Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1856-01-25
AstronomIc Progress.

The last number of the Edinburgh Review, IN aI
article on the Plurality of Worlds, thus speaks Of
the comparatively recent date OF asronomlc dIscov
ery and the great progress it has made
g II was reserved to the renowned Copernlcus
some two centuries and half ago, first distinctly tt
demonstrate that the apparent terrestrial plain was
really free and Independent material mass, moving
! in definite path through space. Then Newton ex'
planned that this independent mass moved through
SPACE because it was substantial and heavy and be-
cause it unsupported by props ana CHAINS mat
in fact, as a massive body, IL is falling forever
through the void but that as it falls it sweeps round
the sun in a never ending circuit, attracted towards
it by magnetlike energy, but kept on from II Dy Inc
force of its centrifugal movement Next, Smell and
Picard measured the dimensions OF the heavy and
falling mass and found that it was spherical bo-
by, with a grdle of rs 900 miles Subsequently to
this BailIy contrived pair of scales that enabled
him approximately 10 weigh the vast sphere, and he
asceraned that it had within itself somewhere
about 1856 I95 $40, 900, 900 000,0 1000 tons OF
matter To these discoveries Foucault has recently
added demonstration to the actual sense OF the 1act
that the massive sphere is whrling on itself as II
falls through space, and round the sun, so that point
after point of its vast surface is brought in succession
into the genial influence of the sunshine, an invest
Ing atmosphere of commingled vapor and air is made
TO present clouds, winds and rain, and the invested
surface to bear vegetable forms and animated crea-
lures in great diversity.
"To Copernicus occurred also the idea that this
heavy mundane sphere, which affords convenient
and substantial support to the footsteps OF man,
might possibly be not the only body of this kind
contained within the wide realms of universal space
He knew that if he could get far enough from its
sunlt form, he must see it dwinde down 10 SHINING
point or star. He perceived that the transparent re-
gions surrounding the earth crowded with such
shining points, which become visible when the OBJ
server is protected from the are of the sun by the
nocturnal shadow of the globe.
q He watched these shining star points night after
night until he ascertained that some amongst them.
at least move in space as the earth does, and round
the sun. From these simple data, with the bold
dash of genius, he leaped at once to the conclusion
that mans world not solitary in the INFINITE Will
derness of space that 1t has companions and oreth
rem amidst the shining hosts OF the sky that there
are other orbs of substantial material, Whlrllng IN
the sunshine and capable of afording all the condl-
lions which life of the highest kind needs for its de-
velopment and support. Year after year. as fresh
appliances have been brought to bear upon the ad-
vancement of astronomical science, new arguments
have been furnished in favor of the sagaclous sur
mise of Coperncus.
So soon as the telescope was added to the instru
ment of mans research, new worlds and systems Of
worlds were revealed to him.
In this way has gradually matured the idea tina,
there in the wide universe countless myrads OF
ornamental star clusters, which are themselves,
severally, what the cluster is that is seen by the
naked eye to spangle the surrounding heavens at
night; that there are families of frmaments, as
there groups and associated clusters Of stars OF
suns. But Immediately upon the recognition of this
idea followed as matter Of course, the extension to
these external ornaments of the same condition with
which the near one has been already clothed. II
they are all individually groups of mighty and pom
derous suns they too must be looked upon as having
life associated with their substance. Either each o
those stars must be world inhabited by organza
ton and sentent intelligence, or it must have it
own special world brotherhood circling around it
light giving orb. Such is the magnificent skecl
which astronomy, whether in accordance with reali
ty, or in error, has exhibited her representation
nature-space that is unreasonable by the senses 0
man, containing ponderous orbs in myriads that can
not be numbered by his arithmetic, scattered hithe
and thther in connected and associated groups, an
all, directly indirectly, concerned in the develop
ment and maintenance of some form or other of OF
ganic life"