Chapter VI: Part 6

The Greeks set their mythological deities in the skies, and read the revolving pictures as a starry poem. Not that they were the first to set the blazonry of the stars as monuments of their thought; we read certain allusions to stars and asterisms as far back as the time of Job. And the Pleiades, Arcturus, and Orion are some of the names used by Him who "calleth all the stars by their names, in the greatness of his power." Homer and Hesiod, 750 B.C., allude to a few stars and groups. The Arabians very early speak of the Great Bear; but the Greeks completely nationalized the heavens. They colonized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; and nightly over them marched the grand procession of their apotheosized divinities. There Hercules perpetually wrought his mighty labors for the good of man; there flashed and faded the changeful star Algol, as an eye in the head of the snaky-haired Medusa; over them flew Pegasus, the winged horse of the poet, careering among the stars; there the ship Argo, which had explored all strange seas of earth, nightly sailed in the infinite realms of heaven; there Perseus perpetually killed the sea-monster by celestial aid, and perpetually won the chained Andromeda for his bride. Very evident was their recognition of divine help: equally evident was [Page 196] their assertion of human ability and dominion. They gathered the illimitable stars, and put uncountable suns into the shape of the Great Bear--the most colossal form of animal ferocity and strength--across whose broad forehead imagination grows weary in flying; but they did not fail to put behind him a representative of themselves, who forever drives him around a sky that never sets--a perpetual type that man's ambition and expectation correspond to that which has always been revealed as the divine.

The heavens signify much higher power and wisdom to us; we retain the old pictures and groupings for the convenience of finding individual stars. It is enough for the astronomer that we speak of a star as situated right ascension 13' 45", declination 88° 40'. But for most people, if not all, it is better to call it Polaris. So we might speak of a lake in latitude 42° 40', longitude 79° 22', but it would be clearer to most persons to say Chatauqua. For exact location of a star, right ascension and declination must be given; but for general indication its name or place in a constellation is sufficiently exact. The heaven is rather indeterminably laid out in irregular tracts, and the mythological names are preserved. The brightest stars are then indicated in order by the letters of the Greek alphabet--Alpha (a), Beta (b), Gamma (g), etc. After these are exhausted, the Roman alphabet is used in the same manner, and then numbers are resorted to; so that the famous star 61 Cygni is the 111th star in brightness in that one constellation. An acquaintance with the names, peculiarities, and movements of the stars visible at different seasons of the year is an unceasing source of pleasure. It [Page 197] is not vision alone that is gratified, for one fine enough may hear the morning stars sing together, and understand the speech that day uttereth unto day, and the knowledge that night showeth unto night. One never can be alone if he is familiarly acquainted with the stars. He rises early in the summer morning, that he may see his winter friends; in winter, that he may gladden himself with a sight of the summer stars. He hails their successive rising as he does the coming of his personal friends from beyond the sea. On the wide ocean he is commercing with the skies, his rapt soul sitting in his eyes. Under the clear skies of the East he hears God's voice speaking to him, as to Abraham, and saying, "Look now toward the heavens, and tell the number of the stars, if thou be able to number them."

A general acquaintance with the stars will be first attempted; a more particular knowledge afterward. Fig. 67 (page 201) is a map of the circumpolar region, which is in full view every clear night. It revolves daily round Polaris, its central point. Toward this star, the two end stars of the Great Dipper ever point, and are in consequence called "the Pointers." The map may be held toward the northern sky in such a position as the stars may happen to be. The Great Bear, or Dipper, will be seen at nine o'clock in the evening above the pole in April and May; west of the pole, the Pointers downward, in July and August; close to the north horizon in October and November; and east of the pole the Pointers highest, in January and February. The names of such constantly visible stars should be familiar. In order, from the end of the tail of the Great Bear, we have Benetnasch ae, Mizar z, Little Alcor close to it, [Page 198] Alioth, e Megrez, d at the junction, has been growing dimmer for a century, Phad, g Dubhe and Merak. It is best to get some facility at estimating distances in degrees. Dubhe and Merak, "the Pointers," are five degrees apart. Eighteen degrees forward of Dubhe is the Bear's nose; and three pairs of stars, fifteen degrees apart, show the position of the Bear's three feet. Follow "the Pointers" twenty-nine degrees from Dubhe, and we come to the pole-star. This star is double, made of two suns, both appearing as one to the naked eye. It is a test of an excellent three-inch telescope to resolve it into two. Three stars beside it make the curved-up handle of the Little Dipper of Ursa Minor. Between the two Bears, thirteen degrees from Megrez, and eleven degrees from Mizar, are two stars in the tail of the Dragon, which curves about to appropriate all the stars not otherwise assigned. Follow a curve of fifteen stars, doubling back to a quadrangle from five to three degrees on a side, and thirty-five degrees from the pole, for his head. His tongue runs out to a star four degrees in front. We shall find, hereafter, that the foot of Hercules stands on this head. This is the Dragon slain by Cadmus, and whose teeth produced such a crop of sanguinary men.

