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THE NEW ASTRONOMY

During the latter half of the nineteenth century discoveries were made which extended the powers of astronomical research into entirely new and unexpected regions, comparable to those which were opened up by the discovery of the telescope more than two centuries before. The older astronomy for more than two thousand years was purely mechanical and mathematical, being limited to observation and measurement of the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, and the attempts to deduce, from these apparent motions, their real motions, and thus determine the actual structure of the solar system. This was first done when Kepler established his three celebrated laws: and later, when Newton showed that these laws were necessary consequences of the one law of gravitation, and when succeeding observers and mathematicians proved that each fresh irregularity in the motions of the planets was explicable by a more thorough and minute application of the same laws, this branch of astronomy reached its highest point of efficiency and left very little more to be desired.

Then, as the telescope became successively improved, the centre of interest was shifted to the surfaces of the planets and their satellites, which were watched and scrutinised with the greatest assiduity in order if possible to attain some amount of knowledge of their physical constitution and past history. A similar minute scrutiny was given to the stars and nebulæ, their distribution and grouping, and the whole heavens were mapped out, and elaborate catalogues constructed by enthusiastic astronomers in every part of the world. Others devoted themselves to the immensely difficult problem of determining the distances of the stars, and by the middle of the century a few such distances had been satisfactorily measured.

Thus, up to the middle of the nineteenth century it appeared likely that the future of astronomy would rest almost entirely on the improvement of the telescope, and of the various instruments of measurement by means of which more accurate determinations of distances might be obtained. Indeed, the author of the Positive Philosophy, Auguste Comte, felt so sure of this that he deprecated all further attention to the stars as pure waste of time that could never lead to any useful or interesting result. In his Philosophical Treatise on Popular Astronomy published in 1844, he wrote very strongly on this point. He there tells us that, as the stars are only accessible to us by sight they must always remain very imperfectly known. We can know little more than their mere existence. Even as regards so simple a phenomenon as their temperature this must always be inappreciable to a purely visual examination. Our knowledge of the stars is for the most part purely negative, that is, we can determine only that they do not belong to our system. Outside that system there exists, in astronomy, only obscurity and confusion, for want of indispensable facts; and he concludes thus:—'It is, then, in vain that for half a century it has been endeavoured to distinguish two astronomies, the one solar the other sidereal. In the eyes of those for whom science consists of real laws and not of incoherent facts, the second exists only in name, and the first alone constitutes a true astronomy; and I am not afraid to assert that it will always be so.' And he adds that—'all efforts directed to this subject for half a century have only produced an accumulation of incoherent empirical facts which can only interest an irrational curiosity.'

Seldom has a confident assertion of finality in science received so crushing a reply as was given to the above statements of Comte by the discovery in 1860 (only three years after his death) of the method of spectrum-analysis which, in its application to the stars, has revolutionised astronomy, and has enabled us to obtain that very kind of knowledge which he declared must be for ever beyond our reach. Through it we have acquired accurate information as to the physics and chemistry of the stars and nebulæ, so that we now know really more of the nature, constitution, and temperature of the enormously distant suns which we distinguish by the general term stars, than we do of most of the planets of our own system. It has also enabled us to ascertain the existence of numerous invisible stars, and to determine their orbits, their rate of motion, and even, approximately, their mass. The despised stellar astronomy of the early part of the century has now taken rank as the most profoundly interesting department of that grand science, and the branch which offers the greatest promise of future discoveries. As the results obtained by means of this powerful instrument will often be referred to, a short account of its nature and of the principles on which it depends must here be given.

The solar spectrum is the band of coloured light seen in the rainbow and, partially, in the dew-drop, but more completely when a ray of sunlight passes through a prism—a piece of glass having a triangular section. The result is, that instead of a spot of white light we have a narrow band of brilliant colours which succeed each other in regular order, from violet at one end through blue, green, and yellow to red at the other. We thus see that light is not a simple and uniform radiation from the sun, but is made up of a large number of separate rays, each of which produces in our eyes the sensation of a distinct colour. Light is now explained as being due to vibrations of ether, that mysterious substance which not only permeates all matter, but which fills space at least as far as the remotest of the visible stars and nebulæ. The exceedingly minute waves or vibrations of the ether produce all the phenomena of heat, light, and colour, as well as those chemical actions to which photography owes its wonderful powers. By ingenious experiments the size and rate of vibration of these waves have been measured, and it is found that they vary considerably, those forming the red light, which is least refracted, having a wave-length of about ¹/₃₂₆₀₀₀ of an inch, while the violet rays at the other end of the spectrum are only about half that length or ¹/₆₃₀₀₀₀ of an inch. The rate at which the vibrations succeed each other is from 302 millions of millions per second for the extreme red rays, to 737 millions of millions for those at the violet end of the spectrum. These figures are given to show the wonderful minuteness and rapidity of these heat and light waves on which the whole life of the world, and all our knowledge of other worlds and other suns, directly depends.

