 
it is the earth that moves, and not the stars. The 
daily movements of sun and stars, rising in the east, 
travelling over the sky and setting in the west, are no 
more real movements on their part than, when we 

I — 2 



The Earth one of a Family. 



travel in a railway-train, the seeming rush of hedges, 
telegraph-posts, houses and fields is real. They are 
fixed and we are moving, yet the movement appears 
to us to be not ours but theirs. 

Still more strongly would this appear to be the case 
if there were no noise, no shaking, no jarring and 
trembling, to make us feel that we are not at rest. 
Sometimes when a train begins to move gently out of 
a station, from among other trains, it is at the first 
moment quite impossible to say whether the move- 
ment belongs to the train in which we are seated or 
to a neighbouring train. And in the motions of our 
earth there is no noise, no shaking, no jarring — all are 
rapid, silent and even. 

If you were rising through the air in a balloon, you 
would at first only know your own movement by 
seeing the earth seem to drop away from beneath you. 
And just so we can only know the earth's movements 
by seeing how worlds around us seem to move in 
consequence. 

When I speak of the Universe, I mean the whole of 
God's mighty creation as far as the stars reach. Some- 
times the word is used in this sense, and sometimes 
it is used only for a particular part of creation nearer 
to us than other parts. At present, however, we will 



The Earth one of a Family. 



put aside all thought of the second narrower mean- 
ing. 

The wisest astronomer living cannot tell us how far 
the stars reach. We know now that there is no firm 
crystal covering ^ver our heads, dotted with bright 
points here and there ; but only the wide open sky or 
heaven, containing millions of stars, some nearer, some 
farther, some bright enough to be seen by us all, some 
only visible through a telescope. 

People talk often of the stars being ' set in space ;' 
and the meaning of ' space* is simply 'room.' Where 
you are must be space, or you could not be there. 
But it is when we get away from earth, and travel in 
thought through the wide fields of space, where 
God has placed His stars, that we begin to feel how 
vast it is, and what specks we are ourselves — nay, 
what a speck our very earth is, in this great and 
boundless creation. 

For there is no getting to the borders of space. 
As one telescope after another is made, each one 
stronger in power and able to reach farther than the 
last, still more and more stars are seen, and yet 
more and more behind and beyond, in countless 
millions. 

It is the same all round the earth. The old notion 
about our world being a flat plain ha been long 



The Earth one of a Family. 



since given up. We know her now to be a round 
globe, not fixed, but floating like the stars in space. 
We find this wonderfully described in the Bible, 
long before men knew or could know what the words 
meant : * He stretcheth out the north over the empty 

place, and HANGETH THE EARTH UPON NOTHING/* 

When you look up into the sky from England, you 
are looking exactly in the opposite direction from 
where you would be looking tip if you were in Aus- 
tralia. For Australia's * up ' is England's * down/ 
and England's ' down ' is Australia's * up.' 

Or, to put it more truly, * up ' is always in the 
direction straight away from this earth, on whatever 
part of it you may be standing; and Mown* is always 
towards the centre of the earth. 

All round the globe, in north, south, east, west, 
whether you are in Europe, Asia, Africa or America, 
though you will see different stars in certain different 
quarters of the earth, still overhead you will find 
shining countless points of light. 

And now, what are these stars ? 

This is a matter on which people arc often confused, 
and on which it is well to be quite clear before 
going one step farther. 

° Job xxvi. 7. 



The Earth one of a Family. 



Some of the stars you have most likely often 
noticed. The seven chief stars of the Great Bear are 
known to a large number of people ; and there are 
few who have not admired the splendid constellation 
of Orion. Perhaps you also know the W-shape of 
Cassiopeia, and the brilliant shining of Sirius, and the 
soft glimmer of the Pleiades. 

The different constellations or groups of principal 
stars have been watched by men for long ages past. 
They are called the fixed stars, for they do not change. 
How many thousands of years ago they were first 
arranged by men into these groups,, and who first gave 
them their names, we cannot tell. 

True, night by night, through century after century, 
they rise, and cross the sky, and set. But those are 
only seeming movements. Precisely as the turning 
round of the earth upon her axis, once in every twenty- 
four hours, makes the sun appear to rise and cross the 
sky and set, in the day-time ; so also the same turn- 
ing of the earth makes the stars appear to do the 
same in the night-time. 

There is another seeming movement among the 
stars, which is only in seeming. Some come into view 
in summer which cannot be seen in winter; and 
some come into view in winter which cannot be 
seen in summer. For the sun, moving on his path- 



8 The Earth one of a Family. 



way through the sky, hides those stars which shine 
with him in the daytime. And as he passes from 
point to point of his pathway — called the zodiac — he 
constantly conceals from us fresh groups of stars by 
day, and allows fresh groups to appear by night. 
Speaking generally, however, the stars remain the same 
year after year, century after century. The groups 
may still be seen as of old, fixed and unchanging. 

What are these stars ? 

Stars and planets have both been spoken about. 
There is a great difference between the two. 

Perhaps if you were asked whether the sun is most 
like to a star or a planet, you would be rather at a 
loss. And many who have admired the brilliant 
evening star, Venus, often to be seen after sunset, 
would be surprised to learn that the evening star is 
in reality no star at all. 

A star is a sun. Our sqn is nothing more nor less 
than a star. Each one of the so-called * fixed stars/ 
that you see shining at night in the sky, is a sun like 
our sun ; only some of the stars are larger suns, and 
some are smaller suns than ours. 

The main reason why our sun looks so much larger 
and brighter than the stars, is that he is so very much 
nearer to us. The stars are one and all at enormous 



The Earth one of a Family. 



distances from the earth. By-and-by we will go 
more closely into the matter of their distance, com- 
pared with the distance of the sun. 

At present it is enough to say that if many of the 
stars were placed just as near to us as our sun is 
placed, they would look just as large and bright ; 
while there are some that would look a great deal 
larger and brighter. And if our sun were to travel 
away from us to the distance of the very nearest of 
the little twinkling stars, he would dwindle down and 
down in size and brilliancy, till at last we should not 
be able to tell him apart from the rest of the stars. 

I have told you that the stars are called * fixed* 
because they keep their places, and do not change from 
age to age. Though the movement of the earth makes 
them seem all to sweep past every night in company, 
yet they do not travel in and out among one another, 
or backwards and forwards, or from side to side. At 
all events, if there be such changes, they are so slow 
and so small as to be exceedingly difficult to find out* 
Each group of stars keeps its own old shape, as for 
hundreds of years back. 

But among these fixed stars there are certain stars 
which do go to and fro, and backwards and forwards. 
Now they are to be seen in the middle of one constel- 
lation, and now in the middle of another. These rest- 



io The Earth one of a Family. 

less stars were long a great perplexity. Men named 
them Planets or Wanderers. 

We know now that the planets are in reality not 
stars at all : and also that they are not nearly so far 
away from us as the fixed stars. In fact, they are 
simply members of our own family, the Solar System. 
They are worlds, more or less like the world we live 
in ; and they travel round and round the sun as we 
•do, each more or less near to him ; and they depend 
upon him for heat and light, in more or less the same 
manner as ourselves. 

Therefore, just as our sun is a star, and stars are 
suns ; so our earth or world is a planet, and planets 
are worlds. Earth is the name we give to that par- 
ticular world or planet on which we live. 

Planets may generally be known from stars by the 
fact that they do not twinkle. 

But the great difference between the two lies in the 
fact, that a star shines by his own radiant burning 
light ; whereas a planet shines merely by light re- 
flected or borrowed from the sun. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE HEAD OF OUR FAMILY. 

'The sun, which . . . rejoiceth as a strong man to run 
race.' — Ps. xix. 4, 5. 

PEOPLE began, very early in the history of the world, 
to pay close attention to the sun. And no wonder. 
We owe so much to his heat and light, that the 
marvel would be if men had not thought much about 
him. 

Was the sun really any larger than he looked, and 
if so,, how much larger was he ? And what was his 
distance from the earth ? 

These were two of the questions which puzzled our 
ancestors the longest. If once they could have settled 
exactly how far off the sun really was, they could 
easily have calculated his exact size ; but this was just 
what they could not do. 

So one man supposed that the sun must be quite 



1 2 The Head of our Family. 

near, and very little larger than he looked. Another 
thought he might be seventy-five miles in diameter. 
A third ventured to believe that he was larger than 
the country of Greece. A fourth was so bold as to 
imagine that he might even outweigh the earth 
herself. 

After a while many attempts were made to measure 
the distance of the sun ; and a great many different 
answers to this difficult question were given by 
different men, most of them very wide of the 
mark. 

It is only of late years that the matter has been 
clearly settled. And indeed it was found quite lately 
that a mistake of no less than three millions of miles 
had been made, notwithstanding all the care and all 
the attention given. But though three millions of 
miles sounds a great deal, yet it is really very little — 
only a tiny portion of the whole. 

For the distance of the sun from the earth is no less 
than about NINETY-ONE millions of miles. 

Ninety-one millions of miles ! Can you picture that 
to yourself? 

Try to think what is meant by a thousand miles. Our 
earth is eight thousand miles in diameter. In other 
words, if you were to thrust a gigantic knitting-needle 
through her body, from the North Pole to the South 



The Head of our Family. 13 

Pole, it would have to be about eight thousand miles 
long. 

To reach the thought of one million, you must 
picture one thousand times one thousand. Our earth is 
about twenty-five thousand miles round. If you were 
to start from the mouth of the River Amazon in 
South America, and journey straight round the whole 
earth on the equator, till you came back to the same 
point, you would have travelled about twenty-five 
thousand miles. 

But that would be a long way off from a million 
miles. You would have gone only once round the 
earth. Now a rope, one million miles in length, could 
be wrapped, not once only, but forty times round and 
round the earth. 

And when you have managed to reach up to the 
thought of one million miles, you have then to remem- 
ber that the sun's distance is ninety-one times as much 
again. So, to picture clearly to ourselves the actual 
meaning of * ninety-one millions of miles ' is not easy. 

Suppose it were possible to lay a railroad from here 
to the sun. If you could journey thither in a perfectly 
straight line, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, never 
pausing for one single minute night or day, you would 
reach the sun in about three hundred and forty-six 
years. 



14 The Head of our Family, 



Thirty miles an hour is a slow train. Suppose we 
double the speed, and make it an express train, rushing- 
along at the pace of sixty miles an hour. Then you 
might hope to reach the end of your journey in one 
hundred and seventy-three years. If you had quitted 
this earth early in the reign of Queen Anne, never 
stopping on your way, you would be just about now, 
in the reign of Queen Victoria, arriving at the sun. 

So much for the sun's distance from us. Now as to 
his size. 

I have already mentioned that our earth's diameter 
— that is, her through measure, as, for instance, the 
line drawn straight from England through her centre 
to New Zealand — is about eight thousand miles. 

This sounds a good deal. But what do you think 
of the diameter of the sun being no less than eight 
hundred and fifty thousand miles? 

The one is eight thousand miles, the other is eight 
hundred thousand miles ! 

Suppose you had a long slender pole which would 
pass through the middle of the earth, one end just 
showing at the North Pole and the other at the South 
Pole. You would need more than a hundred and 
eight of such poles, all joined together, to show the 
diameter of the sun. 



The Head of our Family. 



The sun seems not to be made of nearly such heavy 
materials as the earth. He is what astronomers call 
less ' dense/ less close and compact in his make, just 
as wood is less dense and heavy than iron. 

Still, his size is so enormous, that if you could have 
a pair of gigantic scales, and put the sun into one scale 
and the earth with every one of her brother and sister 
planets into the other, the sun's side would go down like 
lightning. He would be found to weigh seven hundred 
and fifty times as much as all the rest put together. 

It would take more than twelve hundred thousands 
of little earths like ours, rolled into one huge ball, to 
make a globe as large as the sun. 

Suppose our earth were to dwindle down and down, 
smaller and smaller, till she became a tiny globe only 
one inch in diameter. Imagine the sun at the same 
time dwindling down in the same manner, and keeping 
the same proportion as to size. * Keeping the same 
proportion' means that he would still be twelve hundred 
thousand times as large as the earth, that his axis, or 
the straight line through his centre from North Pole 
to South Pole, would still be one hundred and eight 
times as long as the earth's axis. 

Then, side by side with the minute ball, one inch in 
diameter, you would see a great globe nine feet in 
diameter— half as high again as a tall man. 



1 6 The Head of our Farnity. 

And if you wish to gain a fair notion, not only of 
the sun's size, but of his distance from us, set such a 
nine-feet globe in a field, and move slowly round it a 
one-inch ball at a distance of three hundred and 
twenty yards. This may help you to understand. 

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, a man 
named Fabricius was startled by the sight of a cer- 
tain black spot upon the face of the sun. 

He watched till too dazzled to look any longer, sup- 
posing it to be a small cloud, yet anxious to learn 
more. Next day the spot was there still, but it seemed 
to have moved on a little way. Morning after morn- 
ing this movement was found to continue, and soon 
a second spot, and then a third spot, were observed 
creeping in like manner across the sun. After a while 
they vanished, one at a time, round his edge, as it 
were ; but after some days of patient waiting on the 
part of the lookers-on, they appeared again at the 
opposite edge, and once more began their journey 
across. 

Fabricius seems to have been the first, but he was 
not the last, to watch sun-spots. Many astronomers 
have given close attention to them. Modern tele- 
scopes, and the modern plan of looking at the sun 
through darkened glass, have made this possible in a 



The Head of our Family. 1 7 

way that was not possible two or three hundred years 
ago. 

The first important discovery made through the 
spots on the sun, was that the sun turns round upon 
his axis, just in the same manner that the earth 
turns round upon hers. Instead of doing so once in 
the course of each twenty-four hours, like the earth, 
he turns once in the course of about twenty-five 
days. 

It must not be supposed that the spots seen now 
upon the sun are the same spots that Fabricius saw in 
the reign of our James I. There is perpetual change 
going on ; new spots forming, old spots vanishing ; 
one spot breaking into two, two spots joining into one, 
and so on. Even in a single hour great alterations are 
sometimes seen to take place. 

Still, many of the spots do remain long enough and 
keep their shapes closely enough to be watched from 
day to day, and to be known again as old friends when 
they reappear, after being about twelve days hidden 
on the other side of the sun. So that the turning of 
the sun upon his axis has become, after long and 
careful examination, a certain fact 

For more than thirty years one astronomer kept 
close watch over the spots, on every day that it was 

2 



1 8 The Head of our Family. 

possible to see the sun. Much has been learnt from 
his resolute perseverance. 

Now what are these spots ? 

One thing seems pretty sure, and that is that they 
are caused by some kind of tremendous storms or 
cyclones taking place on the surface of that huge ball 
of fire. 

We do not know with any certainty whether the 
sun is through and through one mass of glowing 
molten heat, or whether he may have a solid and even 
cool body within the blazing covering. Some have 
thought the one, and some the other. We only know 
that he is a mighty furnace of heat and flame, beyond 
anything that we can possibly imagine on our quiet 
little earth. 

It seems very sure that no such thing as * quietness y 
is to be found on the surface of the sun. The wildest 
and fiercest turmoil of rushing wind and roaring 
flame there prevails. The cyclones or hurricanes 
which take place are sometimes so rapid and so tre- 
mendous in extent, tearing open the blazing envelope 
of the sun, and showing glimpses of fiery though 
darker depths below, that we, on our far-distant earth, 
can actually watch .their progress. 

Astronomers speak of the * quivering fringe of fire ' 
all round the edge of the sun, visible through tele- 



The Head of our Family. 19 



scopes. But the sun is perpetually turning on his 
axis, so that each hour fresh portions of his surface 
thus pass the edge, showing the same appearance. 
What conclusion can we come to but that the whole 
enormous surface of the sun is one restless billowy 
sea of fire and flame ? 

It sounds to us both grand and startling to hear 
of the mighty outbreaks from Mount Vesuvius, 
or to read of glowing lava from a volcano 
in Hawaii pouring in one unbroken stream for 
miles. 

But what shall be thought of rosy flames mounting 
to a height of fifty or a hundred thousand miles above 
the edge of the sun ? What shall be thought of a 
tongue of fire long enough to fold three or four times 
round our solid earth ? What shall be thought of the 
awful rush of burning gases, sometimes seen, borne 
along at the rate of one or two or even three hundred 
miles in a single second across the sun's surface? 
What shall be thought of the huge dark rents in this 
raging fiery ocean, rents commonly from fifty to one 
hundred thousand miles across, and not seldom 
more? 

Fifty thousand miles! A mere speck, scarcely 
visible without a telescope ; yet large enough to hold 
seven earths like ours flung in together. The largest 

2 — 2 



20 The Head of our Family. 



spot measured was so enormous that eighteen earths 
might have been arranged in a row across the breadth 
of it, like huge boulders of rock in a mountain cavern ; 
and to have filled up the entire hole about one hun- 
dred earths would have been needed. 

It is well to grow familiar with certain names, given 
by astronomers to certain parts of the sun. 

The round shining disc or flat surface, seen by all 
of us, is called the pltotospliere^ or * light-sphere/ It 
has a tolerably well-defined edge or ' limb/ and dazzles 
the eye with its intense brightness. 

Across the photosphere the spots move, some- 
times many, sometimes few, in number. Besides the 
dark spots, there are spots of extreme brilliancy, 
standing out on even that dazzling surface, which 
causes a piece of white-hot iron to look black and 
cold by contrast. These extra-radiant spots which 
come and go, and at times change with great rapidity, 
are named faculce — a Latin word meaning* torches.' 

At the edge of the photosphere astronomers see 
what has been already mentioned, that which is some- 
times called the chromatosphere, which one has named 
* the sierra} and which another has described as i a 
quivering fringe of fire.' The waves of the sea, on a 
stormy day, seen in the distance rising and breaking 




SOLAR CORONA AND PROMINENCES. 



The Head of otir Fa7titiy. 2 1 

the horizon-line, may serve as an illustration ; only in 
the sun the waves are of fire, not water. What must 
their height be, to be thus visible at a distance of 
ninety-one millions of miles ? 

Outside the sierra are seen at certain seasons bright 
4 rose-coloured prominences' or flames of enormous 
height. During an eclipse, when the dark body of 
the moon comes between the sun and us, exactly 
covering the photosphere, these red tips stand out 
distinctly beyond the edge of sun and moon. Their 
changes have been watched, and their height repeat- 
edly measured. Some are so lofty that ten little earths 
such as ours might be heaped up, one upon another, 
without reaching to their top. Whether they are in 
character at all like the outbursts from our own vol- 
canoes it is hard to say. To compare the two would 
be rather like comparing a small kitchen fire with 
a mighty iron-smelting furnace. The faculae, the 
sierra, and the prominences are visible only through a 
telescope. 

Outside these red flames or * prominences ' is the 
corona, commonly divided into the inner and outer 
coronas. 

Many different explanations have been offered of 
this beautiful crown of light round the sun, plainly 
visible to the naked eye during an eclipse. But here 



22 The Head of otir Family. 

again we know little, and must be content to watch 
and wait. 

By-and-by we will consider more closely certain 
interesting facts about the sun's photosphere, spots 
and faculae, his sierra, prominences, corona and 
cyclones. 

It is impossible to learn much about the sun, with- 
out feeling how mighty must be the power of our 
God, who could create such a vast and dazzling globe 
of fire. What forces He has at His command, when 
He chooses to use them ! * Who knoweth not in all 
this that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this ?'* 
For * He that built all things is God/f The radiant 
sun is indeed a fit emblem, in its glorious beauty and 
awful power, of Christ the heavenly Sun of Right- 
eousness. 

° Job xil 9. t Heb. iii. 4. 



CHAPTER III. . 

WHAT BINDS THE FAMILY TOGETHER? 

* Dost thou know . . . the wondrous works of Him \vhich is 
perfect in knowledge Y— Job xxxvii. 16. 

1 The day is Thine, the night also is Thine ; Thou hast pre- 
pared the light and the sun . . . Thou hast made summer and 
winter.'— Ps. lxxiv. 16, 17. 

WHAT is it which binds together all the members of 
the Solar System ? 

Ah, what ? Why should not the sun at any moment 
rush away in one direction, the earth in a second, the 
planets in half a dozen others? What is there to 
hinder such a catastrophe ? 

Nothing — except that they are all held together by 
a certain close family tie ; or, more correctly, by the 
powerful influence of the head of the family. 

This mysterious power which the sun has, and which 



24 What binds the Family together? 



all the planets have also in their smaller degrees, is 
called Attraction. Sometimes it is named Gravita- 
tion or Gravity. 

When we speak, as we often do, of the law of 
attraction or gravitation, we mean simply this — that 
throughout the universe, in things little and great, is 
found a certain wonderful something in constant action, 
which we call a ' law.' What the ' something ' may be 
man cannot tell, for he knows it only by its effects. 
But these effects are seen everywhere, on all sides, in 
the earth, and in the universe. It is well named in 
being called a ' law/ for we are compelled to obey 
it. None but the divine Lawgiver who made 
this law can for a single moment suspend its work- 
ing. 

What causes an apple to fall to the ground when 
it drops from the branch ? Why should it not instead 
rise upwards ? Because, of course, it is heavy, or has 
weight. But what is weight ? 

Simply this : that the earth draws or drags every- 
thing downwards towards herself, by the power of 
attraction. Every substance, great or small, light or 
heavy, is made up of tiny atoms. Each one of these 
atoms attracts or draws all the other atoms towards 



What binds the Family together ? 25 

itself; and the closer they are together, the more 
strongly they pull one another. 

The atoms in a piece of iron are much closer than 
the atoms in a piece of wood ; therefore the iron is 
called the ' more dense ' of the two, and its weight or 
4 mass ' is greater. The more closely the atoms are 
pressed together, the greater the number of them in a 
small space, and the more strong the drawing towards 
the earth, for the earth draws each one of these atoms 
equally. That is only another way of saying that a 
thing is ' heavier.' 

If you drop a stone from the top of a cliff, will it rise 
upwards or float in the air ? No, indeed. The pull 
of the earth's attraction, dragging, and still dragging 
downward, makes it rush through the air, with 
speed quickening each instant, till it strikes the 
ground. 

Every single atom in every single body pulls every 
other atom, whether far or near. The nearer it is, the 
stronger always the pulling. 

We do not always feel this, because the very much 
greater attraction of the earth hides, or smothers as we 
may say, the lesser attraction of each small thing for 
another. But though you and I might stand side by 
side upon earth, and feel no mutual attraction, yet, if 



26 What binds the Family together? 

we could mount up a few thousands of miles, far away 
from earth, and float in distant space, there we should 
find ourselves drawn together, and unable to remain 
apart 

Now precisely as an apple falling from a tree, and 
a stone dropping from a cliff, are dragged downward 
to the earth ; just so our earth and all the planets are 
dragged downwards towards the sun and towards each 
other. The law of the earth's attraction of all objects 
on its surface to itself was indistinctly suspected a 
very long time ago ; but it was the great Newton 
who first discovered that this same law was to be 
found working among the members of the whole Solar 
System. 

The sun attracts the earth, and the earth attracts 
the sun. But the enormous size of the sun compared 
with our earth — like a great nine-feet globe beside a 
tiny one-inch ball — makes our power of attraction to 
be quite lost sight of in his, which is so much greater. 

We come now to another question. If the sun is 
pulling with such power at the earth and all her 
sister-planets, why do they not fall down upon him ? 
What is to prevent their rolling some day into one of 
those deep rents in his fiery envelope ? 



What binds the Family together? 27 

Did you ever tie a ball to a string, and swing it 
rapidly round and round your head ? 

If you did, you must have noticed the steady out- 
ward pull of the ball. The heavier the ball, and the 
more rapid its whirl, the stronger the pull will be. 
Let the string slip, and the rush of the ball through 
the air to the side of the room will make this yet 
more plain. 

Did you ever carry a glass of water quickly along, 
and then, on suddenly turning a corner, find that the 
water has not turned with you ? It has gone on in 
its former direction, leaving the glass, and spilling 
itself on the floor. 

The cause in both cases is the same. Here is 
another ' law of nature/ so-called. Though we can 
neither explain nor understand why and how it 
is so, we see it to be one of the fixed rules of God's 
working in every-day life, throughout His uni- 
verse. 

The law, as we see it, seems to be this. Every- 
thing which is at rest must remain at rest, until 
set moving by some cause outside of, or indepen- 
dent of itself; and everything which is once set 
moving must continue moving in a straight line until 
checked. 



28 What binds the Family together? 

According to this, a cannon-ball lying on the 
ground ought to remain there until it is set in motion ; 
and, once set in motion by being fired from a cannon, 
it ought to go on for ever. 

Exactly so — if nothing stops it. But the earth's 
attraction draws the cannon-ball downward, and every 
time it strikes the ground it is partly checked. Also 
each particle of air that touches it helps to bring it to 
rest. If there were no earth and no air in the ques- 
tion, the cannon-ball might rush on in space for 
thousands of years. 

Why did the water get spilt ? 

Because it necessarily continued moving in a 
straight line. Your sudden change of direction com- 
pelled the solid glass to make the same change, but 
the liquid water was free to go straight on in its 
former course ; so it obeyed this law, and did go 
on. 

Why did the ball pull hard at the string as you 
swung it round ? 

Because at each instant it was striving to obey this 
same law, and to rush onward in a straight line. The 
pull of the string was every moment fighting against 
that inclination, and forcing the ball to move in a 
circle. 



What binds the Family together ? 29 



Just such is the earth's movement in her yearly 
journey round the sun. The string holding in the ball 
pictures the sun's attraction holding in the earth. The 
pulling of the ball outward in order to continue 
its course in a straight line, pictures the pull- 
ing of our earth each moment to break loose from 
the sun's attraction and to flee away into distant 
space. 

For the earth is not at rest. Each tick of the clock 
she has sped onward over more than eighteen miles 
of her pathway through the sky. Every instant the 
sun is dragging, with the tremendous force of his 
attraction, to make her fall nearer to him. Every 
instant the earth is dragging, with the tremendous 
force of her rapid rush, to get away from him. These 
two pullings so far balance each other, or, more 
strictly, so far combine together, that between the two 
she journeys steadily round and round in her nearly 
circular orbit. 

If the sun pulled a little harder she would need to 
travel a little faster, or she would gradually go nearer 
to him. If the earth went faster, and the sun's at- 
traction remained the same as it is now, she would 
gradually widen her distance. 

Indeed, it. would only be needful for the earth to 



30 What binds the Family together? 



quicken her pace to about five-and-twenty miles a 
second, the sun's power to draw her being unchanged, 
and she would then wander away from him for ever. 
Day by day we on our earth should travel farther 
and farther away, leaving behind us all light, all 
heat, all life, and finding ourselves slowly lost in 
darkness, cold, and death. 

For what should we do without the sun ? All our 
light, all our warmth, come from him. Without the 
sun life, could not exist on the earth. Plants, herbage, 
trees, would wither; the waters of rivers, lakes, oceans, 
would turn to masses of ice ; animals and men would 
die. Our earth would soon be one vast cold forsaken 
tomb of darkness and desolation. 

I have spoken before about the old-world notion 
that our earth was a fixed plain, with the sun circling 
round her. 

When the truth dawned slowly upon some great 
minds, anxious only to know what really was the 
truth, others made a hard struggle for the older and 
pleasanter mode of thinking. It went with many 
sorely against the grain to give up all idea of the 
earth being the chief place in the universe. Also 
there was something bewildering and dizzying in the 



What binds the Family together ? 3 1 

notion that our solid world is never for one moment 
still. 

But truth won the victory at last. Men consented 
slowly to give up the past dream, and to learn the 
new lesson put before them. 

We still talk of the sun rising and setting, and of 
the stars doing the same. This is, however, merely a 
common form of speech, which means just the 
opposite. For instead of the sun and stars moving, 
it is the earth which moves. 

The earth has two distinct movements. Indeed, I 
ought to say that she has three, but we will leave all 
thought of the third for the present. 

First : She turns round upon her axis once in every 
twenty-four hours. 

Secondly : She travels round the sun once in 
about every three hundred and sixty-five days and a 
quarter. 

No wonder our ancestors were startled to learn that 
the world, which they had counted so immovable, 
was perpetually spinning like a humming-top, and 
rushing through space like an arrow. 

You may gain some clear notions as to the daily 
rising and setting of our sun, with the help of an 



32 What binds the Family together? 

orange. Pass a slender knitting-needle through the 
orange, from end to end, and hold it about a yard 
distant from a single candle, in a room otherwise 
darkened. Let the needle or axis slant somewhat, 
and turn the orange slowly upon it. 

The candle does not move ; but as the orange turns, 
the candle-light falls in succession upon each portion 
of the yellow rind. Half of the orange is always in 
shade, and half is always in light ; while at either 
side, if a small fly were standing there, he would be 
passing round out of shade into candle-light, or out of 
candle-light into shade. 

Each spot on our earth moves round in turn into 
half-light, full-light, half-light, and darkness ; or, in 
other words, has morning-dawn, midday-light, evening 
twilight, and night. Each spot on our earth would 
undergo regularly these changes every twenty-four 
hours throughout the year, were it not for another 
arrangement which so far affects this that the North 
and South Poles are, by turns, cut off from the light 
during many months together. 

Thus the sun is in the centre of the Solar System, 
turning slowly on his axis ; and the earth and the 
planets travel round him, each spinning like a teeto- 
tum, so as to make the most of his bright warm rays. 
But for this spinning movement of the earth, our day 



What binds the Family together ? 33 



and night, instead of being each a few hours long, 
would each last six months. 

You may notice that, as you turn the orange 
steadily round, the outside surface of the skin has to 
move much more slowly in those parts close to the 
knitting-needle, than in those parts which bulge out 
farthest from it. Near the North and South Poles the 
surface of our earth travels slowly round a very small 
circle in the course of twenty-four hours. But at the 
equator every piece of ground has to travel about 
twenty-five thousand miles in the same time ; so that 
it rushes along at the rate of more than one thousand 
miles an hour. A man standing on the earth, at the 
equator, is being carried along at this great speed, not 
through the air, for the whole atmosphere partakes of 
the same rapid motion, but with the air, round and 
round the earth's axis. 

Now about the other movement of the earth — her 
yearly journey round the sun. 

While she moves, the sun, as seen from the earth, 
seems to change his place. First he is observed 
against a background of one group of stars, then 
against a second, then against a third. Not that the 
stars are visible in the day-time when the sun is 
shining, but their places are well known in the 
heavens ; and also they can be noted very soon after 

3 



34 What binds the Family together ? 

he sets, or before he rises, so that the constellations 
nearest to him may each day be easily found out. 

Of course in old times the sun was thought to be 
really taking this journey among the stars, and men 
talked of ' the sun's path ' in the heavens. This path 
was named ' the Ecliptic/ and we use the word still, 
though we know well that the movements are not 
really his, but ours. 

As the earth's daily movement causes day and 
night, so the earth's yearly movement causes spring, 
summer, autumn, and winter. 

A few pages back I mentioned in passing one slight 
yet important fact, which lies at the root of this 
matter about the seasons. 

The earth, journeying round the sun, travels with 
her axis slanting. 

Put your candle in the middle of the table, and 
stand at one end, holding your orange. Now let the 
knitting-needle, with the orange upon it, so slant 
that one end shall point straight over the candle, 
towards the upper part of the wall at the farther end 
of the room. Call the upper end, so pointing, the 
North Pole of your orange. 

You will see that the candle-light falls chiefly upon 
the upper half of the orange ; and as you turn it slowly, 
to picture day and might, you will find that the North 




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What binds the Family together ? 35 

Pole has no night, and the South Pole has no day. 
That is summer in the northern hemisphere, and 
winter in the southern. 

Walk round next to one side of the table, towards 
the right hand, taking care to let the knitting-needle 
point steadily still in exactly the same direction, 
not towards the same spot, for that would alter its 
direction as you move, but towards the same wall. 
Stop, and you will find the candle lighting up one 
half of your orange, from the North to the South 
Poles. Turn it slowly, never altering the slope of the 
axis, and you will see that every part of the orange 
comes by turns under the light. This is the Autumnal 
Equinox, when days and nights all over the world are 
■equal in length. 

Walk on to the other end of the table, still letting 
the needle slope and point steadily as before. Now 
the candle-light will shine upon the lower or South 
Pole, and the North Pole will be entirely in the shade. 
This is summer in the southern hemisphere, and winter 
in the northern. 

Pass on to the fourth side of the table, and once 
more you will find it as at the second side — equal light 
from North Pole to South Pole. This will be the 
Spring Equinox. 

It is an illustration that may be easily prac- 

3—2 



36 What binds the Family together? 

tised. But everything depends upon keeping the 
slant of the needle or axis unchanged throughout. If 
it be allowed to point first to right, and then to left, 
first towards the ceiling, and then towards the wall, the 
attempt will prove a failure. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE LEADING MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY.— FIRST 

GROUP. 

' The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament 
showeth His handywork.' — Ps. xix. i. 

The chief distinction between stars and planets is, as 
before said, that the stars shine entirely by their own 
light, while the planets shine chiefly, if not entirely, 
by reflected light. 

The stars are suns ; mighty globes of glowing 
flame. The planets simply receive the light of the 
sun, and shine with a brightness not their own. 

A lamp shines by its own light ; but a looking- 
glass, set in the sun's rays, and flashing beams in all 
directions, shines by reflected light. In a dark room 
it would be dark. If there were no sun to shine 
upon Mars or Venus, we should see no brightness in 
them. The moon is like the planets in this. She 



40 The Leading Members of our Family : 

the heavens, any more than a swallow has a visible 
pathway through the sky, or a ship a marked path- 
way through the sea. Yet each planet has his own 
orbit, and each planet so distinctly keeps to his own, 
that astronomers can tell us precisely whereabouts in 
the heavens any particular planet will be, at any 
particular time, long years beforehand. 

There is also another mode of grouping the planets, 
besides dividing them into superior and inferior 
planets. 

By this other mode we find two principal groups or 
quartettes of planets, separated by a zone or belt of a 
great many very small planets. 



Mercury. 
Venus. 



First Group ) 

J Earth 

* Mars. 



The Asteroids or Planetoids. 

/ Jupiter. 

Second Group ) Saturn - 

J Uranus. 

* Neptune. 

The first four arc small compared with the last four 
though much larger than any in the belt of tiny 
Asteroids. 

It was believed at one time that a planet had been 




Orbits of the Planets. 



First Grotip. 41 



discovered nearer to the sun than Mercury, and the 
namo Vulcan was given to it. But no more has been 
seen of Vulcan, and his existence is so doubtful that 
we must not count him as a member of the family, 
without further information. 

Mercury is very much smaller than our Earth. 

The diameter of the earth is eight thousand miles, 
but the diameter of Mercury is only about three thou- 
sand miles — not even half that of the earth. 

Being so much nearer to the sun than ourselves, the 
pulling of his attraction is much greater, and this has 
to be balanced by greater speed, or Mercury would 
soon fall down upon the sun. Our distance from the 
sun is ninety-one millions of miles. Mercury's dis- 
tance is only about one third of ours ; and instead of 
travelling, like the earth, at the rate of eighteen miles 
■each second, Mercury dashes headlong through space 
at the mad pace of twenty-nine miles each second. 
It is a good thing the earth does not follow his ex- 
ample, or she would soon break loose from the sun's 
control altogether. 

The earth takes more than three hundred and sixty- 
five days, or twelve months, to journey round the sun 
in her orbit. That is what we call * the length of our 
year.' But Mercury's year is only eighty-eight days, 



42 The Leading Members of our Family : 

or not quite three of our months. No wonder! — when 
his pathway is so much shorter and his speed so much 
greater than ours. So Mercury has four years to one 
year on earth ; and a person who had lived on Mer- 
cury as long as five earthly years, would then be 
twenty years old. The increased number of birth- 
days would scarcely be welcome in large families, 
supposing we could pay a long visit there. 

The sun, as seen from Mercury, looks about four and 
a half times as large as from here ; the heat and glare 
being increased in proportion. No moon has ever 
been found, belonging to Mercury. 

Venus, the second inferior planet, is nearly the same 
size as our earth. Seen from the earth, she is one of the 
most brilliant and beautiful of all the planets. Her speed 
is three miles a second faster than ours, and her distance 
from the sun is about two-thirds that of our own ; so 
that the orbit of Venus lies half-way between the 
orbit of Mercury and the orbit of the earth. The day 
of Venus is about half an hour shorter than ours. Her 
year is nearly two hundred and twenty-five days, or 
seven and a half of our months. One or two astro- 
nomers have fancied that they caught glimpses of a 
moon near Venus ; but this is still quite doubtful,, 
and indeed it is believed to have been a mistake. 



First Group. 43 



Venus and Mercury are only visible as morning and 
eveningplanets. Venus, being farther from the sun, does 
not go before and follow after him quite so closely as 
Mercury, and she is therefore the longer within sight. 

When Venus, travelling on her orbit, comes just 
between the sun and us, her dark side is turned to- 
wards the earth, and we can catch no glimpse of her. 
When she reaches that part of her orbit which is 
farthest from us, quite on the other side of the sun, 
her great distance from us makes her light seem 
less. But about half-way round on either side she 
shows exceeding brilliancy ; and that is the best view 
we can get of her. 