The star Thuban was once the pole-star. In the year B.C. 2300 it was ten times nearer the pole than Polaris is now. In the year A.D. 2100 the pole will be within 30' of Polaris; in A.D. 7500, it will be at a of Cepheus; in A.D. 13,500, within 7° of Vega; in A.D. 15,700, at the star in the tongue of Draco; in A.D. 23,000, at Thuban; in A.D. 28,000, back to Polaris. This indicates no change in the position of the dome [Page 199] of stars, but a change in the direction of the axis of the earth pointing to these various places as the cycles pass. As the earth goes round its orbit, the axis, maintaining nearly the same direction, really points to every part of a circle near the north star as large as the earth's orbit, that is, 185,000,000 miles in diameter. But, as already shown, that circle is too small to be discernible at our distance. The wide circle of the pole through the ages is really made up of the interlaced curves of the annual curves continued through 25,870 years. The stem of the spinning top wavers, describes a circle, and finally falls; the axis of the spinning earth wavers, describes a circle of nearly 28,000 years, and never falls.

The star g Draconis, also called Etanin, is famous in modern astronomy, because observations on this star led to the discovery of the _aberration of light_. If we held a glass tube perpendicularly out of the window of a car at rest, when the rain was falling straight down, we could see the drops pass directly through. Put the car in motion, and the drops would seem to start toward us, and the top of the tube must be bent forward, or the drops entering would strike on the backside of the tube carried toward them. So our telescopes are bent forward on the moving earth, to enable the entered light to reach the eye-piece. Hence the star does not appear just where it is. As the earth moves faster in some parts of its orbit than others, this aberration is sometimes greater than at others. It is fortunate that light moves with a uniform velocity, or this difficult, problem would be still further complicated. The displacement of a star from this course is about 20".43.

[Page 200] On the side of Polaris, opposite to Ursa Major, is King Cepheus, made of a few dim stars in the form of the letter K. Near by is his brilliant wife Cassiopeia, sitting on her throne of state. They were the graceless parents who chained their daughter to a rock for the sea-monster to devour; but Perseus, swift with the winged sandals of Mercury, terrible with his avenging sword, and invincible with the severed head of Medusa, whose horrid aspect of snaky hair and scaly body turned to stone every beholder, rescues the maiden from chains, and leads her away by the bands of love. Nothing could be more poetical than the life of Perseus. When he went to destroy the dreadful Gorgon, Medusa, Pluto lent him his helmet, which would make him invisible at will; Minerva loaned her buckler, impenetrable, and polished like a mirror; Mercury gave him a dagger of diamonds, and his winged sandals, which would carry him through the air. Coming to the loathsome thing, he would not look upon her, lest he, too, be turned to stone; but, guided by the reflection in the buckler, smote off her head, carried it high over Libya, the dropping blood turning to serpents, which have infested those deserts ever since.

The human mind has always been ready to deify and throne in the skies the heroes that labor for others. Both Perseus and Hercules are divine by one parent, and human by the other. They go up and down the earth, giving deliverance to captives, and breaking every yoke. They also seek to purge away all evil; they slay dragons, gorgons, devouring monsters, cleanse the foul places of earth, and one of them so wrestles with death as to win a victim from his grasp. Finally, by [Page 201] an ascension in light, they go up to be in light forever. They are not ideally perfect. They right wrong by slaying wrong-doers, rather than by being crucified themselves; they are just murderers; but that only plucks the fruit from the tree of evil. They never attempted to infuse a holy life. They punished rather than regenerated. It must be confessed, also, that they were not sinless. But they were the best saviors the race could imagine, and are examples of that perpetual effort of the human mind to incarnate a Divine Helper who shall labor and die for the good of men.

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_Equatorial Constellations._

If we turn our backs on Polaris on the 10th of November, at 10 o'clock in the evening, and look directly overhead, we shall see the beautiful constellation of Andromeda. Together with the square of Pegasus, it makes another enormous dipper. The star a Alpheratz is in her face, the three at the left cross her breast. b and the two above mark the girdle of her loins, and g is in the foot. Perseus is near enough for help; and Cetus, the sea-monster, is far enough away to do no harm. Below, and east of Andromeda, is the Ram of the golden fleece, recognizable by the three stars in an acute triangle. The brightest is called Arietis, or Hamel. East of this are the Pleiades, and the V-shaped Hyades in Taurus, or the Bull. The Pleiades rise about 9 o'clock on the evening of the 10th of September, and at 3 o'clock A.M. on June 10th.

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Fig. 69 extends east and south of our last map. It is the most gorgeous section of our heavens. (See the Notes to the Frontispiece.) Note the triangle, 26° on a side, made by Betelguese, Sirius, and Procyon. A line from Procyon to Pollux leads quite near to Polaris. Orion is the mighty hunter. Under his feet is a hare, behind him are two dogs, and before him is the rushing bull. The curve of stars to the right of Bellatrix, g, represents his shield of the Nemean lion's hide. The three stars of his belt make a measure 3° long; the upper one, Mintaker, is less than 30' south of the equinoctial. The ecliptic passes between Aldebaran and the Pleiades. Sirius rises about 9 o'clock P.M. on the 1st of December, and about 4 o'clock A.M. on the 16th of August. Procyon rises about half an hour earlier.

