The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-06 00:00:00

THE ABERDEEN RAILWAY.

A special general meeting of the shareholders was
held within the Royal hotel, Aberdeen, on Wednesday,
to consider and approve of various Bills proposed to be
applied for in the ensuing session of Parliament ; Mr.
James Hadden, the chairman of the company, in the
chair.

The CHAIRMAN said—The first is a Bill to enable this
company to make a railway from the Arbroath and For-
far Railway, at Forfar, in the Scottish Midland Junction
Railway, in the pariah of Glammis—in other words, to
extend the Arbroath and Forfar Railway, which is now
leased to this company, to a convenient point of junction
with the Scottish Midland, near the village of Glammis.
The length of the proposed new line is about two and a
half miles, and will effect a saving of distance as com-
pared with the present intended route of the Scottish
Midland, of half a mile. By a reference to the map it
will be seen that the present intended junction of the
Arbroath and Forfar and Scottish Midland is not only
inconvenient, but is is so laid down as entirely to cut off
the important town of Forfar ' • and to remedy this,
and to secure the most direct thorough communication,
the present Bill is proposed. The estimated cost
is 36,000/. The next Bill to be submitted is one
to enable the company, in part, to alter their branch
line to Brechin. The alteration to which this
Bill relates was sanctioned by a general meeting of the
proprietors, specially called for that purpose on the 30th
of May last, by adopting which the company are enabled
to carry their terminus considerably nearer the town of
Brechin, rendering it more convenient for the inhabi
tants of that town. The works are presently being pro-
ceeded with ; but it is necessary to procure an Act of
Parliament, in order to obtain a valid title to certain en-
tailed lands through which the line passes, as well as in
other respects to secure the legal rights of the company.
The expense is estimated at 3,0001. The next measure
to be brought before you is a Bill to authorise this com-
pany to purchase, and the Aberdeen Harbour Commis-
sioners to sell, a piece of ground at the upper part of the
Inches, and upper part of the harbour of Aberdeen.
The ground referred to is close in the vicinity of the
terminus at Aberdeen, and is required by the company
for the purposes of building workshops and other ac-
commodation thereon, for which it is very suitable
and convenient. The present Bill is rendered necessary,
in consequence of the harbour commissioners having
no power, by their Act, to dispose of the ground. The
last and most important matter to be submitted to this
meeting is a Bill to consolidate the Aberdeen and Great
North of Scotland Railway Companies. In bringing
forward this measure, your directors are carrying out a
resolution passed at a general meeting of proprietors
held on the 11th September, 1845. It is as follows,
viz.: " That this meeting recommend to, and authorise
the directors to adopt, in conjunction with the directors
of the Great North of Scotland Railway, the proper
measures for affecting an amalgamation of the two lines
at the earliest period which may be found advisable
and practicable." And the Great North of Scotland
Company having obtained an Act in the last session of
Parliament, both companies are now in a position to
apply to the Legislature for a Bill for their amalgama-
tion. Of the desirableness of such an union, I believe
there can be but one opinion among those who know the
intimate connexion between the two lines of railway,
and the mutual dependence on each other, which, from
their position, must always exist. From the very first,
the promoters of this company contemplated the ex-
tension of railway communication north of Aberdeen,
in connexion with the Aberdeen Railway, and although
it was considered advisable to bring out the Great North
of Scotland Company as a separate undertaking, the
directors of both companies have all along acted on the
distinct understanding that, as the interests of both
lines were identical, they could not be kept separate
with advantage to either. The question in regard to the
terms on which the amalgamation should be made has
received the most anxious consideration of your direct-
ors, and after maturely weighing the matter in all its
bearings, they have unanimously come to the resolution
of recommending an amalgamation of the two com-
panies on equal terms. I do not think it would be
judicious on the present occasion to make any com-
parison of the merits of the respective lines, but I deem
it proper to state the following facts regarding the
Great North of Scotland Railway, as indicative of the
reasons which have induced the directors to recommend
such terms of amalgamation. 1. The Great North of Scot-
land Railway, commencing at the Aberdeen Company's