Seen through a telescope, Venus undergoes what we 
call ' phases,' like the moon. That is to say, we really 
have ' new Venus/ ' quarter Venus/ ' half Venus/ ' full 
Venus/ and so on. Mercury passes through the same 
phases, but his smallness and distance make them more 
difficult to see. 

Next to the orbit of Venus comes the orbit of our 
own Earth, the third planet of the first group. 

Mars, the fourth of the inner quartette, but the first 
of the superior planets, is a good deal smaller than 
Venus or the earth. The name Mars, from the heathen 



44 Tlie Leading Members of our Family. 

god of war, was given on account of his fiery reddish 
colour. Mars is better placed than Venus for being 
observed from earth. When he is at the nearest point 
of his orbit to us, we see him full in the blaze of sun- 
light ; whereas Venus, at her nearest point, turns her 
bright face away. 

The length of the day of Mars, or, in other words, 
the time he takes to turn upon his axis, is only forty 
minutes longer than that of earth. 

Mars' journey round the sun is completed in the 
course of six hundred and eighty-seven days, not much 
less than two of our years. His distance from the sun 
is about one hundred and forty millions of miles, and 
his speed is fourteen miles a second. We shall find, 
with the increasing distance of each planet, that 
the slower pace balances the lessened amount of the 
sun's attraction. 

Passing on from Mars, the last of the first group of 
planets, we reach the belt of Asteroids, sometimes 
called Planetoids, Minor planets, or Telescopic 
planets. They are so tiny, that Mercury is a giant 
compared with the largest among them. 

The zone of space containing all these little planets 
is more than a hundred millions of miles broad. Their 
orbits do not lie flat in almost the same plane, but 



First Group. 45 



slant about variously in a very entangled fashion. If a 
neat model were made of this zone, with a slender piece 
of wire to represent each orbit, it would be found im- 
possible to lift up one wire without pulling up all the 
rest with it Those asteroids lying nearest to the 
sun take about three of our years to travel round him, 
and those lying farthest take about six of our years. 

New members of the group are very often found. 
The number of asteroids now known amounts to nearly 
two hundred. 

Pallas, the largest, is about six hundred miles in 
diameter. Vesta, the brightest, is about three hundred 
miles. Nearly eighteen thousand Vestas would be 
needed to make one globe equal to our earth in size. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE LEADING MEMBERS OF OUR FAMILY. — 

SECOND GROUP. 

' O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ; in v/isdom hast 
Thou made them all' — Ps. civ. 24. 

LEAVING behind us the busy zone of Planetoids, 
hurrying round and round the sun in company, we 
cross a wide gap and come upon a very different 
sight. 

The distance from the sun which we have now 
reached is little less than four hundred and fifty mil- 
lions of miles, or about five times as much as the 
earth's distance ; and the sun in the heavens shows a 
diameter only one-fifth of that which we are accus- 
tomed to see. Slowly — yet not slowly — floating on- 
wards through space, in his far-off orbit, we find the 
magnificent planet Jupiter. 

Is eight miles each second slow progress ? Com- 



Second Group. 47 



pared with the wild whirl of little Mercury, or even 
compared with the rate of our own earth's advance, 
we may count it so ; but certainly not, compared with 
our notions of speed upon earth. Eight miles each 
second is five hundred times as fast as the swiftest 
express train ever made by man. No mean pace that 
for so enormous a body. 

For Jupiter is the very largest of all the members of 
the Solar System, except the sun himself — quite the 
eldest brother of the family. His diameter is about 
eighty-five thousand miles, his axis being nearly 
eleven times as long as that of earth. Though, in pro- 
portion to his great bulk, not nearly so heavy as our 
earth, yet his bulk is so vast that more than twelve 
hundred earths would be needed to make one 
Jupiter. 

It must not, however, be forgotten that there is a 
certain amount of uncertainty about these measure- 
ments of Jupiter. He seems to be so covered with a 
dense atmosphere and heavy clouds that it is quite 
impossible for us to learn the exact size of the solid 
body within. 

Jupiter does not travel alone. Borne onwards with 
him and circling steadily round him, are four moons ; 
one about the same size as our own moon, and the 
other three all larger. The nearest of the four, 



48 The Leading Members of our Family: 

though farther from Jupiter than our moon from the 
earth, speeds round him in less than two of our days. 
The most distant, though over a million miles away. 
takes scarcely seventeen days to accomplish its long** 
journey. 

Jupiter and his moons make quite a little system- 
by themselves — a family circle within a family circle. 

Like the smaller planets, Jupiter spins upon his 
axis ; and he does this so rapidly that, notwithstand- 
ing his great size, his day lasts only ten hours, instead 
of twenty-four hours like ours. 

But if Jupiter's day is short, his year is not. Nearly 
twelve of our years pass by before Jupiter has 
travelled once completely round the sun. So a 
native of earth, who had just reached his thirty- 
seventh year, would, on Jupiter, be only three years, 
old. 

Passing onward from Jupiter, ever farther and 
farther from the sun, we leave behind us another vast 
and empty space — empty as we count emptiness, 
though it may be that there is in reality no such thing 
as emptiness throughout the length and breadth of the 
universe. 

The width of the gap which divides the pathway of 
Jupiter from the pathway of his giant brother-planet 




\, Saturn. In Fig. i 



g. 3. Jupiter. The Jatk J 
° Res" s and 6. Man; iiw. 



Second Group. 49 



Saturn, is nearly five times as much as the width of 
the gap separating the earth from the sun. The 
■distance of Saturn from the sun is not much less 
than double the distance of Jupiter. 

With this great space in our rear, we come upon 
another large and radiant planet, the centre, like 
Jupiter, of another little system ; though it can only be 
called ' little ' in comparison with the much greater 
Solar System of which it forms a part. 

. Saturn's diameter is less than that of Jupiter, but 
the two corpe near enough to be naturally ranked 
together. Nearly seven hundred earths would be 
needed to make one globe as large as Saturn. But 
here again the dense and cloudy envelope makes 
us very uncertain about the planet's actual size. 
Saturn is like Jupiter in being made of lighter mate- 
rials than our earth ; and also in his rapid whirl upon 
his axis, the length of his * day ' being only ten and a 
half of our hours. 

From Jupiter's speed of eight miles each second, we 
come down in the case of Saturn to only five miles 
each second. And Jupiter's long annual journey 
looks almost short, seen beside Saturn's longer journey 
of thirty earthly years. A man aged sixty, according 
to our fashion of reckoning time, would on Saturn have 
just kept his second birthday. 

4 



50 The Leading Members of our Family : 



The system or family of Saturn is yet more wonder- 
ful than that of Jupiter. Not four only but eight 
moons travel ceaselessly round Saturn, each in its own 
orbit ; and in addition to the eight moons, he has 
revolving round him three magnificent rings. These 
rings, as well as the moons, shine, not by their own 
brilliancy, for they have none, but by borrowed sun- 
light. 

The farthest of the moons wanders in his lonely 
pathway about two millions of miles away from 
Saturn. The largest of them is believed to be about 
the same size as the planet Mars. 

Of the three rings circling round Saturn, almost 
exactly over his equator, the inside one is dusky, pur- 
plish and transparent ; the one outside or over that is 
very brilliant ; and the third, outside the second, is 
rather greyish in hue. 

Another vast gap — more enormous than the last. 
It is a wearisome journey. From the orbit of Jupiter 
to the orbit of Saturn at their nearest points, was five 
times as much as from the sun to the earth. But 
from the orbit of Saturn to the orbit of Uranus, the 
next member of the sun's family, we have double even 
that great space to cross. 

Still, obedient to the pulling of the sun's attractive 



Second Group. 5 1 



power, Uranus wanders onward in his wide pathway 
round the sun, at the rate of four miles per second. 
Eighty-four of our years make one year of Uranus. 
Like Jupiter he has four moons, and thus forms a 
third smaller system within the Solar System ; but he 
may have other satellites also, as yet undiscovered. 
In size he is seventy-four times as large as our earth. 

One more mighty chasm of nine hundred millions 
of miles, for the same distance which separates the 
pathway of Saturn from the pathway of Uranus, 
separates also the pathway of Uranus from the path- 
way of Neptune. Cold, and dark, and dreary indeed 
seems to us the orbit on which this banished member 
of our family circle creeps round the sun, in the course 
of one hundred and sixty-five years, at the sluggish 
rate of three miles per second. 

On the planet Saturn, the quantity of light and 
heat received from the sun is not much more than 
a hundredth part of that which we are accustomed to 
receive on earth. But by the time we reach Nep- 
tune, the great sun has faded and shrunk in the dis- 
tance, until to our eyes he looks only like an ex- 
ceedingly brilliant and dazzling star. 

We know little of this far-off brother, Neptune, 
except that he is rather larger than Uranus, being 

4—2 



52 The Leading Members of our Family : 



one hundred and five times as big as the earth ; that 
he has at least one moon ; and also that, like Uranus, 
he is made of materials lighter than those of earth, 
but heavier than those of Jupiter or Saturn. 

After all, it is no easy matter to gain clear ideas as 
to sizes and distances from mere statements of ' so 
many miles in diameter/ and ' so many millions of 
miles away.' A 'million miles' carries to the mind a 
very dim notion of the actual reality. 

Now if we can in imagination bring down all the 
members of the Solar System to a small size, keeping 
always the same proportions, we may find it a help. 

'Keeping the same proportions' means that all 
must be lessened alike, all must be altered in the same 
degree. Whatever the supposed size of the earth 
may be, Venus must be still about the same size as 
the earth, Saturn seven hundred times as large, and 
so on. Also, whatever the distance of the earth from 
the sun, in miles or yards, or inches, Mercury must 
still be one-third as far, Jupiter still five times as far, 
and thus with the rest. 

First as to size alone. Suppose the earth is brought 
down to a small globe, exactly three inches in diame- 
ter. It will be a very smooth globe. Not only men 



Second Group. 53 



and houses, but mountains, valleys, seas, will all have 
shrunk to so minute a size, as to be quite invisible to 
the naked eye. 

Fairly to picture the other members of the Solar 
System, in due proportion, you will have them as 
follows :*■ 

Mercury and Mars will be balls smaller than the 
earth, and Venus nearly the same size as the earth. 
Uranus and Neptune will be each somewhere about a 
foot in diameter. Saturn will be twenty-eight inches, 
and Jupiter thirty-two inches, in diameter. The sun 
will be a huge dazzling globe twenty-six feet in 
diameter. No wonder he weighs sqyen hundred 
and fifty times as much as all his planets put 
together. 

Next let us picture the system more exactly on 
another and smaller scale, as given by a well-known 
astronomical writer of the day. 

First think of the sun as a brilliant globe, about 
nine feet, or three yards in diameter, floating in 
space. 

About one hundred yards, from the sun travels a 
tiny ball, not half an inch in diameter, passing slowly 
round the sun — slowly, because as sizes and distances 

' Other Worlds/ by R. A. Proctor. 



54 The Leading Members of our Family : 

are lessened, speed must in due proportion be lessened 
also. This is Mercury. 

About two hundred yards from the sun travels 
another tiny ball, one inch in diameter. This is 
Venus. 

Nearly a quarter of a mile from the sun travels a 
third tiny ball, one inch again in diameter ; and at 
a distance of two feet and a half from it a still smaller 
ball, one quarter of an inch in diameter, journeys 
round it and with it. These are the earth and the 
moon. 

About half as far again as the last-named ball, 
travels another, over half an inch in diameter. This 
is Mars. 

Then comes a wide blank space, followed by a large 
number of minute objects, no bigger than grains of 
powder, floating round the sun in company. These 
are the Asteroids. Another wide blank space succeeds 
the outermost of them. 

About one mile distant from the sun journeys a 
globe, ten inches in diameter. Round him, as he 
journeys, there travel four smaller balls, the largest of 
which is about the third of an inch in diameter. Their 
distances from the bigger globe vary from two and a 
half to twelve and a half feet. These are Jupiter and 
his moons. 



Second Group. 55 



Nearly two miles distant from the sun journeys 
another globe, about eight and a half inches in dia- 
meter. Eight tiny balls, and three delicate rings circle 
round him as he moves. These are Saturn and his 
belongings. 

About four miles distant from the sun journeys 
another globe, four inches in diameter, with four tiny 
balls accompanying him — Uranus and his moons. 

Lastly, at a distance of six miles from the sun, one 
more globe, not much larger than the last, with one 
tiny companion, pursues his far-off pathway.* 

These proportions as to size and distance, if care- 
fully studied, will serve to give a clearer idea of the 
Solar System as a whole, than learning a long list of 
numbers would do. 

Taken from * The Expanse of Heaven/ by R. A. Proctor. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OUR PARTICULAR FRIEND AND ATTENDANT. 
* The moon walking in brightness.' — JOB xxxi. 26. 

Come and let us pay a visit to the moon. 

We seem to feel a personal interest in her, just be- 
cause she is in so peculiar a sense our own friend and 
close attendant. The sun shines for us, but then he 
shines for all the members of the Solar System. And 
the stars — so many as we can see of them — shine for 
us too, but no doubt they shine far more brilliantly for 
other and nearer worlds. The moon alone seems to 
belong especially to ourselves. 

Indeed, we are quite in the habit of speaking about 
her as i our moon.' Rather a cold and calm friend 
some may think her, sailing always serenely past, what- 
ever may be going on beneath her beams ; yet she 
has certainly proved herself constant and faithful in 
her attachment. 



Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 57 

We have not very far to travel before reaching her, — 
merely about two hundred and forty thousand miles. 
That is nothing, compared with the weary millions of 
miles which we have had to cross to visit some mem- 
bers of our family. A rope two hundred and forty 
thousand miles long would fold neatly ten times round 
the earth at the equator. You know the earth's 
diameter — about eight thousand miles. If you had 
thirty poles, each eight thousand miles long, and could 
fasten them all together, end to end, one beyond 
another, you would have a rod long enough to reach 
from the earth to the moon. 

Let us take a good look at her before starting. 

She is very beautiful. That soft silvery light, so 
unlike sunlight or gaslight, or any other kind of light 
seen upon earth, has made her the darling of poets 
and the delight of all who love nature. Little chil- 
dren like to watch her curious markings, and to make 
out the old man with his bundle of sticks, or the eyes, 
nose, and mouth of the moon — not dreaming what 
those markings really are. And in moods of sadness, 
how the pure calm moonlight seems to soothe the 
feelings ! Who would suppose that the moon's beauty 
is the beauty rather of death than of life ? 

The stars have not much chance of shining through 



. \ 



58 Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 

her bright rays. It is well for astronomers that she 
is not always at the full. 

But when she is, how large she looks — quite as large 
as the sun, though in reality her size, compared with 
his, is only as a very small pin's head compared with 
a school globe two feet in diameter. Her diameter is 
little more than two thousand miles, or one quarter 
that of our earth ; and her whole surface, spread out 
flat, would scarcely equal North and South America, 
without any of the surrounding islands. 

The reason she looks the same size as the sun, is 
that she is so very much nearer. The sun's distance 
from us is nearly four times as many millions of miles 
as the moon's distance is thousands of miles. This 
makes an enormous difference. 

We call our friend a 'moon,' and say that she 
journeys round the earth, while the earth journeys 
round the sun. This is true, but it is only part of the 
truth. Just as certainly as the earth travels round the 
sun, so the moon also travels round the sun. And just 
as surely as the earth is a planet, so the moon also is 
a planet. It is a common mode of expression to talk 
about ' the earth and her satellite.' A no less correct, 
if not more correct, way would be to talk of ourselves 
as ' a pair of planets,' journeying round the same sun, 
each pulled strongly towards him, and each pulling the 



Our Particular Friend and Attendant 59 



other with a greater or less attraction, according to 
her size and weight. 

For the sun actually does draw the moon with more 
force than that with which the earth draws her. Only 
as he draws the earth with the same sort of force, and 
nearly in the same degree, he does not pull them apart. 

The moon, like the other planets, turns upon her 
axis. She does this very slowly, however ; and most 
singularly she takes exactly the same time to turn 
once upon her axis that she does to travel once round 
the earth. 

The result of this is that we only see one face of the 
moon. If she turned upon her axis, and journeyed 
round the earth in two different lengths of time, or if 
.she journeyed round us and did not turn upon her 
axis at all, we should have views of her on all sides, as 
of other planets. But as her two movements so curi- 
ously agree, it happens that we always have one side of 
the moon towards us, and never catch a glimpse of 
the other side. 

And now we are ready to start on our journey of 
two hundred and forty thousand miles. 

An express train, moving ceaselessly onward night 
and day, at the rate of sixty miles an hour, would 
take us there in about five months and a half. But 



6o Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 



no line of rails has ever yet been laid from the earth 
to the moon, and no * Flying Dutchman ' has ever yet 
plied its way to and fro on that path through the 
heavens. Not on the wings of steam, but on the wings 
of imagination, we must rise aloft. Come — it will not 
take us long. We shall pass no planets or stars on the 
road, for the moon lies nearer to us than any other of 
the larger heavenly bodies. 

Far, far behind us lies the earth, and beneath our 
feet, as we descend, stretch the broad tracts of moon- 
land. For * downward ' now means towards the 
moon, and away from the distant earth. 

What a strange place we have reached ! The 
weird ghastly stillness of all around, and the glaring 
dazzling cloudless heat, strike us first and most 
forcibly. Nothing like this heat have we ever felt on 
earth. For the close of the moon's long day — on this 
side of its globe — is approaching, and during a whole 
fortnight past the sun's fierce rays have been beating 
down on these shelterless plains. Talk of sweltering 
tropics on earth ! What do you call this heat ? Look 
at the thermometer: how the quicksilver is rising! Well 
that it is not a common thermometer which we have 
brought with us. The mercury has stopped — three 
hundred degrees above boiling water ! 



Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 61 

■ - — _ ■ i i i i ■ - - — — 1~ 

Not a cloud to be seen overhead ; only a sky of 
inky blackness, with a blazing sun, and thousands of 
brilliant stars, and the dark body of our own earth, 
large and motionless, and rimmed with light. Seen 
from earth, sun and moon look much the same size ; 
but seen from the moon, the earth looks thirteen times 
as large as our full moon. 

Not even a little mistiness in the air to soften this 
fearful glare ! Air ! why, there is no air ; at least, not 
enough for any human being to breathe or feel. If 
there were air the sky would be blue, not black, and 
the stars would be invisible in the day-time. It 
looks strange to see them now shining beside the 
sun. 

And then, this deadly stillness ! Not a sound, not 
a voice, not a murmur of breeze or water. How could 
there be ? Sound cannot be carried without air, and . 
of air there is none. As for breeze — wind is moving 
air, and where we have no air we can have no wind. 
As for water — if there ever was any water on the 
moon, it has entirely disappeared. We shall walk to 
and fro vainly in search of it now. No rivers, no 
rills, no torrents in those Stern mountain-ramparts 
rising on every side. All is craggy, motionless; deso- 
late. 

How very very slowly the sun creeps over the 



62 Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 

black sky ; and no marvel, since a fortnight of earth- 
time is here but one day, answering to twelve hours 
upon earth. Cannot we find shelter somewhere from 
this blazing heat ? Yonder tall rock will do, casting 
a sharp shadow of intense blackness. We never saw 
such shadows upon earth. There the atmosphere 
so breaks and bends and scatters about the light, 
that outlines of shadows are soft and hazy, even 
the clearest and darkest of them, compared with 
this. 

When will the sun go down ? But he is well worth 
looking at meanwhile. How magnificent he appears, 
with his pure radiant photosphere, fringed by a sierra 
of dazzling pink and white, orange and gold, purple 
and blue. For here no atmosphere lies between to 
blend all into yellow-white brightness. And how 
plainly stand out those prominences or tongues of 
tinted flame, not merely rose-coloured, as seen from 
earth, but matching the sierra in varying hues ; while 
beyond spreads a gorgeous belt of pink and green, 
bounded by lines and streams of delicate white 
light, reaching far and dying slowly out against the 
jet background. The black spots on the face of the 
sun are very distinct, and so also are the brilliant 
faculae. 

We must take a look around us now at moonland, 



Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 63 

and not only sit gazing at the sun, though such a sky 
may well enchain attention. 

How unlike our earthly landscapes ! No sea, 
no rivers, no lakes, no streams, no brooks, no 
trees, bushes, plants, grass, or flowers ; no wind or 
breeze ; no cloud or mist or thought of possible rain ; 
no sound of bird or insect, of rustling leaves or trick- 
ling water. Nothing but burning steadfast change- 
less glare, contrasting with inky shadows ; sun and 
earth and stars in a black heaven above ; silent deso- 
late mountains and plains below. 

For though we stand here upon a rough plain, this 
moon is a mountainous world. Ranges of rugged hills 
stretch away in the distance, with valleys lying be- 
tween — not soft green sloping earthly valleys, but 
steep gorges and precipitous hollows, all white dazzle 
and deep shade. 

But the mountains do not commonly lie in long 
ranges, as on earth. The surface of the moon seems 
to be dented with strange round pits, or craters, 
of every imaginable size. We had a bird's-eye view 
of them as we descended at the end of our long jour- 
ney moonward. In many parts the ground appears 
to be quite honeycombed with them. Here are small 
ones near at hand, and larger ones in the distance. 
The smaller craters are surrounded by steep ram- 



64 Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 

parts of rock, the larger ones by circular moun- 
tain-ranges. We have nothing quite like them on 
earth. 

Are they volcanoes ? So it would seem ; only no 
life, no fire, no action, remain now. All is dead, mo- 
tionless, still. Is this verily a blasted world ? Has 
it fallen under the breath of Almighty wrath, 
coming out scorched and seared ? Is it simply 
passing through a certain burnt-out chilled phase 
of existence, through which other planets also pass, 
or will pass, at some stage of their career ? Who 
can tell ? 

We will move onward, and look more closely at 
that towering mass of rugged rocks, beyond which 
the sun will by-and-by go down. Long jetty shadows 
lie from them in this direction. No wonder astro- 
nomers on earth can through their telescopes plainly 
see these black shadows contrasting with the glaring 
brightness on the other side. 

A * mass of rocks' I have said ; but as, with our 
powers of rapid movement, we draw near, we find a 
range of craggy mountains sweeping round in a vast 
circle. Such a height in Switzerland would demand 
many hours of hard climbing. But on this small 
globe attraction is a very different matter from what 
it is on earth. Our weight is so lessened that we can 



Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 65 

leap the height of a tall house without the smallest 
difficulty. No chamois ever sprang from peak to 
peak in his native Switzerland with such amazing 
lightness as that with which we now ascend these 
mighty rocks. 

Ha ! what a depth on the other side ! We stand 
looking down into one of the monster craters of the 
moon. A sheer descent of at least eleven thousand 
feet would land us at the bottom. Why, Mont Blanc 
itself is only about fifteen thousand feet in height. 
And what a crater! Fifty-six miles across in a 
straight line, from here to the other side, with these 
lofty rugged battlements circling round, while from 
the centre of the rough plain below a sharp cone- 
shaped mountain rises to about a quarter of the height 

* 

of the surrounding range. 

It is a grand sight ; peak piled upon peak, crag 
upon crag, sharp rifts or valleys breaking here and 
there the line of the narrow uplifted ledge; all 
wrapped in silent and desolate calm. There are 
many such craters as this on the moon, and some 
much larger. 

The sun slowly nears his setting, and sinks behind 
the opposite range. How we shiver ! The last ray 
of sunlight has gone, and already the ground is pour- 

5 



66 Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 



ing out its heat into space, unchecked by the presence 
of air or clouds. The change takes place with mar- 
vellous quickness. A deadly chill creeps over all 
around. A whole fortnight of earth-time must pass 
before the sun's rays will again touch this. spot. Verfly 
the contrasts of climate in the moon, during the twelve 
long days and nights which make up her year, axe 
startling to human notions. 

But though the sun is gone we are not in darkness. 
The stars shine with dazzling brightness, and the 
huge body of the earth, always seeming to hug 
motionless at one fixed point in the sky, gives t*riU 
liant light, though at present only half her face is lit 
up and half is in shadow. Still her shape is plainly 
to be seen, for she has ever round her a ring of 
light, caused by the gathered shining of stars as they 
pass behind her thick atmosphere. She covers a space 
on the sky more than a dozen times as large as that 
covered by the full moon in our sky. 

It would be worth while to stay here, and watch 
the half-earth grow into magnificent full-earth. But 
the cold is becoming fearful — too intense for even the 
imagination to endure longer. What must be the 
state of things on the other side of the moon, where : 
there is no bright earth-light to take the place of the ■ 



Our Particular Friend and Attendant. 67 



sun's shining, during the long two-weeks' night of 
awful chill and darkness ? 

Time for us to wend our way homewards from this 
desolate hundredfold-arctic scene. We have more 
to learn by-and-by about our friend and companion. 
For the present — enough. 



5—2 



CHAPTER VII. 

VISITORS. 

'Thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all/ — 
Eccles. xi. 5. 

We come next to the very largest members of our 
Solar System. 

From time to time in past days — and days not very 
long past either — people were startled by the sight of 
a long-tailed star moving quickly across the sky, 
called a comet. We see such long-tailed stars still, 
now and then, but their appearance no longer startles 
us. 

It is hardly surprising, however, that fears were once 
felt. The great size and brilliancy of some of these 
comets naturally caused large ideas to be held as to their 
weight ; and the general uncertainty about their move- 
ments naturally added to the mysterious notions 
afloat with respect to their power of doing harm. 



Visitors. 69 



A collision between the earth and a comet seemed 
no unlikely event ; and if it happened — what then ? 
Why, then of course the earth would be overpowered, 
crushed, burnt up, destroyed. So convinced were 
many on this point, that the sight of a comet and the 
dread of the coming 'end of the world' were fast 
bound together in their minds. 

Even when astronomers began to understand the 
paths of some of the comets, and to foretell their 
return at certain dates, the old fear was not quickly 
laid to rest. So late as the beginning of the present 
century, astronomers having told of an approaching 
comet, other people added the tidings of an approach- 
ing collision. 'If a collision, then the end of the 
world/ was the cry ; and one worthy family, living and 
keeping a shop in a well-known town on the south 
coast of England, packed up and fled to America 
— doubtless under full belief that the destruction of 
the Old World would not include the destruction of 
the New. 

The nature of these singular bodies is somewhat 
better known in the present day ; yet even now, among 
all the members of the Solar System they are perhaps 
the ones about which we have most to learn. 

The nucleus or bright and star-like spot, which , 
with the surrounding coma or ' hair/ we sometimes call 



70 Visitors. 



the 'head' of the comet, is the densest and heaviest 
part of the whole. The comets are of immense size, 
sometimes actually filling more space than the sun 
himself ; and their tails stream often for millions of 
miles behind them ; nevertheless, they appear to be 
among the lightest of the members of the Solar 
System. 

This excessive lightness greatly lessens the comet's 
power of harm-doing. In the rebound from all the 
old exaggerated fears, men laughed at the notion of 
so light and delicate a substance working any injury 
whatever, and even declared that a collision might 
take place without people on earth being aware of the 
fact. It is now felt that we really know too little 
about the nature of the said substance, to be able to 
say what might or might not be the result of a col- 
lision. A certain amount of injury to the surface of 
the earth might possibly take place. But of the ' end 
of the world/ as likely to be brought about by 
any comet in existence, we may safely banish all 
idea. 

The word * comet* means ' a hairy body ;' the name 
having been given from the hairy appearance of the 
light around the nucleus. 

. About seventeen hundred different comets have 
been seen at different times by men — some large, some 



Visitors. 7 1 

small, some visible to the naked eye, but most of 
them only visible through telescopes. 

These hundreds are, there is no doubt, but a very 
small number out of the myriads ranging through the 
heavens. 

If you were seated in a little boat in mid-ocean, 
counting the number of fishes which in one hour 
passed near enough in the clear water for your sight 
to reach them, you might fairly conclude, even if you 
did not know the fact, that for every single fish 
which you could see, there were tens of thousands 
which you could not see. 

Reasoning thus about the comets, as we watch 
them from our earth-boat in the ocean of space, we 
feel little doubt that for each one which we can see, 
millions pass to and fro beyond reach of our vision. 
Indeed, so long ago as the days of Kepler, that great 
astronomer gave it as his belief that the comets in the 
Solar System, large and small, were as plentiful as 
the fishes m the sea. And all that modern astro- 
nomers can discover only tends to strengthen this 
view. 

Why should the comets be called l visitors '? 
I call them so simply because many of them are 
visitors. Some, it is true, belong to the Solar System. 



72 Visitors. 



But even in their case, strong doubts are felt whether 
they were not once visitors from a distance, caught 
in the first instance by the attraction of one of the 
larger planets and retained thenceforward, for a time 
at least, by the strong attraction of the sun. 

Every comet, like every planet, has his own orbit or 
pathway in the heavens, though the kind of orbit 
varies with different comets. 

There are, first, those comets which travel round and 
round the sun in ' closed orbits ' — that is, in a ring with 
joined ends. Only the ring is always oval, not round. 

There are, secondly, those which travel in an orbit 
which may be closed ; but if so, the oval is so long 
and narrow, and the farther closed end is at so great 
a distance, that we cannot speak certainly. 

There are, thirdly, those which decidedly are mere 
visitors. They come from the far-off star-depths, 
flash once with their brilliant trains of light through 
our busy Solar System, causing some little excitement 
by the way, and go off in another direction, never 
to return. 

Only a small part of the orbits of these comets can 
be seen from earth; but by careful attention astrono- 
mers learn something of the shape of the curve in 
which they travel. It is in that way possible to cal- 
culate, sometimes certainly, and sometimes uncertainly* 



Visitors. 73 

whether a comet may be expected to return, or whether 
we have seen him for the first and the last time. By- 
looking at part of a curve, the rest of which is hidden 
from us, we are able to judge whether that part be- 
longs to a circle or an oval, or whether the two ends 
pass away in different directions, and do not join. 

The comets, whether members of our family circle or 
visitors from a distance, are altogether very perplex- 
ing. They are often extremely large, yet they are 
always extremely light. They reflect the sun's bright- 
ness like a planet, yet in some measure they seem 
to shine by their own light, like a star. They obey the 
attraction of the sun, yet he appears to have a singular 
power of driving the comets' tails away from himself. 

For, however rapidly the comet may be rushing 
round the sun, and however long the tail may be, it is 
almost always found to stream in an opposite direction 
from the sun. An exception to this rule was seen in 
the case of a certain comet with two tails, one of which 
did actually point towards the sun ; but the inner tail 
may have been only a 'jet ' of unusual length, like in 
kind to the smaller jets often thus poured out from the 
nucleus. 

Very curious changes take place in comets as they 
journey, especially as they come near the sun. One 



74 Visitors. 



was seen in the course of a few days to lose all his hair, 
and also his tail Another was seen to break into two 
pieces, both of which pieces at last disappeared. 
Sometimes the one tail divides into two tails. Tra- 
velling, as the comets do, from intense cold into 
burning heat, they are very much affected by the 
violent change of climate. 

For the paths of the comets are such long ovals or 
ellipses, that, while they approach the sun very closely 
in one part of their ' year/ they travel to enormous 
distances in the other part 

1 Halley's Comet,' which takes seventy-six of our 
years to journey round the sun, comes nearer to him 
than Venus, and goes farther away from him than 
Neptune. 

As this comet draws gradually closer, he has to 
make up for the added pull of the sun's increasing 
attraction by rushing onward with greater and greater 
rapidity, till he whirls madly past the sun, and then, 
with slowly slackening speed, journeys farther and 
farther away, creeps at length lazily round the farther 
end of his orbit in the chill dark neighbourhood of 
Neptune, and once more travels towards the sun with 
growing haste. 

' Encke's Comet ' has a year of only three and a half 
of our years, so he may be said to live quite in our midst. 



Visitors. 75 



But many comets travel much farther away than the 
one named after Halley. It is calculated of some that, 
if they ever return at all, it cannot be for many 
hundreds of years. 

' Newton's Comet/ seen about two centuries ago, has 
a journey to perform of such length, that he is not 
expected again to appear for several thousands of years. 
Yet, at the nearest point in his orbit, he approached 
the sun so closely, that the heat which he endured was 
about two thousand times that of red-hot iron. Changes 
were seen to be taking place in his shape, as he drew 
near to the sun, and disappeared. Four days he was 
hidden in the sun's rays. He vanished, with a tail 
streaming millions of miles behind him. He made his 
appearance again with a tail streaming millions of miles 
in front of him. But how this wonderful movement 
took place is beyond man's power to explain. 

So much for the largest members of our circle — 
largest, though lightest ; members some, visitors 
others. Now we turn to the smallest. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LITTLE SERVANTS. 

c All are Thy servants.'— Ps. cxix. 91. 

If you walk out any night after dark, and watch the 
bright stars shining in a clear sky — shining as they 
have done for ages past — you will probably see now 
and then a bright point of light suddenly appear, 
dart along a little distance, and as suddenly vanish. 

That which you have seen was not the beginning 
of a story, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred 
it was the end of a story. The little shooting-star 
was in existence long long before you saw him, whirling 
through space with millions of little companions. 
But he has left them all, and dropped to earth. He 
is a shooting-star no longer. 

If such a journey to the moon as the one described 
two chapters back were indeed possible, the voyage 



Little Servants. 77 



aloft would hardly be so easily and safely performed 
as is there taken for granted. 

Putting aside the thought of other difficulties, such 
as lack of conveyance and lack of air, there would be 
the danger of passing through a very considerable 
storm of missiles — a kind of 'celestial cannonade;' 
which, to say the least, would prove very far from 
agreeable. 

It will scarcely be believed what numbers of these 
shooting-stars or meteorites — for they are not really 
stars at all — constantly fall to the earth. As she 
travels on her orbit, hurrying along at the rate of 
nineteen miles each second, she meets them by tens 
of thousands. They too, like the earth, are journeying 
round the great centre of our family. But they are 
so tiny, and the earth by comparison is so immense, 
that her strong attraction overpowers one after 
another, drags it from its pathway, and draws it to 
herself. 

And then it falls, flashing like a bright star across 
the sky, and the little meteorite has come to his end. 
His myriads of companions, hastening still along 
their heavenly track — for the meteorites seem to travel 
commonly in vast flocks or companies — might, had 
they sense, mourn in vain for the lost members of 
their family. 



78 Little Servants. 

Any one taking the trouble to watch carefully some 
portion of the sky after dark, may expect to see each 
hour about four to eight of these shooting-stars ; 
except in the months of August and November, when 
the number is much larger. About six in an hour 
does not sound a great deal. But that merely means 
that there have been six in one direction, and near 
enough for you to see. Somebody else watching, 
may have seen six in another direction, and some- 
body else a few miles away may have seen six more. 
It is calculated that in the course of every twenty-four 
hours, about four hundred millions of meteorites fall to 
earth, including those visible only through telescopes. 

This is rather startling. What if you or I should 
some day be struck by one of these solid hard little 
bodies, darting as they do towards earth with speed 
swifter than that of a cannon-ball? True, they are not 
really stars, neither are they really planets. But 
they are, to say the least, often much larger than a 
cannon-ball ; apd a cannon-ball can destroy life. 

Four hundred millions every twenty-four hours ! 
Does it not seem singular that we do not see them 
constantly dropping to the ground ? 

The truth is, we sAou/dsee them, and feel them too, 
and dire would be the danger to human life, but for a 
certain protecting something folded round this earth 



Little Servants. 79' 



of ours, to ward off the peril. That * something ' is the 
earth's atmosphere. But for the thick soft strong 
elastic air through which the meteorites have to pass, 
they would fall with fearful violence, often doing ter- 
rible mischief. 

As it is, we are guarded. The shooting-star, drawn 
by the earth's attraction, drops into her atmos- 
phere, darting with tremendous speed. In conse- 
quence of this speed and the resistance of the air it 
catches fire. That is when we first see it. The 
meteorites are believed to appear at a height of about 
seventy miles, and to disappear at a height of about 
fifty miles. So that, in one instant's flash, the shooting- 
star has travelled some twenty miles towards us. Then 
the light goes out The little meteorite is burnt. It 
falls to earth still, but only as fine dust, sinking harm- 
lessly downward. 

The meteorites do not always vanish so quickly. 
Now and then a larger one — too large to be rapidly 
burnt — does actually reach the ground. If any man 
were struck by such a stone, he would undoubtedly be 
killed. A mason in France once had a narrow escape 
of such an accident. 

When meteorites thus fall to earth they are usually 
called aerolites. Some are found no bigger than a 



80 Little Servants. 

man's fist, while others much exceed this size. There is 
one, kept carefully in the British Museum, which weighs 
three tons and a half; and we hear of another, lying in 
South America, between seven and eight feet in length. 

Such a sky-visitant would be very unwelcome in an 
English town. 

We must remember that, whatever size an aerolite 
may be when it reaches the earth, it must have been 
far greater when journeying round the sun, since 
a good part of it has been burnt away during its rush 
downward through the earth's atmosphere. 