But the mere colours of the spectrum are not the most important part of it. Very early in the nineteenth century a close examination showed that it was everywhere crossed by black lines of various thicknesses, sometimes single, sometimes grouped together. Many observers studied them and made accurate drawings or maps showing their positions and thicknesses, and by combining several prisms, so that the beam of sunlight had to pass through them successively, a spectrum could be produced several feet long, and more than 3000 of these dark lines were counted in it. But what they were and how they were caused remained a mystery, till, in the year 1860, the German physicist Kirchhoff discovered the secret and gave to chemists and astronomers a new and quite unexpected engine of research.

It had already been observed that the chemical elements and various compounds, when heated to incandescence, produced spectra consisting of coloured lines or bands which were constant for each element, so that the elements could at once be recognised by their characteristic spectra; and it had also been noticed that some of these bands, especially the yellow band produced by sodium, corresponded in position with certain black lines in the solar spectrum. Kirchhoff's discovery consisted in showing that, when the light from an incandescent body passes through the same substance in a state of vapour or gas, so much of the light is absorbed that the coloured lines or bands become black. The mystery of more than half a century was thus solved; and the thousands of black lines in the solar spectrum were shown to be caused by the light from the incandescent matter of the sun's surface passing through the heated gases or vapours immediately above it, and thereby having the bright coloured lines of their spectra changed, by absorption, to comparative blackness.

Chemists and physicists immediately set to work examining the spectra of the elements, fixing the position of the several coloured lines or bands by accurate measurement, and comparing them with the dark lines of the solar spectrum. The results were in the highest degree satisfactory. In a large proportion of the elements the coloured bands corresponded exactly with a group of dark lines in the spectrum of the sun, in which, therefore, the same terrestrial elements were proved to exist. Among the elements first detected in this manner were hydrogen, sodium, iron, copper, magnesium, zinc, calcium, and many others. Nearly forty of the elements have now been found in the sun, and it seems highly probable that all our elements really exist there, but as some are very rare and are present in very minute quantities they cannot be detected. Some of the dark lines in the sun were found not to correspond to any known element, and as this was thought to indicate an element peculiar to the sun it was named Helium; but quite recently it has been discovered in a rare mineral. Many of the elements are represented by a great number of lines, others by very few. Thus iron has more than 2000, while lead and potassium have only one each.

The value of the spectroscope both to the chemist in discovering new elements and to the astronomer in determining the constitution of the heavenly bodies, is so great, that it became of the highest importance to have the position of all the dark lines in the solar spectrum, as well as the bright lines of all the elements, determined with extreme accuracy, so as to be able to make exact comparisons between different spectra. At first this was done by means of very large-scale drawings showing the exact position of every dark or bright line. But this was found to be both inconvenient and not sufficiently exact; and it was therefore agreed to adopt the natural scale of the wave-lengths of the different parts of the spectrum, which by means of what are termed diffraction-gratings can now be measured with great accuracy. Diffraction-gratings are formed of a polished surface of hard metal ruled with excessively fine lines, sometimes as many as 20,000 to an inch. When sunlight falls upon one of these gratings it is reflected, and by interference of the rays from the spaces between the fine grooves, it is spread out into a beautiful and well-defined spectrum, which, when the lines are very close, is several yards in length. In these diffraction spectra many dark lines are seen which can be shown in no other way, and they also give a spectrum which is far more uniform than that produced by glass prisms in which minute differences in the composition of the glass cause some rays to be refracted more and others less than the normal amount.

The spectra produced by diffraction-gratings are double; that is, they are spread out on both sides of the central line of the ray which remains white, and the several coloured or dark lines are so clearly defined that they can be thrown on a screen at a considerable distance, giving a great length to the spectrum. The data for obtaining the wave-lengths are the distance apart of the lines, the distance of the screen, and the distance apart of the first pair of dark lines on each side of the central bright line. All these can be measured with extreme accuracy by means of telescopes with micrometers and other contrivances, and the result is an accuracy of determination of wave-lengths which can probably not be equalled in any other kind of measurement.