terminus, in the centre of the city of Aberdeen,n passes
through the important counties of Aberdeen,Baff Moray,
Nairn, and Inverness, and embraces a wide extentof
fertile country containing a large population. 2. In ad-
dition to the counties above mentioned, it forms an outlet
to the population and commerce of the more northern
u 'es of Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness. 3. The
line will be of singularly easy construction, more so than
any railway of similar extent in Britain, as, from the
favourable nature of the country, the rails may almost
be laid on the existing level, for a considerable portion
of the distance; and 4. The traffic on the line which
was carefully taken by competent parties, shows a return
equal to eight-and-half per cent, on the capital of
1,500,0001., exclusive of the traffic of tt.e counties of
Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness. These are a few of
the facts we had before us in coming to a resolution on
this important matter. By the contemplated mea-
sures, upwards of 200 miles of railway will be placed
under one management, and the superior economy and
advantage of working long, as compared with short
lines, are now too well known and appreciated to re-
quire any commendation. The directors, therefore,
earnestly recommend the approval of this Bill as a mea-
sure which cannot fail to be of the greatest importance to
the shareholders.—(Applause.) The Chairman then sub-
mitted drafts of the various Bills seriatim to the meeting,
which were all unanimously approved of; and a resolu-
tion adopted empowering the directors to make the
necessary application for obtaining the Bills in the
ensuing 304011 Of ritrlialll9nt.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
BETTING AT 'MANCH ESTE R.—Ttrasray.
CHESTER Cur.— 50 to 1 agst Fitzalleni(taken)-50 to 1.
agst Newcourt (taken)-50 to 1 agst Antler (taken);--50 to 1
agst Crim. Con. (taken)-1,000 to 15 offered against any
other.
DERBY.-15 tot agst Van Tromp (offered),-A3,t01 -aga4 •
Epirote (offered)-17 to 1 agst Planet (taken)-25 to raglt'
Glentilt (taken)-25 to 1 agst Sister to Cobweb colt
(offered)-35 to 1 agst Lunedale-33 to 1 agst Old Port-
-35 to 1 agst Wanota-40 to 1 agst Red Hart (taken)-40 to
1 agst Miss Martin cult (taken) 11 to 2 agst Scott's
lot (taken).
INTELLIGENCE EXTRA.—NORTHAMPTON AND
PYTCHLEY HUNT, 1847.
Nominations for The Great Northamptonshire Stakes—
weights to be declared 20th January, and forfeits on the
Ist of February.
Leopard, 5 yrs—Refraction, 5 yrs—Typhon, 3 yrs—Bro.
to Stitch, 3 yrs—Jenny Wren, 5 yrs—Black Strap, 5 vrs—
Valentiesimo, aged—Bokhara, aged—Halo, 3 yrs—Palma,
3 yrs—Sheraton, 4 vrs—pal, 4 yrs—Fort William, 4 vrs—
Punch, 4 yrs—The Premier, 3 yrs—Tragical, 4 yrs---livd-
rangea, 4 yrs—St. Demetri, 4 yrs—Satyr, 6 yrs—Secundus,
6 yrs—Wolfdog, 5 yrs—Humdrum, 4 rs—Queen Mary, 3
yrs—Wild Roe, S yrs—Fugitive, 4-yrs—The Duke of
Ricinoi;d, 4 Yrs—Morocco, 4 yrs—Sting, 4 yrs—Lady
Ct-cilia, 4 yrs—(;oinine ii f<iut, yrs—Turpin, 4 yrs—Rufus,
4 yrs—Queen Anne, 4 VI'S Projec t i le, 3 yrs—Ennui, 4 yrs—
Spur, 4 yrs—br g by Young Cadiand, 5
.yts—Tit-bit, 4 vrs—
What, aged—Captain Pliebus, n yrs—Giselle, 4 yr:s—Six. to
Pedometer, 5 yrs—The 13,st of Three, 6 yrs—ldolater, 5 yrs
—Moonlight, 5 yrs—Sister to Flambeau, 4 yrs—Morpeth, 6 -
yrs—Dioined, 4 yrs—Reminiscence, 3 yrs—Chatterbox, 4
yrs—Marquis of Conyngliam, 4 yrs—Polka, 4yrs—Roebuck,
yrs—Dulcet, yrs—Millen, 5 yrs—lcicle, 4 yrs—Caprice,
4 yrs—Credential, 5 yrs—Moodkee, 3 yrs—Wee Boy, 3 yrs—
Trojan, 6 yrs—Daughter of the Star, 3 yrs—Milliner, 4 yrs—
Crozier, 3 yrs—Counsellor, aged—Enoneline, 4 yrs—Cha-
mois, 4 yrs—Roderick, aged—Komager, 5 yrs— Vampyre, 4
yrs—Mendicant, 4 yrs—Euclid colt, 3'3 rs—Flitch, 4 yrs—Lo-
thario, aged—Alvanlev, 6 yrs—Campanile, 5 yrs—Mirmillo, 3
yrs—Roman a,4 yrs—princess Royal, 5 yrs—The Magnet, 5 yrs
—Lord Saltoun, 6 yrs—Alliance, 4 yrs—Lightning, 6 yrs—
Annandale, 5 yrs—Buttress. 4 yrs—Lancer, 3 yrs—Princess
Alice, 4
.yrs—Golden Bee, 4 yrs—Best Bower, 6 yrs—Miss
Burns, aged—Camera Obscura, 4 yrs—Devil me-care, 3 yrs
—Sweetmeat, 5 yrs—Doleful, 5 yrs—Watch Dog, 3 yrs—
Mistress Jean, 3 yrs—Headsman, 4 yrs—Red Rover, 6 yrs.
NOMINATIONS FOR THE ALTHORP PARK STAKES.
Dacia colt, by Eryrnus, out of Equator colt, by Touch-
stone, dam by Glencoe—Mother Carey's Chickens, f by Col-
wick, out of Vignette—Old Brompton—The Sheriff—Lucy
Ashton—lota—Glendower f by Buzzard, out of Layla—
Woodcraft—Fernhill—Little Red Riding Hood Beverla
—Hanwell—The hind of the Forest Hatherlcy—Chip.
peway—Propeller—Protection--Searoom Good Boy
Nectar Awkward—Publican.
CHESTER CCP.
The following names complete the entry of 177 horses for
this race :—Driffield b fby Colwick out of Quid's Dam, Sir
Martin, and No. 45. We ought also to add that in our
former list Fantastic and Emigrant were named twice, and
Banana called Bavaria.