Meteors, or bolides, or fireballs are of much the same 
nature as meteorites, but they are larger, longer 
to be seen, and slower in movement Also, it is not 
uncommon for them to burst with a loud explosion. 

Early in the present century such a meteor visited 
Normandy. It exploded with a noise like the roll of 
musketry, scattering thousands of hot stones over a 
distance of several miles. Happily no one seems to 
have been injured. Other such falls have taken place 
from time to time. 

Sometimes bright slowly-moving meteors have been 
seen, looking as large as the moon. 

If we may liken comets to the fishes of the Solar 



Little Servants. 81 



System — and in their number, their speed, their vary- 
ing sizes, their diverse motions, they may be fairly so 
likened — we may perhaps speak of the meteorites as 
the animalculce of the Solar System. 

For, in comparison with the planets, they are, in the 
matter of size, as the animalculae of our ponds in com- 
parison with human beings. In point of numbers they 
are countless. 

Take a single drop of water from some long-stag- 
nant pond, and place it under a powerful microscope. 
You will find it to be full of life, teeming with 
tiny animals, darting briskly to and fro. The drop 
of water is in itself a world of living creatures, 
though the naked eye of man could never discover 
their existence. 

So with the meteorites. There is good reason to 
believe that the Solar System fairly teems with them. 
We talk of ' wide gaps of empty space/ between the 
planets ; but how do we know that there is any such 
thing as empty space to be found throughout all the 
sun's domain ? 

Not only are the meteorites themselves countless, a 
matter easily realised, but the families or systems of 
meteorites appear to be countless also. They, like 
the systems of Jupiter and Saturn, are each a family 
within a family — a part of the Solar System, and yet 

6 



82 Little Servants. 



a complete system by themselves. Each circles 
round the sun, and each consists of millions of tiny 
meteorites. When I say ' tiny/ I mean it of course 
. only by comparison with other heavenly bodies. 
Many among them may possibly be hundreds of 
feet and even more in diameter, but the greater 
proportion appear to be much smaller. It is not im- 
possible that multitudes beyond imagination exist, so 
small in size that it is impossible we should ever see 
them, since their dying flash in the upper regions of 
our atmosphere would be too faint to reach our 
sight. 

The earth, travelling on her narrow orbit round the 
sun, crosses the track of about one hundred of these 
systems, or rings. Sometimes she merely touches the 
edge of a ring, and sometimes she goes into the very 
thick of a dense shower of meteorites. 

Twice every year, for instance, on the ioth of 
August and the nth of November, the earth passes 
through such a ring, and very many falling stars may 
be seen on those nights. Numbers of little meteorites, 
dragged from their orbits and entangled in the earth's 
atmosphere, like a fly caught in a spider's web, give 
their dying flash, and vanish. 

It used to be supposed that the August arid 



Little Servants. 8 



o 



November meteorites belonged to one single system ; 
but now they are believed to be two entirely distinct 
systems. 

Once in every thirty-three years we have a grand 
display of meteorites in November ; tens of thousands 
being visible in one single night. The meteorites in 
that ring have their ' year ' of thirty-three earthly 
years, and once in the course of that long year our 
earth's orbit carries her deep into their midst. In this 
single November ring there are myriads upon myriads 
of meteorites, spreading through millions of miles of 
space. 

Yet this system is but one among many. There is 
no reason whatever to suppose that the streams of 
meteorites cluster more thickly about the orbit of the 
-earth, than in other parts of the Solar System. No 
doubt the rest of the planets come across quite as 
many. 

Indeed, the wonderful rings of Saturn are probably 
formed entirely of meteorites — millions upon millions 
of them whirling round the planet in a regular orbit- 
belt, lit up by the rays of the sun. 

Also it is believed that the meteorite families cluster 
more and more closely in the near neighbourhood of 
the sun, rushing wildly round him, and falling by 
millions into the ocean of flame upon his surface. It 

6—2 



84 Little Servants. 



has even been guessed that they may serve in part 
as fuel to keep up his mighty furnace-heat. 

This we do not know with any certainty. But 
I have called the meteorites * servants / for though 
it is difficult as yet to say what is their precise use 
and purpose, we know that a use and purpose they 
must have. * All are God's servants/ whether great 
or little. 

There is a curious cone-shaped light, seen some 
times in the west after sunset. It is called the 
* Zodiacal Light/ and men have often been much 
puzzled to account for it. The shining is soft and 
dim, only to be seen when the sky is clear, and only 
to be seen in the neighbourhood of the sun. This 
too may be caused by reflected light from countless 
myriads of meteorites, gathering thickly round the 
sun. 



CHAPTER IX. 



NEIGHBOURING FAMILIES. 



* Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created 
these things, that bringeth out their host by number : He 
calleth them all by names, by the greatness of His might, for 
that He is strong in power ; not one faileth.' — ISA. xl. 26. 

We have now to take flight in thought far far beyond 
the outskirts of our little Solar System. Yes, our great 
Solar System, with its mighty sun, its planets, its 
moons, its comets and meteorites, its ceaseless 
motions, its vast distances — even all this sinks to 
littleness beside the wider reaches of space which 
now have to be pictured to our minds. 

For our sun, in all his greatness, is only a single 
star — only one star among other stars — and not by 
any means one of the largest of the stars. 



86 Neighbouring Families. 

How many stars are there in the sky ? 

Look overhead some cloudless night, and try to 
count the brilliant points of light. s Millions/ you 
would most likely give as your idea of their number. 
Yet you would be wrong, for you do not really per- 
ceive so many. 

The stars visible to man's naked eye have been 
mapped and numbered. It is found that from two to 
three thousand are, as a rule, the utmost ever seen at 
once, even on a favourable night, and with particularly 
good sight. 

But what is actually the full number of the stars ? 

Two or three thousand overhead. Five or six 
thousand round the whole world. So much visible to 
man's unaided eyes. 

Ah, but take a telescope, and see through it the 
opening fields of stars beyond stars. Take a stronger 
telescope, and note how, as you pierce deeper into 
space, fresh stars beyond fresh stars shine faintly in 
the measureless distances. Take the most powerful 
telescope ever made, and again it will be the same 
story. 

There has been a chart or map drawn of known stars 
in the northern hemisphere — including those visible in 
telescopes down to a certain magnitude — containing 



Neighbouring Families. 87 



over three hundred thousand. But that is only a part 
of even what man can see. Sir William Herschel cal- 
culated roughly that the number of stars within 
reach of his powerful telescope, round the whole 
earth, amounted probably to something like twenty 
millions. 

Twenty millions of suns! For that is what it 
really means. Twenty millions of radiant burning 
heavenly bodies ; some the same size as our sun ; some 
larger, perhaps very much larger ; some smaller, 
perhaps very much smaller ; but all SUNS. And any 
number of these suns may have, just like our own, 
families of planets travelling round them, enjoying 
their light and their heat. 

We talk about stars of the first, second, and other 
magnitudes. Stars can be seen without a telescope 
as low down as the sixth magnitude ; after that they 
become invisible to the naked eye. 

This word * magnitude ' is rather misleading. * Mag- 
nitude ' means size, and whatever the real size of the 
stars may be, they have to our sight no seeming size 
at all. 

So when we speak of different magnitudes, we 
really mean different brightnesses. The brightest 



88 Neighbouring Families. 



stars are those of the first magnitude, the next 
brightest those of the second magnitude, and so on. 
No doubt many a star of the third or fourth magni- 
tude is really much larger than many a star of the 
first or second magnitude, only being farther away it 
shines more dimly, or, the higher-magnitude star may 
in itself possess greater natural brilliancy. 

Of first magnitude stars there are altogether about 
twenty ; of second magnitude stars about sixty-five ; 
of third magnitude stars about two hundred ; and so 
the numbers increase, till of the sixth magnitude 
stars we find more than three thousand. These are 
all that can be commonly seen with the naked eye, 
amounting to five or six thousand. With telescopes 
the numbers rise rapidly to tens of thousands, hun- 
dreds of thousands, and even millions. 

For a long while it was found quite impossible to 
measure the distances of the stars. To this day, the 
distances of not over a dozen among all those tens of 
thousands have been discovered. The difficulty of 
finding out the distance of the sun was as nothing 
compared with the difficulty of finding out the dis- 
tances of the stars. 

No base-line sufficient for the purpose could for 



Neighbouring Families. 89 

years be obtained. I must explain slightly what is 
meant by a * base-line/ Suppose you were on the 
brink of a wide river, which you had no means of 
-crossing, though you wished to discover its breadth. 
Suppose there were on the opposite brink a small 
tree, standing alone. As you stood you would see 
the tree seeming to lie against a certain part of the 
country beyond. Then, if you moved along your 
bank some fifty paces you would see the tree still, but 
it would seem to lie against quite a different part of 
the country beyond. 

Now if you had a long piece of string to lay down 
along the fifty paces you walked, and if two more 
pieces of string were tied, one from each end of the 
fifty paces, both meeting at the tree, then the three 
pieces of string would make one large triangle, and 
"the ' fifty paces ' would be the * base ' of your tri- 
angle. 

If you could not cross the river, you could not of 
-course tie strings to the tree. 

But having found your base4ine> and measured its 
-exact length, and having also found the shape of the 
two angles at its two ends, by noting the seeming 
-change of the tree's position, it would then be quite 
■easy to find out the distance of the tree. The exact 



90 Neighbouring Families. 



manner in which this calculation is made can hardly 
be understood without some slight knowledge of 
a science called trigonometry. The tree's distance 
being found, the breadth of the river would be 
known. 

This mode of measuring distance was found com- 
paratively easy in the case of the moon. 

In the case of the sun there was more difficulty, 
on account of the sun's greater distance. No base-line 
of ordinary length would make the sun seem to change 
his position in the sky in the slightest degree. Nor 
till the very longest base-line on the earth was tried 
could the difficulty be overcome. That base-line is no 
less than eight thousand miles long. One man stand- 
ing in England, looking at the sun, and another man 
standing in Australia, looking at the sun, have such a 
base-line lying between them, straight through the 
centre of the earth. 

In the case of the stars this plan was found use- 
less. So closely has the sky been mapped out, and so 
exactly is the place of each star known, that the 
tiniest change would have been at once noticed. Not 
a star showed the smallest movement. The eight 
thousand miles of the earth's diameter was a mere 
point with regard to them. 



Neighbouring Families. 91 

A bright idea came up. Here was our earth travel- 
ling round the sun, in an orbit so wide that in the 
middle of summer she is one hundred and eighty 
millions of miles away from where she is in the middle 
of winter. Would not that make a magnificent base- 
line? Why not observe a star in summer and ob- 
serve the same star again in winter, and then calculate 
its distance ? 

This too was done, j For a long while in vain ! 
The stars showed no signs of change, beyond those 
due to causes already known. 

Astronomers persevered, however, and with close and 
earnest care and improved instruments, success at last 
rewarded their efforts. A few — only a few, but still a 
few — of those distant suns have submitted to the little 
measuring line of earth, and their distance has been 
roughly calculated. 

Now what is their distance ? 

Alpha Centauri, the second star which was at- 
tempted with success, is the nearest of all whose dis- 
tance we know. 

You have heard how far the sun is from the earth. 
The distance of Alpha Centauri is more than two 
hundred thousand times as much. 

Can you picture to yourself that vast reach of 



92 Neighbouring Families. 

space — a line ninety-one millions of miles long, re- 
peated over and over again two hundred thousand 
times ? 

But Alpha Centauri is one of the very nearest. The 
brilliant Sirius is at least four or five times as far away. 
Others utterly refuse to show the smallest change of 
position. 

It is with them, as has been said, much the same as 
if a man were to look at a church steeple, twenty 
miles distant, out of one pane in a window, and then 
were to look at it out of the next pane. With the 
utmost attention he would find no change of position 
in the steeple. And like the base-line of two glass 
panes to that steeple, so is the base-line formed by 
our whole yearly journey to thousands of distant 
stars. We might measure how far away they are, 
only the longest base-line within our reach is too 
short for our purpose. 

The planet Neptune has a wider orbit than ours. 
But even his orbit, seen from the greater number of 
the stars, would shrink to a single point. 

After all, how useless to talk of two hundred thou- 
sand times ninety-one millions of miles ! What does 
it mean ? We cannot grasp the thought 

Let us look at the matter from another view. 

Do you know how fast light travels — this bright 



Neighbouring Families. 9 



*s 



light shining round us all day long ? Light, so far as 
we know, does not exist everywhere. It travels to 
and fro, from the sun to his planets, from the planets 
to one another ; from the sun to the moon, from the 
moon to the earth, and from the earth to the moon 
again. 

Light takes time to travel. This sounds singular, 
but it is true. Light cannot pass from place to place 
in no time. 

Light, journeying through space, is invisible. Only 
when it strikes upon something, whether a solid body, 
or water or air, does it become visible to our eyes. 
The shining all round us in the day-time is caused by 
the sunlight being reflected, not only from the ground, 
but from each separate particle of air. If we had no 
atmosphere, we should see still the bright rays falling 
on the ground, but the sky above would be black. 
Yet that black sky would be full of millions of light- 
rays, journeying hither and thither from sun and 
stars, invisible except where they alight upon some- 
thing. 

The speed of light is far beyond that of an express 
train, far beyond that of the swiftest planet. In one 
tick of the clock, Mercury has rushed onward twenty- 
nine miles. In one tick of the clock, storm-flames 
upon the surface of the sun will sweep over two or 



04 Neighbouring Families. 

three hundred miles. But in one tick of the clock a 
ray of light flashes through one hundred and eighty- 
eight thousand miles. 

One hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles! 
That is the same as to say that, during one single 
instant, a ray of light can journey a distance equal to 
about eight times round and round our whole earth 
at the Equator. 

By using this wonderful light-speed as a measure- 
ment, we gain clearer ideas about the distances of 
the stars. 

A ray of light takes more than eight minutes to 
pass from the sun to the earth. Look at your watch, 
and note the exact time. See the hand moving 
slowly through the minutes, and imagine one single 
ray of light, which has left the sun when first 
you looked, flashing onward and onward through 
space, one hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles 
each second. Eight minutes and a half are over. 
The ray falls upon your hand. In those few 
minutes it has journeyed ninety-one millions of 
miles. 

So much for the sun's distance. How about the 
stars? 

Alpha Centauri, a bright star seen in the southern 
hemisphere, is one of our nearest neighbours. Yet 



Neighbouring Families. 95 

each light-gleam which reaches the eye of man from 
that star left Alpha Centauri three years and a half 
before. During three years and a half, from the 
moment when first it quitted the surface of the blazing 
sun, it has flashed ceaselessly onward, one hun- 
dred and eighty-eight thousand miles each second, 
dwindling down with its bright companion-rays from 
a glare of brilliancy to a slender glimmer of light, till 
it reaches the eye of man. 

Three years and a half sounds much, side by side 
with the eight minutes' journey from the sun. 

But look at Sirius, that beautiful star so familiar to 
us all. The light which reaches you to-night left his 
surface fifteen or twenty years ago. 

Look at the Little Bear, with the Pole-star shining 
at the end of his tail. That ray of soft light quitted 
the Pole-star some fifty years ago. During half-a- 
century it has been speeding onward and ever 
onward, with ceaseless rapidity, till its vast journey is 
so far accomplished that it has reached the 
earth. 

Look at Capella, another fair star of the first 
magnitude. The light which reaches you from her 
has taken over seventy years to perform its voyage. 

Twenty, fifty, seventy years — at the rate of 188,000 
miles per second ! 



96 Neighbouring Families. 



These stars are among the few whose distance can 
be roughly measured. Others lie at incalculable dis- 
tances beyond. There are stars whose light must, it 
is believed, have started hundreds or even thousands 
of years before the soft faint ray at length reaches 
the astronomer's upturned eye through the tele- 
scope. 

Look at Capella, how gently and steadily she 
shines. You see Capella, not as she is now, but as 
she was seventy years ago. Capella may have ceased 
to exist meantime. The fires of that mighty sun 
may have gone out. If so, we shall by-and-by learn 
the fact — more than 70 years after it happened. 

Look at the Pole-star. Is there any Pole-star 
now? I cannot tell you. I only know there was 
one, fifty years ago, when that ray of light started 
on its long journey. Stars have ceased to shine 
before now. What may have happened in those fifty 
years, who can say ? 

Look at that dim star, shining through a powerful 
telescope, with faint and glimmering light. We are 
told that in all probability the tiny ray left its home 
long before the time of Adam. 

There is a strange solemnity in the thought. 
Hundreds of years ago — thousand^ of years ago — 
some say, even tens or hundreds of thousands of 



Neighbouring Families. 97 

years ago ! It carries us out of the little present 
into the unknown ages of a past eternity. 

* God made the stars also/ So much, simply, we 
are told, in passing, by the inspired record. So much 
simply we must receive. 



CHAPTER X. 

OUR NEIGHBOURS' MOVEMENTS. 

1 Is not God in the height of Heaven ? and behold the height 
of the stars, how high they are.' — Job xxii. 12. 

How high ! how distant ! how mighty ! How little 
we know about them, yet how overwhelming the little 
we know, and how wonderful that we do know it ! 

We have now to consider the movements of these 
distant neighbours ; first — their seeming movements ; 
secondly — their real movements. 

I have already spoken about the seeming motions 
of the stars as a whole, once believed to be real, and 
now known to be only caused by the motions of our 
earth. 

For just as the turning of the earth upon her axis 
makes the sun seem to rise every morning in the east, 
and to set every evening in the west, so that same 



Our Neighbours* Movements. 99 

•continued turning makes the stars seem to rise every 
evening in the east, and to set every morning in the west. 
When we speak of the stars as rising in the east* 
we do not mean that they all rise at one point in the 
east, but that all rise, more or less, in an easterly 
direction — north-east, east, and south-east. So also 
with respect to the west It is to the east and west 
of the earth as a whole that they rise and set — not 
merely to the east and west of that particular spot on 
^earth where one man may be standing. 

All night long fresh stars are rising and others are 
setting ; and if it were not for the veil of light made 
by the sunshine in our atmosphere, we should see the 
=same going on all day long as well. 

There are some constellations, or groups of stars, 
always visible at night in our northern hemisphere ; 
«and there are some constellations never visible to us, 
"but only seen by people living in the southern hemi- 
sphere — in Australia, for instance. 
"There are other constellations which appear in 
summer and disappear in winter, or which appear in 
winter and disappear in summer. This change is 
caused by our earth's journey round the sun, or, as 
in common language we express it, by the sun's 
journey round the earth. It is not that the constel- 
lations have altered their place in the heavens, with 

7—2 



ioo Our Neighbours' Movements. 



respect to the other constellations. It is merely 
that the sun has so altered his position in the heavens, 
that the groups of stars which a short time ago were 
above the horizon with him by day are now above 
the horizon without him by night. 

Mention has been a good many times made of the 
axis of the earth, ending in the north and south poles. 

If this axis were carried straight onward through 
space, a long slender pole passing upwards into the sky 
without any bend, from the North Pole in one direction 
and from the South Pole in the other — this would be 
the Pole of the heavens. The places of the stars 
in the sky are counted as ' so many degrees * 
from the North and South Celestial Poles — just as 
the places of towns on earth are counted as ' so many 
degrees ' from the North and South Poles of earth. 
There are atlases of the sky made, as well as atlases 
of the earth. 

* 

The constellation of the Great Bear is known to all 
whp have ever used their eyes at all to watch the 
heavens. Almost equally well known are the two 
bright stars in this constellation named the Pointers, 
because, taken together, they point in nearly a straight 
line to a certain important star, in the end of the Little 
Bear's tail, not very distant. 



Our Neighbours Movements. 101 

This star, important less from its brightness than 
from its position, lies close to that very spot in the 
heavens where the celestial North Pole passes. It is 
called the Pole-star. Night after night, through the 
year, it there remains, all but motionless, never going 
below the horizon for us in the northern hemisphere, 
or northern half of the earth ; never rising above the 
horizon for those in the southern hemisphere. It 
shines ever softly and steadily in its fixed position. 
If you travel further south, the Pole-star sinks down- 
ward towards the horizon. If you travel further north, 
the Pole-star rises higher above the horizon. If you 
were at the North Pole, you would see the Pole-star 
exactly overhead. 

Very near the Pole-star is the constellation of the 
Great Bear, with Cassiopeia nearly opposite on the 
other side of the Little Bear, and other groups be- 
tween the two completing the circle. These constel- 
lations do not, to us who live in England, rise or set, 
for they simply move in a circle round and round the 
Pole-star, never going below the horizon. All day 
and all night long this circling movement continues 
though only visible at night. It is caused entirely by 
the earth's own motion on her axis. 

Lower down, or rather further off from the Pole- 
star, comes another ring of constellations. These in 



102 Our Neighbours Movements. 



just the same manner appear to travel round and round 
the Pole-star. But being further away, each dips in 
turn below the horizon — or, as we call it, each sets and 
rises again. And by the time we come to yet another 
circle of leading constellations, we reach those which 
are so far affected by the earth's yearly journey as to 
be only visible through certain months, and to be 
hidden during other months. 

If we could stand exactly at the North Pole, 
during part of its six months' night, we should see 
the Pole-star just overhead, and all the constellations 
circling round it once in every twenty-four hours. 
Those nearest would move slowly, in a small ring. 
Those furthest, and lowest down, would in the same 
length of time sweep round the whole horizon. But 
the stars would not there seem to rise or set. 

If we were standing at the South Pole, we should 
see exactly the same kind of seeming movement, only 
with altogether a different set of stars. 

If we were standing on the Equator at night, we 
should see the rising and setting very plainly. The 
whole mass of stars would appear to rise regularly 
and evenly in an easterly direction, to pass steadily 
across the sky, each taking its own straightforward 
path, and to set in a westerly direction. 

We, in England, placed between the Pole and the 



Our Neighbours Movements. 103 

Equator, see a mixture of these two motions. Some 
stars seem to circle round and round, as all would do 
if we stood at the North Pole. Some stars seem to 
rise and set, as all would do if we stood at the 
Equator. 

So much for the seeming movements of the stars. 

But now, about their real movements. Are the stars 
fixed, or are they not ? 

These seeming daily and yearly motions do not 
affect the question, being merely caused by our own 
motions. Trees and hedges may appear to move as 
we rush past them in a train, yet they are really 
fixed. 

During a long while, after it was found out that the 
quick daily movements of all the stars in company 
were merely apparent, men believed that they really 
had no ' proper motions ' — that is, no movements of 
their own. 

for century after century the constellations remain 
the same. Hundreds of years ago the seven chief stars 
of the Great Bear shone in company as they shine 
now. Who could suppose that each one of those seven 
stars is hurrying on its path through space, with a 
speed exceeding far that of the swiftest express-train ? 
Yet so it is. Hundreds of years ago the grand group 



104 Our Neighbours Movements. 

of Orion, with belt and sword, gleamed brilliantly- 
night by night as it gleams in these days ; and 
Cassiopeia had her W form, and Hercules and Draco 
and Andromeda were shaped as they are shaped still. 
Who would imagine that through those hundreds of 
years each star of these different constellations was 
hastening with more or less of speed along its heavenly 
road ? Yet so it is. 

But if the stars are thus rapidly moving in all 
directions, how is it that we do npt see them move ? 
How is it that night after night, year after year, cen- 
tury after century, even thousand years after thousand 
years, the shapes of the constellations remain un- 
altered ? 

Suppose you and I were standing on the sea-shore 
together, watching the movements of scores of sea- 
craft, little boats and large boats, steamers, yachts, 
and ships. Suppose we stood through a full quarter 
of an hour looking on. Some might move, it is true, 
very slowly ; yet their movements in every case would 
plainly be seen. There could be no possibility of 
mistaking the fact, or of supposing them to be * fixed.' 

Just so we see the nearer planets move. Little 
danger of our supposing them to be * fixed stars.' 

In the matter of the stars themselves, we must carry 
our illustration further. 



Our Neighbours Movements. 105 

. Come with me up to the top of that lofty hill on 
the border of the sea, and let us look from the cliff. 
We see still the movements among boats and smacks, 
yachts and steamers, only the increased distance makes 
the movements seem slower. 

But our view is widened. Look on the far horizon 
and see three distant dots, which we know to be ships 
— one and two close together, and a third a little way 
off, making a small constellation of vessels. Watch 
them steadily for a quarter of an hour. You will de- 
tect no movement, no increased distance or nearness 
between any two of the three. The group remains 
unchanged. 

Are they really moving ? Of course they are, more 
or less rapidly, probably with differing speed and in 
different directions. But at so great a distance one 
quarter of an hour is not long enough for their 
motions to become visible to the naked eye. If 
we could watch longer — say, for two or three hours, — 
ah, that would make all the difference! If only 
we could watch longer ! But the hundreds, and even 
thousands of years during which men have watched 
the stars, sink, at our vast distance, into no more than 
one quarter of an hour spent in watching the far-off 
ships from the high hill-top. The motions cannot be 
detected. In ten thousand years you might see some- 



106 Our Neighbours Movements. 

thing. In fifty thousand years you might see much. 
But four or five thousand years are not sufficient. 

One other mode there is, by means of which the 
movements of the ships on the horizon might be made 
plain. Suppose you had no more than the quarter of 
an hour to spare, but suppose you had at your com- 
mand a powerful telescope. Then you may practi- 
cally bring the ships nearer, and by magnifying the 
small slow distant motions, you may make them, as 
it were, larger, quicker, more easy to see. 

Telescopes will do this for us, likewise, in the matter 
of the stars. By means of telescopes, with the assist- 
ance of careful watching and of close calculation, it 
has been found that the stars are really moving^ 
quickly, each one in his own pathway. The very speed 
of some of them has been measured. 

Arcturus is one of those stars, the motions of which 
are most plainly to be seen. In the course of about 
one thousand years he changes visibly his place in the- 
sky, by a space equal to the apparent diameter of the 
moon. The seeming movement of Arcturus, in one 
thousand years, is the same as the seeming width of 
the round moon that we see. 

But the actual speed with which Arcturus rushes 
through space is said to be no less than fifty-four 



Our Neighbours' Movements. 107 

miles each second, or not far from two hundred thou- 
sand miles an hour. That is nearly three times as fast 
as our own earth's motion round the sun. How 
enormous the distance must be which can shrink 
such speed to such seeming slowness. 

Another beautiful star, Capella, is believed to travel 
at the rate of thirty miles each second. The speed 
of Sirius is slower, being only fourteen miles a second. 
The Pole-star creeps along at the rate of only one mile 
and a half per second. 

So also with the rest of the stars. There seems good 
reason to believe that every star we see shining in the 
heavens, every star visible in powerful telescopes, is 
perpetually hastening onward. 

Hastening whither ? 

God knows ! We do not. 

But if all the stars are moving, what of our sun ?• 
Our sun is a star. 

And our sun also is moving. He is pressing on- 
ward, in a wide sweep through space, bearing alongf 
with him his whole vast family — planets, satellites,, 
comets, meteorites — round or towards some far-distant 
centre. For aught we know, every star in the heavens 
may have a like family travelling with him. 

The sun is not one of the most quickly-moving 



io8 Our Neighbours Movements. 

stars. His rate of speed has not been found out 
with any certainty, but it is believed to be about four 
or five miles a second. 

And where are we going ? 

This has been in part discovered. 

If you and I were driving through a forest of trees, 
we should see the trees on each side of us seeming to 
move backward, while behind they would close 
together, and in front they would open out. 

Astronomers — and first among them, William Hers- 
chel — reasoned that if our Solar System were really 
in motion, we ought to be able to see these changes 
among the stars. And some such changes have 
become visible through careful watching — not so 
much those ahead and behind, as those at the sides. 

It is not actually so simple a matter as looking at 
the trees in a forest, because the trees would be at 
rest, whereas each star has his own particular real 
motion, as well as his seeming change of place 
caused by our sun's motion. It is more like moving 
in a small steamer at sea, among hundreds of other 
craft, each of which is going on its own way, at the 
same time that all on either side seem to move back- 
ward because we are moving forward. 

So each movement had to be noted, and the real 
motions had to be separated from the seeming back- 



Our Neighbours Movements. 109 



ward drift of stars to the right and left of the sun's 
pathway. The result of all this is that the sun, with 
his planets, is found to be hastening towards a certain 
far-off constellation named Hercules. 

Where the sun and his planets will journey in future 
ages no living man can say. Indeed, though it is a 
question which does not lack interest to a thoughtful 
mind, yet there are numberless other questions about 
centuries near at hand which concern man far more 
nearly. The history of the Universe, and the history 
of this Earth of ours, in its close and wonderful con- 
nection with God and with Christ our Redeemer, 
must have advanced many broad stages, before our 
Sun and his attendant planets can have travelled so 
far, that any change will be apparent in the shape of 
the star-constellations which spangle our sky. 



END OF PART I. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 

MORE ABOUT THE SOLAR SYSTEM. 

' By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ; and all 
the host of them by the breath of His mouth . . . For He 
spake, and it was done ; He commanded, and it stood fast/ 
— Ps. xxxiii. 6, 9. 

We have now reached a point where it ought not to 
be difficult for us to picture to ourselves, with some- 
thing of vividness, the general outlines of the Solar 
System. 

Awhile ago this Solar System was a very simple 
matter in the eyes of astronomers. There was the 
great sun fixed in the centre, with seven planets 
circling round him — seven of course, it was said, since 
seven was the perfect number — and a few moons keep- 
ing pace with some of the planets, and an occasional 
comet, and a vast amount of black empty space. 

But astronomers now begin to understand better 
the wonderful richness of the system as a whole ; the 

8 



114 More about the Solar System. 



immense variety of the bodies contained in it ; the 
perpetual rush and stir and whirl of life in every part. 
Certainly there is no such thing as dull stagnation 
throughout the family. 

First we have the great blazing central sun ; not a 
sun at rest, as regards the stars, but practically at rest 
as regards his own system, of which he is always head 
and centre. Then come the four smaller planets, 
rapidly whirling round him, all journeying in the same 
direction, and all having their oval pathways lying 
on nearly the same flat plane in space. Then the 
broad belt of busy little planetoids. Then the four 
giant planets, Jupiter nearly five times as far as our 
earth from the sun, Saturn nearly twice as far as 
Jupiter, Uranus nearly twice as far as Saturn, Nep- 
tune as far from Uranus as Uranus from Saturn, all 
keeping on very nearly the same level as the four 
inner planets. 

And between and about these principal members 
of the system, with their accompanying moons, we 
have thousands of comets flashing hither and thither, 
with long radiant trains ; and myriads of meteorites, 
gathered often into dense vast herds or families, but 
also scattered thickly throughout every part of the 
system, each tiny ball reflecting the sun's rays with- 
its little glimmer of light. 



More about the Solar System. 115 



Broad reaches of black and empty space ! Where 
are they ? Perhaps nowhere. We are very apt, in 
•our ignorance, to imagine that where we see nothing, 
there must of necessity be nothing. But, for aught 
we know, the whole Solar System, not to speak of 
sky-depths lying beyond, may be bright with reflecting- 
bodies great and small, from, the mighty Jupiter down 
to the fine diamond-dust of countless meteorites. In 
this earth of ours we find no emptiness. Closer and 
closer examination with the microscope only shows 
tinier and yet tinier wonders of form and life, each 
perfect in finish. 

Not of form only, but of life. How about that 
matter as regards the Solar System ? Is our little 
world the one only spot in God's great universe which 
teems with life ? Are all other worlds mere barren 
■empty wastes ? 

Surely not. 'God Himself that formed the earth 
and made it; He hath established it, He CREATED IT 
NOT IN VAIN, He formed it to be inhabited.'* 
So speaks God's own Word : and do not the very 
words imply that if He had not made it to be in- 
habited, He would have 'created it in vain?' It 
is very certain that none of God's works are ' in 
vain.' We may safely conclude that life of one kind 

* Isa. xlv. 18. 

£—2 



n6 More about the Solar System. 



or another has been, is, or will be, upon our brother 
and sister worlds. 

The same reasoning may be used for the distant 
stars — those millions of suns lying beyond reach 
of man's unassisted eyes. Are they formed in 
vain ? Do their beams pour uselessly into space,, 
carrying light, warmth, and life-giving power to- 
nothing ? Surely around many of them, as around 
our sun, must journey worlds ; and not only worlds,, 
but worlds containing life. 

We shall have to speak of this matter again as we 
go on. Whether men and women like ourselves 
could live on the other planets is another question. In 
some cases it looks doubtful, in some it would seem 
to be impossible. But the endless variety of life on 
this earth — life on land, life in the air, life in water,, 
life underground, life in tropical heat, life in arctic 
cold — forbids us in anywise to be positive as to what 
may or may not be. 

If no animals that we know could exist there, ani- 
mals that we do not know might be found instead. 
Any one of the planets may, and very likely does, 
abound with life. Nay, the very meteorites themselves, 
before they catch fire and burn in our air, may be the 
homes of tiny animalculae, altogether different from 
anything we see on earth. We cannot fancy life with— 



More about the Solar System. 117 



cut air, but neither could we fancy life in water, if we 
had not seen and known it to be possible. 

I have spoken of the probable brightness of the 
Solar System as a whole. We are so apt to think of 
"things merely as we see them with our short sight, 
t:hat it is well sometimes to try to realise them as they 
-actually are. 

Picture to yourself the great central sun pouring out 
in every direction his burning rays of light. A goodly 
abundance of them fall on our earth ; yet the whole 
amount of light and heat received over the whole sur- 
face of this world is only the two-thousand-millionth 
part of the enormous amount which he lavishly pours 
into space. 

How much of that whole is wasted ? None ; though 
Crod gives His giftswith a kingly profusion whichknows 
no bounds. Each ray has its own work to do. Millions 
of rays are needed for the lighting and nourishing and 
warming of our companion-planets ; while others are 
-caught up by passing comets ; and myriads flash upon 
swift tiny meteorites. Of the rays not so used, many 
pass onwards into the vast depths beyond our system, 
and dwindle down into dim star-like shining, till they 
reach the far-off brother-stars of our sun. 

Have they work to do there ? We cannot tell. We 



n8 More about the Solar System. 

do not know how far the sun's influence reaches. As 
head and centre he reigns only in his own system. As a 
star among stars, a peer among his equals, he may, for 
aught we can tell, have other work to do. 

In an early chapter, mention was made of the earth's 
three motions, two only being explained. 

First, she spins ceaselessly upon her axis. So does 
the sun, and so do the planets. 

Secondly, she travels ceaselessly round and round 
the sun in her fixed orbit. So does each one of the 
planets. 

Thirdly, she journeys ceaselessly onward through 
space with the sun. So also do the rest of the 
planets. 

These last two movements, thought of together, 
make the earth's pathway rather perplexing at first 
sight. We talk of her orbit being an ellipse or oval ; 
but how can it be an ellipse, if she is always advancing 
in one direction ? 

The truth is, the earth's orbit is and is not an 
ellipse. As regards her yearly journey round the 
sun, roughly speaking we may call it an ellipse. As 
regards her movement in space, it certainly is not an 
ellipse. 

Think of the Solar System with the orbits of all the 



More about the Solar System. 119 

planets as lying nearly flat — in the manner that hoops 
might be laid upon a table, one within another. The 
asteroids, comets, and meteorites do not keep to the 
same level, but their light weight makes the matter of 
small importance. 

Having imagined the sun thus in the centre of a 
large table — a small ball, with several tiny balls tra- 
velling round him on the table at different distances — 
suppose the sun to rise slowly upwards, not directly 
lap, but in a sharp slant, the whole body of planets 
continuing to travel round, and at the same time rising 
steadily with him. 

By carefully considering this double movement, you 
"Xvill see that the real motion of the earth — as also of 
«ach of the planets — is not a going round on a flat sur- 
face to the same point from which she started, but is 
^ corkscrew-like winding round and round upwards 
through space. Yet as regards the central sun, the 
shape of the orbit comes very near being an ellipse, 
if calculated simply by the earth's distance from him 
st each point in turn of her pathway through the year. 
An illustration may help to explain this. On the 
deck of a moving vessel, you see a little boy walking 
steadily round and round the mast. Now is that 
child moving in a circle, or is he not ? 

Yes, be is. No, he is not. He walks in a circle as 



120 More about the Solar System. 

regards the position of the mast, which remains always 
the centre of his pathway. But his movement in space 
is never a circle, since he constantly advances, and 
does not once return to his starting-point. 

You see how the two facts are possible side by side. 
Being carried forward by the ship, with no effort of his 
own, the forward motion does not interfere with the 
circling motion. Each is performed independently of 
the other. 

It is the same with the earth and the planets. The 
sun, by force of his mighty attraction, bears them along 
wherever he goes, no exertion on their part, so to 
speak, being needed. That motion does not in the 
least interfere with their steady circling round the 
sun. 

Just as — to use another illustration — the earth, 
turning on her axis, bears through space a man stand- 
ing on the equator, at the rate of one thousand miles 
an hour. But this uniform movement, unfelt by him- 
self, does not prevent his walking backwards or for- 
wards or in circles, as much as he will. 