As the wave-lengths are so excessively minute, it has been found convenient to fix upon a still smaller unit of measurement, and as the millimetre is the smallest unit of the metric system, the ten-millionth of a millimetre (technically termed 'tenth meter') is the unit adopted for the measurement of wave-lengths, which is equal to about the 250 millionth of an inch. Thus the wave-lengths of the red and blue lines characteristic of hydrogen are 6563.07 and 4861.51 respectively. This excessively minute scale of wave-lengths, once determined by the most refined measurement, is of very great importance. Having the wave-lengths of any two lines of a spectrum so determined, the space between them can be laid down on a diagram of any length, and all the lines that occur in any other spectrum between these two lines can be marked in their exact relative positions. Now, as the visible spectrum consists of about 300,000 rays of light, each of different wave-lengths and therefore of different refrangibilities, if it is laid down on such a scale as to be of a length of 3000 inches (250 feet), each wave-length will be ¹/₁₀₀ of an inch long, a space easily visible by the naked eye.

The possession of an instrument of such wonderful delicacy, and with powers which enable it to penetrate into the inner constitution of the remotest orbs of space, rendered it possible, within the next quarter of a century, to establish what is practically a new science—Astrophysics—often popularly termed the New Astronomy. A brief outline of the main achievements of this science must now be given.

The first great discovery made by Spectrum analysis, after the interpretation of the sun's spectrum had been obtained, was, the real nature of the fixed stars. It is true they had long been held by astronomers to be suns, but this was only an opinion of the accuracy of which it did not seem possible to obtain any proof. The opinion was founded on two facts—their enormous distance from us, so great that the whole diameter of the earth's orbit did not lead to any apparent change of their relative positions, and their intense brilliancy which at such distances could only be due to an actual size and splendour comparable with our sun. The spectroscope at once proved the correctness of this opinion. As one after another was examined, they were found to exhibit spectra of the same general type as that of the sun—a band of colours crossed by dark lines. The very first stars examined by Sir William Huggins showed the existence of nine or ten of our elements. Very soon all the chief stars of the heavens were spectroscopically examined, and it was found that they could be classed in three or four groups. The first and largest group contains more than half the visible stars, and a still larger proportion of the most brilliant, such as Sirius, Vega, Regulus, and Alpha Crucis in the Southern Hemisphere. They are characterised by a white or bluish light, rich in the ultra-violet rays, and their spectra are distinguished by the breadth and intensity of the four dark bands due to the absorption of hydrogen, while the various black lines which indicate metallic vapours are comparatively few, though hundreds of them can be discovered by careful examination.

The next group, to which Capella and Arcturus belong, is also very numerous, and forms the solar type of stars. Their light is of a yellowish colour, and their spectra are crossed throughout by innumerable fine dark lines more or less closely corresponding with those in the solar spectrum.

The third group consists of red and variable stars, which are characterised by fluted spectra. Such spectra show like a range of Doric columns seen in perspective, the red side being that most illuminated.

The last group, consisting of few and comparatively small stars, has also fluted spectra, but the light appears to come from the opposite direction.

These groups were established by Father Secchi, the Roman astronomer, in 1867, and have been adopted with some modifications by Vogel of the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam. The exact interpretation of these different spectra is somewhat uncertain, but there can be little doubt that they coincide primarily with differences of temperature and with corresponding differences in the composition and extent of the absorptive atmospheres. Stars with fluted spectra indicate the presence of vapours of the metalloids or of compound substances, while the reversed flutings indicate the presence of carbon. These conclusions have been reached by careful laboratory experiments which are now carried on at the same time as the spectral examination of the stars and other heavenly bodies, so that each peculiarity of their spectra, however puzzling and apparently unmeaning, has been usually explained, by being shown to indicate certain conditions of chemical constitution or of temperature.

But whatever difficulty there may be in explaining details, there remains no doubt whatever of the fundamental fact that all the stars are true suns, differing no doubt in size, and their stage of development as indicated by the colour or intensity of their light or heat, but all alike possessing a photosphere or light-emitting surface, and absorptive atmospheres of various qualities and density.

