For an account of the revelations at Stonyhurst Observatory, see Mems. There was no such disappearance. For observations upon N.A., ten years later, see Monthly Notices, 62-65. For Prof. Barnard's observations twenty years later, see Sci. The spectroscope is useful in a laboratory.
Spoons are useful in a kitchen.
If any other pilgrim should come across a group of engineers trying to dig a canal with spoons, his experience and his temptation to linger would be like ours as to the astronomers and their attempted application of the spectroscope. I don't know what of remotest acceptability may survive in the third supposed proof that this earth moves around the sun, though we have not found it necessary to go into the technicalities of the supposed proof. But that if part of the time this earth, as a part of one traveling system, moves at a rate of 19 plus 13 miles a second and then part of the time at a rate of 19 minus 13 miles a second, compounding with great complexities at transverse times, that is the end of the regular annual shift that is supposed to apply to orbital motion. Something that I did not mention before, though I referred to Lowell's statements, is that astronomers now admit, or state, that the shift of spectral lines, which they say indicates that this earth moves around the sun, also indicates any one of three other circumstances, or sets of circumstances. Some persons will ask why I didn't say so at first and quit the meaningless subject.