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Fig. 70 continues eastward. Note the sickle in the head and neck of the Lion. The star b is Denebola, in his tail. Arcturus appears by the word Bootes, at the edge of the map. These two stars make a triangle with Spica, about 35° on a side. The geometric head of Hydra is easily discernible east of Procyon: The star g in the Virgin is double, with a period of 145 years. z is just above the equinoctial. There is a fine nebula two-thirds of the way from d to ae, and a little above the line connecting the two. Coma Berenices is a beautiful cluster of faint stars. Spica rises at 9 o'clock on the 10th of February, at 5 o'clock A.M. on the 6th of November.

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Fig. 71 represents the sky to the eastward and northward of the last. A line drawn from Polaris and Benetnasch comes east of Arcturus to the little triangle called his sons. Bootes drives the Great Bear round the pole. Arcturus and Denebola make a triangle with a, also called Cor Coroli, in the Hunting Dogs. This triangle, and the one having the same base, with Spica for its apex, is called the "Diamond of the Virgin." Hercules appears head down--a in the face, b, g, d; in his shoulders, p; and ae; in the loins, t in the knee, the foot being bent to the stars at the right. The Serpent's head, making an X, is just at the right of the g of Hercules, and the partial circle of the Northern Crown above. The head of Draco is seen at b on the left of the map. Arcturus rises at 9 o'clock about the 20th of February, and at 5 A.M. on the 22d of October; Regulus 3h. 35m. Earlier.

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Fig. 72 portrays the stars eastward and southward. Scorpio is one of the most brilliant and easily traced constellations. Antares, a, in the heart, is double. In Sagittarius is the Little Milk-dipper, and west of it the bended bow. Vega is at the top of the map. Near it observe z, a double, and e, a quadruple star. The point to which the solar system is tending is marked by the sign of the earth below p; Herculis. The Serpent, west of Hercules, and coiled round nearly to Aquila, is very traceable. In the right-hand lower corner is the Centaur. Below, and always out of our sight, is the famous a Centauri. The diamond form of the Dolphin is sometimes called "Job's Coffin." The ecliptic passes close [Page 207] to b of Scorpio, which star is in the head. Antares, in Scorpio, rises at 9 o'clock P.M. on May 9th, and at 5 o'clock A.M. on January 5th.

In Fig. 73 we recognize the familiar stars of Pegasus, which tell us we have gone quite round the heavens. Note the beautiful cross in the Swan. b in the bill is named Albireo, and is a beautiful double to almost any glass. Its yellow and blue colors are very distinct. The place of the famous double star 61 Cygni is seen. The first magnitude star in the lower left-hand corner is Fomalhaut, in the Southern Fish. a Pegasi is in the diagonal corner from Alpharetz, in Andromeda. The star below Altair is b Aquilæ, and is called Alschain; the one above is g Aquilæ, named Tarazed. This is not a brilliant section of the sky. Altair rises at 9 o'clock on the 29th of May, and at 6 o'clock A.M. on the 11th of January.

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Fig. 74 gives the stars that are never seen by persons north of the earth's equator. In the Ship is brilliant Canopus, and the remarkable variable ae. Below it is the beautiful Southern Cross, near the pole of the southern heavens. Just below are the two first magnitude stars Bungala, a, and Achernar, b, of the Centaur. Such a number of unusually brilliant stars give the southern sky an unequalled splendor. In the midst of them, as if for contrast, is the dark hole, called by the sailors the "Coal-sack," where even the telescope reveals no sign of light. Here, also, are the two Magellanic clouds, both easily discernible by the naked eye; the larger two hundred times the apparent size of the moon, lying between the pole and Canopus, and the other between Achernar and the pole. The smaller cloud is only one-fourth the size of the other. Both are mostly resolvable into groups of stars from the fifth to the fifteenth magnitude.

[Page 209] For easy out-door finding of the stars above the horizon at any time, see star-maps at end of the book.

_Characteristics of the Stars._

Such a superficial examination of stars as we have made scarcely touches the subject. It is as the study of the baptismal register, where the names were anciently recorded, without any knowledge of individuals. The heavens signify much more to us than to the Greeks. We revolve under a dome that investigation has infinitely enlarged from their estimate. Their little lights were turned by clumsy machinery, held together by material connections. Our vast worlds are connected by a force so fine that it seems to pass out of the realm of the material into that of the spiritual. Animal ferocity or a human Hercules could image their idea of power. Ours finds no symbol, but rises to the Almighty. Their heavens were full of fighting Orions, wild bulls, chained Andromedas, and devouring monsters. Our heavens are significant of harmony and unity; all worlds carried by one force, and all harmonized into perfect music. All their voices blend their various significations into a personal speaking, which says, "Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" There is no searching of his understanding. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created all these things, that brought out their host by number, that calleth them all by their names in the greatness of his power; for that he is strong in power not one faileth.