So also a bird in the air is unconsciously borne 
along with the atmosphere; yet his freedom to 
wheel in circles for any length of time is untouched. 

A few words about the orbits of the planets. 



More about the Solar System. 121 

I have more than once remarked that these path- 
ways are in shape not circles, but ellipses. A circle is 
■a line drawn in the shape of a ring, every part of which 
is at exactly the same distance from the centre-point 
•or focus. But an ellipse, instead of being like a circle 
perfectly round, is oval in shape ; and instead of 
having only, one focus, it has two foci, neither being 
•exactly in the centre. Foci is the plural word for 
focus. If an ellipse is only slightly oval — or slightly 
•^Zliptical — the two foci are near together. The more 
oval or eccentric the ellipse, the farther apart are the 
"tr^vo foci. 

You may draw a circle in this manner. Lay a sheet of 
"Wliite paper on a board, and fix a nail through the paper 
a **to the board. Then pass a loop of thread — say an 
***ch or an inch and a half in length — round the nail, 
^^rid also round a pencil, which you hold. Trace aline 
^-vlth the pencil, keeping the loop tight, so that the 
distance of your line from the nail will be always 
'^cjual, and when it joins you have a circle. The nail 
1:r * the centre is the focus of the circle. 

To draw an ellipse, you must fix two nails. Let 

^■t^em be about half an inch apart ; pass a loop over 

■^Qth of them, and again placing a pencil-point within 

^*x* loop, again trace a line carefully all round, keep- 

***g the thread drawn tight. This time an oval instead 



122 More about the Solar System. 

of a circle will appear. By putting the nails nearer 
together or farther apart, you may vary as you will 
the shape of the ellipse. 

In the orbits of the earth and the planets, all of 
which are ellipses in shape, the sun is not placed 
in the exact centre, but in one of the two foci, 
the second being empty. So at one time of the 
year the planet is nearer to the sun than at another 
time. Our earth is no less than three millions of 
miles nearer in winter than she is in summer — speak- 
ing of the winter and summer of the northern hemi- 
sphere. Three millions of miles is so tiny a piece out 
of ninety-one millions of miles, that it makes little or 
no difference in our feelings of heat or cold. 

The orbits of the comets are ellipses also, but 
ellipses often so enormously lengthened out, that the 
two foci are almost — if one may so speak — at the two 
ends of the oval. To draw a good comet orbit you 
must fix the two nails on your paper some five or six 
inches apart, with a loop of thread just large enough 
to slip over them both, and to allow the pencil to 
pass round them. When your ellipse is drawn, you 
must picture the sun in the place of one of the two 
nails, and you will see how, in their pathways, the 
comets at one time pass very near the sun, and at 
another time travel very far away from him. 



More about the Solar System. 123 

It is generally found in families, not only that the 

parent or head of the family has great influence 

over all the members, but that each member has in- 

fluence over each other member. Brother influences 

brother, and sister influences sister. 

This, too, we find in the Solar System. 
Not only does the sun by his powerful attraction 
kind the whole family together, but each member of 
^he family attracts each other member. 

True, the force of the sun's attraction is overpower- 
lr *g in amount compared with others. The sun 
^trtracts the planets, and the planets attract the sun ; 
^Ht their feeble pulling is quite lost in the display of 
**Is tremendous strength. 

Among themselves we see the power more plainly, 
le earth attracts the moon, keeping her in constant 
^lose attendance ; and the moon attracts the earth, 
°^using a slight movement on her part, and also caus- 
lri g the tides of the sea. Each planet has more or 
* e ss power to hinder or help forward his nearest 
^^other-planet. For instance, when Jupiter on his 
°*~fcit draws near the slower Saturn on his orbit, 
^ ^.turn's attraction pulls him on, and makes him move 
*^^ter than usual ; but as soon as he gets ahead of 
^^.turn then the same attraction pulls him back, and 
It ^^kes him go more slowly than usual. Jupiter has 



124 More about the Solar System. 

the same influence over Saturn ; and so also have 
Saturn and Uranus over one another, or Uranus and 
Neptune. 

In early days astronomers were often greatly 
puzzled by these quickened and slackened move- 
ments, which could not be explained. Now the ' per- 
turbations * of the planets, as they are called, are 
understood and allowed for in all calculations. 

Indeed, it is by means of this very attraction, that 
the planets have actually been weighed. Somewhat 
in the same manner — to illustrate it roughly — as one 
might test the weight of two strong children, by 
setting each to pull against the other, and seeing 
which could pull the hardest. 

What a wonderful difference we find in this picture 
of the Solar System, as we now know it to be, from 
the old-world notion of our earth as the centre of 
the universe ! 

When we think of all the planets, and of the mag- 
nificent sun ; when we pass onward in imagination 
through space, and find our sun himself merely one 
twinkling star amid the myriads of twinkling stars 
scattered broad-cast through the heavens, while 
planets and comets have sunk to nothing in the far 
distance ; then indeed we begin to realise the unutter- 



More about the Solar System. 125 



able might of God's power ! Why, our earth and all 
that it contains may be regarded as but one grain of 
dust in the wide universe. 
And yet — 

Is there 'great ' and is there ' little* in God's sight? 

We do not know. Probably not as we see either. 

The might of God is no less shown in the exquisite 

finish of a flower or an insect, than in the fierce and 

roaring flames of His countless star-furnaces. And, 

i'ttle though our earth may be, it was not too small 

or too unimportant for the Kingly Creator Himself 

to dwell here for over thirty years, and here to 

redeem with His life the life of man. 

c God so loved the world/ — aye, this earth of ours. 
Not even in one speck of His boundless universe 
m *ght sin and Satan be left to reign unconquered. 






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More about the Sun. 127 

in the centre of the umbra, there is sometimes observ- 
able an intensely black spot called the nucleus. 

Sometimes a spot is made up of nucleus and umbra 
alone, without any penumbra. Sometimes it is made 
of penumbra alone, without any umbra. Sometimes 
in one spot there are several umbrae, with the grey 
penumbra round the whole, and grey bridges dividing 
the umbrae. 

The enormous size of these spots has been already 
described in an earlier chapter. Fifty thousand to 
one hundred thousand miles across is nothing unusual. 
In the year 1839 a spot was seen which measured no 
less than one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles 
in diameter. 

One explanation proposed was that the sun might 
be a cool body, covered over with different enve- 
lopes or dense layers of cloudy form, one above 
another. The inside envelope, or as some say the 
inside atmosphere, would then be thick and dull- 
coloured, protecting the solid globe within, and 
reflecting light, but having none of its own. The 
next envelope would be one mass of raging burning 
gases — the pliotosp Jure, in fact. The outer envelope 
would be a transparent surrounding atmosphere, 
lighted up by the sea of fire within. A sun-spot 
would then consist of the tearing open of one or more 



128 More about the Sun. 



of these envelopes, so as to give glimpses of the grey 
inner atmosphere, or even of the dark cool globe at 
the centre. 

There may be some truth in this explanation, but 
the notion of a cool and dark body within is now- 
pretty well given up. The apparent blackness of a 
spot-nucleus does not prove actual blackness or 
absence of heat. A piece of white-hot iron held up 
against the sun looks black ; and it may be merely 
the contrast of the glowing photosphere which makes 
the nucleus seem so dark. It is even believed that 
the blackest parts may be the most intensely hot of 
all. 

Another proposed explanation was of dark clouds 
floating in the sun's atmosphere. There again are 
found difficulties; particularly in the fact that, as 
the spots move across the sun, the changes which 
regularly take place in their appearance make it 
pretty clear that their shape is not flat but hollow and 
cave-like. 

The changes here spoken of are seeming changes 
of shape, caused by change of position. 

There are also real changes constantly taking 
place. Although the spots often keep their general 
outlines long enough to be watched across the face of 
the sun, and even to be known again after spend- 



More about the Sun. 129 

ing nearly a fortnight hidden on the other side, still 
they are far from being fixed in form. 

The alterations are at times not only very great but 
very rapid. Sometimes in a single hour of watching, 
an astronomer can see marked movement going on — 
as you or I might in an hour observe movements 
slowly taking place in a high layer of clouds. For 
movement to show at all in one hour, at so immense 
a distance, proves that the actual rate of motion must 
be very great. 

Whatever else we know or do not know about the 
spots, it seems pretty sure that they are caused by some 
kind of tremendous cyclones on the sun's surface. 
A cyclone is a fierce hurricane of wind blowing round 
and round in a circle — a whirlwind on a large scale. 

These sun-cyclones must indeed be of terrific force 
and extent, compared with anything we see on 
earth. It was calculated that the speed of movement 
perceived in one spot was about three hundred and 
sixty-three miles each second — three times faster than 
clouds move in our sky with the most violent hur- 
ricane. 

Sometimes the storms or outbursts come in the 
shape of a bright spot instead of a dark one. 

Two astronomers were one day watching the sun 

9 



i io More about the Sun. 



from two different observatories, when they saw such 
an event take place. An intense and dazzling spot of 
light burst out upon the surface of the sun — so intense, 
so dazzling, as to stand quite apart from the radiant 
photosphere. To one astronomer it looked like a 
single spot, while the other saw two spots close 
together. In about a minute the light grew more dim, 
and in five minutes all was over. But in those five 
minutes the spot or spots had travelled a distance of 
thirty-five thousand miles. 

It was a very remarkable thing that the magnets 
on earth — those delicate little needles which point so 
steadily yet perseveringly towards the North Pole- 
seemed to be strongly agitated by the distant solar 
outburst. 

This brings us to another interesting fact. 

The spots on the sun are not always the same in 
number. Sometimes they are many ; sometimes they 
arc few. Long and close watching has made it clear 
that they pass through a regular order of changes, 
some years of many spots being followed by other 
years of less and less spots ; then some years of vay 
few spots being followed by other years of more and 
more spots ; decrease and increase being seemingly 
regular and alternate. 

This turn or cycle of changes, from more to less, and 




Tub Sirs, with comparative Maosituiies of the Eawuv mto >\ws. 



V 



More about the Sun. 13 c 



then from less to more again, is found to run its 
-course about once in every eleven years, with some 
variations. 

Now it has long been known that the magnetic 
needle goes through curious variations. Though we 
.speak of it as pointing always north, yet it does not 
always so point exactly. 

Every day the needle is found to make certain tiny 
delicate motions, as if faintly struggling to follow the 
-daily movements of the sun — just a little towards the 
east, or just a little towards the west. These tiny 
motions, having been long watched and measured, 
were found to go through a regular course of changes 
— some years jnore, and some years less, waxing and 
waning by turns. It was discovered that the course 
of changes from more to less, and from less to more 
again, took place in about eleven years. 

These two things, you see, were quite indepen- 
dent of one another. Those who watched the sun- 
spots were not thinking of the magnets ; and those 
who watched tfcfcmagnets were not thinking of the 
sun-spots. But somebody did at last happen to think 
of both together. He was laughed at, yet he took the 
trouble carefully to compare the two. 

And, strange to say, he found that these two periods 
in the main agreed — the eleven years of alternate 

9 — 2 



132 More about the Sun. 



changes in the number of sun-spots, and the eleven 
years of alternate changes in the movements of the 
magnetic needle. When the spots are most, the needle 
moves most. When the spots are least, the needle 
moves least. 

So much we know. But to explain the why and 
the wherefore is beyond our power. 

There is a very singular appearance seen upon 
the sun which must not be passed over without 
mention. 

Some astronomers speak of the whole surface as 
being mottled all over, with a curious rough look, when 
examined through a powerful telescope. 

This ( mottling ' is described by various observers in 
various ways. One speaks of 'luminous spots shaped 
like rice-grains.* Another of c luminous spots 
resembling strokes made with a camel's hair pencil.' 
Another of * luminous objects or granules.' Others 
of ' multitudes of leaves ;' * nodules ;' ' crystalline 
shapes ;' ' leaves or scales, crossing one another in 
all directions, like what are called spills in the game 
of spillikins.' They have also been pictured as 
1 certain luminous objects of an exceedingly definite 
shape, and general uniformity of size, whose form is 
that of the oblong leaves of a willow-tree. These 



More about the Sun. 133 

cover the whole disc of the sun, excepting the space 
occupied by the spots, in countless millions, and lie 
crossing each other in every imaginable direction.' 

In size they are said to be about one thousand miles 
long, by two or three hundred broad, but they vary 
a good deal. Where there is a spot, the willow-leaves 
at its edge are said to point pretty regularly towards 
the centre. 

Whether they are, as they seem to be, solid in form ; 
whether they are, as some suppose, the chief source of 
the sun's light and heat ; whether they lie on his sur- 
face or float in his atmosphere ; what is their real 
nature, and what is their real use, — about these ques- 
tions we are at present quite in the dark. 

We have next to think a little more about the 
edge or limb of the sun, and the stormy flames and 
outbursts there seen. 

Until quite lately the only time for observing such 
appearances was during a total eclipse of the sun. 
Lately, by means of a new instrument called the 
4 Spectroscope/ it has been found possible to take 
observations when no eclipse is going on. 

A few words* of explanation as to eclipses of the 
sun seem needful, before going further. 



134 More about the Stcn. 

An eclipse of the sun is caused simply by the round 
body of the moon passing exactly between the sun 
and the earth, so as to hide the sun from us. 

Let there be a candle on the table, while you stand 
near. The rays of light from the candle fall upon- 
your face. Now move slowly, to and fro, a round 
ball between you and the candle. So long as it is not 
precisely in the line between — so long as it is a little 
higher, or a little lower, or a little to one side — thenr 
you can still see the flame. Once let the ball 
come just between the light and your eyes, and you 
see it no more. In other words the candle-flame is 
eclipsed — hidden, veiled, sheltered, cut off— -by the 
ball. 

It may seem curious at first sight that the moon, 
which is so very small compared with the sun, should 
have power to cover the sun. But remember the dif- 
ference of the distance. The sun is very far, and the 
moon is very near. Any small object very near will 
easily hide from your sight a large object at a consi- 
derable distance. You may hold up a shilling-piece at 
arm's length, and make it cover from sight a man, or 
even a house, if the latter be far enough away. 

The sun at a distance of ninety-one millions of 
miles, and the moon at a distance of two hundred and 
forty thousand miles, have to our vision the same 



£ 





Fig. i. — Total Eclipse of the Sun. 

The eclipse is total upon that portion of the Earth upon which the cone of dark 
shadow falls ; and partial in the region of the lighter shade, or penumbra. 




:: --:-;S. 



Fig. a.— Annular Eclipse of the Sun. 

annular upon that portion of the I 
reversed dark cone of shadow falls. 



The eclipse appears annular upon that portion of the Earth upon which the 

" dar 





Fig. 3. —Partial Eclipse of the Sun. 





Fig. 4.— Total Eclipse of the Moon. 





F'S- 5.- Partial Eclipse of the Moon. 



More about the Sun, 135 

seeming size. So, when the moon glides between, 
her round face just about covers the sun's round face. 

If the moon were travelling exactly in the same 
plane as the plane of the earth's orbit, an eclipse 
would be a very common affair indeed. But the plane 
of the moon's orbit being not quite the same as the 
plane of the earth's orbit, she passes sometimes a 
little above, and sometimes a little below, the exact 
spot where she would hide the sun's rays from us. 
Now and then, at certain intervals, she goes just be- 
tween. And so well is the moon's path in the 
heavens understood, that astronomers can tell us long 
years beforehand on what day and at what hour an 
eclipse is certain to take place. 

An eclipse of the sun is sometimes partial, some- 
times total, sometimes annular. In a partial eclipse the 
moon does indeed pass between, but only so as to hide 
from us part of the sun. She is a little too low, or a 
little too high to cover his face. In a total eclipse the 
moon covers the sun completely, so that for a few 
minutes the bright photosphere seems blotted out from 
the heavens, a black round body surrounded by light 
taking its place. In an annular eclipse, the moon in like 
manner crosses the sun, but does not succeed in cover- 
ing him entirely, a rim of bright photosphere showing 
round the black moon. For in an annular eclipse the 



136 More about the Sun. 

moon, being a little farther away from the earth than 
at the time of a total eclipse, has too small a disc 
quite to hide the sun's disc. 

The blackness of the moon during an eclipse is 
caused by the fact that her bright side is turned to- 
wards the sun, and her dark side towards us. An 
eclipse of the sun can only take place at new moon,* 
never at full moon. At her full, the moon is outside 
the earth's orbit, away from the sun, and cannot by 
any possibility pass between. 

Eclipses of the sun in olden days were a source of 
wide-spread awe and terror. Many wild tales and 
wilder explanations were invented to account for 
them. Now that we better understand their meaning, 
fear need no longer be felt ; though the strange dark- 
ness, and the singular colouring of sky and air, must 
always be exceedingly impressive. 

The following description of the total eclipse of 

* A peculiar interest belongs to this fact. For when our 
Saviour hung upon the cross, there came a strange and mys- 
terious darkness over the whole land for three hours. Now it 
might be supposed that this darkness was caused by an eclipse 
of the sun — 6ut 9 no such eclipse can ever take place except at 
new moon, nor for more than six minutes ; and the Feast of the 
Passover, at which time our Lord was crucified, always took 
place at the full moon. 




TOTAL ECLIPSE OK "I UK SUN' lawi, FROM 1ARKAC.ONA 



--<J 



More about the Sun. 137 

i860 will be found interesting. It was observed by- 
several astronomers, who stationed themselves at 
various places in the north of Spain, — Mr. Airy, the 
Astronomer-Royal, at Pobes ; M. Bruhns, of Leipzic, 
near Tarragona; Mr. Lowe, near Santander. Mr. 
Lowe writes : — 

" Before totality commenced, the colours in the sky 
-and on the hills were magnificent beyond all descrip- 
tion. The clear sky in the north assumed a deep 
"indigo colour ; while in the west the horizon was first 
"black like night In the east the clear sky was very 
pale blue, with orange and red like sunrise. On the 
shadow creeping across, the deep blue in the north 
changed like magic to pale sunrise tints of orange and 
red, while the sunrise appearance in the east had 
changed to indigo. The darkness was great; the 
countenances of men were of a livid pink. The 
Spaniards lay down, and their children screamed 
with fear; fowls hastened to roost, ducks clustered 
together, pigeons dashed against the houses, flowers 
closed, many butterflies flew as if drunk and at last 
disappeared. The air became very humid, so much 
so, that the grass felt to one of the observers as if 
recently rained upon."* 

* From 'Descriptive Astronomy,' by G. F. Chambers. 



CHAPTER III. 

YET MORE ABOUT THE SUN. 
* O Lord, how great are Thy works.' — Ps. xcii. 5. 

Having seen something of storms taking place on 
the sun's photosphere, we must next give our atten- 
tion to storms taking place at his edge. But it should 
be remembered that the said edge, far from being a 
mere rim to a flat surface, is a kind of horizon-line — 
is in fact just that part of the photosphere which is 
passing out of cr coming under our sight. The surface ^^ 
there is in kind the same as the surface of the broad -" 
disc facing us. In watching outbursts at the edge 
of the sun, we have a side-view instead of a bird's- 
eye view. 

In the year 1871, an American astronomer, Profes- 
sor Young, was looking at a large hydrogen cloud on 
the edge of the sun. When I speak of a ' cloud,' i 



/ 



Yet More about the Sun. 139 



must not be supposed that anything like a damp 
foggy earthly cloud is meant. This solar cloud was a 
huge mass of red-hot gas, about one hundred thou- 
sand miles long, rising to a height of fifty thousand 
miles from the sun's surface, and appearing to rest on 
glowing pillars of fire. 

The Professor, while watching, was called away for 
half an hour. He came back, expecting to find things 
much as he had left them. Instead of this, a startling 
change had taken place. The whole mass of glowing 
fire seemed to have been actually * blown to shreds ' by 
some tremendous outburst from below. In place of the 
motionless cloud were masses of scattered fire, each 
from about four thousand to fourteen thousand miles 
long, and a thousand miles wide. 

As the Professor gazed, these 'bits ' of broken cloud 
rose rapidly upwards, away from the surface of the 
sun. When I say 'rapidly/ I mean that the real 
movement, which the Professor could calculate, was 
rapid. The seeming movements were of course slow, 
and over a small space. The actual motions were not 
tardy, for in ten minutes these huge fiery cloud-pieces 
rushed upwards to a height of two hundred thousand 
miles from the edge of the sun, moving at a rate of at 
least one hundred and sixty-seven miles each second. 
Gradually they faded away. 



140 Yet More about the Sun. 



But what caused this sudden change ? 

Just before the Professor was interrupted, he had 
noticed a curious little brilliant lump — a sort of sus- 
picious thunder-cloud appearance — below the quiet 
bright cloud. And after this tremendous shattering; 
the little bright lump rose upwards into a huge mass 
of rolling flame, reaching like a pyramid to a height 
of fifty thousand miles. In the course of a few minutes 
these enormous flames could be seen to move and 
bend, and to curl over their gigantic tips. But they 
did not last long. At half-past twelve the professor 
had been called away ; by half-past two the rolling 
flames completely vanished. 

Now, whatever may be the full explanation of 
this sight, there is no doubt that on that day was 
observed from earth a tremendous outburst, compared 
with which our mightiest volcanoes are like the 
sputtering of a farthing dip beside a roaring furnace. 
The awful force and greatness of such a solar erup- 
tion are more than we can possibly picture to our- 
selves. At our distance we may catch a faint glimpse 
of what is going on, and calculate speed of move- 
ment. But vividly to realise the actual terrific 
grandeur of what took place is past our power. 

Possibly this was much the same kind of outburst 
as that seen by the two English astronomers ; only 



\ 



Yet More about the Sun. 141 

theirs was a bird's-eye view, as it were, looking down 
on the top of the sight, while the Professor had a 
side-view, certainly much the best for observation. 

It does not follow from what he saw that the erup- 
tion must have taken place exactly at the ' edge ' of 
the sun. Probably it happened near the edge. All 
he could say, was that the flames rose fifty thou- 
sand miles, and the pieces of cloud were carried 
two hundred thousand miles, away from the edge. 
The eruption may have begun on the other side of 
the sun, at any distance from the horizon-edge where 
it first became visible to earthly eyes. 

Also, while the Professor found that the shattered 
cloudlets moved at a rate of about one hundred and 
sixty-seven miles each second, it is calculated that 
the first fearful outburst must have caused move- 
ment, near the surface of the sun, at a rate of at 
least three hundred miles each second. Probably the 
hydrogen cloud was borne upwards along with a vast 
mass of fragments flung out from the sun. We are 
here upon doubtful ground ; but this tremendous 
power of eruption in the sun, and of driving matter 
out of and away from his surface, should not be for- 
gotten. 

Though such a sun-storm as that just described is 



142 Yet More about the Sun. 

not often to be seen, yet there are at all times certain 
strange red prominences, or glowing flames, rising up 
here and there from the sun's 'limb.' Doubtless they 
rise also from other parts of the photosphere, though 
they are only visible to us when near enough to the 
«edge to stand out beyond it. 

Seen during an eclipse, these prominences have 
clear sharp outlines, and are usually bright rose-red in 
colour. They are described as sometimes wide and 
low, sometimes tall and slender ; sometimes jagged, 
sometimes regular ; sometimes keeping long the same 
shape, sometimes changing quickly in a few minutes. 
They are said to be like flames, like mountains, like 
the teeth of a saw, like icebergs, like floating cloud- 
lets. 

As to their height, from fifty to eighty thousand 
miles is nothing unusual. We must not speak o 
Mont Blanc or Mount Everest here. Jupiter, placed 
bodily on the surface of the sun, beside such a fire 
mountain, would not far overtop it. The earth, Venus 
Mars and Mercury, would lie like little toy-balls a 
its foot. And these are common-sized sun-flames. 
One has been measured which reached to the enor 
mous height of one hundred and sixty thousan 
miles. 

The spectroscope shows these solar prominence 




Yet More about the Sun. 143 



or jets to be made — at least in part — of burning hy- 
drogen gas. 

Beyond the sierra or chromatosphere — that border 
of rippling crimson flame-billows round the edge of 
the sun, with red flame-mountains rising out of it here 
and there — beyond these stretches the corona. 

The corona, as seen from earth, is a bright far- 
reaching glory of light, shining round the sun in a 
total eclipse. The moon then comes between the sun 
and the earth, her dark round body creeping over the 
face of the sun, till the bright photosphere is com- 
pletely covered. But the sierra and the tall red 
flames stand out from behind the black moon, and the 
beautiful soft corona light stretches far beyond. 

It was long doubted whether the corona really 
belonged to the sun or to the moon. There seems 
now no doubt that it is a part of the sun. 

Various descriptions of the corona have been given 
at different times, as observed during different 
eclipses. It has been seen as a steady beamy white 
cloud behind the moon, showing no flickering. It has 
been seen marked with bright lines of light, and seem- 
ing to move rapidly round and round. It has been 
seen silvery white, sending off long streams of bright- 
ness. It has been seen in the form of white light, 



144 Yet More about the Sun. 

with bluish rays running over it. It has been seen 
with entangled jets of light, like ' a hank of thread in 
disorder.' It has been seen silvery white again, with 
a faint tinge of greenish-violet about the outer edge. 
It has been seen from a high mountain-top as a mass 
of soft bright light, * through which shot out, as if 
from the circumference of the moon, straight massive 
silvery rays, seeming distinct and separate from each 
other, to a distance of two or three diameters of the 
lunar disc, the whole spectacle showing as upon a 
background of diffused rose-coloured light/ 

The corona consists of two parts — the inner and 
brighter corona, the outer and fainter corona. The- 
shape of the whole seems to change much at different 



times. The outer edge is usually blurred and indis 
tinct, fading gently away. 

Many explanations have been suggested. At on 
time the corona was supposed to be a solar atmosphen 
reflecting light like our own atmosphere. Some hav 
thought the light might be caused by countless 
myriads of meteorite systems, revolving in the clos» 
neighbourhood of the sun. Some suppose it may b^ 
owing, in part at least, to solar eruptions, and th^ 
pouring outward of burning gas and matter. 

But our knowledge of the true nature of the corons. 
is yet in its infancy. 



Yet More about the Sun. 145 

A few closing words as to the size and weight of the 
sun. 

In diameter eight hundred and fifty thousand miles, 
and in bulk equal to over one million two hundred 
thousand earths, his weight is in proportion less. 

Our earth is about four times as dense as the sun. 
If her size were increased to the sun's size, her density 
being the same as now, she would be very much 
heavier than the sun, and would attract much more 
strongly. 

Still, though the sun is of lighter materials than the 
earth, his immense size gives him weight equal to 
seven hundred and fifty times as much as all the 
planets put together. 

The attraction on the surface of the sun is also very 
great — so great that we can hardly picture it to our- 
selves. If life exists there at all — supposing it pos- 
sible that any kind of life can be in such a fiery 
atmosphere — it must be life very different from any 
known in this world. 

A man who on earth weighs twelve or fourteen 
stone, and walks lightly erect, would on the sun lie 
helplessly bound to the ground, crushed by his own 
overpowering weight. 

It is said that a cannon-ball, reposing on the sun, 
if lifted one inch and allowed to fall, would dash 

10 



1 46 . Yet More about the Sun. 

against the ground with a speed three times greater 
than that of our fastest express-trains. 

For weight on earth is merely caused by the amount 
of force with which the earth draws downward a body 
towards herself — a force greater or less according to 
the density of that body. So weight on the sun 
would be immensely increased by his immensely 
greater power of attraction. 

It is an interesting question how far the sun's at- 
tractive influence reaches effectually through spacer 
The nearer a body is to the sun, the greater the attrac — 
tion which he exercises over it. 

At the distance, of the planet Mercury, a speed o 
twenty-nine miles each second is needful to overcomi 
or balance it sufficiently for the planet to remain ii 
his orbit. At the distance of the planet Neptun 
about four miles each second is enough. If a plane 
were journeying at four times the distance of Neptun 
the speed would need to be not over two miles eac 



second, lest the planet should break loose and wand 
away. 

But even two miles a second is no mean speed- 
more than seven thousand miles an hour. If 



come to speak of that which we on earth call rap^ i « 
motion, we shall gain a clearer idea as to the exte- 
of the sun's power. 



Yet More about the Sun. 147 

Suppose a planet were travelling through space at 
the rate of one of our express trains — sixty miles an 
hour. It has been calculated that, unless the sun's 
attraction were interfered with and overpowered by 
some nearer sun, the said planet, though placed at a 
distance ten or twelve times as great as that of the 
far-off star Alpha Centauri, would still be forced by 
the sun's attraction to journey round him in a closed 
orbit. At such a speed it would not be free to 
wander off into the depths of space. 



to — 2 



CHAPTER IV. 

MORE ABOUT THE MOON. 

'When I consider ... the moon . . . which Thou hast 
ordained.' — Ps. viii. 3. 

FROM a globe all fire, all energy, all action, we come 
to a globe silent, voiceless, changeless, lifeless. 

So, at least, the moon seems to us. But it does not 
do to speak too confidently. 

True, we can find no trace of an atmosphere in the 
moon. If there is any atmosphere at all, it must be 
so thin as to be less than that which we on earth 
count as actually none. We pump away the air from 
a glass enclosure, in an air-pump, and say the glass 
is empty. 

Only it is not quite empty. There is always just 
a very little air remaining, though so little that fire 
would not burn and animals could not live in it Some 
believe that air, up to that amount, may be found in 



More about the Moon. 149 

the moon. But this is much the same as to say there 
is none at all. 

For, of course, with either no air or so very little 
air, life cannot possibly exist on the moon. We can- 
not imagine such a thing for a moment. 

That is just how the matter stands. We c cannot 
imagine/ and therefore we conclude it to be an 
impossibility. As if we knew a hundredth part of the 
possibilities in any one corner of God's great universe ! 
As if our being unable to picture a thing proves that 
thing not to exist ! 

Suppose we had always lived in tropical heat, and 
had never seen, known, or heard of such a fact as life 
in Arctic snows. Should we consider it a thing 
possible ? 

Suppose we had always lived on dry land, with 
never a sight of sea or river or pond, and never a proof 
that animal life could exist under water — aye, and 
that some living animals may be suffocated by air, 
just as other living animals are suffocated by water. 
Should we not, in our wisdom, reason out such a state 
of affairs to be utterly impossible ? 

There may be no life on the moon. It may be that 
she is now passing through a dead cold blasted stage, 
either at the close of some past history, or in prepara- 
tion for some future history — or both. 






150 More about the Moon. 

But, on the other hand, it may be that the moon- 
is no less full of life than the earth ; only tfie life must j 
be different in kind, must be something which we dd;;;: 
not know anything at all about. 

• ; .*;■. 

The moon is very much smaller than the eattL "■ 
Her diameter is about two-sevenths of th<£ edrth& < 

v. 

diameter; her entire surface is about two-twenty^ 
sevenths of the earth's surface ; her size is about 
two-ninety-ninths of the earth's size ; and her whole 
weight is about one-eightieth of the earth'* 
weight. 

Attraction or gravitation on the surface of the moon 
is very different from what it is on the earth. 
Her much smaller bulk greatly lessens her power 
of attraction. While a man from earth would, 'on 
the surface of the sun — supposing he could exist 
there at all — lie helpless, motionless, and crushed 
by his own weight, he would on the moon find hinrmrif 
astonishingly light and active. A leap over a tall 
house would be nothing to him. 

The moon, unlike the sun, has no light or heat rf 
her own to give out. She shines merely by reflected 
light. Rays of sunlight falling upon her, rebound 
thence, and find their way earthward. 



More about the Moon. 151 

This giving of reflected light is not a matter all on 
one side. We yield to the moon a great deal more 
than she yields to us. Full earth, seen from the moon, 
covers a space thirteen times as large as full moon 
seen from earth. 

Perhaps you may have noticed, soon after new moon, 
when a delicate crescent of silver light shows in the 
sky, that within the said crescent seems to lie the 
body of a round dark moon, only not perfectly dark. 
It shows a faint glimmer. 

That glimmer is called earth-shine. The bright 
crescent shines with reflected sunlight. The dim por- 
tion shines with reflected earth-light. 

What a journey those rays have had. First, leaving 
the sun, flashing through ninety-one millions of miles 
to earth, rebounding from earth and flashing over two 
hundred and forty thousand miles to the dark shaded 
part of the moon, then once more rebounding and 
coming back, much wasted and enfeebled, across the 
same two hundred and forty thousand miles, to shine 
dimly in your eyes and mine. 

The popular description of this particular view of 
the moon is ' the old moon in the arms of the new. 1 

Now about the plmses of the moon, that is, her 
changes from ' new ' to ' full/ and back again to ' new.' 



1 5 2 More about the Moon. 

If the moon were a star-like body, shining by her 
own light, she would always appear to be round. But 
as she shines by reflected sunlight, and as part 
of her bright side is often turned away from us, 
the size and shape of the bright part seem to vary. 

For, of course, only that half of the moon which is 
turned directly towards the sun is bright. The other 
half turned away is dark, and can give but no light 
at all, unless it has a little earth-shine to reflect. 

As the moon travels round the earth, she changes 
gradually from new to full moon, and then back to 
new again. 

' New moon ' is when the moon, in her orbit, comes 
between the sun and the earth. The half of her 
upon which the sun shines is turned away from us, 
and only her dark side is towards us. So at new 
moon she is quite invisible. It is at new moon 
that an eclipse of the sun takes place, when the moon's 
orbit carries her in a line precisely between sun and 
earth. 

Passing onwards round the earth, the moon, as 
we get a little glimpse of her shining side, first 
shows a slender sickle of light, which widens more 
and more till she reaches her first quarter. She is 
then neither between earth and sun, nor outside the 
earth away from the sun, but just at one side of us, 



More about the Moon. 15 



n 



passing over the earth's own orbit. Still, as before, 
half her body is lighted up by the sun. By this time 
lialf the bright part and /lat/the dark part are turned 
towards us; so that, seeing the bright quarter, we 
name it the ' first quarter/ 

On and on round us moves the moon, showing more 
light at every step. Now she passes quite outside 
the earth's orbit, away from the sun. Not the slightest 
chance here of an eclipse of the sun, though an eclipse 
of the moon herself is quite possible. But more of 
that presently. As she reaches a point in a line with 
earth and sun — only generally a little higher or lower 
than the plane of the earth's orbit — her round bright 
face, shining in the sun's rays, is turned exactly 
towards us. Then we have 'full moon.' 

Still she goes on. Once more her light narrows 
and wanes, as part of her bright half turns away. Again 
at the ' last quarter ' as at the first, she occupies a 
'sideways* position, turning towards us half her 
bright side and half her dark side. Then she 
journeys on, with lessening rim of light, till it 
vanishes, and once more we have the dark invisible 
4 new moon/ 

You may easily picture this for yourself. Let a 
candle be upon a table in a room otherwise dark. 
Stand near the table, with a ball in your hand, which 



154 More about the Moon. 

you must hold out at arm's length. Turn slowly 
round upon your feet, keeping your arm and hand 
motionless, and let the ball thus travel round 
you. 

Your own motion here is a matter of no importance. 
It is needful merely that you may keep your face 
towards the ball, and also that the position and slope 
of the ball may not vary. 

Begin by stretching out your arm straight towards 
the candle. Now the light is shining full upon the 
ball, lighting up one half of it. But of the bright 
half you see nothing. The dark side only is turned 
towards you. That is ' new moon.' If you put the 
ball exactly between your eyes and the candle it 
eclipses or hides the candle-flame, but by holding 
it an inch or two higher or lower you avoid a 
eclipse. 

Now move your arm slowly round to the left r 
moving yourself round with it, so as to watch th 
ball intently. A rim of light will begin to show 
gradually increasing, till of the half-ball which yo 
can see, one quarter is light and one quarter is 
In the case of the real moon, the light quarter only fe 
visible, and the dark is hidden ; though in your bal 
you will see both. This is the ' first quarter/ 

Go on turning slowly round, watching the ligh 




More about the Moon. 155 

space gradually widen. Now your arm is extended 
in a direction away from the candle. If the ball is in 
an exact line with the candle and your head, you will 
produce an ' eclipse of the moon/ by allowing your 
shadow to fall upon it. But by raising it a little 
higher you avoid this eclipse also. The candle-light 
still, as always, falls upon the ball, lighting up one 
half : and now the whole of that half is turned towards 
you, and the whole of the dark side is turned away. 
This is ' full moon/ 

Move onward again, spinning very slowly round 
with extended arm, and you will have diminishing 
light once more, till the ball passes through * last 
quarter' and again becomes new moon. 

An eclipse of the sun has been already described. 
An eclipse of the moon is an equally simple 
matter. 

An eclipse of the sun is caused by the dark solid 
body of the moon passing just between earth and sun, 
hiding the sun from us, and casting its shadow upon 
the earth. 

An eclipse of the moon is also caused by a shadow — 
the shadow of our own earth — falling upon the moon. 

Here again, if the plane of the moon's orbit were 
the same as ours, eclipses of the moon would be very 



156 More about the Moon. 

common. As it is, her orbit carries her often just a 
little too high or too low to be eclipsed ; and it is only 
now and then, at regular intervals, that she passes 
through the shadow of the earth. 

