Juliet signal. [volume] (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.) 1844-1???, 1846-09-29

ton and for his sake, wasFeady at any time
tocharge up.to a! two.and forty FOUNDER.
Would our youth but be pnrsuaded to
act in, a manner SO, correct, and heroical,
our papers would no longer shock Us with
accounts Of elegant young men numbering
each other, on false principles Of honor;
and by one desperate deed depriving
themselves ofall present pleasure, and OF
all future hope. .ra-sz.-.-.-.f s S.
Is nd q = From 4lls eineisaatf Atlas
The Great Centre of the Universe Probably
a-rsa G Discovered. -
4; 6.i CINCINNATI OBsERvAToRY,
9Th Sept, 1916.
MeS$rs. Editors:-I have Just recei-
we'd by last steamer, Nos. 500 and SGT of
the g'sAstronomische Wachrichten," a
journal published at Alona, near Hamburg.
and conducted by the celebrated Prof Shu-
macher. These two numbers are almost
exclusively taken up with an article by
DIR. Maedler, director of the Dorpat OBJ
servatory, Russia, well known to the as
tronom;cal world, in which he announces
the extraordinary discovery Of the. great
centarl star or sun, about which the uni
verse of stars is revolving, our own sun
and system among the rest.
'Fhis discovery, the result of many years
incessnt toll and research, has been de-
duced by a train of reasoning and an ex-
animation of facts, scarcely TO be surpas-
sed in the annals of science t4@
Guided by the researches of the elder
Herschel as TO the figure of the stratum of
stars to which our sun belongs, DIR. Mead.
Ter, as first approximation, locates his
grand centre somewhere near the milky
rag.
But as the milky way divides the sphere
ofthe heavens into two unequal par;., he
argues that the centre must be searched
for in the smaller of the two parts.
Again, it has been shown that our sun
is nearer the southern thar the northern
side ofthe milky way, and hence we must
expect to find the great centre not only in
the smaller proportion of the heavens, bat
also in the northern part of this smaller
portion.
Another approximation to its position is
obtaint dby the learned author ofthis re-
makable paper, from an examination OF
the suns motion through space, and he
reasons that the point in the heavens to-
wards which the entire solar system is ur
ging its way, is the pole ofthe great circle,
within which the centre about which tho
sun is revolving must be placed.
This subject has been ably discussed
by HIGHLANDER and by Ohio Sturve, and
the point in question has been ascertained
to a very close approximation. If from
this point, determined by HIGHLANDER
(Which is in the constellation Hercu!es)
as pole, we describe great circle, ii
intersects the milky way in the consteiia-
ton Perseus. By using that point deter
mined by Ohio Sturve, we find this circle
cutting the milky way nearer to the coa-
stellation Taurus. 7s8iaa
Having made this rough approximation
to the grand centre, Mr, NJ. prosecutes the
research by means of the proper motion
of the fixed stars, and after many trials Of
different stars, at length finds a point
which satisfies all the conditions yet pre-
scented by observation, ss;.1.s-s,..
This discovery he announces in the fol-
Owing language:
81, therefore, pronounce the Pleiades to
be the central group Of that mass Of fixed
stars limited by the stratum composing the
milky way land Alcyene as the individual
star ofthis group, which, among al others.
combiaes the greatest probability ofbeing
the true central sun.
BY train ofreasoning which / shall
not attempt to explain, he finds the prob
able parallax Of this great central star to
be six thousandths of one second of arc,
and, its distance to be ihirty-f -four millions
oftimes the distance Of the sun, or so re-
mote that light, with the velocity oftwelye
millions of miles per minutey requires a
period Of 537 years to pass from The great
centre TO our SUM-, al :; fsoss go. Sc
I, AS first rough approximations he dedll-s
ces the period Of revelation Of our sun.
with all its. trainsof planets, satellites and
comets, about the grand ecentre, to be
eighteen millions tle0l hundred tEOusaald
gears. !. -
The ascending node of the orbit is
PC1S40) IN 236 deg. So min. Of longitude,
and the sun aSiiI reach this point A. ID.
154 500, or in about uile shundrsSla and
fifty-twos thousand six hundred and sixty
| years, ss..f - =, -,
All these numbers are given as hrsi