[Page 210] _Number._

We find about five thousand stars visible to the naked eye in the whole heavens, both north and south. Of these twenty are of the first magnitude, sixty-five of the second, two hundred of the third, four hundred of the fourth, eleven hundred of the fifth, and three thousand two hundred of the sixth. We think we can easily number the stars; but train a six-inch telescope on a little section of the Twins, where six faint stars are visible, and over three thousand luminous points appear. The seventh magnitude has 13,000 stars; the eighth, 40,000; the ninth, 142,000. There are 18,000,000 stars in the zone called the Milky Way. When our eyes are not sensitive enough to be affected by the light of far-off stars the tastimetre feels their heat, and tells us the word of their Maker is true--"they are innumerable."[*]

[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Look at the Hyades and Pleiades in Taurus. Notice the different colors of stars in them both. Find the cluster Præsepe in Fig. 70, just a trifle above a point midway between Procyon and Regulus. It is equally distant from Procyon and a point a little below Pollux. Sweep along the Milky Way almost anywhere, and observe the distribution of stars; in some places perfect crowds, in others more sparsely scattered. Find with the naked eye the rich cluster in Perseus. Draw a line from Algol to a of Perseus (Fig. 67); turn at right angles to the right, at a distance of once and four-tenths the first line a brightness will be seen. The telescope reveals a gorgeous cluster.]

_Double and Multiple Stars._

If we look up during the summer months nearly overhead at the star e Lyra, east of Vega (Fig. 72), we shall see with the naked eye that the star appears a little [Page 211] elongated. Turn your opera-glass upon it, and two stars appear. Turn a larger telescope on this double star, and each of the components separate into two. It is a double double star. We know that if two stars are near in reality, and not simply apparently so by being in the same line of sight, they must revolve around a common centre of gravity, or rush to a common ruin. Eagerly we watch to see if they revolve. A few years suffice to show them in actual revolution. Nay, the movement of revolution has been decided before the companion star was discovered. Sirius has long been known to have a proper motion, such as it would have if another sun were revolving about it. Even the direction of the unseen body could always be indicated. In February, 1862, Alvan Clark, artist, poet, and maker of telescopes (which requires even greater genius than to be both poet and artist), discovered the companion of Sirius just in its predicted place. As a matter of fact, one of Mr. Clark's sons saw it first; but their fame is one. The time of revolution of this pair is fifty years. But one companion does not meet the conditions of the movements. Here must also be one or more planets too small or dark to be seen. The double star x in the Great Bear (see Fig. 70) makes a revolution in fifty-eight years.

Procyon moves in an orbit which requires the presence of a companion star, but it has as yet eluded our search. Castor is a double star; but a third star or planet, as yet undiscovered, is required to account for its perturbations. Men who discovered Neptune by the perturbations of Uranus are capable of judging the cause of the perturbations of suns. We have spoken of [Page 212] the whole orbit of the earth being invisible from the stars. The nearest star in our northern hemisphere, 61 Cygni, is a telescopic double star; the constituent parts of it are forty-five times as far from each other as the earth is from the sun, yet it takes a large telescope to show any distance between the stars.[*]

[Footnote *: _Telescopic Work._--Only such work will be laid out here as can be done by small telescopes of from two to four inch object-glasses. The numbers in Fig. 75 correspond to those of the table.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | |Dist. of|Magni-| | |No.| Name. | Fig. | Parts. |tudes.| Remarks. | |---|------------|-------------|--------|------|---------------------| | 1.| e Lyræ | 72 | 1' 56" | |Quadruple. | | 2.| z Lyræ | 72 | 44 |5 & 6 |Topaz and green. | | 3.| b Cygni | 73 | 34-1/2|3 & 6 |Yellow and blue. | | 4.| 61 Cygni | 73 | 20 |5 & 6 |Nearest star but one.| | 5.| Mizar | 67 | 14 |3 & 4 |Both white. | | 6.| Polaris | 67 | 18-1/2|2 & 9 |Test object of eye | | | | | | | and glass. | | 7.| r Orionis |Frontispiece.| 7 |5 & 8 |Yellow and blue. | | 8.| b Orionis | " | 9 |1 & 8 | Rigel. | | 9.| d " | " | 10 |2 & 8 | Red and white. | |10.| th " | " | | |Septuple. | |11.| l " | " | 5 | |White and violet. | |12.| s " | " A, B.| 11 |4 & 10|Octuple. | |13.| Castor | 69 | 5-1/2|2 & 3 |White. | |14.| Pollux | 69 | |Triple|Orange, gray, lilac. | |15.| g Virginis | 70 | 5 |3 & 3 |Both yellow. | -------------------------------------------------------------------- ]

When g Virginis was observed in 1718 by Bradley, the component parts were 7" asunder. He incidentally remarked in his note-book that the line of their connection was parallel to the line of the two stars Spica, or a and d Virginis. By 1840 they were not more than 1" apart, and the line of their connection greatly changed. The appearance of the star is given in Fig. 75 (15), commencing at the left, for the years 1837 '38 '39 '40 '45 '50 '60 and '79. also a conjectural [Page 213] orbit, placed obliquely, and the position of the stars at the times mentioned, commencing at the top. The time of its complete revolution is one hundred and fifty years.

The meaning of these double stars is that two or more suns revolve about their centre of gravity, as the moon and earth about their centre. If they have planets, as doubtless they have, the movement is no more complicated than the planets we call satellites of Saturn revolving about their central body, and also about the sun. Kindle Saturn and Jupiter to a blaze, or let out their possible light, and our system would appear a triple star in the distance. Doubtless, in the far past, before these giant planets were cooled, it so appeared.