THE CENTRAL SUN.

At the close of the last meeting (on the 14th of De-
cember) of the Royal Irish Academy, after the delivery
of the very interesting antiquarian communication from
Professor Warsare, of Copenhagen, and in connexion
with a new mathematical method of geometrically con-
ceiving and symbollically expressing the Newtonian law
of attraction, Sir Williara Hamilton announced that he
had just received from Professor Midler, of Dorpat, the
extraordinary and exciting intelligence of the presumed
discovery of a Central Sun. Professor Miidler's essay
on the subject (Die Central Sonne, Dorpat, 1846) was
also exhibited by Sir William Hamilton on the same
evening to several members of the academy; but as this
work may not, for some time to come, be generally
known, or, indeed, easily procurable in this country, we
believe that our readers will thank us for publishing a
sketch of the results which it contains, and which were
briefly stated on the evening already mentioned. This
course will also serve to correct any misconception on
the subject which the unexpected nature of the commu-
nication, and the consequent absence of many of the
members of the academy, may possibly have occasioned,
or at least allowed to arise.
By an extensive and laborious comparison of the quan-
tities and directions of the proper motions of the stars in
various parts of the heavens, combined with indications
afforded by the parallaxes hitherto determined, and with
the theory of universal gravitation, Professor Miidler
has arrived at the conclusion that the Pleiades form the
central group of our whole astral or sidereal system, in.
eluding the Milky Way and all the brighter stars, but
exclusive of the more distant nebula, and of the stars of
which those nebulae may be composed. And within this
central group itself he has been led to fix on the star
Alcyone (otherwise known by the name of Eta Tawri),
as occupying exactly or nearly the position of the centre
of gravity, and as entitled to be called the central sun.
Assuming Bessel's parallax of the star 61 Cygni, long
since remarkable for its large proper motion, to be cor-
rectly determined, Madler proceeds to form a first ap-
proximate estimate of the distance of this central body
from the planetary or solar system ; and arrives at the
(provisional) conclusion, that Alcyone is about thirty-
tour million times as far removed from us, or from our
own sun, as the latter luminary is from us. It would,
therefore, according to this estimation, be at least a
million times as distant as the new planet, of which the
theoretical or deductive discovery has been so great and
beautiful a triumph of modern astronomy, and so strik-
ing a confirmation of the law of Newton. The same
approximate determination of distance conducts to the
result that the light of the central sun occupies more
than five centuries in travelling thence to us.
The enormous orbit which cur own sun, with the
earth and the other planets, is thus inferred to be de-
scribing about that distant centre—not indeed under its
influence alone, but by the combined attractions of all
the stars which are nearer to it than we are, and which
are estimated to amount to more than one hundred and
seventeen millions of masses, each equal to the total
mass of our-own solar system, is supposed to require up-
wards of eighteen millions of years for its complete oF-
scription, at the rate of about eight geographical miles in
every second of time.

