Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1845-05-27
SOUTHPORT WISCONSIN: TUESDAY, MAY 81, 1915
LORD ROSSE'S TELESCOPE.

A detailed and extended notice of this
wonderful instrument. concludes with the
following beautiful remarks:
In looking back upon what the telescope
had accomplishment reckoning the thou
sands ofcelestial bodies which have been
detected and surveyed-in refeciing on
the vast depths of ether which have been
and on the extensive fields Of
siderial matter out Of which worlds and
systems Of worlds are forming, and 10 be
we doubt it to be the Divine
plan that man shall yet discover the whole
scheme Of the visible universe, and that il
is his individual duty, as we'll as the high
prerogative OF his order,to expound its mys-
teries, and to develop its laws? Over the
invisible world he has received no commits
sion to reign, and into its secrets he has
no authority TO pry. Ii is over the mate
rial and the visible that he has TO sway
the intellectual sceptre-it it among the
structure of organic and inorganic life that
his functions of combination and ANALYSIS
are to be chiefly exercised. Nor is this a
task unworthy Of his genius, Or unconnec-
ted with his destiny. Placed upon globe
already formed, and constituting part Of a
system already complete, he can scarcely
trace either IN the sold masses round him.
or in the forms and movements of the plan
cts, any Of the secondary causes by which
these bodies have been shaped and launch
ed on their journey. But in the distant
heavens, where creation seems 10 be ever
active, where vast distance gives US the
vis Of xxhp
tended operations nre actually going on,
we may study the cosmogony Of our own
system, and mark, even during the brief
span Of human life, the formation Of a
planet in the consolidation of the nebulous
mass which surrounds it.
Such is the knowledge which man has
yet to acquire-such the lesson which he
has 10 teach his species How much to he
priced is the intellectual faculty by which
such a work is to be per(ormed-hew won
derlul the process by which the human
brain, in its casket of bone, can alone es-
tablish such remote and transce ndenial
truths. A soul SO cnpacious, and ordained
for such an enterprise, cannot be otherwise
than immortal.
But even when all these mysteries shall
be revealed, the mind will still w,estle with
eager curiosity 10 learn the final destiny Of
such glorious creations. The past and the
present furnish some grounds Of anticipa-
ton. Revelation throws in some faint
touches of its light-but it is in the ndica-
lions Of science chiefly-n the results Of
mechanical laws-that we are likely 10 find
any sure elements Cor our judgement. In
the creations around and near US all is
change and decomposition. The solid
globe, once incandescent and scarcely
cooled. has been the theatre of recurring
commissions, by which everything has been
destroyed, and after which everything has
been renewed. Animal life in its varied
organizations has persisted, and written It's
epItaph upon imperishabIe monuments -
Man, too, though never extinct as race,
returns one by one 10 his clay, and his in
tellectual functions are perPetua'ed in the
system we see fragments o. planets-as-
teroids, as they have been called-occupy-
ing, in almost intcrlacing orbits, the place
Of larger body; and in the direction and
amount ofthe annual and diurnaI motions
Of the primary and secondary planets. we
recognise the result of a grand creative
by which the sun, with its
widely-extended atmosphere, or revolving
itself, has cast off, by success
sive throes, the various bodies of the sys-
tenn, at first circling in gaseous zones. but
contracted into planets and
a sun.
This system, 80 wonderfully formed, is
again enchnned with another more distant
by an assemblage o. comets-a class Of
bodies which doubtless carry on some re-
ciprocal intercourse for the benefit Of both.
Composed of nebulous matter, they may
yet be consolidated into habitable globes;
and resembling in aspect the vast nebulB
which fill the sIdereal spaces, and forming
a part OF own system. they counienance
The theory, that the nebula which the tele-
scope cannot resolve may be the pabulum
out of which heat and motion arc 10 form
new systems, where new planets, thrown
abodss Of life ard intelligence.
But while all the phenomena in the
heavens indicate law of progressive c,ea-
ton, in which revolving matter is dist'bu-
ted into suns and planets, there Indications
in our own system, that period has been
ASST gned for lis duration, which sooner or
later. it must reach. The medium which
fills universal space Indefinite expansion Of
planetary atmosphers-must retard the
bodies which move in it, even though ii
were 3 80, coo millions OF times more rare
than atmospheric air; and. with its time Of
revolution gradually shortening, the satel-
lite must return TO its planet, the planet to
its sun, and the sun 10 lis native nebuln.
The fate of our system, thus deduced
from mechanical laws; must be the fate Of
all others. Motion cannot be perpetuated
in a resisting medium; and where there ex
lists disturbing forces, there must be prma-
riIv arrangement. and ultimately ruin
From the great central mass. heat may
gain be summoned 10 exhale nebulous
ma,ter-chemica: forces may again gener-
ate systems; but-as in the recurring cat
astrophes which have desolaied our earth
the great First Cause must preside at the
dawn OF each cosmical cycle-and, as in
the animal races which were successfully
reproduced, new celestial creations, OF a