We find some stars double, others triple, quadruple, octuple, and multiple. It is an extension of the same principles that govern our system. Some of these suns are so far asunder that they can swing their Neptunes between them, with less perturbation than Uranus and Neptune have in ours. Light all our planets, and there would be a multiple star with more or less suns seen, [Page 214] according to the power of the instrument. Perhaps the octuple star s in Orion differs in no respect from our system, except in the size and distance of its separate bodies, and less cooling, either from being younger, or from the larger bodies cooling more slowly. Suns are of all ages. Infinite variety fills the sky. It is as preposterous to expect that every system or world should have analogous circumstances to ours at the present time, as to insist that every member of a family should be of the same age, and in the same state of development. There are worlds that have not yet reached the conditions of habitability by men, and worlds that have passed these conditions long since. Let them go. There are enough left, and an infinite number in the course of preparation. Some are fine and lasting enough to be eternal mansions.

_Colored Stars._

In the cloudy morning we get only red light, but the sun is white. So Aldebaran and Betelguese may be girt by vapors, that only the strong red rays can pass. Again, an iron moderately heated gives out dull red light; becoming hotter, it emits white light. Sirius, Regulus, Vega, and Spica may be white from greater intensity of vibration. Procyon, Capella, and Polaris are yellow from less intensity of vibration. Again, burn salt in a white flame, and it turns to yellow; mix alcohol and boracic acid, ignite them, and a beautiful green flame results; alcohol and nitrate of strontia give red flame; alcohol and nitrate of barytes give yellow flame. So the composition of a sun, or the special development of anyone substance thereof at any time, may determine the color of a star.

[Page 215] The special glory of color in the stars is seen in the marked contrasts presented in the double and multiple stars. The larger star is usually white, still in the intensity of heat and vibration; the others, smaller, are somewhat cooled off, and hence present colors lower down the scale of vibration, as green, yellow, orange, and even red.

That stars should change color is most natural. Many causes would produce this effect. The ancients said Sirius was red. It is now white. The change that would most naturally follow mere age and cooling would be from white, through various colors, to red. We are charmed with the variegated flowers of our gardens of earth, but he who makes the fields blush with flowers under the warm kisses of the sun has planted his wider gardens of space with colored stars. "The rainbow flowers of the footstool, and the starry flowers of the throne," proclaim one being as the author of them all.

_Clusters of Stars._

From double and multiple we naturally come to groups and clusters. Allusion has been made to the Hyades, Pleiades, etc. Everyone has noticed the Milky Way. It seems like two irregular streams of compacted stars. It is not supposed that they are necessarily nearer together than the stars in the sparse regions about the pole. But the 18,000,000 suns belonging to our system are arranged within a space represented by a flattened disk. If one hundred lights, three inches apart, are arranged on a hoop ten feet in diameter, they would be in a circle. Add a thousand or two more the same distance apart, filling up the centre, and [Page 216] extending a few inches on each side of the inner plane of the hoop: an eye in the centre, looking out toward the edge, would see a milky way of lights; looking out toward the sides or poles, would see comparatively few. It would seem as if this oblate spheroidal arrangement was the result of a revolution of all the suns composing the system. Jupiter and earth are flattened at the poles for the same reason.

In various parts of the heavens there are small globular well-defined clusters, and clusters very irregular in form, marked with sprays of stars. There is a cluster of this latter class in Hercules, just under the S, in Fig. 72. "Probably no one ever saw it with a good telescope without a shout of wonder." Here is a cluster of the former class represented in Fig. 77. "The noble globular cluster, o Centauri is beyond all comparison the richest and largest object of the kind in the heavens. Its stars are literally innumerable; and as their total light, when received by the naked eye, affects it hardly more than a star of the fifth to fourth [Page 217] magnitude, the minuteness of each star may be imagined."

There are two possibilities of thought concerning these clusters. Either that they belong to our stellar system, and hence the stars must be small and young, or they are another universe of millions of suns, so far way that the inconceivable distances between the stars are shrunken to a hand's-breadth, and their unbearable splendor of innumerable suns can only make a gray haze at the distance at which we behold them. The latter is the older and grander thought; the former the newer and better substantiated.

_Nebulæ._

The gorgeous clusters we have been considering appear to the eye or the small telescope as little cloudlets of hazy light. One after another were resolved into stars; and the natural conclusion was, that all would yield and reveal themselves to be clustered suns, when we had telescopes of sufficient power. But the spectroscope, seeing not merely form but substance also, shows that some of them are not stars in any sense, but masses of glowing gas. Two of these nebulæ are visible to the naked eye: one in Andromeda (see Fig. 68), and one around the middle star of the sword of Orion, shown in Fig.78. A three-inch telescope resolves th Orionis into the famous trapezium, and a nine-inch instrument sees two stars more. The shape of the nebula is changeable, and is hardly suggestive of the moulding influence of gravitation. It is probably composed of glowing nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Nebulæ are of all conceivable shapes--circular, annular, oval, lenticular, [Page 218] conical, spiral, snake-like, looped, and nameless. Compare the sprays of the Crab nebulæ above z Tauri, seen in Fig. 79, and the ring nebula, Fig. 80. This last possibly consists of stars, and is situated, as shown in Fig. 81, midway between b and g Lyræ.