Innumerable other details, such as the often contrasted colours of double stars, the occasional variability of their spectra, their relations to the nebulæ, the various stages of their development and other problems of equal interest, have occupied the continued attention of astronomers, spectroscopists, and chemists; but further reference to these difficult questions would be out of place here. The present sketch of the nature of spectrum-analysis applied to the stars is for the purpose of making its principle and method of observation intelligible to every educated reader, and to illustrate the marvellous precision and accuracy of the results attained by it. So confident are astronomers of this accuracy that nothing less than perfect correspondence of the various bright lines in the spectrum of an element in the laboratory with the dark lines in the spectrum of the sun or of a star is required before the presence of that element is accepted as proved. As Miss Clerke tersely puts it—'Spectroscopic coincidences admit of no compromise. Either they are absolute or they are worthless.'

Measurement of Motion in the Line of Sight

We must now describe another and quite distinct application of the spectroscope, which is even more marvellous than that already described. It is the method of measuring the rate of motion of any of the visible heavenly bodies in a direction either directly towards us, or directly away from us, technically described as 'radial motion,' or by the expression—'in the line of sight.' And the extraordinary thing is that this power of measurement is altogether independent of distance, so that the rate of motion in miles per second of the remotest of the fixed stars, if sufficiently bright to show a distinct spectrum, can be measured with as much certainty and accuracy as in the case of a much nearer star or a planet.

In order to understand how this is possible we have again to refer to the wave-theory of light; and the analogy of other wave-motions will enable us better to grasp the principle on which these calculations depend. If on a nearly calm day we count the waves that pass each minute by an anchored steamboat, and then travel in the direction the waves come from, we shall find that a larger number pass us in the same time. Again, if we are standing near a railway, and an engine comes towards us whistling, we shall notice that it changes its tone as it passes us; and as it recedes the sound will be in a lower key, although the engine may be at exactly the same distance from us as when it was approaching. Yet the sound does not change to the ear of the engine driver, the cause of the change being that the sound-waves reach us in quicker succession as the source of the waves is approaching us than when it is retreating from us. Now, just as the pitch of a note depends upon the rapidity with which the successive air-vibrations reach our ear, so does the colour of a particular part of the spectrum depend upon the rapidity with which the ethereal waves which produce colour reach our eyes; and as this rapidity is greater when the source of the light is approaching than when it is receding from us, a slight shifting of the position of the coloured bands, and therefore of the dark lines, will occur, as compared with their position in the spectrum of the sun or of any stationary source of light, if there is any motion sufficient in amount to produce a perceptible shift.

That such a change of colour would occur was pointed out by Professor Doppler of Prague in 1842, and it is hence usually spoken of as the 'Doppler principle'; but as the changes of colour were so minute as to be impossible of measurement it was not at that time of any practical importance in astronomy. But when the dark lines in the spectrum were carefully mapped, and their positions determined with minute accuracy, it was seen that a means of measuring the changes produced by motion in the line of sight existed, since the position of any of the dark or coloured lines in the spectra of the heavenly bodies could be compared with those of the corresponding lines produced artificially in the laboratory. This was first done in 1868 by Sir William Huggins, who, by the use of a very powerful spectroscope constructed for the purpose, found that such a change did occur in the case of many stars, and that their rate of motion towards us or away from us—the radial motion—could be calculated. As the actual distance of some of these stars had been measured, and their change of position annually (their proper motion) determined, the additional factor of the amount of motion in the direction of our line of sight completed the data required to fix their true line of motion among the other stars. The accuracy of this method under favourable conditions and with the best instruments is very great, as has been proved by those cases in which we have independent means of calculating the real motion. The motion of Venus towards or away from us can be calculated with great accuracy for any period, being a resultant of the combined motions of the planet and of our earth in their respective orbits. The radial motions of Venus were determined at the Lick Observatory in August and September 1890, by spectroscopic observations, and also by calculation, to be as follows:—

showing that the maximum error was only one mile per second, while the mean error was about a quarter of a mile. In the case of the stars the accuracy of the method has been tested by observations of the same star at times when the earth's motion in its orbit is towards or away from the star, whose apparent radial velocity is, therefore, increased or diminished by a known amount. Observations of this kind were made by Dr. Vogel, Director of the Astrophysical Observatory at Potsdam, showing, in the case of three stars, of which ten observations were taken, a mean error of about two miles per second; but as the stellar motions are more rapid than those of the planets, the proportionate error is no greater than in the example given above.

The great importance of this mode of determining the real motion of the stars is, that it gives us a knowledge of the scale on which such motions are progressing; and when in the course of time we discover whether any of their paths are rectilinear or curved, we shall be in a position to learn something of the nature of the changes that are going on and of the laws on which they depend.