If a large solid ball is hungup in the air, with bright 
sunlight shining on it, the sunlight will cast a cone 
of shadow behind the ball. It will throw, in a direction 
just away from the sun, a long round shadow, the same 
size as the ball at first, but tapering gradually off to a 
point. If the ball is near the ground, a round shadow 
will rest there, almost as large as the ball. The higher 
the ball is placed, the smaller will be the round 
shadow, till at length, if the ball be taken far enough 
upwards, the shadow will not reach the ground at alL 

Our earth and all the planets cast just such tapering 

cones of dark shadow behind them into space. The 

cone always lies in a direction exactly away from the 
sun. 

It is when the moon comes into this shadow, that 
an ' eclipse of the moon ' takes place. Sometimes she 
only dips half-way into it, or just grazes along the edge 
of it ; and that is called a ' partial eclipse/ Sometimes 
she goes in altogether, straight through the midst of 
the shadow, so that the whole of her bright face for a 
short time grows quite dark. Then we have a ' total 
lunar eclipse/ 




KCIJPSK OF THF. MOON. 



r 



CHAPTER V. 



YET MORE ABOUT THE MOON. 



Our God is in the heavens ; He hath done whatsoever He 
^■tYi pleased/— Ps. cxv. 3. 



Ere are two ways of thinking about the moon. One 
is to consider her as merely the earth's attendant 
^"fc^llite. The other way is to consider her as our 
l3 *er-planet, travelling with us round the central 

J^he first is the more common view ; but the second 
J Ust as true as the first. 
_ -J^or the sun does actually pull the moon towards 
lr **self, with a very much stronger pulling than »that 



"^He earth. The attraction of the sun for the moon 

*^ ore than double the attraction of the earth for the 

il If it were not that he pulls the earth quite as 

as he pulls the moon, he would soon overpower 



158 Yet More about the Moon. 



the earth's attraction, and drag the moon away from 
us altogether. 

People are often puzzled about the orbit or pathway 
of the moon through the heavens. For in one sense 
they have to think of her as travelling round and 
round in a fixed orbit, with the earth in the centre. In 
another sense they have to think of her as always- 
journeying onwards with the earth in her journey- 
round the sun, and thus never returning to the same- 
point. 

There are two ways of meeting this difficulty. 

First of all, remember that the one movement does 
not interfere with the other. Just as in the case o — - f 
the earth travelling round the sun, and also travellin] 
onward with him through space ; just as in the cas 
of a boy walking round and round a mast, and ali 
being borne onwards by the moving vessel ; so it r is 
here. The two movements are quite separate ai^^n cf 
independent of each other. 

As regards the earth alone, the moon iourn e* v s 
round and round perpetually, not in a circle but in a 

pathway which comes near being an ellipse. 

As regards the actual line which the moon's mo\ *^e- 
ments may be supposed to draw in space, it h— ^mas 
nothing elliptical about it; since no one point oi 

it is ever reached a second time by the moon. 



Yet More about the Moon. 159 



But according to this last view of the question, no- 
body ever can or will walk in a circle or an oval. 
Take a walk round your grass-plot, measuring your 
distance carefully at all points from the centre. Is 
that a circle ? All the while you moved, the surface 
of the earth was rushing along and bearing you with 
it, and the whole earth was hurrying round the 
sun, and was being also carried by him in a third 
direction. Whatever point in space you occupied 
when you started, you can never fill that particular 
^€zrt of space again. The two ends of your so-called 
circle can never be joined. 

But then you may come back to the same point on 
*£ze grass, as that from which you started. And this is 
all that really signifies. Practically you have walked in 
a circle. Though not a circle as regards space generally, 
is a circle as regards the earth. 
So also the moon comes back to the same point in 
>r orbit round the earth. Letting alone the question 
of space, and considering only the earth, the moon 
lias — roughly speaking — journeyed in an ellipse. 

You may, however, look at this matter in quite 
another light. 

Forget about the moon being the earth's satellite, 
and think of earth and moon as two sister-planets 
going tound the sun in company. 



160 Yet MoYe about the Moon. 

The earth, it is true, attracts the moon. So also 
the moon attracts the earth ; though the far greater 
weight of the earth makes her attraction to be 
far greater. If earth and moon were of the 
same size, they would pull each other with equal 
force. 

But though the pull of the earth upon the moon is 
strong, the pull of the sun upon the moon is more 
than twice as strong. And greatly as the earth in- 
fluences the moon, yet the actual centre of the moon's 
orbit is the sun and not the earth. Just as the earth 
travels round the sun, so also the moon travels round 
the sun. 

The earth travels steadily in her path, being 
only a little swayed and disturbed by the attrac- 
tion of the moon. The moon, on the contrary, 
while travelling in her orbit, is very much swayed 
and disturbed indeed by the earth's attraction. 
In fact, instead of being able to journey straight 
onwards like the earth, her orbit is made up of a 
succession of delicate curves or scallops, passing 
alternately backwards and forwards over the orbit of 
the earth. Now she is behind the earth ; now in front 
of the earth ; now between earth and sun ; now out— 
side the earth away from the sun. The order o 
positions is not as here given, but each is occupied b; 




Yet More about the Moon. 16 1 

w — - ■- — - ■ ■ — ■ ■- .i — — . — — — — -■—■■■ — ■ ... ■ ■■- ■ ■ - —1 

her in turn. Sometimes she moves quickly, 
sometimes she moves slowly, just according to 
•whether the earth is pulling her on or holding her 
back. 

Two hundred and forty thousand miles sounds a 
good deal. That is the distance between earth and 
moon. But it is, after all, a mere nothing, compared 
with the ninety-one millions of miles which separate 
the sun from the earth and moon. 

If we made a small model, with the sun in the 
centre, and the earth and moon travelling a few inches 
off, only one slender piece of wire would be needed to 
represent the path of earth and moon together. For 
not only would the earth and the moon be so small 
as to be quite invisible, but the whole of the moon's 
orbit would have disappeared into the thickness of the 
single wire. 

This question of the moon's motions, is in its nature 
intricate, and in its details quite beyond the grasp of 
any beginner in astronomy. 

But so much at least may be understood, that 
•though the earth's attraction powerfully affects the 
**ioon, and causes in her motions perturbations, such 
^.s have been already spoken about as taking place 
^mong the planets, yet that in reality the great con- 

11 



1 62 Yet More about the Moon. 



trolling power over the moon is the attraction of 
the sun. 

The tides of the ocean are chiefly brought about 
by the moon's attraction. The sun has something 
to do with the matter, but the moon is the chief 
agent. 

This action of the moon is best seen in the southern 
hemisphere, where there is less land. As the moon 
travels slowly round the earth, her attraction draws up 
the yielding waters of the ocean in a vast wave, which 
travels slowly along with her. The same pulling 
which thus lifts a wave on the side of the earth towards 
the moon, also pulls the earth gently away from the 
water on the opposite side, and causes a second wave 
there. The parts of the ocean between these two 
huge waves are depressed, or lower in level. 

These two waves on opposite sides of the earth 
sweep steadily onwards, following the moon's move- 
ments, — not real, but seeming movements, caused by 
the turning of the earth upon her axis. 

Once in every twenty-four hours these wide waves 
sweep round the whole earth in the southern ocean. 
They cannot do the same in the north, on account of 
the large continents, but offshoots from the south waves 
travel northwards, bringing high-tide into every sea 
and ocean inlet. 



Yet More about the Moon. 163 

If there were only one wave, there would be only- 
one tide in each twenty-four hours. As there are two 
-waves, there are two tides, one twelve hours after the 
other. In the space between these two high-tides we 
have low-tide. 

Twice every month we have very high and very low 
tides. Twice every month we have tides not so high 
or so low. The highest are called * spring-tides/ 
smd the lowest * neap-tides.' 

When the moon is between us and the sun, or when 
she is c new moon/ there are spring-tides ; for the 
pull or attraction of sun and moon upon the ocean 
^ct exactly together. It is the same at full moon, 
"when once more the moon is in a straight line with 
^arth and sun. 

But at the first and last quarters, when the moon 
lias her sideways position, and when the sun pulls in one 
^direction and the moon pulls in another, each undoes a 
Xittle of the other's work. Then we only have neap- 
t:ides, for the wave raised is smaller, and the water 
«does not flow so high upon our shores. 

In speaking of the surface of the moon, we are 
sble only to speak about one side. The other is 
entirely hidden from us. This is caused by the 

11 — 2 



164 Yet More about the Moon. 

curious fact that the moon turns on her axis and 
travels round the earth in exactly the same length 
of time. 

One half of the moon is thus always turned towards 
us, though of that half we can only see so much 
as is receiving the light of the sun. But the 
half turned in our direction is always the same 
half. 

One part of the moon — not quite so much as half, 
though always the same portion — is turned away from 
us. A small border on each side of that part be- 
comes now and then visible to us, owing to certain 
movements of the earth and the moon. 

What sort of a landscape may lie in the unknown 
district it is idle to imagine. Many guesses have 
been made. Some have supposed it possible that air 
might be found there, that water might exist there, 
that something like earthly animals might livfe 
there. 

It is hard to say what may not be, in a place about 
which we know nothing whatever. But, judging from 
our earthly experience, nothing seems more unlikely 
than that air, water, clouds, should be entirely 
banished from over one-half of a globe, and collected 
together in the space remaining. 

We are on safer ground when we speak about 



Yet More about the Moon. 165 



that part of the moon which is turned towards 
us. 

For we can say with confidence that if any atmo- 
sphere exist there, it must be in thickness less than 
the two-thousandth part of our earthly atmosphere.. 
It seems equally clear that water also must be entirely 
wanting. The tremendous heat of the long lunar day 
would raise clouds of vapour, which could not fail to 
be visible. But no such mistiness ever disturbs the 
sharply-defined outline of the moon ; and no signs of 
water action are seen in the craggy mountains and 
deep craters. 

The craters which honeycomb the surface of the 
moon are various in size. Many of the larger ones 
are from fifty to a hundred miles in diameter. These 
huge craters, or, as we may call them, deep circular 
plains, are surrounded by mighty mountain ramparts, 
rising to the height of thousands of feet. Usually 
they have in their centre a sugar-loaf or cone-shaped 
mountain, or even two or more such mountains, some- 
what lower in height than the surrounding 
range. 

The sunset-lights upon certain of these distant 
mountain-peaks were first watched by Galileo, through 
his telescope, and have since been seen by many an 



166 Yet More about the Moon. 

observer — intense brightness contrasting with intense 
blackness of shadow. 

In addition to her great craters, the moon seems to 
be thickly covered with little ones, many being 
as small as can be seen at all through a tele- 
scope. 

Whether these are all volcano-craters remains to be 
discovered. It is not supposed that any of them are 
now active. From time to time signs of faint changes 
on the moon's surface have been noticed, which it was 
thought might be owing to volcanic outbursts. Such 
an outburst as the worst eruptions of Mount Vesuvius 
would be invisible at this distance. But the said 
changes may be quite as well accounted for by 
the startling fortnightly variations of climate which 
the moon has to endure. The general belief now in- 
clines to the idea that the moon-volcanoes are extinct, 
though no doubt there was in the past great volcanic 
activity there. 

A description has been given earlier of the rain of 
meteorites constantly falling to our earth, and 
only prevented by the atmosphere from becoming 
serious. 

The moon has no such protecting atmosphere, 
and the amount of cannonading which she has to 
endure must be by no means small. Perhaps in past 



Yet More about the Moon. 167 

times, when her slowly-cooling crust was yet soft, 
these celestial missiles showering upon her may have 
occasionally made deep round holes in her surface. 

This is another guess, which time may prove to be 
true. Guesses at possible explanations of mysteries 
do no harm, so long as we do not accept them for 
truth without ample reason. 

Beside the craters and their surrounding barriers, 
there are ranges of mountains on the moon, and flat 
plains which were once named c seas ' before it was 
found that water did not exist there. Astronomers 
also see bright ridges, or lines, or cracks of light, hard 
to explain. 

One of the chief craters is called ' Ptolemy/ and in 
size it is roughly calculated to be no less than one 
hundred and fourteen miles across. Another, 'Co- 
pernicus/ is about fifty-six miles, and another, ' Tycho/ 
about fifty-four miles. The central , cone-mountain 
of Tycho is five thousand feet high. The crater of 
* Schickard ' is supposed to be as much as one hun- 
dred and thirty-three miles in diameter. 

The so-called • seas ' are those large dark spots to 
be seen on the moon's surface, in the shape of ' eyes, 
nose and mouth/ or of the famous old man with his 
bundle of sticks. The brighter parts are the more 
mountainous parts. 



about # *ZZ- 



Yet U^^^^^i 

^ e C vroootoets aftet Cauca *a* 
Catpa tllian 



CHAPTER VI. 

MERCURY, VENUS AND MARS. 

*Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great 
power and stretched- out arm, and there is nothing too hard for 
Thee.' — Jer. xxxii. 17. 

Once again we have to journey through the high- 
roads of the Solar System, paying a brief visit to each 
in turn of our seven chief brother-and-sister planets, 
and learning a few more leading facts about them. 
Having gone the same way before, it will not now 
seem quite so far. 

Busy hurrying Mercury ! we must meet him first 
in his wild rush through space. If he were to slacken 
speed for a single instant, he would begin to fall with 
fearful rapidity towards the sun. And if Mercury 
were to drop into one of those huge black chasms 
of rent furnace-flame on the sun's surface, there would 
be a speedy end to his life as a planet. 



170 Mercury \ Venus and Mars. 

Mercury's day is about the same length as our day, 
and his year is about one quarter the length of our 
year. If Mercury has spring, summer, autumn and 
winter, each season must be extremely short ; but 
this depends upon whether Mercury's axis slopes 
like the earth's axis — a matter difficult to find out. 
Mercury is always so near to the sun, that it is by no 
means easy to observe him well. 

We know more about his orbit than his axis. The 
earth's orbit, as before explained, is not a circle but 
an ellipse or oval. Mercury's orbit is an ellipse also, 
and a much longer — or, as it is called, a more eccentric 
— ellipse. The earth is three millions of miles nearer 
to the sun at one time of the year, than six months 
before or after. Mercury is no less than fifteen 
millions of miles nearer at one time than another, 
which must make a marked difference in the amount 
of heat received. 

Even when the distance is greatest, the sun as 
seen from Mercury looks four and a half times as large 
as the sun we see. 

What a blazing splendour of light ! It is not easy^ 
to imagine human beings living there, in such hea^ ^ 
and glare, and with either no changes of season 
all, or such very short seasons rapidly following o 
another. Mercury may, and very likely does, aboi 



Mercury, Venus and Mars. 171 

with living creatures, as much as the earth abounds 
with them ; only one fancies they must be alto- 
gether a different kind of living creatures from any 
ever seen on earth. 

And yet we do not know. Man can so wonder- 
fully adapt himself or be adapted to different climates 
on earth, from extreme heat to extreme cold, that 
we cannot tell how far this adapting power may 
reach. 

Both Mercury and Venus seem to be enfolded in 
dense cloud-laden atmospheres, rarely parting so as to 
allow us to get even a glimpse of the real planets 
within the thick light-reflecting covering. 

Some have thought that a heavy moist protecting 
atmosphere may help to ward off the intense heat, 
and to make Mercury a more habitable place. Our 
earthly atmosphere is rather of a kind to store up 
heat, and to make us warmer than we should be with- 
out it ; but there might be vapours differently con- 
stituted which might act in some other way. 

At all events, we know how easily God can have 
adapted either the planet to the creatures He meant to 
place there, or the creatures to the climate. ' All 
things are possible ' to Him. The how and the what 
are interesting questions for us, but we must often be 
content to wait for an answer. 



172 Mercury, Venus and MarL 

— . 1 , 1- 1 

A thick grey ring or belt has been noticed round 
the small black disc of Mercury, while it has passed 
between us and the sun. The edge of Mercury, seen 
against the bright photosphere beyond, would, if 
there were no atmosphere, be sharp and clear as 
the edge of the airless moon. This surrounding 
haze seems to show that Mercury has an atmo- 
sphere. 

The sunlight reflected from Mercury's envelope of 
clouds shines at least as brightly as if it were re- 
flected from his solid body. 

The small size of Mercury makes attraction on his 
surface much less than on earth. A lump of iron 
weighing on earth one pound, would weigh on Mer- 
cury only about seven ounces, or less than half as 
much. So a man would be a very light leaper indeed 
there, and an elephant might be quite a frolicsome 
animal. 

If there are star-gazers in Mercury, and if the 
cloud-laden atmosphere allows many clear views of 
the sky, the earth and Venus must both be beautiful to 
look upon. Each of the two would shine far more 
brightly than Jupiter, as seen at his best from 
earth. 

Like Mercury, Venus, the next planet, has an orbit 



Mercury, Venus and Mars. 173 



lying inside our orbit. Mercury and Venus are always 
nearer to the sun than we are. 

And if Mercury and Venus travelled round the sun 
in orbits, the planes of which were exactly the same 
as the plane of the earth's orbit, we should very 
often see them creeping over the surface of the 
sun. 

Not that they really ' creep over ' it ; only, as they 
journey between the sun and us, we can see them 
pass like little black dots across the sun's disc. This 
is the same thing as when the moon passes across the 
sun's disc and eclipses it. But Mercury and Venue 
are too far away from us to cause any eclipse of the 
sun's light. 

These crossings of the sun's face, or ' transits,' as 
"they are called, have been important matters. The 
transit of Venus especially was once eagerly looked 
Cor by astronomers, since, by close observations of 
"Venus's movements and positions, the distance of the 
sun could at that time be better calculated than in 
^ny other way. Other methods are now coming into 
'Vogue. 

The transits of Venus are rare. Two come near 
together, separated by only eight years, and then 
Cor more than one hundred years the little dark body 
of Venus is never seen from earth to glide over the 



1 74 Mercury, Venus and Mars. 



sun's photosphere. There was a transit of Venus ^Sn 
the year 1761, and another in the year 1769. Th^:^^e 
was a transit of Venus in 1874, and there will 1 >e 
another in 1882. At the last transit it was found tt~* — ^ t 
the sun, instead of being ninety-five millions of mil< 
away, as astronomers thought, was less than nine' 
two millions of miles away. 

The reason why these transits happen so seldom , is 
that the orbits of Mercury and Venus lie in rather a 
different plane or level from the earth's orbit. So, H V-ce 
the moon, though often passing between us and tlr^ac 
sun, they generally go just a little higher or just a 
little lower than his bright face. 

Mercury and Venus show phases like the moc^^, 
although they do not circle round the earth as tine 
moon does. These ' phases/ or changes of shape, a. »e 
probably never visible except through a telescope. 

It will be easier to think about the phases of Ven. *«-Js 
alone, than to consider both together. Her orbit 1* ^ s 
within the earth's orbit, and the earth and Ver* "«JS 
travel round the sun — as do all the planets — in t^ e 
same direction. But as Venus's pathway is shorter 
than ours, and as her speed is greater, she is much fclie 
quickest about her yearly journey, and she overtakes ^s 
again and again at different points of our orbit in 
turn. 



Mercury \ Venus and Mars. 175 

At one time she comes between us and the sun. 
'hat is her nearest position to us, and she is then 
ily about twenty-five millions of miles distant A 
dutiful sight she would be, but unfortunately her 
ight side is entirely turned away, and only her dark 
ie is turned towards us. So then she is * new Venus/ 
id is invisible. 

At another time she is completely beyond the sun, 
id at her farthest position away from us. Her 
ining is quite lost in the sun's rays coming between. 
nd though we get a good view of her as 'full Venus/ 
: a little to one side or the other, yet so great is her 
stance — as much as one hundred and fifty-seven 
illions of miles — that her size and brightness are 
?ry much lessened. 

Between these two nearest and farthest points, she 
xupies two middle distances, one on each side of the 
in. Then, like the moon at her * quarters/ she turns 
> us only half of her bright side. But this is the best 
ew of Venus that we have, as a brilliant untwinkling 
ar-like form, — the Evening Star of ancients and of 
>ets. 

Between these four leading positions Venus is 
ways travelling gradually from one to another — 
ways either waxing or waning in size and in 
tightness. 



1 76 Mercury, Venus and Mars. 

Mercury passes through the same seeming changes. 

Inhabitants of Venus must have a glorious view 
of the earth, with her attendant moon. For just at 
the time when the two planets are nearest together, 
and when she is only ' new Venus ' to us, a dark and 
invisible body, the earth is 'full earth' to Venus. 
The very best sight we ever have of Venus cannot 
come near that sight. But if Mercury and Venus 
really are so often covered with heavy clouds as astro- 
nomers believe, this must greatly interfere with any 
habits of star-gazing. 

Venus and the earth . have often been called twin- 
sister planets. There are many points of likeness 
between them. In size they differ .little, and in length 
of day they are within anhour of being the same. 

Earth '. certainly has a companion-moon, and 
Venus, it is believed, has not. At one time several 
astronomers were pretty certain that they had caught 
glimpses of a moon ; but the supposed moon has of 
late quite vanished, and nobody can say whether it 
ever really existed. 

Venus travels in an ellipse which comes nearer to 
being a circle than the orbit of any other 
planet. 

Mountain-shadows have been watched through the 



Mercury, Venus and Mars. 177 

telescope, in Venus, as in the moon. Some astrono- 
mers have believed that they saw signs of very lofty 
mountains — as much as twenty-eight miles, or four 
times the height of our highest earthly mountains, 
but this requires confirmation. 

There is a good deal of uncertainty about the 
climate of Venus. The heat there must greatly sur- 
pass heat ever felt on earth — the sun being about 
double the apparent size of our sun, and pouring out 
nearly double the amount of light and heat that we 
receive. 

This difference may be met, as already stated, by a 
sheltering cloudy atmosphere ; or the inhabitants may 
have frames and eyesight suited to the increased glare 
and warmth. 

It is believed also that the axis of Venus, instead of 
being slanted only as much as the earth's axis, is tilted 
much more. Even if the tilting is less than some 
have supposed, it is probably very considerable. If 
Venus really does 'lie over' in such a manner, certain 
startling changes of climate — unpleasant changes ac- 
cording to our ideas — would take place. 

Like earth, Venus would have her two arctic regions, 
where a burning summer's day would succeed a bitter 
winter's night, each half a year in length. She would 
have also her tropical region ; only, in that region in- 

12 



178 / Mercury, Venus and Mars. 

-» 

tense cold would alternate with intense heat — brief 
seasons of each in turn. And between the tropics and 
the arctic regions would lie wide belts, by turns 
entirely tropical and entirely arctic. The rapidity and 
severity of these changes, following one another in a 
year about as long as eight of our months, would seem 
to be too much for any human frame to endure. 

But it all rests upon an if And we may be quite 
sure that if there are any manner of human beings in 
Venus, their frames are well suited to the climate of 
their world. 

Though Mars is one of the inner group of four small 
planets, divided by the zone of asteroids from the outer 
group of four great planets, yet he belongs to the out- 
side set of Superior Planets. His orbit surrounds ours, 
being at all points farther off from the sun. 

Very slight ' phases ' have been seen in Mars. He 
turns to us from time to time just enough of his dark 
side to prove that he lias a dark side, and that he does 
not shine like a star by his own light. But the phases 
are by no means marked as with Venus. 

Until lately it was believed that Mars possessed no 
moons. Two very small ones have, however, been 
lately found circling round him. They have been 
named Deimos and Phobos, after the * sons of Mars ' 



Mercury, Venus and Mars. 179 

in Greek mythology. Deimos travels round Mars in 
thirty-nine hours, while Phobos performs the same 
journey in the astonishingly short period of seven 
hours and a half! 

Mars is not only much smaller than the earth, but 
a good deal less dense in his ' make.' His 
material is only about three-quarters as heavy as an 
•equal amount of the earth's material. A very heavy 
man on earth would be a most light and active indi- 
vidual on Mars. Gold taken from earth to Mars 
would weigh there no more than tin weighs upon 
-«arth. 

Mars has, it seems, an atmosphere, even as earth 
has. Of all the planets Mars is the only one whose 
-actual surface is discernible in *the telescope. Mer- 
cury and Venus are so hidden by dense envelopes of 
clouds, that the real planets within are only now and 
then to be dimly caught sight of. Jupiter and Saturn 
^tre so completely enwrapped in mighty masses of 
Vapour, that we cannot even be certain whether there 
-^re any solid bodies at all inside. 

But Mars can be studied. Here and there, it is true, 

-crlouds sweep over the landscape, hiding from view 

for a little while one continent or another, one sea or 

another, growing, changing, melting away, as do the 

*<:louds of earth. Still, though these clouds come and 

12 — 2 



180 Mercury, Venus and Mars. 

go, there are other markings on the surface of Mars 
which do not change. Or rather they only change so 
much as the continents and oceans of earth would seem 
to vary, if watched from another planet, as the daily 
movement of earth carried them from west to east, or 
as they might be hidden for a while by cloud- layers 
coming between. 

It has been curiously noted that these clouds over 
Mars form often in the morning and evening, and are 
afterwards dispersed by the heat of mid-day. Also 
there seems every reason to believe that rainfalls take 
place in Mars as upon earth. 

The red colour of Mars is well known. This does 
not vanish in the telescope, but it is found that parts 
only have the red or«orange hue, while other parts are 
dark and greenish. These are the markings which 
remain always the same, and they have been so 
closely examined that more is known about the 
geography of Mars than of any other world outside 
our own. 

Mars, at his nearest point, does not draw closer to 
us than forty millions of miles. At such a distance 
one must not speak too confidently. There are, how- 
ever, many reasons for believing that the red portions 
are continents and that the green portions are 
oceans. 



Mercury, Venus and Mars. 181 

The spectroscope has lately shown us that water 
does really exist in the atmosphere of Mars — unlike 
the dreary waterless moon. So we no longer doubt 
that the cloud-like appearances are clouds, and that 
rain sometimes falls in Mars. If there is rain, and if 
there are clouds and vapour, there are probably 
oceans also. 

Two singular white spots are to be seen at the north 
and south poles, which we believe to be polar ice and 
snow. Somebody looking at our earth in like manner 
from a distance, would doubtless perceive two such 
white snow-spots. These two polar caps are seen to 
vary with the seasons. When the north pole of Mars is 
turned towards the sun, the white spot there grows 
smaller ; and at the same time, the south pole of 
Mars being turned away from the sun, the white spot 
there grows larger. Again, when the south pole is 
towards the sun, and the north pole away from the 
sun, the white spot at the south is seen to be the 
smallest, and the white spot at the north is seen to be 
the largest. This is exactly what takes place in the 
summers and winters of our north and south poles. 

The markings of Mars have been so carefully 
studied, that at last a map has been made of the 
planet — a map of a world, never less than forty 
millions of miles away! 



1 82 Mercury j Venus ana Mars. 

Names have been given to the continents and 
oceans — such as Dawes Continent, Herschel Continent,. 
De La Rue Ocean, Airy Sea, Huggins Inlet, and so 
on. 

Land and water seem to be very differently arranged 
on Mars from what they are on earth. Here we have 
about three times as much water as land, and to get 
from one continent to another without crossing the 
sea is in some cases impossible. 

But a traveller there might go most conveniently 
to and fro, hither and thither, to all parts of his world, 
either on land or on water without any change. If he 
preferred water, he would never need to set foot on 
land ; and if he preferred land, he would never need 
to enter a boat. The two are so curiously mingled 
together, narrow necks of land running side by side 
with long narrow sea-inlets, that Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans are unknown. 

Some have wondered whether the reddish colour 
of the land may be caused by grass and trees 
being red instead of green. Very strange if so it 
were. But in that case, no doubt the inhabitants of 
Mars would find green just as trying to their eyesight, 
as we should find red trying to ours. 



CHAPTER VII. 



JUPITER. 



( Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in 
earth.'— Ps. cxxxv. 6. 

Passing at one leap over the belt of tiny asteroids, 
about which we know little, beyond their general 
movements, and the size and weight of a few among 
them, we reach at once the giant planet Jupiter. 
Mighty Jupiter, hurrying ever onward, with a speed 
not indeed equal to that of Mercury or of our earth, 
yet eighty times as rapid as the speed of a cannon- 
ball! 

Think of a huge body, equal in bulk to twelve hun- 
dred earths, equal in weight to three hundred earths, 
rushing ceaselessly through space, at the rate of seven 
hundred thousand miles a day ! 

Jupiter's shape is greatly flattened at the poles. 



1 84 Jupiier. 

He spins rapidly on his axis, once in nearly ten hours, 
and has therefore a five hours' day and a five hours' 
night. As the slope of his axis is exceedingly slight, 
he can boast little or no changes of season. The 
climate near the poles has never much of the sun's 
heat. In fact all the year round the sun must shine 
upon Jupiter much as he shines on the earth at the 
equinoxes. 

But the amount of light and heat received by 
Jupiter from the sun is only about one twenty-fifth 
part of that which we receive on earth ; and the sun, 
as seen from Jupiter, can have but a small round sur- 
face not even one quarter the diameter of the sun we 
see in the sky. 

When looked at with magnifying power, the bright ^t 

star-like Jupiter grows into a broad softly-shining "2g 
disc or plate, with flattened top and bottom, and four ~m r 
tiny bright mo.ons close at hand. Sometimes one ^^^e 
moon is on one side, and three are on the other ; 
sometimes two are on one side and two on the other ; 
sometimes one or more are either hidden behind 
Jupiter or passing in front of him. Jupiter has also 
curious markings on his surface, visible through a 
telescope. These markings often undergo changes, 
for Jupiter is no chill fixed dead world, such as th 
moon seems to be. 



Jupiter. 185 

There are dark belts and bright belts, usually 
running in a line with the equator, from east to west- 
Across the regions of the equator lies commonly a 
band of pearly white, with a dark band on either side 
of coppery, ruddy, or even purplish ' hue. Light and 
dark belts follow one after another, up to the north 
pole and down to the south pole. 

When we talk of ' north and south poles ' in the 
other planets, we merely mean those poles which point 
towards those portions of the starry heavens which we 
have chosen to call * northern ' and ' southern.' 

You know that all the chief planets travel round 
the sun in very nearly the same plane or flat surface 
that we do ourselves. That plane is called the* plane 
of the ecliptic/ 

Suppose that you had an enormous sheet of card- 
board, and that in the middle of this cardboard the sun 
Were fixed, half his body being above and half below. 
At a little distance, fixed in like manner in the card, 
Would be the small body of the earth, half above and 
half below, her axis being in a slanting position. 

The piece of cardboard represents what is called in 
the heavens the plane oftfie ecliptic — an imaginary flat 
surface, cutting exactly through the middle of the sun 
•and of the earth. 



i86 



Jupiter. 1 



If the planets all travelled in the same precise 
plane, they would all be fixed in the cardboard just 
like the earth, half the body of each above and half 
below. As they do not so travel, some would have to 
be placed a little higher, some a little lower, accord- 
ing to what part of their orbits they were on. 

This supposed cardboard ' plane of the ecliptic * 
would divide the heavens into two halves. One half, 
containing the constellations of the Great Bear, the 
Little Bear, Cepheus, Draco, and others, would be 
called the Northern Heavens. One end of the earth's 
axis, pointing just now nearly to the Polar Star, we 
name the North Pole ; and all poles of planets pointing 
towards this northern half of the heavens, are in like -^» :e 
manner named by us their north poles. 

With regard to west and east, lay in imagination m-ml+ti 
upon this cardboard plane a watch, with its face up co- 
wards; remembering that all the planets and nearly ^t-ly 
all the moons of the Solar System are said both to^^ Jto 
spin on their axes, and to travel in their orbits roundfc* -*d 
the sun, from west to east. Note how the hands ofi ^z^of 
your watch would move in such a position. The^>-*3e 
4 west to east ' motions of planets and moons woulcfc^ d 
be in exactly the opposite direction from what th^^ e 
motions of the watch-hands would be. 



Jupiter. 1 8 7 

To return to Jupiter. It is believed that these 
bands of colour are owing to a heavy dense atmo- 
sphere, loaded with vast masses of cloudy vapour. By 
the 'size' of Jupiter, we really mean the size of this 
outside envelope of clouds. How large the solid body 
Avithin may be, or whether there is any such solid 
body at all, we do not know. The extreme lightness 
of Jupiter, as compared with his great size, has caused 
strong doubts on this head. 

The white belts are supposed to be the outer side 
of cloud-masses shining in the sunlight. Travellers in 
the Alps have seen such cloud-masses, spreading over 
*the whole country beneath their feet, white as driven 
snow, and shining in the sunbeams which they were 
liiding from villages below; or looking like soft masses 
of cotton-wool, from which the mountain-peaks rose 
sharply here and there. 

The dark spaces between seem to be rifts or breaks 
in the clouds. Whether, when we look at those dark 
spaces, we are looking at the body of Jupiter, or only 
at lower layers of clouds, is not known. But sometimes 
"blacker spots show upon the dark cloud-belts, and 
this seems rather as if they were only lower layers of 
clouds, the black spots giving us peeps down into still 
lower and deeper layers, or else perhaps to the planet 



1 1» 



1 88 Jupiter. 

These appearances remind one strongly of the 
sun-spots, each with its penumbra, umbra and 
nucleus. 

Occasionally bright white spots show, instead of 
dark ones. It is thought that they may be caused by 
a violent upward rush of dense clouds of white 
vapour. The white spots again recall the sun and 
his facuke. 

Jupiter's bands are not fixed. Great changes go 
on constantly among them. Sometimes a white 
band will turn dark-coloured, or a dark band will turn 
white. Sometimes few and sometimes many belts 
are to be seen. Sometimes a dark belt will lie slant- 
ing across the others, nearly from north to south. 
Once, in a single hour, an entirely new belt was seen 
to come into shape. Another time, two whole belts 
vanished in one day. The bands, in which such rapid 
movements are seen, are often thousands of miles in 
breadth. 

Sometimes these wide zones of clouds will remain 
for weeks the same. At another time a break or rift 
in them will be seen to journey swiftly over the sur- 
face of the planet. 

The winds on earth are often destructive. A hur- 
ricane, moving at the rate of ninety miles an hour, 
will carry away whole buildings and level entire 



Jupiter. 1S9 

plantations. Such hurricanes rarely if ever last 
more than a few hours. 

But winds in Jupiter, judging from the movements 
of the clouds, often travel at the rate of one hundred 
and fifty miles an hour ; and that, not for hours only, 
but for many weeks together. What manner of living 
beings could stand such weather may well be ques- 
tioned. 

Another difficulty which arises, is as to the cause 
of these tremendous disturbances on Jupiter. Our 
earthly storms are brought about by the heat of the 
sun acting on our atmosphere. But the sun-heat 
which reaches Jupiter seems very far from enough 
to raise such vast clouds of vapour, and to bring 
about such prolonged and tremendous hurricanes of 
wind. 

What if there is another cause ? What if Jupiter is 
not a cooled body like our earth, but a liquid seething 
bubbling mass of fiery heat — just as we believe our 
earth was once upon a time, in long past ages, before 
her outside crust became cold enough for men and 
animals to live thereon ? 

Tfien indeed we could understand how, instead of 
oceans lying on his surface, all the water of Jupiter 
would be driven aloft to hang in masses of steam or 



1 90 Jupiter. ^ 

be condensed into vast cloud-layers. TJien we could J& 
understand why a perpetual stir of rushing winds *^s^S> 
should disturb the planet's atmosphere. 

In that case would Jupiter be a planet at all ? 

Certainly — in the sense of obeying the sun's con — no^* 
trol. Our earth was once, we believe, a globe of melte<fc>^» Jte< 
matter, glowing with heat — and, farther back still, pos— ao>#os 
sibly, a globe of gas. Some people are very positivc^^v^i^iv 
about these past changes ; but it is wise not to be over— -jc^^vei 
positive where we cannot know to a certainty what"-^*"Iha 
lias taken place. However, Jupiter may have coolecE>^Ue< 
down only to the liquid state, and if he goes oirmo 01 
cooling he may by-and-by gain a solid crust like th^-cUUic 
-earth. 

This idea about Jupiter's hot and molten state be-^^^*- 
longs quite to late years. Certain other matters seeirrt^ — m 
to bear it out, though of actual proof we have none--^^-*"^- 
It is thought for instance that the dull coppery rect^^^^d 
light, showing often in the dark bands, may be a recfc^'^ >e d 
.glow from the heated body within. Also it has beenr^^^ 11 
•calculated that Jupiter gives out much more light thanr^ -^ n 
•our earth would do, if increased to his size and movedt^^ 5 " 
to his place — more in fact than we could reasonably*^! ■/ 
•expect him to give out. If so, whence does he obtair« *** 
the extra brightness ? If he does not shine by re— 



Jupiter. 191 

fleeted light alone, he probably shines also in some 
additional degree by his own light. 

But what about Jupiter being inhabited ? Would 
it in such a case be quite impossible ? 

'Impossible* is not a word for us to use about 
matters where we are ignorant. We can only say 
that it is impossible for us to imagine any kind of 
living creatures finding a home there, if our present 
notions about the present state of Jupiter are 
correct. 