When Herschel was sweeping the heavens with his telescope, and saw but few stars, he often said to his assistant, "Prepare to write; the nebulæ are coming." They are most abundant where the stars are least so. A zone about the heavens 30° wide, with the Milky Way in the centre, would include one-fourth of the celestial sphere; but instead of one-fourth, we find nine-tenths [Page 219] of the stars in this zone, and but one-tenth of the nebulæ.

These immense masses of unorganized matter are noticed to change their forms, vary their light greatly, but not quickly; they change through the ages. "God works slowly." He takes a thousand years to lift his hand off.

There are many unsolved problems connected with these strange bodies. Whether they belong to our system, or are beyond it, is not settled; the weight of evidence leans to the first view.

[Page 220] _Variable Stars._

Our sun gives a variable amount of light, changing through a period of eleven years. Probably every star, if examined by methods sufficiently delicate and exact, would be found to be variable. The variations of some [Page 221] stars are so marked as to challenge investigation. b Lyræ (Fig. 81) has two maxima and minima of light. In three days it rises from magnitude 4-1/2 to 3-1/2; in a week falls to 4, and rises to 3-1/2; and in three days more drops to 4-1/2: it makes all these changes in thirteen days; but this period is constantly increasing. The variations of one hundred and forty-three stars have been well ascertained.

Mira, or the Wonderful, in the Whale (Fig. 68), is easily found when visible. Align from Capella to the Pleiades, and as much farther, and four stars will be seen, situated thus:

*
* * *

The right-hand one is Mira. For half a month it shines as a star of the second magnitude. Then for three months it fades away, and lost to sight; going down even to the eleventh magnitude. But after five months its resurrection morning mes; and in three months more--eleven months in all--our Wonderful is in its full glory in the heavens. It its period and brilliancy are also variable. The star Megrez, d in the Great Bear, has been growing dim [Page 222] for a century. In 1836 Betelguese was exceedingly variable, and continued so till 1840, when the changes became much less conspicuous. Algol (Fig. 68) has been already referred to. This slowly winking eye is of the second magnitude during 2d. 14h. Then it dozes off toward sleep for 4h. 24m., when it is nearly invisible. It wakes up during the same time; so that its period from maximum brilliancy to the same state again is 2d. 20h. 48m. Its recognizable changes are within five or six hours. As I write, March 25th, 1879, Algol gives its minimum light at 9h. 36m. P.M. It passes fifteen minima in 43d. 13m. There will therefore be another minimum May 7th, at 9h. 49m. Its future periods are easy to estimate. Perhaps it has some dark body revolving about it at frightful speed, in a period of less than three days. The period of its variability is growing shorter at an increasing rate. If its variability is caused by a dark body revolving about it, the orbit of that body is contracting, and the huge satellite will soon, as celestial periods are reckoned, commence to graze the surface of the sun itself, rebound again and again, and at length plunge itself into the central fire. Such an event would evolve heat enough to make Algol flame up into a star of the first magnitude, and perhaps out-blaze Sirius or Capella in our winter sky.

None of the causes for these changes we have been able to conjecture seem very satisfactory. The stars may have opaque planets revolving about them, shutting off their light; they may rotate, and have unequally illuminated sides; they may revolve in very elliptical orbits, so as to greatly alter their distance from us; they may be so situated in regard to zones of meteorites as [Page 223] to call down periodically vast showers; but none or all of these suppositions apply to all cases, if they do to any.

_Temporary, New, and Lost Stars._

Besides regular movements to right and left, up and down, to and from us--changes in the intensity of illumination by changes of distance--besides variations occurring at regular and ascertainable intervals, there are stars called _temporary_, shining awhile and then disappearing; _new_, coming to a definite brightness, and so remaining; and _lost_, those whose first appearance was not observed, but which have utterly disappeared.

In November, 1572, a new star blazed out in Cassiopeia. Its place is shown in Fig. 67, ch g being the stars

d *
g ch

in the seat of the chair, and d being the first one in the back. This star was visible at noonday, and was brighter than any other star in the heavens. In January, 1573, it was less bright than Jupiter; in April it was below the second magnitude, and the last of May it utterly disappeared. It was as variable in color as in brilliancy. During its first two months, the period of greatest brightness, it was dazzling white, then became yellow, and finally as red as Mars or Aldebaran, and so expired.

A bright star was seen very near to the place of the _Pilgrim_, as the star of 1572 was called, in A.D. 945 and 1264. A star of the tenth magnitude is now seen brightening slowly almost exactly in the same place. It is possible that this is a variable star of a period of about three hundred and ten years, and will blaze out again about 1885.

But we have had, within a few years, fine opportunities [Page 224] to study, with improved instruments, two new stars; On the evening of May 12th, 1866, a star of the second magnitude was observed in the Northern Crown, where no star above the fifth magnitude had been twenty-four hours before. In Argelander's chart a star of the tenth magnitude occupies the place. May 13th it had declined to the third magnitude, May 16th to the fourth, May 17th to the fifth, May 19th to the seventh, May 31st to the ninth, and has since diminished to the tenth. The spectroscope showed it to be a star in the usual condition; but through the usual colored spectrum, crossed with bright lines, shone four bright lines, two of which indicated glowing hydrogen. Here was plenty of proof that an unusual amount of this gas had given this sun its sudden flame. As the hydrogen burned out the star grew dim.