Invisible Stars and Imperceptible Motions

But there is another result of this power of determining radial motion which is even more unexpected and marvellous, and which has extended our knowledge of the stars in quite a new direction. By its means it is possible to determine the existence of invisible stars and to measure the rate of otherwise imperceptible motions; that is of stars which are invisible in the most powerful modern telescopes, and whose motions have such a limited range that no telescope can detect them.

Double or binary stars forming systems which revolve around their common centre of gravity were discovered by Sir William Herschel, and very great numbers are known; but in most cases their periods of revolution are long, the shortest being about twelve years, while many extend to several hundred years. These are, of course, all visible binaries, but many are now known of which one star only is visible while the other is either non-luminous or is so close to its companion that they appear as a single star in the most powerful telescopes. Many of the variable stars belong to the former class, a good example of which is Algol in the constellation Perseus, which changes from the second to the fourth magnitude in about four and a half hours, and in about four and a half hours more regains its brilliancy till its next period of obscuration which occurs regularly every two days and twenty-one hours. The name Algol is from the Arabic Al Ghoul, the familiar 'ghoul' of the Arabian Nights, so named—'The Demon'—from its strange and weird behaviour.

It had long been conjectured that this obscuration was due to a dark companion which partially eclipsed the bright star at every revolution, showing that the plane of the orbit of the pair was almost exactly directed towards us. The application of the spectroscope made this conjecture a certainty. At an equal time before and after the obscuration, motion in the line of sight was shown, towards and away from us, at a rate of twenty-six miles per second. From these scanty data and the laws of gravitation which fix the period of revolution of planets at various distances from their centres of revolution, Professor Pickering of the Harvard Observatory was able to arrive at the following figures as highly probable, and they may be considered to be certainly not far from the truth.

When it is considered that these figures relate to a pair of stars only one of which has ever been seen, that the orbital motion even of the visible star cannot be detected in the most powerful telescopes, when, further, we take into account the enormous distance of these objects from us, the great results of spectroscopic observation will be better appreciated.

But besides the marvel of such a discovery by such simple means, the facts discovered are themselves in the highest degree marvellous. All that we had known of the stars through telescopic observation indicated that they were at very great distances from each other however thickly they may appear scattered over the sky. This is the case even with close telescopic double stars, owing to their enormous remoteness from us. It is now estimated that even stars of the first magnitude are, on a general average, about eighty millions of millions of miles distant; while the closest double stars that can be distinctly separated by large telescopes are about half a second apart. These, if at the above distance, will be about 1500 millions of miles from each other. But in the case of Algol and its companion, we have two bodies both larger than our sun, yet with a distance of only 2¹/₄ millions of miles between their surfaces, a distance not much exceeding their combined diameters. We should not have anticipated that such huge bodies could revolve so closely to each other, and as we now know that the neighbourhood of our sun—and probably of all suns—is full of meteoric and cometic matter, it would seem probable that in the case of two suns so near together the quantity of such matter would be very great, and would lead probably by continued collisions to increase of their bulk, and perhaps to their final coalescence into a single giant orb. It is said that a Persian astronomer in the tenth century calls Algol a red star, while it is now white or somewhat yellowish. This would imply an increase of temperature caused by collisions or friction, and increasing proximity of the pair of stars.

A considerable number of double stars with dark companions have been discovered by means of the spectroscope, although their motion is not directly in the line of sight, and therefore there is no obscuration. In order to discover such pairs the spectra of large numbers of stars are taken on photographic plates every night and for considerable periods—for a year or for several years. These plates are then carefully examined with a high magnifying power to discover any periodical displacement of the lines, and it is astonishing in how large a number of cases this has been found to exist and the period of revolution of the pair determined.

But besides discovering double stars of which one is dark and one bright, many pairs of bright stars have been discovered by the same means. The method in this case is rather different. Each component star, being luminous, will give a separate spectrum, and the best spectroscopes are so powerful that they will separate these spectra when the stars are at their maximum distance although no telescope in existence, or ever likely to be made, can separate the component stars. The separation of the spectra is usually shown by the most prominent lines becoming double and then after a time single, indicating that the plane of revolution is more or less obliquely towards us, so that the two stars if visible would appear to open out and then get nearer together every revolution. Then, as each star alternately approaches and recedes from us the radial velocity of each can be determined, and this gives the relative mass. In this way not only doubles, but triple and multiple systems, have been discovered. The stars proved to be double by these two methods are so numerous that it has been estimated by one of the best observers that about one star in every thirteen shows inequality in its radial motion and is therefore really a double star.