Then is the chief planet of the Solar System a huge 
useless monument of God's power to create ? 

Not so fast. Even as merely such a monument, he 
could not be useless. And even if he were put to no 
present use at all, it might be merely because this is 
a time of preparation for the future. God has His 
times of long and slow preparation, alike with worlds, 
with nations, and with individuals. 

But now as to the four moons circling round 
Jupiter. 

There used to be some very pretty ideas afloat 
about the wonderful beauty of the moons, as seen from 
Jupiter, their united brilliancy so far surpassing the 
shining of our one poor satellite, and making up for 
the dim light of Jupiter's sun. 



192 yupiter. 

A certain little difficulty was not quite enough con- 
sidered. If anybody were living on the surface of 
Jupiter, he would have, one is inclined to think, 
small chance of often seeing the moons through the 
cloud-laden atmosphere. 

The nearest moon to Jupiter would, it is true, 
appear — when visible at all — rather bigger than ours 
does to us ; while the two next would be almost half 
as large, and the fourth about a quarter as large — 
supposing inhabitants of Jupiter to have our powers 
of vision. 

All taken together they would cover a considerably 
larger space in the sky than does our moon. But it 
must be remembered that Jupiter's moons, like ours, 
shine merely by reflected sunlight. And so dim is the 
sunshine at that distance, compared with what it is 
at our distance, that all the four moons together, 
even if full at the same time, could only give about 
one sixteenth part of the light which we obtain from 
our one full moon. 

Besides, they never are all full together, seen from any 
one part of Jupiter. The three inner moons are never 
to be seen 'full' at all, for just when they might be so 
they are eclipsed or shaded by Jupiter's shadow. The 
fourth sometimes escapes this eclipse, from being so 
much farther away. 



Jupiter. 193 

* 

A thought has been lately put forward, which may 
or may not have truth in it. 

What if — instead of Jupiter being a world, inhabited 
I>y animals and people, as is often supposed, with a 
small distant sun and four dim moons to give them 
light — what if Jupiter is himself in some sort a second 
sun to his moons, and what if those * moons' are really 
inhabited planets ? 

It may be so. That is all we can say. The idea is 
not an impossible one. 

The so-called 'moons' are certainly small. But 
they are by no means too small for such a purpose. 

Jupiter would in that case, with his four moons 
circling round him, enjoying his light and warmth, be 
a small picture of the sun, with his four inner planets 
circling round him, basking in a more lavish amount 
of the same. 

Picturing the moons as giving light to Jupiter, ve 
find them seemingly dim and weak for such a pur- 
pose — though of course^ we may here make a grand 
mistake, in supposing the eyesight of living creatures 
in Jupiter to be no better than our own eyesight. 
Even upon earth a cat can see plainly, where a man 
has to grope his way in darkness. 

But by picturing the moons as inhabited, and 
Jupiter as giving out some measure of heat and light 



1 94 Jupiter. 

to make up for the lessened amount of light and heat 
received from the sun, the matter becomes more easy 
to our understanding. 

The nearest moon has indeed a magnificent view 
of Jupiter, as a huge bright disc in its sky, no less 
than fourteen hundred times as large as our moon 
appears to us, shining brightly with reflected sun- 
light, and it may be glowing with a red light of his 
own in addition. Even the farthest off of the four 
sees him with a face sixty-five times the size of our 
moon. And the varying colours and stormy changes 
in the cloud-belts, viewed thus near at hand, must 
afford marvellously beautiful effects. 

Just as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars travel 
round the sun, at different distances, nearly in the 
same plane, so Jupiter's four moons travel round him, 
at different distances, nearly in the same plane. 
Jupiter's moons are always to be seen in a line, not 
one high and another low, one near his pole and 
another near his equator. 

The moon nearest to Jupiter, named Io, is said 
to be over two thousand miles in diameter, travels 
round Jupiter in less than two of our days, and is 
eclipsed by Jupiter's shadow once in every forty-two 
hours. 

The second moon, Europa, is rather smaller, takes 



Jupiter. 195 

over three days to its journey, and suffers eclipse once 
in every eighty-five hours. 

The third moon, Ganymede, is believed to be con- 
siderably larger than Mercury ; journeys round Jupiter 
once a week, and is eclipsed once every hundred and 
seventy-one hours. 

The fourth moon, Callisto, is also said to be slightly 
larger than Mercury ; performs its journey in some- 
thing more than sixteen days ; and from its greater 
distance suffers eclipse less often than the other 
"three. 

The distance of the nearest is more than two hun- 
dred thousand miles from Jupiter; that of the farthest 
xnore than one million miles. 

The fact of these eclipses, and of the shadow 
"thrown by Jupiter's body, shows plainly that though 
lie may give out some measure of light, as has been 
Suggested, yet that light cannot be strong, or it 
"Would prevent any shadow from being thrown by the 
Sunlight. Also, the dense masses of cloud around 
him, though reflecting sunlight brightly, would shut 
in much of his own light. Possibly it is chiefly 
•as heat-giver and as sunlight-reflector that Jupiter 
serves his four satellites. 

As with our own moon, so with Jupiter's moons, 



1 96 Jupiter. 

the real centre of their orbit is the sun and 
Jupiter. They accompany Jupiter in his joui 
controlled by the sun, and immensely influencec 
Jupiter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



SATURN. 



4 He hath made everything beautiful in His time.' — Eccles. 
iii. ii. 

The system of Jupiter is a simple system compared 
A.vith that of Saturn, next in order. 

For whereas Jupiter has only four moons, Saturn has 
<sight", and, in addition to these, he has three wonderful 
*"ings. Neither rings nor moons can be seen with- 
out a telescope, on account of Saturn's great distance 
from us — more than three thousand times the distance 
of the moon, or upwards of eight hundred and twenty 
millions of miles. 

Saturn does not equal his mighty brother Jupiter 
in size, though he comes near enough in this respect 
to be called often his * twin ;' just as that small pair 
of worlds, Venus and Earth, are called 'twins.' While 



198 Saturn. 

Jupiter is equal in size to over one thousand two 
hundred earths, Saturn is equal to about seven 
hundred earths. And while Jupiter is equal in weight 
to three hundred earths, Saturn is only equal in weight 
to ninety earths. He appears to be made of very 
light materials — not more than three-quarters as dense 
as water. This would show the present state of Saturn 
to be very different from the present state of the earth. 
We are under the same uncertainty in speaking of 
Saturn as in speaking of Jupiter. Like Jupiter, 
Saturn is covered with dense masses of varying 
clouds, occasionally opening and allowing the 
astronomer peeps into lower cloud-levels, but rarely 
or never permitting the actual body of the planet to 
be seen. 

The same perplexities also come in here, to be 
answered much in the same manner. 

We should certainly expect that in a vast globe like 
Saturn the strong force of attraction would bind the 
whole into a dense solid mass. 

Instead of which, Saturn is about the least solid of 
all the planets. He seems to be made up of a light 
watery substance, surrounded by vapour. 

One explanation can be offered. What if the globe 
of Saturn be still in a red-hot molten state, keeping 
such water as would otherwise lie in oceans on. his 



Saturn. 1 99 



surface floating aloft in masses of steam, the outer 
parts of which condense into clouds? 

No one supposes that Jupiter and Saturn are in the 
same condition of fierce and tempestuous heat as the 
sun. They may have been so once, but they must now 
have cooled down very many stages from that con- 
dition. Though no longer, however, a mass of far- 
reaching flames and fiery cyclones, the body of each 
may have only so far cooled as to have reached a stage 
of glowing molten red heat, keeping all water in the 
form of vapour, and sending up strong rushes of burn- 
ing air to cause the hurricanes which sweep to and 
fro the vast cloud-masses overhead. 

And if this be the case, then, with Saturn as with 
Jupiter, comes the question — can Saturn be inhabited ? 
And if, though we may not say it is impossible, yet 
we feel it to be utterly unlikely, then again follows the 
question — what if Saturn's moons are inhabited ? 

The diameter of the largest moon is about half the 
diameter of the earth, or much larger than Mercury. 
The four inner satellites are all nearer to Saturn than 
our moon to us, though the most distant of the eight is 
ten times as far away. The inner moon takes less 
than twenty-three hours to travel round Saturn, and 
the outer one over seventy-nine days. 

A great many charming descriptions have been 



200 Saturn. 

|_1_| T - - — 

worked up, with Saturn as with Jupiter, respecting the 
magnificent appearance of the eight radiant moons, 
joined to the glorious shining of the rings, as quite 
making up for the diminished light and heat of the 
sun. 

But here again comes in the doubt, whether really 
it is the moons who make up to Saturn for lack of 
light, or whether it is Saturn who makes up to the 
moons for lack of light. 

Certainly Saturn's cloudy covering would a little 
interfere with observations of the moons by any in- 
habitants of the solid body within — supposing there 
be any solid body at all. And though it sounds very 
wonderful to have eight moons instead of one moon, 
yet all the eight together give Saturn only about one- 
sixteenth part of the light which we receive from our 
one full moon — so much more dimly does the sun 
light them up at that enormous distance. 

The same thing has been noticed with Saturn as 
with Jupiter — that he seems to shine more brightly 
than is to be expected in his position, from mere re- 
flection of the sun's rays. A glowing body within, 
sending a certain amount of added light through 
or between the masses of clouds would explain away 
this difficulty. 

One more possible proof of Saturn's half-liquid state 



Saturn. 201 

is to be found in his occasional very odd changes of 
shape. Astronomers have been startled by a peculiar 
bulging out on one side, taking off from his roundness, 
and giving a square-shouldered aspect. 

We may not say it is quite impossible that a solid 
globe should undergo such tremendous upheavals and 
outbursts, as to raise a great portion of its surface five 
or six hundred miles above the usual level — the 
change being visible at a distance of eight hundred 
millions of miles. But it would be easier to under- 
stand the possibility of such an event, in the case of a 
liquid seething mass than in the case of a solid 
tall. 

On the other hand this alteration of outline may be 
<^iused simply by a great upheaval, not of the planet's 
surface, but of the overhanging layers of clouds. 

Some such changes, only much slighter, have been 
remarked in Jupiter. 

And now as to the rings. Nothing like them is to 
<be seen elsewhere in the Solar System. 

They are believed to be three in number : though 
some would divide them into more than three. Pass- 
ing completely round the whole body of Saturn, they 
rise, one beyond another, to a height of many thou- 
sands of miles. 



202 Saturn. 

The inner edge of the inner ring — an edge perhaps 
one hundred miles in thickness — is more than ten 
thousand miles from the surface of Saturn, or more 
strictly speaking, from the outer surface of Saturn's 
cloudy envelope. A man standing exactly on the 
equator and looking up, even if no clouds came 
between, would scarcely be able to see such a slender 
dark line at such a height. 

This dark transparent ring, described sometimes as 
dusky, sometimes as richly purple, rises upwards to a 
height or breadth of nine thousand miles. Closely 
following it is a ring more brilliant than Saturn him- 
self, over eighteen thousand miles in breadth. When 
astronomers talk of the 'breadth' of these rings, it 
must be understood that they mean the width of the 
band measured upwards, in a direction away from the 
planet. 

Beyond the broad bright ring is a gap of about 
one thousand seven hundred miles. Then follows the 
third ring, ten thousand miles in breadth ; its outer- 
most edge being at a height of more than forty-eight 
thousand miles from Saturn. The colour of the third 
ring is greyish, much like the grey markings often 
seen on Saturn. 

At one time it was supposed that these rings were 
solid, but they are now believed to consist of count- 



Saturn. 203 

less myriads of meteorites, each whirling in its own 
appointed pathway round the monster planet. 

As already said — leaving out of the question the 
cloudy atmosphere — a man standing on the equator 
would see nothing of the rings. A man standing at 
the north pole or the south pole of Saturn could see 
nothing either, since the rings would all lie below 
his horizon. But if he travelled southward from the 
north pole, or northward from the south pole, to- 
wards the equator, he would in time see the ringed 
arch appearing above the horizon, rising higher and 
growing wider with every mile of his journey. And 
when he was in a position to view the whole broad ex- 
panse, the transparent half-dark belt below, the wide 
radiant band rising upwards over that, and the greyish 
border surmounting all, he would truly have a mag- 
nificent spectacle before him. 

This magnificent spectacle is however by no means 
always visible, even from those parts of Saturn where 
alone it ever can be seen. The rings shine merely by 
reflected sunlight. Necessarily, therefore, while the 
sunbeams make one side bright, the other side is 
dark : and not only this, but the rings throw broad 
and heavy shadows upon Saturn in the direction away 
from the sunlight. 

In the daytime they probably give out a faint 



204 Saturn. 

shining something like our own moon, when seen in 
sunlight. During the summer nights they shine, no 
doubt, very beautifully. During the winter nights it 
so happens that their bright side is turned away ; 
and not only that, but during the winter days the 
rings, while giving no light themselves to the wintry 
hemisphere of Saturn, completely hide the sun. 

When it is remembered that Saturn's winter — 
— that is, the winter of each hemisphere in turn — lasts 
during fifteen of our years ; and when we hear of 
total eclipses of the sun lasting unbroken through 
eight years of such a winter, with not even bright 
rings to make up for his absence, we cannot think 
of Saturn as a tempting residence. The sun gives 
Saturn at his best only about one-ninetieth of the 
heat and light that he gives to our earth ; but to be 
deprived of even that little, for eight years at a time, 
does indeed sound somewhat melancholy. 

Looking now at the other side of the question, the 
possible inhabitants of the moons, especially those 
near at hand, would have splendid views of Saturn 
and his rings, in all their varying phases. 

For Saturn is a beautiful globe, wrapped in his 
changeful envelope of clouds, which, seen through a 
telescope, are lit up often with rainbow tints of blue 
and gold ; a creamy white belt lying usually on the 



Saturn. 205 

equator ; while around extend the purple and shining 
and grey rings, sometimes rivalling in bright colours 
Saturn himself. 

The moons of Saturn do not, like those of Jupiter, 
travel in one plane. 



CHAPTER IX. 

URANUS AND NEPTUNE. 

* He hath showed His people the power of His works.' — 
Ps. cxi. 6. 

Till the year 178 1 Saturn was believed to be the 
outermost planet of the Solar System, and nobody 
suspected the fact of two great lonely brother-planets 
wandering round the same sun at vast distances 
beyond. 

Uranus, nine hundred millions of miles from Saturn. 
Neptune, nine hundred millions of miles from Uranus. 
No wonder they remained long undiscovered. 

Uranus can sometimes be seen by the unaided eye 
as a dim star of the sixth magnitude. And when he 
was known for a planet, it was found that he had been 
often so seen and noted. Again and again he had 
been taken for a fixed star, and as he moved on, dis- 



Uranus and Neptune. 207 

appearing from that particular spot, it was supposed 
that the star had vanished. 

One night when Herschel was busily exploring with 
-a powerful telescope, he noticed something which he 
took for a comet without a tail. He saw it was no 
mere point of light like the stars, but had a tiny 
round disc or face, which could be magnified. So he 
watched it carefully, and found in the course of a few 
nights that it moved — very slowly certainly, but still 
it did move. Further watching and calculation made 
it clear that, thpugh the newly-found heavenly body 
was at a very great distance from the sun, yet it was 
moving slowly in an orbit round the sun. Then it 
was known to be a planet, and another member of the 
5olar System. 

Everybody supposed that now at least the outer- 
most member of all was discovered. 

But a very strange and remarkable thing happened. 

Astronomers know with great exactness the paths 
of the planets in the heavens. They can tell, years 
beforehand, precisely what spot in space will be 
filled at any particular time by any particular planet, 
I am speaking now of their movements round the 
sun and in the Solar System — not of the move- 
ments of the whole family with the sun, about which 
little is yet known. 



208 Uranus and Neptune. 

Each planet has its own particular pathway ; its* J 
own particular distance from the sun, varying a^fc 
each part of its pathway; its own particular spe^ A 
in travelling round the sun, changing constantly fro«_ eft 
faster to slower or slower to faster, according to i__^Ete 
distance from the sun, and according to the puL-*p~-uft 

backwards or forwards of other neighbouring plane m ^ets 

in front or in rear. . 

For as the orbits of all the planets are ovals, wi M ^vith 
the sun not in the middle, but somewhat to one si* Jr «side 
of the middle, it follows that all the planets in t~^B~ the 
course of their years are sometimes nearer to ar jsnd 
sometimes farther from the sun. 

The astronomers of the present day understa- 
tes well, and can describe with exactness the pal 
way of each planet. This knowledge does not coi 
merely from watching one year how the planets trai 
and remembering for another year, but is much m< 
a matter of close and difficult calculation. 

It seems to be the will of God to govern commoM^ly 
things in the heavens, as He governs commonly thicngs 
upon earth, by certain regular laws of worki "zrnig. 
' Laws of Nature ' we call them ; though ' Laws of 
God ' would perhaps be a truer expression and reacii 
higher. 

There was a great astronomer, named Kepler, w/ro 




Uranus and Neptune. 209 

discovered some of the wonderful laws by which 

God governs the movements of the planets in their 

orbits. ' Kepler's Three Laws ' are often spoken 

about, by which is meant 'Three laws of God's 

working in nature, discovered by Kepler/ 

Before these laws and others were understood, the 
movements of the planets were a constant puzzle. 
Now that they have been clearly grasped, astrono- 
mers can not only perceive, as it were, \hzplan of all 
the planets' journeys, but can draw out beforehand a 
scheme or sketch, according to these laws, telling 
exactly what the pathway of any one planet is sure 
to be. 

Many things have to be considered, such as the 
planet's distance from the sun, the sun's power of 
attraction, the planet's speed, the nearness and weight 
Df other neighbouring planets. 

All these questions were gone into, and astrono- 
mers sketched out the pathway in the heavens which 
they expected Uranus to follow. He would move in 
such and such an orbit, at such and such distances 
from the sun, and at such and such rates of speed. 

But Uranus would not keep to these rules. He 
quite discomfited the astronomers. Sometimes he 
went fast, when according to their notions he ought 
to have gone more slowly ; and sometimes he went 

14 



2io Uranus and Neptune. 



slowly when they would have looked for him to go 
more fast, and the line of his orbit was quite outside 
the line of the orbit which they had laid down. He 
was altogether a perplexing acquaintance, and difficult 
to understand. However, astronomers felt sure of their 
rules and modes of calculation, often before tested, and 
not found to fail. They made a guess at an explanation. 
What if there were yet another planet beyond Uranus, 
disturbing his motions, now drawing him on, now drag- 
ging him back, now so far balancing the sun's attrac- 
tion by pulling in the opposite direction as to increase 
the distance of Uranus from the sun ? 

It might be so. But who could prove it ? Hundreds 
of years might pass before any astronomer in his 
star-gazing should happen to light upon such a dim 
and distant world. Nay, the supposed planet might 
be, like Uranus, actually seen, and only be mistaken 
for a ' variable star/ shining but to disappear. 

There the matter seemed likely to rest. There the 
matter probably would have rested for a good while, 
had not two men set themselves to conquer the 
difficulty. One was a young Englishman, John 
Couch Adams ; the other a young Frenchman, Lever- 
rier, — both being astronomers. 

Each worked independently of the other, neither 
knowing of the other's toil. The task which they had 



Uranus and Neptune. 2 1 1 

undertaken was no light one — that of reaching out 
into the unknown depths of space to find an unknown 
planet. 

Each of these silent searchers into the sky-depths 
calculated what the orbit and speed of Uranus would 
be, without the presence of another disturbing planet 
beyond. Each examined what the amount of dis- 
turbance was, and considered the degree of attraction 
needful to produce that disturbance, together with the 
direction from which it had come. Each, in short, 
gradually worked his way through calculations far too 
deep and difficult for ordinary minds to grasp, till he 
had found just that spot in the heavens where a planet 
ought to be, to cause, according to known laws, just 
such an effect upon Uranus as had been observed, 

Adams finished his calculation first, and sent the 
result to two different observatories. Unfortunately 
his report was not eagerly taken up. It was, in fact, 
hardly believed. Leverrier finished his calculation 
also, and sent the result to the Berlin observatory. The 
planet was actually seen in England first, but the dis- 
covery was actually made known from Berlin first. The 
young Englishman had been beforehand, but the young 
Frenchman gained foremost honour. 

This, however, was of slight comparative importance. 
The truly wonderful part of the matter was that these 

14 — 2 



2 1 2 Uranus and Neptune. 

two men could have so reasoned, that, from the move- 
ments of one lately-discovered planet, they could 
point out the exact spot where a yet more distant 
planet ought to be, and that close to this very spot 
the planet was found. 

For when, both in England and in Germany, power- 
ful telescopes were pointed in the direction named 
— there the planet was. 

No doubt about the matter. Not a star, but a 
real new planet in the far distance, wandering slowly 
round the sun. 

This was indeed a triumph of human intellect. Yet 
it is no matter for human pride, but rather of thank- 
fulness to God who gave to man this marvellous 
reasoning-power. And the very delight we have in 
such a success may humble us in the recollection of 
the vast amount lying beyond of the utterly un- 
known. 

But while the rare mind of a Newton could meekly 
realise the littleness of all he knew, lesser minds are 
very apt to be puffed up with the thought of what the 
human intellect can accomplish. 

Perhaps the chief feeling of lawful satisfaction in this 
particular discovery, arises from the fact that it gives 
marked and strong proof of the truth of our present 
astronomical system and beliefs. Many mistakes may 



Uranus ana Neptune. 213 

be made, and much has often to be unlearnt. Never- 
theless, if the general principles of modern astronomy 
were wrong, if the commonly-received facts were a 
delusion, such complete success could not have 
attended so delicate and difficult a calculation. 

We do not know much about these two outer 
planets, owing to their enormous distance from us. 

Uranus is-in size equal to seventy-four earths, and 
Neptune is in size equal to one hundred and five 
earths. Both these planets are formed of somewhat 
heavier materials than Saturn, being about as dense 
as water. 

The size of the sun as seen from Uranus is about 
one three-hundred-and-ninetieth part of the size of 
the sun we see. To Neptune he shows a disc only 
one nine-hundredth part of the size of that visible ta 
us — no disc at all, in fact, but only star-like brilliancy 
to any such eyes as ours. 

The Uranian year lasts about eighty-four of our 
years ; and this, with a very sloping axis, must cause 
most long and dreary winters, the tiny sun being 
hidden from parts of the planet during half an earthly 

life-time. 

Uranus has at least four moons, travelling in very 
different planes from the plane of the ecliptic. Once 



214 Uranus and Neptune. 

it was thought that he had eight, but astronomers 
have since searched in vain for the other four, believed 
for a while to exist. Neptune has one moon, and 
may possess others not yet discovered. 

The same reasoning which has been used in re- 
ference to Jupiter and his moons, and to Saturn and 
his moons, might perhaps be applied also to Uranus 
and Neptune and their moons. 

We know too little yet of their condition to venture 
far in such speculations. Still, taking the matter as 
a whole, there seem many reasons to incline us to the 
idea, that each of the four greater outside planets 
may be a kind of secondary half-cooled sun to his 
satellites, helping to make up to them for the small 
amount of light and heat which they can obtain from 
the far-off sun. 



CHAPTER X. 

COMETS AND METEORITES. 
* It is the glory of God to conceal a thing.' — Prov. xxv. 2. 

A CURIOUS discovery has been lately made. It is 
that some sort of mysterious tie seems to exist be- 
tween comets and meteorites. 

For a long while this was never suspected. How 
should it be ? The comets, so large, so airy, so light ; 
the meteorites, so small, so solid, so heavy ; how could 
it possibly be supposed that the one had anything to 
do with the other ? 

But supposings often have to give in to facts. 
Astronomers are gradually becoming convinced that 
there certainly is a connection between the two. 

Strange to say, comets and meteorites occupy, 
sometimes at least, the very same pathways in the 



2 1 6 Comets and Meteorites. 



heavens, the very same orbits round the sun. A 
certain number of meteorite-systems are now pretty 
well known to astronomers, as regularly met by our 
earth at certain points in her yearly journey. Some 
of these systems or rings have each a comet belonging 
to it — not merely journeying near, but actually in its 
midst, on the same orbit. 

Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the 
meteorites belong to the comet, than that the comet 
belongs to the meteorites. We tread here on uncer- 
tain ground ; for whether the meteorites spring from 
the comet, or whether the comet springs from the 
meteorites, or whether each has been brought into 
existence independently of the other, no bne can at 
present say. 

Though it is out of our power to explain the kind 
of connection, yet a connection there plainly is. So 
many instances are now known of a comet and a 
meteorite-ring travelling together, that it is doubtful 
whether any such ring could be found without a comet 
jn its midst By-and-by the doubt may spring up 
whether there ever exists a comet, without a train of 
meteorites following him. 

Among the many different Meteorite-Rings which 
are known, two of the most important are the so- 



Comets and Meteorites. 217 

•called August and November systems. Of these two 
the November system must claim our chief attention. 

Not that we are at all sure of these being the most 
important meteorite-rings in the Solar System. On 
the contrary, as regards the November Ring, we have 
some reason to think that matters may lie just the 
other way. 

The comet belonging to the November system is 
a small one, quite an insignificant little comet, only 
visible through a telescope. We do not of course 
know positively that larger comets and greater mete- 
orite systems generally go together.; but to say the 
least it seems likely. And if the greatness of a ring 
•can at all be judged of by the size of its comet, then 
the November system must be a third-rate specimen 
of its kind. It is of particular importance to us, merely 
because it happens to be the one into which our earth 
plunges most deeply, and which we therefore see and 
know the best. The August ring is on the con- 
trary connected with a magnificent comet, and may 
be a far grander system. But our pathway does not 
lead us into the midst of the August meteors, as into 
those of November. We pass seemingly through its 
outskirts. 

The meteorites of the November system are very 
small. They are believed to weigh commonly only 



2i8 Comets and Meteortes. 



a few grains each. If they were larger and heavier, 
some of them would fall to earth as aerolites, not 
more than half burnt in their rush through the atmo- 
sphere. But this they are never found to do. 

There are known Meteorite systems, which our 
earth merely touches or grazes in passing, from which 
drop aerolites of a very different description — large 
heavy solid masses. It is well for us that we do not 
plunge into the midst of any such ring, or we might 
find our air after all a poor protection. 

The last grand display of the November system of 
Meteorites took place in the years 1866 to 1869* 
being continued more or less during three or four 
Novembers following. The next grand display is not 
expected until the year 1899. 

For this system — Leonides, as it is called* — seems 
to have a * time ' or ' year ' of thirty-three and a 
quarter earthly years. 

The shape of its orbit is a very long ellipse, near 
one end of which is the sun, while the other end is be- 
lieved to reach farther away than the orbit of Uranus. 

A great deal of curiosity has been felt about the 

* Because the falling-stars in this display seem all to shoot 
towards us from a spot in the constellation Leo. 



1,1 



Comets and Meteorites. 219 



actual length and breadth and depth of the stream of 
meteorites through which our solid earth has so often 
ploughed her way. 

During many hours at a time lookers-on have 
watched the magnificent display of heavenly fire- 
works, — not a mere shooting-star here and there as on 
common nights, but radiant meteors flashing and 
dying by thousands through the sky. In 1866 no 
less than eight thousand meteors in two hours and a 
quarter were counted from the Greenwich Observatory. 
A natural wonder sprang up in many minds as to the 
extent of the ring from which they fell. 

For not in one night only, but in several nights 
during three or four years, and that not once only but 
once in every thirty-three years, thousands and tens 
of thousands appear to have been stolen by our 
earth from the Meteorite-Ring, never again to be 
restored. Yet each time we touch the ring, we find 
the abundance of little meteorites in nowise seemingly 
lessened. 

When speaking of a ' ring ' of meteorites, it must not 
be supposed that necessarily the meteorites form a 
whole unbroken ring all round the long oval orbit. 
There may be no breaks. There may be a more or 
less thin scattering throughout the entire length of 
the pathway. But the meteorites certainly seem to 



220 Comets and Meteorites. 

cluster far more densely in some parts of the orbit 
than in other parts, and it was about the size of the 
densest cluster that so much curiosity was felt. 

Little can be positively known, though it is very 
certain that the cluster must be enormous in extent. 
Three or four years running, as our earth, after jour- 
neying the whole way round the sun, came again to 
that point in her orbit where she passes through the 
orbit of the Leonides, she found the thick stream of 
meteorites still pouring on, though each year lessen- 
ing in amount. Taking into account this fact, and 
also the numbers that were seen to fall night after 
night, and also the speed of our earth, a 'rough 
estimate ' was formed. 

The length of this dense cluster is supposed to 
reach to many hundreds of millions of miles. The 
thickness or depth of the stream is calculated to be in 
parts over five hundred thousand miles, and the 
breadth about ten times as much as the depth. Each 
meteorite is probably at a considerable distance from 
his neighbours ; but the whole mass of them, when in 
the near neighbourhood of the sun, must form a mag- 
nificent sight. 

And if this be only a third-rate system, what must a 
first-rate system be like ? And how many such 
systems are there throughout the sun's wide domains ? 



Comets and Meteorites. 221 

The most powerful telescope gives us no hint of the 
existence of these rings, till we find ourselves in their 
midst. 

It may be that they are numbered by thousands, 
even by millions. The whole of the Solar System — 
nay, the very depths of space beyond — may, for aught 
we know, be crowded with Meteorite Systems. Every 
comet may have his stream of meteorites following 
him, but though the comet is visible to us, the 
meteorites are not. Billions upon billions of them may 
be ever rushing round our sun, entirely beyond our 
ken, till one or another straggler touches our atmo- 
sphere to flash and dieas a * shooting-star ' in our 
sight. 

We have, and with our present powers we can 
have, no certainty as to all this. But I may quote 
here the illustration of a well-known astronomical 
writer on the subject. 

Suppose a blind man were walking out of doors 
along a high-road, and during the course of a few miles 
were to feel rain falling constantly upon him. Would 
it be reasonable on his part, if he concluded that a 
small shower of rain had accompanied him along the 
road as he moved, but that fine weather certainly 
existed on either side of the road ? On the contrary, 



.222 Comets and Meteorites. 

he might be sure thkt the drops which he felt were 
but a few among millions falling all together. 

Or, look at the rain-drops on your window some 
dull day in London. Count how many there are? 
Could you, with any show of common-sense, decide 
that those rain-drops, and those alone, had fallen 
that day in London ? 

So, when we find these showers of meteorites falling 
to earth, we may safely conclude that, for every one 
which touches our atmosphere, myriads rush elsewhere 
in space, never coming near us. 



CHAPTER XI. 

MORE ABOUT COMETS AND METEORITES. 
' He commanded, and they were created.' — Ps. cxlviii. 5. 

There have been several comets of importance seen 
in the present century. 

In 181 1 a remarkably fine one appeared. The 
bright nucleus was only about four hundred miles in 
diameter, but the whole head, including the envelope 
or coma, measured one hundred and twelve thousands 
of miles across, and the enormous tail stretched out to 
a distance of one hundred and twelve millions of miles. 
This comet travels in so long and narrow an ellipse, 
that some say his return must not be looked for in 
less than thirty centuries. 

The great comet, which in 1682 received first 
the name of Halley's Comet,, appeared last in 1835, 



224 More about Comets and Meteorites. 



his return having been foretold within three days 
of its actually taking place. For Halley's Comet is a 
member of the Solar System having a yearly journey 
of seventy-six earthly years. He journeys nearer to 
the sun than Venus, and travels farther away than 
Neptune. 

In 1843 appeared one of the brightest comets ever 
seen, and also one of the nearest to the sun. So close 
ran his orbit to the centre of our system, that at one 
time his nucleus was only about thirty thousand miles 
from the sun's surface. When we remember that sun- 
flames often rise to a height of more than fifty 
thousand miles, we shall see how terrific must have 
been the heat endured. 

In the years 1858, 1861, and 1862, three more 
comets appeared, all visible without the help of a 
telescope. Of these three, Donati's Comet, in 1858, was 
far superior to the rest. 

It was a singular fact about the comet of 1858, that 
at one time the star Arcturus could be seen shining 
through the densest portion of the tail, close 
to the nucleus. Now, although the faintest cloud- 
wreath of earth would dim if not hide this star, yet 
the tail of the great comet was of so transparent a 
nature that Arcturus shone undimmed, as if no veil 



More about Comets and Meteorites. 225 



had come between. The exceedingly slight and airy 
texture of a comet's tail could hardly be more plainly 
shown. 

It was this gauzy appendage to a little nucleus 
-which men once thought could destroy our solid earth 
at a single blow ! 

Yet, while taking care not to overrate, we must not 
■underrate. True, the comets are delicate and light 
in structure. One comet, in 1770, wandered into the 
very midst of Jupiter's moons, and so small was its 
weight, that it had no power whatever, so far as has 
been detected, to disturb the said moons in their 
orbits, Jupiter and his moons did very seriously dis- 
turb the comet, however ; and when he came out from 
their midst, though none the worse for his adventure, 
he was forced to travel in an entirely new orbit, and 
•never managed to get back to his old pathway 
again. 

But there are comets and comets, some being heavier 
than others. The comet named after Donati, albeit 
too transparent to hide a star, was yet so immense in 
size that his weight was calculated by one astronomer 
to amount to as much as a mass of water, forty thou- 
sand miles square and one hundred and nine yards 
.deep. 

When first noticed, Donati's Comet had, like all 

15 



226 More about Comets and Meteorites. 

large comets, a bright envelope of light round the 
nucleus. After a while the one envelope grew into 
three envelopes, and a new tail formed beside the 
principal tail, which for a time was seen to bend 
gracefully into a curve, like a splendid plume. A third 
but much fainter tail also made its appearance, and 
many angry-looking jets were poured out from the 
nucleus. These changes took place while the comet 
was passing through the great heat of near neighbour- 
hood to the sun. Afterwards, as he passed away, he 
seemed gradually to cool down and grow quiet. 

The singular changes in the appearance of Newton's 
Comet have been earlier noticed. No marvel that he 
did undergo some alterations. The tremendous glare 
and burning heat, which that comet had to endure ia 
his rush past the sun, were more than twenty-five 
thousand times as much as the glare and heat of the 
fiercest tropical noon-day ever known upon earth. Can 
we wonder that he should have shown ' signs of great 
excitement/ that his head should have grown larger 
and his tail longer ? 

It certainly was amazing, and past comprehension, 
that the said tail, over ninety millions of miles in length, 
should in four days have seemingly swept round in a 
tremendous half-circle, so as first to point in one direc- 
tion, and then to point in just the opposite direction. 



More about Comets and Meteorites. 227 



We are much in the habit of speaking about comets 
as travelling through the heavens, with their tails 
streaming behind them. But though this is sometimes 
the case, it is so by no means always. 

The tails of comets always stream away from the 
sun; whether before or behind the comet's head 
seeming to be a matter of indifference. 

As the comet comes hurrying along his orbit, with 
ever-increasing speed, towards the sun, the head jour- 
neys first and the long tail follows after. 

But as the comet rounds the loop of his orbit near 
the sun — the point nearest of all being called his peri- 
Jtelion — the head always remains towards the sun, 
while the tail swings, or seems to swing, in a magnifi- 
cent sweep round, pointing always in the direction 
just away from the sun. 

Then, as the comet journeys with slackening speed, 
on the other side of his orbit, towards the dis- 
tant ap/ielion, or farthest point from the sun, he still 
keeps his head towards the sun. So, at this part of 
his passage, in place of the head going first and the 
tail following after, the tail goes first and the head 
follows after. The comet thus appears to be moving 
backwards. Or, like an engine pushing instead of 
drawing a train, the head seems to be driving the tail 
before it. 

IS— 2 



228 More about Comets and Meteorites* 

Why the tails of comets should so persistently 
avoid the sun it is impossible to say. We do not even 
know whether the cause lies actually in the sun or in 
the comet. Astronomers speak of the ' repulsive 
energy ' with which the sun * sweeps away ' from his 
neighbourhood the light vapoury matter of which the 
tails are made. But the how and the wherefore of 
this strange seeming repulsion they cannot explain. 
For at the self-same time the sun appears to be 
attracting the comet towards himself, and driving the 
comet's tail away from himself. 

A few of the more well-known comets have been 

mentioned ; but a year rarely passes in which at least 
one comet is not discovered, though often only a small 
specimen, sometimes even tailless and hairless. No 
doubt many others pass unseen. The large and grand 
ones only come to view now and then. 

What are comets and meteorites made of ? 

Respecting comets, a good many ideas are put forth, 
and a good many guesses are made, as to ' burning 
gas/ ' luminous vapour/ ' beams of light/ and so on. 
But in truth little is known about the matter. 

Respecting meteorites we can speak more certainly. 
A good many meteorites have fallen to earth as 
aerolites, and have been carefully examined. They 



More about Comets and Meteorites. 229 

are found to contain nickel, cobalt, iron, phosphorus, 
and, sometimes at least, a large supply of hydrogen 
gas. 