Two theories immediately presented themselves: First, that vast volumes had been liberated from within the orb by some sudden breaking up of the doors of its great deeps; or, second, this star had precipitated upon itself, by attraction, some other sun or planet, the force of whose impact had been changed into heat.

Though we see the liberated hydrogen of our sun burst up with sudden flame, it can hardly be supposed that enough could be liberated at once to increase the light and heat one hundred-fold.

In regard to the second theory, it is capable of proof that two suns half as large as ours, moving at a velocity of four hundred and seventy-six miles per second, would evolve heat enough to supply the radiation of our sun for fifty million years. How could it be possible for a sun like this newly blazing orb to cool off to such a [Page 225] degree in a month? Besides, there would not be one chance in a thousand for two orbs to come directly together. They would revolve about each other till a kind of grazing contact of grinding worlds would slowly kindle the ultimate heat.

It is far more likely that this star encountered an enormous stream of meteoric bodies, or perhaps absorbed a whole comet, that laid its million leagues of tail as fuel on the central fire. Only let it be remembered that the fuel is far more force than substance. Allusion has already been made to the sudden brightening of our sun on the first day of September, 1859. That was caused, no doubt, by the fall of large meteors, following in the train of the comet of 1843, or some other comet. What the effect would have been, had the whole mass of the comet been absorbed, cannot be imagined.

Another new star lately appeared in Cygnus, near the famous star 61--the first star in the northern hemisphere whose distance was determined. It was first seen November 24th, 1876, as a third magnitude star of a yellow color. By December 2d it had sunk to the fourth magnitude, and changed to a greenish color. It had then three bright hydrogen lines, the strong double sodium line, and others, which made, it strongly resemble the spectrum of the chromosphere of our sun. An entirely different result appeared in the fading of these two stars. In the case of the star in the Crown, the extraordinary light was the first to fade, leaving the usual stellar spectrum. In the case of the star in Cygnus, the part of the spectrum belonging to stellar light was the first to fade, leaving the bright lines; that is, the gas of one gave way to regular starlight, and the starlight [Page 226] of the other having faded, the regular light of the glowing gas continued. By some strange oversight, no one studied the star again for six months. In September and November, 1877, the light of this star was found to be blue, and not to be starlight at all. It had no rainbow spectrum, only one kind of rays, and hence only one color. Its sole spectroscopic line is believed to be that of glowing nitrogen gas. We have then, probably, in the star of 1876, a body shining by a feeble and undiscernible light, surrounded by a discernible immensity of light of nitrogen gas. This is its usual condition; but if a flight of meteors should raise the heat of the central body so as to outshine the nebulous envelope, we should have the conditions we discovered in November, 1876. But a rapid cooling dissipates the observable light of all colors, and leaves only the glowing gas of one color.

_Movements of Stars._

We call the stars _fixed_, but motion and life are necessary to all things. Besides the motion in the line of sight described already, there is motion in every other conceivable direction. We knew Sirius moved before we had found the cause. We know that our sun moves back and forth in his easy bed one-half his vast diameter, as the larger planets combine their influence on one side or the other.

The sun has another movement. We find the stars in Hercules gradually spreading from each other. Hercules's brawny limbs grow brawnier every century. There can be but one cause: we are approaching that quarter of the heavens. (See [Symbol], Fig. 72.) We are even [Page 227] able to compute the velocity of our approach; it is four miles a second. The stars in the opposite quarter of the heavens in Argo are drawing nearer together.

This movement would have no effect on the apparent place of the stars at either pole, if they were all equally distant; but it must greatly extend or contract the apparent space between them, since they are situated at various distances.

Independent of this, the stars themselves are all in motion, but so vast is the distance from which we observe them that it has taken an accumulation of centuries before they could be made measurable. A train going forty miles an hour, seen from a distance of two miles, almost seems to stand still. Arcturus moves through space three times as fast as the earth, but it takes a century to appear to move the eighth part of the diameter of the moon. There is a star in the Hunting Dogs, known as 1830 Groombridge, which has a velocity beyond what all the attraction of the matter of the known universe could give it. By the year 9000 it may be in Berenice's Hair.

Some stars have a common movement, being evidently related together. A large proportion of the brighter stars between Aldebaran and the Pleiades have a common motion eastward of about ten seconds a century. All the angles marked by a, b, g, ch Orionis will be altered in different directions; l is moving toward g. l and e will appear as a double star. In A.D. 50,000 Procyon will be nearer ch Orionis than Rigel now is, and Sirius will be in line with a and ch Orionis. All the stars of the Great Dipper, except Benetnasch and Dubhe, have a common motion somewhat in the direction [Page 228] of Thuban (Fig. 67), while the two named have a motion nearly opposite. In 36,000 years the end of the Dipper will have fallen out so that it will hold no water, and the handle will be broken square off at Mizar. "The Southern Cross," says Humboldt, "will not always keep its characteristic form, for its four stars travel in different directions with unequal velocities. At the present time it is not known how many myriads of years must elapse before its entire dislocation."