The Nebulæ

One other great result of spectrum-analysis, and in some respects perhaps the greatest, is its demonstration of the fact that true nebulæ exist, and that they are not all star-clusters so remote as to be irresolvable, as was once supposed. They are shown to have gaseous spectra, or sometimes gaseous and stellar spectra combined, and this, in connection with the fact that nebulæ are frequently aggregated around nebulous stars or groups of stars, renders it certain that the nebulæ are in no way separated in space from the stars, but that they constitute essential parts of one vast stellar universe. There is, indeed, good reason to believe that they are really the material out of which stars are made, and that in their forms, aggregations, and condensations, we can trace the very process of evolution of stars and suns.

Photographic Astronomy

But there is yet another powerful engine of research which the new astronomy possesses, and which, either alone or in combination with the spectroscope, had produced and will yet produce in the future an amount of knowledge of the stellar universe which could never be attained by any other means. It has already been stated how the discovery of new variable and binary stars has been rendered possible by the preservation of the photographic plates on which the spectra are self-recorded, night after night, with every line, whether dark or coloured, in true position, so as to bear magnification, and, by comparison with others of the series, enabling the most minute changes to be detected and their amount accurately measured. Without the preservation of such comparable records, which is in no other way possible, by far the larger portion of spectroscopic discoveries could never have been made.

But there are two other uses of photography of quite a different nature which are equally and perhaps in their final outcome may be far more important. The first is, that by the use of the photographic plate the exact positions of scores, hundreds, or even thousands of stars can be self-mapped simultaneously with extreme accuracy, while any number of copies can be made of these star-maps. This entirely obviates the necessity for the old method of fixing the position of each star by repeated measurement by means of very elaborate instruments, and their registration in laborious and expensive catalogues. So important is this now seen to be, that specially constructed cameras are made for stellar photography, and by means of the best kinds of equatorial mounting are made to revolve slowly so that the image of each star remains stationary upon the plate for several hours.

Arrangements have been now made among all the chief observatories of the world to carry out a photographic survey of the heavens with identical instruments, so as to produce maps of the whole star-system on the same scale. These will serve as fixed data for future astronomers, who will thus be able to determine the movements of stars of all magnitudes with a certainty and accuracy hitherto unattainable.

The other important use of photography depends upon the fact that with a longer exposure within certain limits we increase the light-collecting power. It will surprise many persons to learn that an ordinary good portrait-camera with a lens three or four inches in diameter, if properly mounted so that an exposure of several hours can be made, will show stars so minute that they are invisible even in the great Lick telescope. In this way the camera will often reveal double-stars or small groups which can be made visible in no other way.

Such photographs of the stars are now constantly reproduced in works on Astronomy and in popular magazine articles, and although some of them are very striking, many persons are disappointed with them, and cannot understand their great value, because each star is represented by a white circle often of considerable size and with a somewhat undefined outline, not by a minute point of light as stars appear in a good telescope. But the essential matter in all such photographs is not so much the smallness, as the roundness, of the star-images, as this proves the extreme precision with which the image of every star has been kept by the clockwork motion of the instrument on the same point of the plate during the whole exposure. For example, in the fine photograph of the Great Nebula in Andromeda, taken 29th December 1888, by Dr. Isaac Roberts, with an exposure of four hours, there are probably over a thousand stars large and small to be seen, every one represented by an almost exactly circular white dot of a size dependent on the magnitude of the star. These round dots can be bisected by the cross hairs of a micrometer with very great accuracy, and thus the distance between the centres of any of the pairs, as well as the direction of the line joining their centres, can be determined as accurately as if each was represented by a point only. But as a minute white speck would be almost invisible on the maps, and would convey no information as to the approximate magnitude of the star, mistakes would be much more easily made, and it would probably be found necessary to surround each star with a circle to indicate its magnitude, and to enable it to be easily seen. It is probable, therefore, that the supposed defect is really an important advantage. The above-mentioned photograph is beautifully reproduced in Proctor's Old and New Astronomy, published after his greatly lamented death.

But besides the amount of altogether new knowledge obtained by the methods of research here briefly explained, a great deal of light has been thrown on the distribution of the stars as a whole, and hence on the nature and extent of the stellar universe, by a careful study of the materials obtained by the old methods, and by the application of the doctrine of probabilities to the observed facts. In this way alone some very striking results have been reached, and these have been supported and strengthened by the newer methods, and also by the use of new instruments in the measurement of stellar distances. Some of these results bear so closely and directly upon the special subject of the present volume, that our next chapter must be devoted to a consideration of them.