Not only do solid aerolites fall half-burnt to the 
ground, but even when the meteorites are quite con- 
sumed in the air, the fine dust remaining still sinks 
earthward. This fine dust has been found upon 
mountain-tops, and has been proved by close examin- 
ation to be precisely the same as the material of the 
solid aerolites. 

It is a wonderful thought that we should really 
have these visitants from the sky, solid metal or 
showers of dust coming to us from distant space. 

If the dust of thousands of meteorites is always 
thus falling earthward, one would imagine that it 
must in time add something to the weight of the 
earth. And this actually is the case. During the last 
three thousand years, no less than one million tons of 
meteorite-dust must, according to calculation, have 
fallen to earth out of the sky. A million tons is of 
course a mere nothing compared with the size of the 
world. Still, the fact is curious and interesting. 

It has been suggested that perhaps the flames of 
the sun are partly fed by vast showers of falling 
meteorites. 

ft has even been suggested that perhaps, in long past 



230 More about Comets and Meteorites. 

ages, the earth and the planets grew to their present 
size under a tremendous downpour of meteorites ; 
the numbers which now drop to earth being merely 
the thin remains of what once existed. But for this 
guess there is no real foundation. 

We know that — ' In the beginning God created 
the heaven and the earth/ * and that ' He made the 
stars also.'t We know that — 'He that built all things 
is God;' J and — 'The worlds were framed by the 
word of God, so that things which are seen were 
not made of things which do appear,'§ 

Whether suns and worlds full-grown, created as in 
an instant — whether tiny meteorites in countless 
myriads to be used as stones in ' building ' — whether 
vast masses of flaming gas, to be gradually cooled and 
'framed ' into shape — whichever may have come first, 
and whichever may have been the order of God's 
working, still that 'first' was made by Him; still He 
throughout was the Master-builder. 

A few words more about ' comet-visitors.' 
Many comets, as already stated, belong to our Solar 
System, though whether they have always so be- 
longed is another question. It is not impossible that 
they may once upon a time have wandered hence 

* Gen. i. 1 1. f Gen. i. 16. J Heb. iii. 4. § Heb. xL 3. 



More about Comets and Meteorites. 231 

from a vast distance, and, being caught prisoner by 
the powerful attraction of Jupiter or one of his three 
great brother-planets, have been compelled thence- 
forth to travel in a closed pathway round the sun. 

There are also many comets which come once only 
to our system, flashing round past the sun, and 
rushing away in quite another direction, never to 
return. 

Where do these comets come from ? And where 
do they go ? 

From other suns — brother suns to ours ? It may 
be. One is almost disposed to think that it must 
be so. 

I have before described- some of the tremendous out- 
bursts seen on the surface of our sun. It is believed 
that in these outbursts matter is expelled or driven 
forth, with such fearful violence as to send it whirling 
through space, never to fall back to the sun. 

Some meteorites may have their birth thus. So 
also may some comets. 

And if all the stars are suns— huge fiery globes 
like our sun, and subject like him to tremendous 
eruptions, they too probably send out comets and 
meteorites to wander through space. 

Whether or no comets come into existence in any 
such manner, one thing seems pretty certain. Those 



232 More about Comets and Meteorites. 

comets which come to us from outside our system, 
must come from some other system. And the nearest 
systems known are those of the stars. 

The nearest star of all whose distance has been 
measured, is Alpha CentaurL 

It has been roughly calculated that a comet, 
passing direct from Alpha Centauri . to our sun, 
would take about eight millions of years for his 
journey. 

But here we tread upon very doubtful ground. 
Many matters, at present unknown to us, might 
greatly affect the result of such a calculation. Also it 
is by no means impossible that other stars lie really 
much nearer to us than Alpha Centauri, whose dis- 
tance astronomers have not yet attempted to measure. 



PART Hi. 



CHAPTER I. 



MANY SUNS. 



' I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all 
their host have I commanded.'— Is. xlv. 12. 

Once more we have to wing our flight far far away 
from the busy Solar System, where we live ; away from 
whirling planets, moons, meteorites, all shining with 
reflected sunlight; away from the great central sun 
himself, our own particular bright star. Once more we 
have, in imagination, to cross the vast black empty 
space — is it black ? and is it empty ? had we sight to 
see things as they are ; — separating our sun from other 
suns, our star from other stars. 

For the sun is a star — only a star. And stars are 
suns — big blazing suns. One is near, and the others 
are far away ; that is the difference. 

We have no longer to do with bodies merely reflect- 



236 Many Suns. 



ing another's light — always dark on one side and 
bright on the other — but with burning bodies, shining 
all round by their own light. We have no longer to 
picture just one single star with his surrounding 
worlds, but we have to fix our thoughts upon the great 
universe of stars or suns in countless millions. 

The sun is centre and ruler and king in his own 
system. But as, a star, he is only one among many 
stars, some greater, some less than himself. 

Thought travels fast: faster than a comet, faster 
than light. A rushing comet would, it is believed, take 
eight millions of years to cross the chasm between the 
nearest known fixed star and us. Light, flashing 
along at the rate of about 188,000 miles a second, will 
perform the same journey in three years and a half. 
But thought can overleap the boundary in less than 
three moments and a half. 

Each star that we see in the heavens is to our eye- 
sight simply one point of light. The brighter stars 
are said to be of greater magnitude, and the fainter 
stars of lesser magnitude ; yet one and all they have 
no apparent size. The most powerful telescope, though 
it can increase their brilliancy, cannot add to their size. 
A planet, which to the naked eye may look like a star, 
will, under a telescope, show a disc the breadth of 



Many Suns. 237 



which can be measured or divided ; but no star has 
any real sensible disc in the most powerful telescope 
yet constructed. 

The reason of this is the enormous distance of the 
stars. Far off as many of the planets lie, yet the 
farthest of them is as a member of our household com- 
pared with the nearest star. 

I have already tried to make clear the fact of their 
vast distance. Light, which comes to us from the sun 
in eight minutes and a half, takes three years and a 
half to reach us from Alpha Centauri. From this 
three-years-and-a-half length of journey between 
Alpha Centauri and earth, the numbers rise rapidly 
to twenty years, fifty years, seventy years, even 
hundreds of years. The distance of most of the stars 
is completely beyond our power to measure. The 
whole orbit of our earth, nay, the whole wide orbit of 
the far-off Neptune, would dwindle down to one 
single point, if seen from the greater number of the 
stars. 

It used to be believed that, taking the stars gener- 
ally, there was probably no very marked difference 
in their size, their kind, their brightness. Some of 
course would be rather larger, and others rather 
smaller; still it was supposed that they might be 
roughly classed as formed much on the same scale and 



238 Many Suns. 



the same plan. But doubts are now felt about thb 
notion. 

For a very similar idea used to be held with regard 
to the Solar System. The wonderful variety of form 
and richness in numbers, now known to abound within 
its limits, are discoveries of late years. May not the 
same variety in kind and size be found also among the 
stars ? The more we look into the heavens, the more 
we find that dull blank uniformity is not to be seen 
there. 

It is the same upon earth. Man builds his little 
rows of box-like houses side by side, each one exactly 
like all the rest, or dresses his thousand soldiers in 
coats of the same cut and colour, or repeats a neat 
leaf-design hundreds of times on carpets or wall-papers. 
But God never makes two leaves or two blades of grass 
alike. Wholesale turning out of things after one 
pattern is quite a human idea, not Divine. 

We know so much about the stars as that some are 
at least considerably larger and some considerably 
smaller than others. 

When one star is seen to shine brightly, and another 
beside it shines dimly, we are apt to think that the 
brightest must be the nearest. Yet it is often impos- 
sible for us to say how much of the difference is owing 



Many Suns. 239 



to the greater distance of one or the other, to the 
greater size of one or the other, or to the greater bril- 
liancy of one or the other. 

In many instances we do know enough to be quite 
sure that there is a great difference, not only in the 
distance of the stars, but in their size, their kind, their 
brightness. 

The stars have been lately classed by one or two 
astronomers into four distinct orders or degrees — 
partly depending on their colour. 

The first class is that of the White Suns. These 
are said to be the grandest and mightiest of all. The 
star Sirius belongs to the order of White Suns. 

Secondly comes the class of Golden Suns. To these 
blazing furnaces of yellow light, second only to the 
white-light stars, belongs our own sun. 

Thirdly, there are numbers of stars called Variable 
Stars, the light of which is constantly changing, now 
becoming more, now becoming less. 

Fourthly, there is the class of small Red Suns, about 
which not much is known. 

These four orders or divisions do not by any means 
include all the stars, or even all the single stars. 
Roughly speaking, however, the greater number of 
single stars, and many also of the double stars, belong 
to one or another of the above classes. 



240 Many Suns. 

When we talk of the different sizes of the different 
stars, it should be plainly understood that we have no 
means of directly measuring them. A point of light 
showing no disc, no surface, no breadth, cannot be 
measured, for there is nothing to measure. 

In certain cases we are not entirely without the 
power of judging. The distances of a few of the stars 
from us have been found out Knowing how far off 
any particular star is, astronomers are able to calcu- 
late exactly how bright our own sun would look at 
that same distance. If they find that our sun would 
shine just as the star in question shines, there is 
some reason for supposing that our sun and yonder 
star may be of the same size. If our sun would 
shine more brightly than the star shines, there is 
some reason for supposing that the star may be 
smaller than our sun. If our sun would shine more 
dimly than the star shines, there is some reason 
for supposing that the star may be larger than our 
sun. 

Other matters, however^ have to be considered. 
Suppose we find a star at a certain distance shining 
twice as brilliantly as our own sun would shine at that 
same distance. Naturally then we say: That star 
must be much larger than our sun. 

The reasoning may be mistaken. We do not know 



Many Suns. 241 



the fact. What if, instead of being a much larger 
sun, it is only a much brighter sun ? 

This possibility must be allowed for. It has, 
indeed, been strongly doubted by one astro- 
nomer, after close study of the sun, whether 
any surface of any star could exceed the surface 
of our sun in its tremendous power of light and 
heat. But we have no certainty whatever in the 
matter. 

When we picture to ourselves the star-depths, the 
boundless reaches of heavenly space, with these 
countless blazing suns scattered broadcast through- 
out, we have not to picture an universe in re- 
pose. 

On the contrary, all is life, stir, energy. Just as in 
the busy whirl of our Solar System, no such thing as 
rest is to be found, so also it seems to be in the wide 
universe. 

Every star is in motion. 'Fixed' as we call 
them, they are not fixed. Invisible as their move- 
ments are to our eyes, through immensity of distance, 
yet all are moving. Those silent placid twinkling 
specks of light are, in reality, huge roaring seeth- 
ing tumultuous furnaces of fire and flame, heat and 

radiance. 

16 



242 Many Suns. 



Each, too, is hurrying along his appointed pathway 
in space. Some move faster, some move more slowly. 
One mile per second ; ten miles per second ; twenty, 
thirty, forty, fifty miles per second — thus varying are 
their rates of speed. 

But whether fast or whether slowly, still onward 
and ever onward they press. Some are rushing to- 
wards us ; some are rushing away from us. Some are 
speeding to the right; some are speeding to the 
left. 

Where are they going ? Does any single star ever 
return to his starting-point — wherever that starting- 
point may have been ? Do they journey in vast 
circles or ellipses, round some far-distant centre > 
What controls them all ? Is it the mighty power of 
some such centre, or does each star, by his faint and 
distant attraction, help to control all his brother- 
stars, to guide them on their appointed path, to pre- 
serve the delicate balance of an universe ? 

How little we know about the matter ! 

Only so much we can tell, — that the controlling and 
restraining Hand of God is over the whole. Whether 
by the attraction of one great centre, or by the united 
influences of a thousand fainter attractions, He steers 
each radiant sun upon its heavenly path, ' upholding 



Many Suns. 243 



all things by the word of His power/* There is no 
blundering, no confusion, no entanglement. All 
is perfect order, calm arrangement, restrained 
energy. 

Heb. i. 3. 



l6 — 2 



CHAPTER II. 

SOME PARTICULAR SUNS. 

' The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever : the LORD shall 
rejoice in His works.' — Ps. civ. 31. 

In the constellation of the Swan there is a little 
dim sixth-magnitude star, scarcely to be seen without 
a telescope. This star, 61 Cygni by name, is the first 
whose distance from us it was found possible to 
determine. 

We may think it strange that so faint a star was 
even attempted. Would not astronomers have natur- 
ally supposed it to be one of the farther-distant 
stars. 

No, they did not. For though 61 Cygni showed 
but a dim light, yet his motion — not the daily apparent 
motion, but the real motion as seen from earth — was 
found to be so much more rapid than the motion of 



Some Particular buns. 245 

most other stars, that they rightly guessed 61 Cygni to 
be a rather near neighbour of ours. 

Do not misunderstand me, when I speak of ' more 
rapid motion/ and of ' rather near neighbourhood/ 

The real rate of 61 Cygni's rush through space is 
believed to be about forty miles each second, or one 
thousand four hundred and fifty millions of miles each 
year. All we can perceive of this quick motion is 
that, in the course of three hundred and fifty years, 
61 Cygni travels over a space in the sky about as 
long as the breadth of the full moon. Little enough, 
yet very far beyond what can be detected in the 
greater number of even the brightest stars. 

Then again as to the near neighbourhood of this 
star, 61 Cygni is near enough to have his distance 
measured, and that is saying a good deal. Alpha 
Centauri, the nearest star of which we know in the 
southern heavens, is more than two hundred thousand 
times as far distant as the sun. But 61 Cygni, the 
nearest star of which we know in the northern 
heavens, is about three times as far away as Alpha 
Centauri. 

We call 61 Cygni a star, for so he appears to com- 
mon observers. In reality, instead of being only one 
star, the speck of light which we call 61 Cygni con- 
sists of two stars. The two are separated by a gap 



246 Some Particular Suns. 



about half as wide again as the wide gap between the 
sun and Neptune. Yet so great is their distance 
from us that to the naked eye the two seem to be 
one. 

These two suns would together make a sun only 
about one-third as large as our sun. They differ in 
size, the quicker movements of one showing it to 
be the smaller ; and it is by means of their known 
distance from one another, and their known rate of 
motion, that their size, or rather their weight, can be 
roughly calculated. Of course neither of the two 
shows any actual measurable disc. 

So much and so little is with tolerable certainty 
known about this particular pair of suns. 

Next let us turn to Alpha Centauri — named Alpha, 
the first letter of the Greek alphabet, because it is 
the brightest star in the constellation of the Centaur. 
The second brightest star in a constellation is gene- 
rally called Beta, the third Gamma, the fourth Delta, 
and so on ; just as if we were to name them A, B, C, D, 
in order of brightness. 

The constellation Centaur lies in the southern 
heavens, close to the beautiful constellation called 
the Southern Cross, and is invisible in England. 

Of all' the stars shining in the heavens round our 



Some Particular Suns. 247 

earth, two only — Sirius and Canopus — show greater 
brilliancy than Alpha Centauri. 

As in the case of 61 Cygni, astronomers were led to 
attempt the measurement of Alpha Centauri's dis- 
tance, by noticing how much more distinct were his 
movements than the movements of other stars, though 
less rapid both to the eye and in reality than those of 
61 Cygni. Alpha Centauri's rate of motion is some 
thirteen miles each second. 

The distance of Alpha Centauri from us is more than 
two hundred thousand times the distance of the sun. 
In other words, it is about twenty millions of millions 
of miles. In other words, light, travelling at the rate 
of 188,000 miles each second, takes three years and a 
half to journey from Alpha Centauri to earth. 

And this, so far as we yet know, is our sun's nearest 
neighbour in the heavens, outside his own family 
circle. 

Strange to say, Alpha Centauri, like 61 Cygni, con- 
sists, not of a single star, but of a pair of stars. It is 
a two-sun system — whether or no surrounded by 
planets cannot be told. We can only reason from 
what we see to what we do not see. And as God did 
not form our earth ' in vain/ and did not form our sun 
' in vain/ so we firmly believe that He did not form ' in 
vain ' any one of His myriads of suns scattered through 



248 Some Particular Suns. 

space. What is, has been, or will be, the particular 
use of each one, it would be rash to attempt to say. 
But that many among them have, like our own sun, 
systems of worlds revolving round them, we may safely 
consider very probable. 

The two suns of the Alpha Centauri double-star are 
separated by a distance about twenty-two times as 
great as the distance of the earth from the sun, yet to the 
naked eye they show as a single star. Here again one 
is much smaller than the other; and the smaller 
revolves round the larger in about eighty-five years. 

It is believed that the two together would form a 
sun about twice as large and heavy as our sun. This 
belief is strengthened by the great brilliancy of Alpha 
Centauri. Our own sun, placed at that distance from 
us, would shine only one-third as brightly as he 
does. 

Turning now from the sun whose distance was first 
measured, and from the nearest star with which we are 
acquainted, let us think about the most radiant star in 
the heavens — Sirius, 'the blazing Dog-star of the 
ancients '; named by one astronomer * the king of 
suns/ 

First, as to the colour of Sirius. He belongs to the 
order of * White Suns/ and among all the white suns 



Some Particular Suns. 249 

known to us, Sirius ranks as chief. There may be 
many at greater distances far surpassing him in size 
and weight and brilliancy ; but we can only speak so 
far as we know. 

Strange to say, Sirius was not always a * white sun/ 
or ancient writers describe him as being in their days 
a redstart. This change is very singular, and difficult 
to understand. But Sirius is not the only example of 
the kind. Many alterations in colour have been 
noticed as taking place, often in a much shorter space 
of time. For instance, one star which was a white 
sun in the days of Herschel, is now a golden sun. 

Secondly, as to the distance of Sirius. 

Like a few other stars, Sirius lies not quite so far 
away as to be beyond reach of measurement. No 
base-line upon earth would cause the slightest seeming 
change of position in him, but as our earth journeys 
round the sun the line from one side of her orbit to 
the other is found wide enough. A base-line of one 
hundred and eighty-three millions of miles does cause 
just a tiny seeming change. 

It is very little even with Alpha Centauri, and with 
Sirius it is much less. The ' displacement ' of Sirius 
is so slight that to measure his distance with exact- 
ness is impossible. Roughly calculated, Sirius lies 
about five times farther away from earth than does 



250 Some Particular Suns. 

Alpha Centauri. To reach Sinus, the straight line 
between earth and sun must be repeated about one 
million times. Light, which reaches us from the sun 
in eight minutes and a half, and from Alpha Centauri 
in three years and a half, cannot reach us from Sirius 
in less than fifteen years — some say twenty years. 

Thirdly, as to the size of Sirius. 

Here, of course, we are in difficulties. Radiantly 
as Sirius shines on a clear night, and dazzling as he 
looks through a powerful telescope, he shows no real 
disc or round surface, but only appears as one point 
of brilliant light. Some believe him to be much the 
same size as our sun, while others believe him to be 
very much larger. But we have no certain ground to 
rest upon. The only safe method of calculating the 
probable size, or rather weight, of a star, is through 
the discovery of a companion, and a knowledge of its 
distance from the chief star and its time of revolution 
round the chief star. This mode having been hitherto 
not possible in the case of Sirius, we must be content 
for the present to leave his size as a question utterly 
undecided. 

Fourthly, as to the motions of Sirius ; not his 
nightly apparent movement, caused by the earth's 
turning on her axis, but his real journey through 
space. 



Some Particular Suns. 251 

For a long while it was only possible to observe 
the movements of a star, when the star was travel- 
ling sideways to us, across the sky. A star coming 
straight towards us or going straight away from us 
would seem to be at rest. 

Lately, however, by means of that remarkable instru- 
ment, the spectroscope, it has been found possible to 
measure the motions of stars coming towards us or 
going away from us. This is possible as yet only in 
a few scattered cases, but among those few is the 
brilliant Sirius. 

The sideways motion of Sirius had been known 
before. It now appears that he does not move ex- 
actly sideways to us, but is rushing away in a slanting 
direction, at the rate of thirty-miles each second, or 
about one thousand millions of mites a year. 

How many millions upon millions of miles Sirius 
must now be farther from us than in the days of 
the ancients ! Yet he shines still, the most bril- 
liant star in the sky. So small a matter are all those 
millions of miles, compared with the whole of his 
vast distance from us, that we do not perceive any 
lessening of light. 

It is an interesting fact that while Sirius is moving 
away from us, we are also moving away from him. 
Our 'first station ahead ' in the constellation Hercules 



252 Some Particular Suns. 

lies exactly in the opposite direction from Sirius. 
But the sun does not move so fast as Sirius. He is 
believed to accomplish only about one hundred and 
fifty millions of miles each year, drawing all his 
planets with him. 

Fifthly, has Sirius a family or system, like that of 
our sun ? 

Why not ? Common-sense and reason alike answer 
with a 'probably, yes* — not only about Sirius but about 
other stars also. No doubt the systems, the number, 
size, weight, speed, distance, and kind of planets, 
differ very greatly. No doubt there are boundless 
varieties of beauty and grandeur. 

But that our sun should be the head of so wonder- 
ful and complex a system, that his rays should be the 
source of life and heat to so many dependents, and 
that all the myriads of suns beside should be mere 
solitary lamps, shining into empty space, warming, 
lighting, controlling nothings is an idea scarcely to be 
looked in the face. 

Of course there may be other and different uses 
for some of these suns, beyond our understanding. 
We must not be positive in the matter. It seems, 
however, pretty certain that Sirius at least is not a 
solitary unattended sun. 

Astronomers, carefully watching his movements 



Some Particular Suns. 253 

were somewhat perplexed. As, with Uranus, the 
attraction of a heavy body beyond was suspected 
from the nature of the planet's motions, so it happened 
again with the far more distant Sirius. Astronomers 
could only explain his movements by supposing the 
attraction of some large and near satellite. No one 
knew anything about such a satellite, but it was felt 
that one must exist. 

And in 1862, after these observations, when a new 

and very powerful telescope was turned upon Sirius, 

a glimpse was actually caught of this satellite, whose 

presence had been already so strangely susjfected. 

Lastly, what is Sirius made of? 

The late discovery of Spectrum Analysis, or of the 

instrument called the Spectroscope, helps us here. 

A little further explanation on this subject will be 

given later. It may be observed, in passing, that 

before the said discovery, astronomers can scarcely 

be asserted to have known with any certainty that 

stars were suns. They could indeed be sure that at 

the vast distances of the fixed stars no bodies shining 

by merely reflected light could possibly be visible to 

us. But there knowledge stopped. 

Now we can say more. Now the spectroscope, by 
breaking up and dividing for us the slender ray of 
light travelling from each star, has shown to us some- 



254 Some Particular Suns. 

thing of the nature of the stars. Now we know that 
the stars, like our sun, are burning bodies surrounded 
by atmospheres full of burning gas. 

It has even been found out that in Sirius there are 
large quantities of sodium and magnesium, besides 
other metals, and an abundant supply of hydrogen 
gas. 



CHAPTER III. 

DIFFERENT KINDS OF SUNS. 

'Great things doeth He which we cannot comprehend.' — 
JOB xxxvii. 5. 

VARIOUS in kind, various in size, various in colour, 
various in position, various in motion, are the myriad 
suns scattered through space. 

So far are they from being formed on the same plan, 
turned out on the same model, that it may with reason 
be doubted whether any two stars could be found 
exactly alike. Why should we expect to find them 
so ? No two oak-leaves, no two elm-leaves, precisely 
alike, are to be found upon earth. 

So some stars are large, some are small. Some are 
rapid in movement, some are slow. Some are yellow, 
some white, some red, green, blue, purple, or grey 



256 Different Kinds of Suns. 

Some are single stars ; others are arranged in pairs, 
trios, quartettes, or groups. Some appear only for a 
time, and then disappear altogether. Others are 
changeful, with a light that regularly waxes and wanes 
in brightness. 

We have now to give a little time and thought to 
Variable Stars and Temporary Stars; afterwards to 
Double Stars and Coloured Stars. 

There are many stars which pass through gradual 
and steady changes, first brightening, then lessening in 
light, then brightening again. 

One such star is to be seen in the constellation of 
the Whale. It is named ' Mira/ or * The Marvellous/ 
and the time in which its changes take place extends 
to eleven months. For about one fortnight it is a star 
of the second magnitude. Through three months it 
grows slowly more and more dim, till it becomes in- 
visible, not only to the naked eye but through ordinary 
telescopes. About five months it remains thus. Then 
again during three months it grows brighter and 
brighter, till it is once more a second-magnitude star, 
and after a fortnight's pause begins anew to fade. 

There is also a variable star in the constellation of 
Perseus, named Algol. This too waxes and wanes 
.regularly, but much more rapidly, since it runs through 



Different Kinds of Suns. 257 

its list of changes in less than three days. It never 
becomes brighter than a star of the second magni- 
tude, or dimmer than a star of the fourth magni- 
tude. 

Another variable star, Betelgeuse in Orion, under- 
goes its variations in about two hundred days ; 
while yet another, Delta Cephei, takes only six 
days. 

Our own sun is believed to be in some slight degree 
a variable star, passing through his changes in eleven 
years. When the sun-spots are most numerous, he 
would probably appear, if seen from a great distance, 
more dim than when there are few or none of 
them. 

Sometimes a star is not merely variable. Stars 
have appeared for a brief space, and then utterly 
vanished. They are then named Temporary 
Stars. 

Whether such a star really does go out of existence, 
or whether it merely becomes too dim to be seen ; 
whether the furnace-fires are extinguished, and the 
glowing sun changes into a dark body, or whether 
it merely turns a dark side towards us for a very 
long period ; — these are questions we cannot an- 
swer. 

17 



258 Different Kinds of Suns. 

An extraordinary specimen of a temporary star 
was seen in 1572. It was not a comet, for it had no 
coma or tail, and it never moved from its place. The 
brightness of the star was so great as to surpass Sirius 
and Jupiter, and to equal Venus at her greatest 
brilliancy. Nay, it must have surpassed even Venus, 
for it was plainly visible at mid-day in a clear sky. 
Gradually the light faded and grew more dim, till at 
length it entirely disappeared. As it lessened in 
brilliancy, it also changed in colour, passing from 
white to yellow, and from yellow to red. This 
curiously agrees with the three tints of the first,, 
second and fourth orders of suns, as lately classi- 
fied. 

Many other instances have been known, beside 
those referred to, of variable and temporary 
stars. 

There are two distinct kinds of double-stars. 
First, we have those which merely seem to be double, 
because one lies almost directly behind the other, 
though widely distant from it. Just as a church-tower, 
two miles off, may appear to stand close side by side 
with another church tower two and a half miles off, 
though they are in fact separated. Secondly, we 
have the real systems of two suns belonging to one 



Different Kinds of Suns. 259 



another; the smaller moving round the larger, or 
more correctly both travelling round one central 
point called the centre of gravity, the smaller having 
the quicker rate of motion. 

Alpha Centauri and 61 Cygni have been already 
described, as examples of true double-stars. 

In the constellation Lyrae a marked instance is to 
be . seen. The brightest star in the Lyre is Vega, 
and near Vega shines a tiny star, which to people 
with particularly clear sight has sometimes rather a 
longish look. 

If you examine this star through an opera-glass, 
you will find it to consist of two separate stars. 

But if you get a more powerful telescope, and look 
again, you will find that each star of the couple 
actually consists of two stars. The four are not at 
equal distances. Two points of light seemingly close 
together are parted by a wide gap from two other 
points equally close together. These four stars are 
believed to have a double motion. Each of the 
separate pairs revolves by itself, the two suns tra- 
velling round one centre ; and in addition to this the 
two couples of suns probably perform a long journey 
round another centre common to them all. 

Many thousands of double-stars have been dis- 
covered ; and a large number of these are now known 

17 — 2 



260 Different Kinds of Suns. 



to be, not merely two distinct suns lying in the same 
line of sight, but two brother-suns, each probably 
the centre of his own system of planets. 

We have not only to consider the numbers of suns, 
though of simple numbers more yet remains to be 
said. Attention must also be given to the varying 
colours of different stars. 

For all suns in the universe are not made after the 
model of our sun. All suns are not yellow. 

So far as single stars are concerned, colours seem 
rather limited. White stars, golden or orange stars, 
ruby-red stars, placed alone, are often seen ; but blue 
stars, green stars, grey stars, silver stars, purple stars, 
are seldom if ever visible to the naked eye, or known 
to exist as single stars. 

Take a powerful telescope and examine star- 
couples, and a very different result you will find. 
Not white, yellow, and red alone, but blue, purple, 
grey, green, fawn, buff, silvery white and coppery 
hues, will delight you in turn. 

As a rule, when the two stars of a couple are alike 
in colour, they are either white, or yellow, or red. 
Also in the case of double-stars of different colours, 
the larger of the two is almost invariably white or 
some shade of yellow or red. 



Different Kinds of Suns. 261 



There are, however, exceptions to all such rules. 
Blue stars are almost never seen alone, and as one of 
a pair the blue star is generally, if not invariably, the 
smaller. But instances are known of double-stars, 
both of which are blue; and one group in the 
southern heavens is entirely made up of a multitude 
of blueish suns. 

It is when we come to consider double-stars of two 
colours that the most striking effects are found. 

Now and then the two suns are nearly the same in 
size, but more commonly one is a good deal larger 
than the other. This is known by the brighter light 
of the largest, and the more rapid movements of the 
smallest. The lesser star is often only small by 
comparison, and may be in reality a very goodly and 
brilliant sun. 

Among nearly six hundred ' doubles ' examined by 
one astronomer, there were three hundred and seventy- 
five in which the two stars were of one colour, 
generally white, yellow, orange, or red. The rest were 
different in tint — the difference between the two suns 
in about one hundred and twenty cases being very 
marked. 

. For instance, a red ' primary/ as the larger star is 
called, will be seen with a small green satellite ; or a 
white primary will have a little brother-sun of purple or 



262 Different Kinds of Suns. 

of dark ruby or of light red. Sometimes the larger sun 
is orange, the companion being purple or dark blue. 
Again, the chief star will be red with a blue satellite, 
or yellow with a green satellite, or orange with an 
emerald satellite, or golden with a reddish-green 
satellite. We hear of golden and lilac couples, of 
cream and violet pairs, of white and green com- 
panions. But indeed the variety is almost endless. 

There may be worlds. circling round these suns — 
worlds perhaps with living creatures on them. We 
know little about how such systems of suns and worlds 
may be arranged* Probably each sun would ljave his 

own set of planets, and both suns with their planets 
would travel round one central point. Perhaps, 
where the second sun is much the smallest, it might 
occasionally be like a big blazing satellite among the 
planets — a kind of burning Jupiter-sun to the chief 
sun. 

Among coloured stars, single and double, a few may 
be mentioned by name as examples. 

Sirius, as already observed, is a brilliant white sun ; 
and brilliant white also are Vega, Altair, Regulus, 

Spica, and many others. 

Capella, Procyon, the Pole-star, and our own sun, are 
examples of yellow stars. 

Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, and Pollux, are ruby-red. 



Different Kinds of Suns. 263 



Antares is a red star, with a greenish ' scintillation ' 
or change of hue in its twinkling. A tiny green sun 
belonging to this great and brilliant red sun has been 
discovered. Some have called Antares 'the Sirius of 
Red Suns.' 

The two double-stars, 61 Cygni and Alpha Cen- 
tauri, are formed each of two orange suns. 

In the Southern Cross there is a wonderful group of 
stars, consisting of about one hundred and ten suns, 
nearly all invisible to the naked eye. Among the 
principal stars of this group, which Sir John Herschel 
described as being, when viewed through a powerful 
telescope, like ' a casket of variously coloured precious 
stones/ are two red stars, two bright green, three pale 
green, and one of a greenish-blue. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GROUPS AND CLUSTERS OF SUNS. 

' He telleth the number of the stars ; He calleth them all by 
their names.-- Psa. cxlvii. 4. 

We have been thinking a good deal about single 
stars and double-stars, as seen from earth. Now we 
have to turn our attention to groups, clusters, masses 
of stars, in the far regions of space. 

Have you ever noticed on a winter night, when the 
sky was clear and dotted with twinkling stars, a band 
of faintly-glimmering light stretching across the 
heavens from one horizon to the other ? 

The band is irregular in shape, sometimes broader, 
sometimes narrower, here more bright, there more 
dim. If you were in the southern hemisphere you 
would see the same soft belt of light passing all across 
the southern heavens. This band or belt is called 



Groups and Clusters of Suns. 265 



The Milky Way. Sometimes it is called 'The 
Universe/ or 'Our Universe.' Early in this book 
mention was made of the word ' universe/ as used in 
two senses. The more modern use of it for the 
Milky Way, or for the particular great Galaxy or 
gathering of stars to which our sun belongs, is the 
smaller meaning. 

But what is the Milky Way ? 

It is made up of stars. So much we know. As 
the astronomer turns his telescope to the zone of 
faintly-gleaming light, he finds stars appearing behind 
stars in countless multitudes ; and the stronger his 
telescope, the more the white light changes into distant 
stars. 

Our sun we believe to be one of the stars of the 
Milky Way ; merely one star among millions of 
stars ; merely one golden grain among the millions of 
sparkling gold-dust grains scattered lavishly through 
creation. Scattered, not recklessly, not by chance, 
but placed, arranged, and guided each by its Maker's 
upholding Hand. 

The Milky Way, the Galaxy, or the Universe, as it 
has been variously called, has great interest for astro- 
nomers. Many have been the attempts made to 
discover its actual size, its real shape, how many stars 
it contains, how far it extends. But to all such ques- 



266 Groups and Clusters of Suns. 

tions, the only safe answers to be returned are fenced 
around with ' perhaps ' and ' may be/ 

There are many very remarkable clusters of stars to 
be seen in the heavens — some few visible as faint spots 
of light to the naked eye, though the greater number are 
only to be seen through a telescope. Either with the 
naked eye, or in telescopes of varying power, they 
show first as mere glimmers of light, which, viewed 
with a more powerful telescope, separate into clusters 
of distant stars. 

The most common shape of these clusters is 
globular — to the eye appearing simply round. Stars 
gather densely near the centre, and gradually open 
out to a thin scattering about the edge. Thousands 
of suns are often thus collected into one cluster. 

The clusters are to be seen in all parts of the sky, 
but the greater number seem to be gathered into the 
space covered by the Milky Way and by the famous 
south Magellanic Clouds. 

Some of them are beautifully coloured ; as, for 
instance, a cluster in Toucan, not visible from 
England, the centre of which is rose-coloured, bor- 
dered with white. No doubt it contains a large 
number of bright red suns, surrounded by a scattering 
of white suns. 



Groups and Clusters of Suns. 267 

It used to be supposed that many of these clusters 
were other vast gatherings or galaxies of stars, like 
the Milky Way, lying at enormous distances from 
us. 

This now seems unlikely. The present idea rather 
is that each cluster, in place of being another ' Milky 
Way* of millions of widely-scattered suns, is one 
great star-system, consisting indeed of thousands of 
suns, but all moving round one centre. Probably most 
of these clusters are themselves a part of the collection 
of stars to which our sun belongs. 

If this be so, and if worlds are travelling among the 
suns — as may well be, since they are doubtless quite 
far enough apart for each sun to have his own little 
or great system of planets — what sights must be seen 
by the inhabitants of such planets ! 

We do not indeed know the distances between the 
separate suns of a cluster, which may be far greater 
than appears to us. But if astronomers calculate 
rightly, they are near enough together to shed bright 
light on all sides of a planet revolving in their midst. 
The said planet might perhaps not have within view a 
single sun equal in apparent size to our sun as seen 
from earth ; yet thousands of lesser suns shining 
brightly in the firmament night and day would cause 
a radiance which we never enjoy. 



268 Groups and Clusters of Suns. 

No, not night In such a world there could be na 
night. Worlds in the midst of a star-cluster must be 
regions of perpetual day. No night, no starry heaven, 
no sunrise lights or sunset glories, no shadow mingling 
with sunshine, but one continual ceaseless blaze of 
brightness. We can hardly picture even in imagina- 
tion such a condition of things. 

Beside star-clusters there are also nebulae. 

The word nebula comes from the Latin word for 
* cloud/ and the nebulae are so named from their cloud- 
like appearance. 

It is not easy to draw a line of clear division be- 
tween nebulae and distant star-clusters. For both have 
at first sight the same dim white cloudy look. In past 
days the star-clusters were included by astronomers 
under the general class of nebulae. And as with the 
star-clusters, so with many of the nebulae, the more 
powerful telescopes of modern days have shown them 
to be great clusters or systems or galaxies of stars, at 
vast distances from us. 

It was supposed with the nebulae, as with some of 
the star-clusters, that they were other ' universes ' or 
' Milky Ways ' of countless stars, far beyond the out- 
side boundaries of our Milky Way. 



Groups and Clusters of Suns. 269 

This may still be true of some or many nebulae, but 
certainly not of all. 

For there are different kinds of nebulae. Some may t 
as just said, be vast gatherings of stars lying at dis- 
tances beyond calculation, almost beyond imagination. 
Others appear rather to be clusters of stars, like those 
already described, probably situated in our own galaxy 
of stars. 