These movements are not in fortuitous or chaotic ways, but are doubtless in accordance with some perfect plan. We have climbed up from revolving earth and moon to revolving planets and sun, in order to understand how two or ten suns can revolve about a common centre. Let us now leap to the grander idea that all the innumerable stars of a winter night not only loan, but must revolve about some centre of gravity. Men have been looking for a central sun of suns, and have not found it. None is needed. Two suns can balance about a point; all suns can swing about a common centre. That one unmoving centre may be that city more gorgeous than Eastern imagination ever conceived, whose pavement is transparent gold, whose walls are precious stones, whose light is life, and where no dark planetary bodies ever cast shadows. There reigns the King and Lord of all, and ranged about are the far-off provinces of his material systems. They all move in his sight, and receive power from a mind that never wearies.

[Page 229] XI.

THE WORLDS AND THE WORD.

"The worlds were framed by the word of God."--_Heb._ xi., 3.

[Page 230]
"Mysterious night! when our first parent knew thee
From report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with all the host of heaven, came,
And lo! creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! Oh who could find,
Whilst fruit and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless worlds thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?
If light conceal so much, wherefore not life?"
BLANCO WHITE.

[Page 231] XI.

_THE WORLDS AND THE WORD._

Men have found the various worlds to be far richer than they originally thought. They have opened door after door in their vast treasuries, have ascended throne after throne of power, and ruled realms of increasing extent. We have no doubt that unfoldings in the future will amaze even those whose expectations have been quickened by the revealings of the past. What if it be found that the Word is equally inexhaustible?

After ages of thought and discovery we have come out of the darkness and misconceptions of men. We believe in no serpent, turtle, or elephant supporting the world; no Atlas holding up the heavens; no crystal domes, "with cycles and epicycles scribbled o'er." What if it be found that one book, written by ignorant men, never fell into these mistakes of the wisest! Nay, more, what if some of the greatest triumphs of modern science are to be found plainly stated in a book older than the writings of Homer? If suns, planets, and satellites, with all their possibilities of life, changes of flora and fauna, could be all provided for, as some scientists tell us, in the fiery star-dust of a cloud, why may not the same Author provide a perpetually widening river of life in his Word? As we believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has [Page 232] promised to be perpetually present in his Word, making it alive with spirit and life.

The wise men of the past could not avoid alluding to ideas the falsity of which subsequent discovery has revealed; but the writers of the Bible did avoid such erroneous allusion. Of course they referred to some things, as sunrise and sunset, according to appearance; but our most scientific books do the same to-day. That the Bible could avoid teaching the opposite of scientific truth proclaims that a higher than human wisdom was in its teaching.

That negative argument is strong, but the affirmative argument is much stronger. The Bible declares scientific truth far in advance of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations:

The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in the realms of physics, arguments in metaphysics, and conclusions by the necessities of resistless logic, science has reached the same result.

The Bible asserted from the first that creation of matter preceded arrangement. It was chaos--void--without form--darkness; arrangement was a subsequent work. The world was not created in the form it was to have; it was to be moulded, shaped, stratified, coaled, mountained, valleyed, subsequently. All of which science utters ages afterward.

The Bible did not hesitate to affirm that light existed before the sun, though men did not believe it, and used it as a weapon against inspiration. Now we praise men for having demonstrated the oldest record.

[Page 233] It is a recently discovered truth of science that the trata of the earth were formed by the action of water, and the mountains were once under the ocean. It is an idea long familiar to Bible readers: "Thou coverest the earth with the deep as with a garment. The waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains ascend; the valleys descend into the place thou hast founded for them." Here is a whole volume of geology in a paragraph. The thunder of continental convulsions is God's voice; the mountains rise by God's power; the waters haste away unto the place God prepared for them. Our slowness of geological discovery is perfectly accounted for by Peter. "For of this they are _willingly ignorant_, that by the word of God there were heavens of old, and land framed out of water, and by means of water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed by water, perished." We recognize these geological subsidences, but we read them from the testimony of the rocks more willingly than from the testimony of the Word.

Science exults in having discovered what it is pleased to call an order of development on earth--tender grass, herb, tree; moving creatures that have life in the waters; bird, reptile, beast, cattle, man. The Bible gives the same order ages before, and calls it God's successive creations.

During ages on ages man's wisdom held the earth to be flat. Meanwhile, God was saying, century after century, of himself, "He sitteth upon the sphere of the earth" (Gesenius).

Men racked their feeble wits for expedients to uphold [Page 234] the earth, and the best they could devise were serpents, elephants, and turtles; beyond that no one had ever gone to see what supported them. Meanwhile, God was perpetually telling men that he had hung the earth upon nothing.

Men were ever trying to number the stars. Hipparchus counted one thousand and twenty-two; Ptolemy one thousand and twenty-six; and it is easy to number those visible to the naked eye. But the Bible said, when there were no telescopes to make it known, that they were as the sands of the sea, "innumerable." Science has appliances of enumeration unknown to other ages, but the space-penetrating telescopes and tastimeters reveal more worlds--eighteen millions in a single system, and systems beyond count--till men acknowledge that the stars are innumerable to man. It is God's prerogative "to number all the stars; he also calleth them all by their names."