The plane of this vast orbit of the sun is judged to
have an inclination of about eighty-four degrees to the
ecliptic, or to the place of the annual orbit of the earth ;
and the longitude of the ascending node of the former
orbit on the latter is concluded to be nearly two hundred
and thirty-seven degrees.
The general conclusions of Midler respecting the con-
stitution of the whole system of the fixed stars, exclusive of
the distant nebulae, are the following :—He believes that
the middle is indicated:by a very rich group the(Pleiades),
containing many considerable individual bodies, though
at immense distances from us. Round this he supposes
that there is a zone, proportionally poor in stars, and
then a broad, rich, ring-formed layer, followed by an in-
terval comparatively devoid of stars, and afterwards by
another annular and starry space, perhaps with several
alterations of the same kind, the two outmost rings com-
posing the two parts of the Milky Way, which are con-
founded with each other by perspective in the portions
most distant from ourselves.

Professor Miidler has acknowledged in his work his
obligations, which are those of all inquirers in sidereal
astronomy, to the researches of the two Herschels, Sir
William and Sir John. The views of Sir William Her-
schel, respecting the relation of our solar system to the
Milky Way, will naturally recur to the recollection of
our readers ; and while astronomers are anxiously
awaiting the shortly-expected appearance of the com-
plete account of Sir John Herschel's Observations on
the Southern Nebulae, the following passage of a letter,
which was written in 1835 by that illustrious son of an
illustrious sire, from the Cape of Good Hope to Sir Wil-
liam llamilton, may be read with peculiar interest, from
the agreement between the views it expresses and some
of those to which Professor Midler has been led.
In the letter just referred to (from which an extract
was published at the time) Sir John Herschel expressed
himself as follows:

" The general aspect of the southern circumpolar re-
gion, including in that expression 60 or 70 deg. of
S. P. D., is in a high degree rich and magnificent,
owing to a superior brilliancy and larger development of
the Milky Way, which, from the constellation of ,Orion
to that of Antinous, is one blaze of light, strangely in-
terrupted, however, with vacant and almost starless
patches, especially in Scorpio, near a Centauri and the
cross; while to the north it fades away pale and dim,
and is in comparison hardly traceable. I think it is im-
possible to view this splendid zone, with the astonish-
ingly rich and evenly distributed fringe of stars of the
third and fourth magnitudes, which form a broad skirt
to its southern border, like a vast curtain, without an im-
pression, amounting to a conviction, that the Milky
Way is not a mere stratum, but an annulus • or, at least,
that our system placed within one of the poorer and
almost vacant parts of its general mass, and that eccen-
trically, so as to be much nearer to the parts -about the
cross, than to that diametrically opposed to it."—Dublin
Evening Post

THE LATE ROBERT PLUMER WARD, ESQ.—
Among the numerous articles of interest left by this
deceased, as heir-looms with the family estates, there are
the following :—The pole of the royal standard of Scot-
land, taken at the battle of Musselborough, tempore
Sir Ralph Sadlier, his pre-
dEedclasrodr Vini"tbhye the
Sta Standen
o nefstate ; the standard of his
father-in-law, General Sir George Anson's regiment,
23d Light Dragoons, bearing Peninsula, Talavera, Sala-
manca, and Waterloo, and other banners ; the helmet,
crest, and coat of arms of Sir John Gore, his . prede-
cessor in the Gilston estate ; many original paintings,
family portraits, and of the nobility and their ancestors,
bust
of th
s andep
iuraeengravingsr family
the service of plate with the
arms ;
and the plate at Gilston
familyti fie d byan
dtsi
ther Gp
e. d Nayiareel c
or ,f
several pedigrees,
GPaarrkte;r, heeer
the Plumer Ward, from Charlemagne ; an intended letter
written by Mr. Pitt on his death bed, a few hours before
he expired, and when his mind was wandering—although
Mr. Pitt had torn the paper, he gave it to Sir Walter
Farquhar, desit ing he would give it to the testator, Mr.
Ward, then under secretary of state for foreign affairs
All his printed books, not specifically disposed, he
leaves to his three grandsons, Charles, Swinburne, and
Evelyn, the sons of his son Henry George Ward ; and
leaves all other his furniture, books, busts, pictures,
plate, &c., in his several houses in Upper Brook-street,
Chesterfield-street, London, and O'Beover Hall, Stafford-
shire, his carriages, &c., to his relict, who is his sole
executrix. He has left liberal legacies and provisions
for his servants. All his real estates he has settled on
his son Henry G. Ward, subject to his wife's jointure.—
Post.

LIME v. RATS.—A gentleman who had occasion
to use considerable lime about his premises, which had
hitherto been much infested with rats, says that those
destructive vermin had suddenly ceased to appear and
annoy him. " Before using the lime," says he, "you
could scarcely walk across the yard at night without
treading on them." Around the principal holes he de-
posited a small portion of fresh unslacked lime, which
evidently had the effect of driving them from these places,
which they before resorted to in great numbers. The
above is a simple and cheap method of getting rid of this
annoying and deatructive pest.—Sherborne Mercury,

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