There is also a third kind of nebula. Many nebulae, 
once supposed to be clusters of stars, having been 
lately examined by means of the spectroscope, are 
found to be enormous masses of glowing gas, and not 
solid bodies at all. 

The number of nebulae known amounts to many 
thousands. They are commonly divided into classes 
according to their seeming shape. There are nebulae 
of regular form, and «iebulae of irregular form. 
There are circular nebulae, oval nebulae, annular 
nebulae, conical nebulae, cometary nebulae, spiral 
nebulae, and nebulae of every imaginable description. 
These shapes would no doubt entirely change, if we 
could see them nearer ; and indeed, even in more 
powerful telescopes they are often found to look quite 
different. 

While on the subject of Clusters and Nebulae, 
mention should be made of the famous Magellanic 



270 Groups and Clusters of Suns. 

Clouds in the southern heavens. Sometimes they, are 
called the Cape Clouds. 

They differ from other nebulae in many points ; 
and more particularly in their apparent size. The 
Great Cloud is about two hundred times the size 
of the full moon, while the Small Cloud is about one 
quarter as large. In appearance they are not unlike 
two patches of the Milky Way, separated and moved 
to a distance from the main stream. 

These clouds are surrounded by a very barren por- 
tion of the heavens, containing few stars; but in 
themselves they are peculiarly rich. Seen through 
a powerful telescope, they are found to abound with 
stars. The Greater Cloud alone contains over six 
hundred from the seventh to the tenth magnitudes, 
countless tiny star-points of lesser magnitudes, star- 
clusters of all descriptions* and nearly three hundred 
nebulae ; all crowded into this seemingly limited 
space. 

Among many famous nebulae, the one in Orion and 
the one in Andromeda may be particularly men- 
tioned. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE MILKY WAY. 



* Who knoweth not in all these that the Hand of the Lord 
hath wrought this.' — Job xii. 9. 

' One star diflfereth from another star in glory/ — 1 Cor.xv. 41. 

The Milky Way forms a soft band of light round 
the whole heavens. In the southern hemisphere, as 
in the northern hemisphere, it is to be seen. 

In some parts the band narrows, in some parts it 
widens. Here, it divides into two branches. There, 
we find dark spaces in its midst. One such space in 
the south is so black and almost starless as to have 
been named the Coal-sack. 

All along, over the background of soft dim light, 
lies a scattering of brighter stars, shining on its sur- 
face. 

Much interest and curiosity have long been felt 
about this mysterious Milky Way. That it consists 



272 The Milky Way. 

of innumerable suns, and that our sun is one among 
them, has been believed for a considerable time. But 
other questions arise. How many stars does the 
Milky Way contain ? What is its shape ? How far 
does it reach ? 

No harm in asking the questions, only we have to 
be satisfied in astronomy to ask many questions which 
cannot yet receive answers. No harm for man to learn 
that the utmost reach of his intellect must fall short in 
any attempt to sound the depths of God's universe — 
even as the arm of a child would fall short in seek- 
ing to sound the depths of the ocean, over the side 
of a little boat. 

For the attempt has been made to sound the depths 
of our star-galaxy, out of this little earth-boat. 

The idea first occurred to the great Herschel, and a 
grand idea it was — only a hopeless one. 

He turned his powerful telescope north, south, east, 
west. He counted the stars visible at one time in this, 
in that, in the other directions. He found a marked 
difference in the numbers. The portion of sky seen 
through his telescope was about one quarter the size 
of that covered by the moon. Sometimes he could 
merely perceive two or three bright points on a black 
background. At other times the field of his telescope 
was crowded. In the fuller portions of the Milky 



The Milky Way. 273 

Way, he had four or five hundred stars under view at 
once. In one place he saw about one hundred and 
sixteen thousand stars pass before him in a single 
quarter of an hour. 

Herschel took it for granted that the stars of the 
Milky Way, uncountable in numbers, are as a rule 
much the same in size ; so that brightest stars would 
as a rule be nearest, and dimmest stars would as a 
rule be farthest off. Where he found stars clustering 
thickly, beyond his power to penetrate, he believed 
that the Milky Way reached very far in that direction. 
Where he found black space, unlighted by stars or 
lighted by few stars, he decided that he had found the 
borders of our galaxy in that direction. 

Following these rules which he had laid down, he 
made a sort of rough sketch of what he supposed 
might be the shape of the Milky Way. He thought 
it was somewhat flat, extending to a good distance 
breadthways, and a much greater distance lengthways, 
and he placed our sun not far from the middle. This 
imagined shape of the Milky Way is called 'The 
Cloven-Disc Theory.' To explain the appearance of 
the Milky Way in the sky, Herschel supposed it to be 
cloven or split through half of its length, with a black 
space between the two split parts. 

It seems that Herschel did not hold strongly to this 

18 



274 The Milky Way. 

idea in later years, and doubts are now felt whether 
the rules on which he formed it have sufficient 
foundation. 

For how do we know that the stars of the Milky 
Way are as a rule much the same in size ? Certainly 
the planets of the Solar System are very far from being 
uniform ; and the few stars, whose weight can with 
any certainty be measured seem to vary considerably. 
There is a great difference also between the large and 
small suns in many of the double-stars ! 

Again, how do we know that the bright stars are 
as a rule the nearest, and the dim stars the 
farthest off? Here also late discoveries make us 
doubtful. Look at Sirius and 61 Cygni — Sirius, 
the most radiant star in the heavens, and 61 Cygni, 
almost invisible to the naked eye. According to 
this rule, 61 Cygni ought to lie at an enormous 
distance beyond Sirius. Yet in actual fact Sirius is 
the farthest away of the two. 

For aught we know, there may be hundreds of 
small telescopic stars, very much nearer to us than 
many of the brightest stars which we can plainly see 
with the naked eye, and only invisible without the 
help of the telescope because of their smallness, and 
not because of their distance. 

This line of reasoning shows how easily mistakes 



The Milky Way. 275 



may have been made in a matter of no slight import- 
ance. Some chapters back I spoke of the light 
travelling to us from far-distant stars — stars so dis- 
tant that their light must have taken thousands of 
years to reach us. 

Only there is no must. We do not actually know 
the fact. A writer says : * The illustrious Herschel 
penetrated on one occasion into this spot ' — the star- 
cluster on the sword-hand in the constellation of 
Perseus — 'until he found himself among depths whose 
light could not have reached him in less than four 
thousand years/ 

So Herschel believed, but he did not know. There 
is no certain s could not ' in the matter. The distance 
of those stars had not and has not been mathemati- 
cally measured. Herschel judged of it by their 
dimness, by the strong power needed to make them 
visible, and by the rules which he had adopted as 
most likely true. 

This was no sure mode of judging. The stars 
might be as far distant as he supposed. On the other 
hand, they might be very much nearer. If too far 
for our measuring-line to reach them, they may be 
only just too far ; and their seeming smallness and 
dimness, instead of being caused by vast reaches of 
space between, may simply be caused by actual 

18—2 



276 The Milky Way. 



smallness or actual dimness. There are doubt- 
less little suns as well as great suns in the Milky- 
Way. It is not impossible that hundreds of little 
suns may exist for every single specimen of a great 
sun. 

Again, when Herschel found black spaces in the 
heavens, almost void of stars, and believed that he 
had reached the outside borders of the Milky Way, 
he may have been in the right or he may have been 
mistaken. The limit might lie there ; or thousands 
more of small stars might extend in that very direc- 
tion, too far off for their little glimmer to be seen 
through the most powerful telescope. 

If this latter idea about the Milky Way being 
formed of a great many brilliant suns, and of vast 
numbers of lesser suns also, be true, astronomers will 
in time be able to prove its truth. For in that case 
many faint telescopic stars being much nearer to us 
than bright stars of the greater magnitudes, it will 
be found possible to measure their distance. The 
journey of our earth round the sun must cause a seem- 
ing change in their position, between summer and 
winter. 

The theory also that some of the nebulae are other 
outlying Milky Ways or galaxies of stars, separated by 
tremendous distances from our own, is interesting, and 



The Milky Way. 277 

was long held as almost certain, yet we have no dis- 
tinct proof either one way or the other. Many of the 
nebulae may be such gatherings of countless stars out- 
side our own, or every nebula visible may be actually 
part and parcel of our galaxy. 

Much attention has of late been paid to the arrange- 
ment of stars in the sky. The more the matter is looked 
into, the more plainly it is seen, that stars are neither 
regular in size nor regular in distribution. They are 
not merely scattered carelessly, as it were, here, there 
and anywhere, but certain laws and plans of arrange- 
ment seem to have been followed, which astronomers 
are only now beginning dimly to perceive. 

Stars are not flung broadcast through the heavens, 
each one alone and independent of the rest. They 
are placed often, as we have already seen, in pairs, in 
triplets, in quartettes, in clusters. Also the great 
masses of them in the heavens seem to be more or less 
arranged in streams and sprays and spirals. So re- 
markable are the numbers and forms of many of these 
streams, that the idea has been suggested with regard 
to the Milky Way, whether it also may not be a vast 
stream of stars — like a mighty river, collecting into 
itself hundreds of lesser streams. 

More will be said about this in the next chapter. 
We must now try to form a few clear ideas about the 



278 The Milky Way. 



richer and poorer parts of the heavens, as viewed from 
earth. 

In considering stars of the first six magnitudes only, 
— stars visible to the naked eye, — a somewhat larger 
number is found in the southern hemisphere than in 
the northern hemisphere. In both hemispheres there 
are regions densely crowded with stars, and regions by 
comparison almost empty. 

It has been long questioned whether the number of 
bright stars is or is not greater in the Milky Way 
than in other parts of the sky. 

Careful calculations have at length been made. It 
appears that the whole of the Milky Way — that zone 
of soft light passing round the earth — covers, if we 
leave out the Coal-sack and other such gaps, between 
one-tenth and one-eleventh of the whole heavens. 

The entire number of naked-eye stars, or stars of 
the first six magnitudes, does not exceed six thou- 
sand, and of these, eleven hundred and fifteen lie 
scattered along the bed of the Milky Way stream. 

If the brighter stars were scattered over all the 
sky as thickly as throughout the Milky Way, their 
number would amount to twelve thousand instead of 
only six thousand. This shows us that the higher 
magnitude stars really are collected along the Milky 
Way in greater numbers than elsewhere, and is an 



The Milky Way. 279 

argument used by those who believe the Milky Way 
to be a mighty stream of streams of stars. 

In the dark spaces of the Milky Way, on the con- 
trary, bright stars are so few, that if they were scat- 
tered in the same manner over all the sky, their 
present number of six thousand would come down to 
twelve hundred and forty. This would be a serious 
loss. 



CHAPTER VI. 



A WHIRLING UNIVERSE. 



'Thus saith the Lord, If heaven above can be measured — / 
Jer. xxxi. 37. 

1 Mine Hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and 
My right Hand hath spanned the heavens.'— Is. xlviii. 13. 

No rest, no quiet, no repose, in that great universe 
which to our dim eyesight looks so fixed and still, but 
one perpetual rush of moving suns and worlds. 

For every star has its own particular motion ; every 
sun is pressing forward in its own appointed path. 

And among the myriads of stars — bright blazing 
furnaces of white or golden, red, blue or green flame 
sweeping with steady rush through space, our sun also 
hastens onwards. 

The rate of his speed is not very certain, but it is 
generally believed to be about one hundred and fifty 



A Whirling Universe. 281 

million miles each year. Possibly he moves in reality 
much faster. 

When I speak of the sun's movement, it must of 
•course be understood that the earth and planets all 
travel with him, much as a great steamer on the sea 
might drag in his wake a number of little boats. 
From one of the little boats you could judge of the 
steamer's motion, quite as well as if you were on the 
steamer itself. Astronomers can only judge of the 
sun's motion by watching the seeming backward 
drift of stars to the right and left of him ; and the 
watching can be as well accomplished from earth as 
from the sun himself. 

After all, this mode of judging is and must be very 
iincertain. Among the millions of stars visible, we 
only know the real distances of ten or twelve ; and 
every star has its own real motion, which has to be 
^separated from the apparent change of position caused 
by the sun's advance. 

It seems now pretty clear that the sun's course is 
directed towards a certain point in the constellation 
Hercules. If the sun's path were straight, he might be 
-expected by-and-by, after long ages, to enter that 
constellation. But if orbits of suns, like orbits of 
planets, are ellipses, he will curve away sideways 
long before he reaches Hercules. 



282 A Whirling Universe. 

One German astronomer thought he had found the 
centre of the sun's orbit. He believed the sun and 
the stars of the Milky Way to be travelling round the 
chief star in the Pleiades, Alcyone. 

This is not impossible, but it is now felt that much 
stronger proof will be required before the idea can be 
accepted. 

In the last chapter mention was made of star- 
streams as a late discovery. Though a discovery 
still in its infancy, it is one of no small impor- 
tance. 

Briefly stated, the old theory as to the plan of the 
Milky Way was as follows : Our sun was a single star 
among millions of stars forming the galaxy, some 
comparatively near, some lying at distances past 
human powers of calculation, and all formed upon 
much the same model as to size and brightness* 
Where the band of milky light showed, stars were be- 
lieved to extend in countless thousands to measureless 
distances. Where dark spaces showed, it was believed 
that we looked beyond the limits of our universe into 
black space. Stars scattered in other parts of the 
sky were supposed generally to be outlying members 
of the same great Milky Way. Many of the nebulae 
and star-clusters were believed to be vast aad 



A Whirling Universe. 283 



distant gatherings of stars, like the Milky Way itself 
but separated by unutterably wide reaches of 
space. 

Some of these views may yet be found to contain 
truth, though at the present moment a different theory 
is afloat. 

It is still thought probable that our sun is one 
among many millions of suns, forming a vast system 
or collection of stars, called by some an Universe. 
It is also thought possible that other such mighty 
collections of stars may exist outside and separate 
from our own at immense distances. It is thought 
not impossible or improbable that some among the 
nebulae may be such far-off galaxies of stars ; though 
on the other hand it is felt that every star-cluster and 
nebula within reach of man's sight may form a part 
of our own ' Universe/ 

According to this view of the question, the Milky 
Way, instead of being an enormous universe of count- 
less suns reaching to incalculable distances, may 
rather be a vast and mighty star-stream, consisting of 
hundreds of brilliant leading suns, intermixed with 
thousands or even millions of lesser shining orbs. If 
this be the true view, the lesser suns would often be 
nearer than the greater suns, although more dim ; 
and the Milky Way would not be itself an universe, 



284 A Whirling Universe. 

though a very wonderful and beautiful portion of our 
universe. 

Which of these two different theories or opinions 
contains the most truth remains to be found out. 

But respecting the arrangement of stars into streams, 
interesting facts have lately been discovered. 

We certainly see in the Solar System a tendency of 
heavenly bodies to travel in the same lines, and in 
companies. Not to speak of Jupiter and his moons, 
or Saturn and his moons, we see it more remarkably 
in the hundreds of asteroids pursuing one path, the 
millions of meteorites whirling in herds. Would there 
be anything startling in the same tendency appearing 
on a mightier scale ? Should we be greatly astonished 
to find streams of stars, as well as streams of planets ? 

For such, indeed, appears to be the case. Separated 
by abysses of space, brother-suns are plainly to be 
seen journeying side-by-side through the heavens, 
towards the same goal. 

The question of star-drift is too complex and diffi- 
cult to be gone into closely in a book of this kind 
One example, however, may be given. 

Almost everybody knows by sight the constellation 
of the Great Bear — called also Charles's Wain. Four 
bright stars form a rough sort of oblong, and from one 
of the corners three more bright stars stretch away in 



A. Whirling Universe. 2S5 



a curve, representing the bear's tail. Many smaller 
stars are intermixed. 

These seven bright stars have always been bound 
together in men's minds, as if they belonged to one 
another. But who, through the centuries past, since 
aught was known of the real distances cf the stars from 
ourselves . and from one another, ever supposed that 
any among the seven were really connected together ? 

One of these seven stars, the middle one in the tail, 
has a tiny companion-star, close to it, visible to the 
naked eye. For a good while it was uncertain whether 
the two were a ' real double/ or only a seeming double. 
In time it became clear that the two did actually 
belong to one another. 

Mizar is the name of the chief star, and Alcor of 
the companion. Alcor is believed to be about three 
thousand times as far away from Mizar, as our earth 
from the sun. Now if this be the width of space 
between those two bright points, lying seemingly so 
close together as almost to look to the naked eye like 
one, what must be the distances between the seven 
leading stars of the Great Bear, separated by broad 
sky-spaces? Who could imagine that one of these 
suns had aught to do with the rest ? 

Yet among other amazing discoveries of late years, 
it has been found by means of the new instrument, the 



286 A Whirling Universe. 

spectroscope, that y?z# out of these seven suns arc 
travelling the same journey, with the same speed. 
Two of the seven appear to be moving in another 
direction. But three of the body-stars and two of the 
tail-stars are hastening in the direction away from us, 
all in the same line of march, all rushing through 
space at the rate of twenty miles each second. Some 
smaller stars close to them are also moving in the 
same path. 

Is not this wonderful ? We see here a vast system 
of suns, all moving towards one goal, and each pro- 
bably bearing with him his own family of worlds. 

Many such streams have been noticed, and many 
more will doubtless be found. For aught we know, 
our own sun may be one among such a company of 
brother-suns, travelling in company. 

It is difficult to give any clear idea of the im- 
mensity of the universe — even of that portion of the 
universe which lies within reach of our most powerful 
telescopes. How far beyond such limits it may reach, 
we lose ourselves in imagining. 

Earlier in the book we have supposed possible 
models of the Solar System, bringing down sun and 
worlds to a small size, yet keeping due proportions. 
What if we were to attempt to make a reduced model 



A Whirling Universe. 287 



•of the universe — that is of just so much of it as comes 
within our ken ? 

Suppose a man were to set himself to form such 
-a model, including every star which has ever been 
seen. 

Let him have one tiny ball for the sun, and another 
tiny ball for Alpha Centauri, and let him as a begin- 
ning set the two one yard apart. That single yard 
represents ninety-one millions of miles, two hundred 
and thirty thousand times repeated. Then let him 
arrange countless multitudes of other tiny balls, at 
due distances — some five times, ten times, twenty 
times, fifty times as far away from the sun as Alpha 
Centauri. 

It is said that the known universe, made upon a 
model of these proportions, would be many miles in 
length and breadth. 

But the model would appear fixed as marble. The 
sizes and distances of the stars being so enormously 
reduced, their rates of motion would be lessened in 
proportion. Long intervals of time would need to 
pass before the faintest motion in one of the millions 
of tiny balls could become visible to a human eye. 



CHAPTER VII. 



READING THE LIGHT. 



'God said, Let there be light ; and there was light* — 
Gen. i. 3. 

Several times, in the course of this little book, pass- 
ing mention has been made of a 'wonderful new instru- 
ment called the Spectroscope/ The subject of 
Spectrum Analysis is far too difficult to be fully- 
discussed in a volume of 'this kind. Still, so much of 
our present astronomical knowledge depends upon it, 
that I do not like to close without saying a little 
more about the matter. 

By means of the Spectrum Analysis, we are able to 
discover, with almost certainty, many of the metals 
and gases contained in the sun. It is known now that 
not only upon earth but also in the sun iron and 



Reading the Light. 289 

copper, zinc and sodium, magnesium and hydrogen, 
are to be found. 

Whether iron and other metals exist there, as on 
earth, in a hard and solid form, it is impossible to say. 
It is only in the form of gas that man can become 
aware of their presence at that distance. 

Every metal may be either in the solid form, or the 
liquid form, or the vapour form. Iron, as we com- 
monly see it, is solid — in other words, it is frozen like 
ice. Just as increase of warmth will turn ice into 
water, so a certain amount of heat will make 
solid iron become liquid iron. And just as yet 
greater warmth will turn water into steam, so a very 
much increased amount of heat will turn liquid iron 
into vapour of iron. A little heat will do for ice 
what very great heat will do for iron. The intense 
glowing furnace-heat of the sun causes many metals 
to be present in large quantities in the sun's atmo- 
sphere, in the form of vapour. 

Not only have we learnt about some of the metals 
in the sun, but this strange Spectrum Analysis has 
taught us about some of the metals and gases in the 
stars as well. It is found that in Sirius, sodium and 
magnesium, iron and hydrogen, exist. In Vega and 
Pollux there are sodium, magnesium, and iron. In 
Aldebaran, these substances and many others, includ- 

19 



290 Reading the Light. 

ing mercury, seem to abound. These are merely a 

few examples among many stars, each being in some 
degree different from the rest. 

But how can we know all this? How could the 
wildest guessing reveal to us the fact of iron in the 
sun, not to speak of the stars ? 

We know it by means of the Spectrum Analysis — or 
as we may say, by means of the Spectroscope, which 
is the name of the instrument used. 

The Spectroscope may be looked upon as the twin- 
sister to the telescope. The telescope gathers to- 
gether the scattered rays of light into a small spot or 
focus. The spectroscope tears up these rays of light 
into ribbons, sorts them, sifts them, and enables us to 
read in them hidden meanings. 

When a ray of light reaches us from the sun, that 
ray is white ; but in the white ray there are bright 
colours concealed. Newton was the first to discover 
that a ray of white light is really a bundle of coloured 
rays, so mixed up together as to appear white. 

If a ray of sunlight is allowed to pass through a 
small round hole in a wall, it will fall upon the op- 
posite wall in a small round patch of white light. 

But if a prism— a. piece of glass cut in a particular 
shape — is put in the path of the ray, it has power to 



Reading the Light. 291 



■do two curious things. First, it bends the ray out of 
a straight course, causing the light to fall upon a 
different part of the wall. Secondly, it breaks up or 
divides the ray of white light into the several rays of 
coloured light, of which the white ray is really com- 
posed. This breaking up or dividing is called 
4 analysing/ 

The prism being thus placed in the path of the 
ray, instead of a round spot of white light on the 
wall you will have a row of colours. Red will be the 
least bent, and may be called the ' lowest end* of the 
* spectrum.' After red, come orange, yellow, green, 
blue, indigo, and lastly violet, which is the most bent 
of all. Each colour overlaps and fades into the next, 
and the red and violet at either end fade into nothing 
The arrangement of colours is always the same. 

So much has long been known, but more has lately 
become clear. 

If, in place of around hole, the ray of light is made 
to pass through a very narrow slit, it is proved that 
the bright bands of colour do not overlap. Instead 
of this, dark lines or gaps show here and there. 

Now these lines or gaps are always to be seen in 
the spectrum or image of bright colours, formed by a 
broken-up ray of sunlight. There is always a certain 
number of dark lines in each coloured band, some 

19 — 2 



292 Reading the Light. 

near together, some far apart, here one or two, there 
a great many. Where a simple ray of sunlight is 
concerned, the exact arrangement of the lines never 
changes. 

When the stars were examined — when the rays of light 
coming from various stars were split up and analysed — 
it was found that they too, like the sun, gave a spec- 
trum of bright colours with dark lines. But the lines 
were different in number and different in arrangement 
from the sun's lines. Each star has his own particu- 
lar number and his own particular arrangement, and 
that arrangement and number do not change. 

So far the matter is simple. Beyond this I can 
hardly hope by any brief statements to make the 
matter clear. 

The gist of the question is to be found in these 
little slender dark lines. 

If a white-hot metal is burnt, and the light of it as 
it burns is allowed to pass through a prism, a row of 
bright colours appears, as in the sun's spectrum ; only 
there are no dark lines. 

If a gas is burnt, and the light is allowed to pass 
through a prism, no bright colour-bands appear, and 
no dark lines either, but instead of this there are bright 
lines. Each gas or vapour has its own number of 



Reading the Light. 293 



lines, and its own arrangement. Sodium shows two 
bright lines, side by side. Iron shows sixty bright 
lines, arranged in a particular way. \ 

Now you see how a row of bright colours without 
dark lines can be shown, or how bright lines without 
bands of colour may appear. But what about colour- 
bands and dark lines together ? 

That discovery came latest. It was found that if 
a white-hot metal were burnt, and if its light were 
allowed, before touching the prism, to shine through 
the flame of a burning gas, then there were dark lines 
showing in the coloured bands. These dark lines 
changed in position and number and arrangement with 
each different kind of gas — just as the bright lines 
changed if the gases were burnt alone. If the light 
of the burning metal passed through a flame coloured 
with gas of sodium, two dark lines showed on one 
part of the spectrum ; but if it passed through a flame 
coloured with vapour of iron, sixty dark lines showed 
on another part of the spectrum. 

So now, by means of this Spectrum Analysis, we 
know with all but certainty that the sun and stars are 
solid burning bodies, sending their light through burn- 
ing gas-laden atmospheres. By examining the little 
black lines which appear in the spectrum of one or 
another, it is possible to say the names of many 



294 Reading the Light. 

metals existing as gas in those far-off heavenly- 
bodies. 

Is not this a wonderful way of reading light ? 

The split-up rays tell us much more than the kinds 
of metals in different stars. When a nebula is ex- 
amined, and is found to give no spectrum of bright 
bands and dark lines, but only a certain number of 
bright lines, we know it to be formed of gas, unlike 
stars and other nebulae. Also it is by means of the 
spectroscope that so much has lately been discovered 
about the motions and speed of the stars coming to- 
wards or going from us. 

But those who wish to enter further into this in- 
teresting and complicated matter, must turn to more 
advanced text-books on Astronomy. My little volume 
offers only to lead them along the few first paces of a 
most fascinating pathway. 

Those few paces have been trodden. Step by step 
we have advanced, from the first early notion of our 
earth as the mighty centre of the universe, to a stage 
where earth and planets vanish from sight, and the 
great central sun of our system himself shines forth 
but as one glimmering point of light amid a million 
stars. 

Well may we say, in the words of the inspired 



Reading the Light. 295 



writer, as we gaze on the wonders of God's glorious 
creation : 

' When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy 
fingers; the moon and the stars which Thou hast 
ordained ; what is man that Thou art mindful of him ? 
or the son of man that Thou visitest him ?'* 

And yet there is another side to the matter. In- 
finite in power, God is also infinite in love. Mighty 
in the creation of His vast and blazing suns, He is no 
less mighty in the creation of a blade of grass. The 
rushing stars of a universe are in His hand, but not a 
sparrow on earth may fall to the ground without His 
knowledge. He guides each distant sun in its path- 
way through the sky, and also He looks from His 
throne of light to ' ponder ' the ways of man. He 
tends His countless furnaces of fire and flame ; yet 'the 
very hairs of your head are all numbered/ 

Let us look into the matter as we will — let us weigh, 
measure, calculate — let us find our earth to be but as 
a grain of fine dust, lost amid myriads of worlds and 
suns. Still, at the close of all, we stand face to face 
with the simple historical fact that the King of 
heaven, the Creator of the Universe, Himself lived as 
Man for thirty-three years upon earth, died upon earth 
rose from death upon earth, and went up again from 

* Psa. viii. 3, 4. 



296 Reading the Light. 

earth to heaven. That sheds a distinguishing radiance 
upon our earth, which, it may well be, no other world 
in all the Universe can rival. 

'Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and 
honour and power : for Thou hast created all things, 
and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.' — 
Rev. iv. n. 



TABLE OF SUBJECTS. 



PART I. 



Chap. I.— What is the Earth ?— Olden beliefs.— The Universe. 
— Space. — What are Stars? — Movements of Earth.— 
Seeming movements of Stars. — The Evening Star. — 
Planets -------- i — 10 

Chap. II. — The size of the Sun.— The distance of the Sun from 
Earth. — Size of Sun and Earth compared. — Spots upon the 
Sun. — Turning of the Sun upon his axis. — Sun-flames. — 
Storms on the Sun. — Surface of the Sun 1 1 — 22 

Chap. III. — The law of Attraction or Gravitation. — A law of 
Motion. — How both laws work together. — What if the 
Earth went faster ? — Two motions of the Earth. — Illus- 
tration with orange and knitting-needle. — Day and 
Night.— The Seasons. — Speed of the Earth's surface at 
the Equator 23 — 36 

Chap. IV. — Superior and Inferior Planets. — Pathways of the 
Planets. — Two Groups of Planets. — Names of chief Planets. 
—Mercury: his size, distance from sun, speed and length 
of year.- 1 - Venus : her size, distance from sun, speed, length 
of year, appearance as seen from Earth, and phases. — Mars : 
his size, distance from sun, length of day and year, speed 
and appearance. — Moons of Mars. — The Asteroids : their 
number, size, length of year, zone and orbits - 37 — 45 



298 Table of Subjects. 

Chap. V. — Jupiter : his size, distance from sun, speed, cloudy 
covering, length of day and year. — Four moons of Jupiter. — 
Saturn : his distance from sun, size, length of day and year, 
motions, and cloudy covering. — Moons and rings of Saturn. 
— Uranus : his distance from sun, size, speed, and length of 
year. — Moons of Uranus. — Neptune : his distance from sun, 
size, speed, length of year. — Moon. — Appearance of sun seen 
from Neptune. — What is meant by ' a million miles.' — Size 
and distance. — Supposed models of Solar System 46 — 55 

Chap. VI. — Journey to the Moon. — Distance of Moon from 
Earth. — Size of the Moon. — Two ways of thinking about 
the Moon. — Motions of the Moon. — Only one side seen from 
Earth. — Moonland. — Supposed scenery. — Supposed view of 
the heavens. — Moon-mountains and plains. — Craters. — 
Shadows. — Sunset and night in the Moon. — Intense 
cold 56—67 

Chap. VII. — Comets. — Old dread of a collision. — Nucleus, 
coma and tail. — Lightness of a Comet. — Number of Comets 
known. — Numbers of Comets supposed to exist. — Comet- 
visitors. — Pathways of Comets.— Singular nature of Comets. 
— Changes seen to take place in Comets. — Halley's Comet. 
— Encke's Comet. — Newton's Comet - 68 — 77 

Chap. VIII. — Shooting Stars. — A cannonade. — Numbers of 
meteorites seen nightly. — Numbers supposed to fall daily to 
earth. — What becomes of the Shooting-stars. — Meteorite- 
dust. — Aerolites. — Meteors or fire-balls.. — Numbers of 
Meteorite-systems met by Earth. — Numbers supposed to 
exist. — August and November Rings. — Grand displays 
every thirty-three years. — Saturn's Rings. — Zodiacal 
Light 78—84 

Chap. IX. — Away from the Solar System. — The stars. — How 
many stars are there? — Star-magnitudes. — Distances of 



Table of Subjects. 299 



stars. — Measurement of distance. — Distance of Alpha Cen* 
tauri. — Speed] of light. — Light-journey ings from sun and 
stars 85—97 

Chap. X.— Apparent movements of stars. — Real movements of 
stars. — Arcturus : rate of speed. — Capella, Sirius, Pole- 
star : supposed rates of speed. — Journey of the sun. — Where 
is he going? 98 — 112 



PART II. 

Chap. I. — What the System contains. — Is there life on the 
planets ?— Sun- rays and their work. Three movements 
of the Earth. — Journey of Sun through space.— Earth's 
orbit. — Planets' orbits. — How to draw a circle and an 
ellipse. — Comets' orbits. — Family influences. — Great and 
little 113— 125 

Chap. II. — Sun-spots. — Umbra, penumbra and nucleus. — Size 
of spots. — Possible explanations of spots. — Real and seem- 
ing changes in spots. — Sun-cyclones. — Solar- outbursts and 
magnets of Earth. — ' Willow-leaves.' — Eclipse of the 
sun. — Partial, total and annular eclipses. — Eclipse of 
i860 126 — 137 

Chap. Ill . — Storms seen at edge of sun. — Great solar outburst. 
— Speed of hydrogen-cloud fragments. — Red prominences, 
their shape and height. — Corona described. — Bulk and 
weight of sun. — Weight on surface of sun. — How far attrac- 
tion of sun reaches ------ 138 — 147 

Chap. IV. — Is there life on the moon ? — Size of moon. — Weight 
on surface of moon. — Reflected sunlight and earth-shine. 
— Phases of moon described. — Illustration of phases. — 
Eclipse of the moon. — Total and partial eclipses 148 — 156 



*> 



oo Table of Subjects. 



Chap. V. — Two ways of thinking about the moon. — Orbit of 
moon. — Moon's motions governed by the sun. — Perturba- 
tions caused by Earth. — Attraction of moon, and ocean-tides. 
— Unknown side of moon. — No /water in moon. — Craters. 
— Sunset-lights. — Falling meteorites. — Names of some chief 
craters and mountain-ranges - 157 — 168 

Chap. VI. — Mercury : his speed,; length of day, slope of axis 
orbit, varying distance from sun. — Sun as seen from Mer- 
cury. — Dense atmosphere. — Life on Mercury ? — Weight at 
surface of Mercury. — Star-gazers in Mercury. — Venus : her 
orbit. — Transits. of Mercury and Venus. — Distance of Venus 
from Earth. — Appearance and phases of Venus. — Appear- 
ance of Earth, seen from Venus. — Mountain-shadows, 
climate, slanting axis of Venus. — Life on Venus ? — Mars : 
his phases, moons, size, density, atmosphere, weather, 
eography, and distance from Earth. — Water and Snow. — 
Map of Mars 169 — 182 

CHAK VII. — Jupiter: his size, weight, shape, slope of axis, 
turning on axis, seasons. — Sun as seen from Jupiter. — 
Jupiter seen through a telescope. — Dark and bright belts 
of Jupiter. — Poles of planets. — Northern and southern 
heavens. — West to east motions of planets. — Atmosphere 
of Jupiter. — Possible explanation of belts. — Bright white 
spots. — Motions of Jupiter's bands. — Winds and hurri- 
canes. — Supposed present state of Jupiter. — Life on Jupiter ? 
— Jupiter's moons : their size, distance from Jupiter, eclipses, 
names. — Jupiter seen from moons. — Are the moons in- 
habited? - - 183 — 196 

CHAP. VIII. — Saturn : his size, weight, cloudy atmosphere, sup- 
posed present condition. — Moons of Saturn. — Life on 
Saturn, or on the moons ? — Square-shouldered appearance 
of Saturn. — The Rings : their number, colour, breadth. — 



Table of Subjects. 301 

Shining of Rings by reflected light.— Winter on Saturn. — 
Appearance of Saturn ----- 197 — 205 

Chap. IX. — Distance of Uranus from Saturn and from Nep- 
tune. — Discovery of Uranus. — Orbits of planets. — Discovery 
of Neptune. — Uranus and Neptune : their size, density, 
length of year, moons. — Sun as seen from Uranus and 
Neptune - - - - • - - - - 206 — 214 

Chap. X. — Connection between Comets and Meteorites. — Me- 
teorite Rings. — November System : supposed weight of 
Meteorites. — Grand display of 1866.— Orbit of November 
System. — Chief cluster : its supposed length, depth, and 
thickness. — How many Meteorite- Rings in the Solar 
System? 215 — 222 

Chap. XI. — Comet of 181 1. — Halley's Comet. — Comet of 1843. 
— Donati's Comet. — Texture of a comet's tail. — Weight of 
Comets. — Changes seen in Comets. — Motions of Comets. 
— What are Comets and Meteorites made of? — Meteorite 
dust.— Suppositions. — Comet-visitors, and where they come 
from 223 — 234 



PART III. 

Chap. I. — Space beyond Solar System. — Our sun a star. — 
Speed of light. — Immense distance of stars. — Distance of 
Alpha Centauri. — Sizes of stars. — Four chief orders of stars. 
— What stars really are. — Movements of stars 235 — 243 

Chap. II . — 61 Cygni : double-star, his speed, distance, weight. — 
Alpha Centauri : double-star, his position in heavens, speed, 
distance, weight. — Sirius : his colour, distance, size, motions, 
satellite. — What Sirius is made of - - - 244—254 



302 Table of Subjects. 

Chap. III. — Variable stars. — Mir a, Algol, Betelgeuse, Delta 
Cephei, Sun. — Temporary star of 1572. — Two kinds of 
double-stars. — Quadruple. star near Vega. — Stars of many 
colours. — Examples of white, yellow, and red stars. — Group 
of coloured stars in southern heavens - - 255 — 263 

Chap. IV. — The Milky Way. — Globular clusters. — Coloured 

clusters. — What are the clusters ? — Worlds without night. — 

Nebulae. — What are the nebulae? — Different kinds of nebulae. 

-Magellanic clouds 264—273 

Chap. V. — Appearance of the Milky Way. — What the Milky 
Way consists of. — Sounding the Universe. — The Cloven- 
Disc Theory. — Ideas past and present. — Arrangement of 
stars in the sky. — Star-streams - 274 — 279 

Chap. VI. — Motions of stars. — Motion of the Solar System, — 
Where the sun is going. — Past and present motions about 
the Milky Way. — Star-drift. — The Great Bear. — Mizar and 
Alcor. — Supposed model of the Universe - - 280 — 287 

Chap. VII. — Spectrum Analysis.— Metals : solid, liquid, and 
vapour forms. — Metals in sun and stars. — Use of a prism, 
— A broken-up ray of sunlight. — Bands and lines. — Con- 
clusion 288 



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