Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1856-06-05
veyor could find how great or how small the

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would obviously know how far the star is
away. This clever piece of star-surveying
has really been successfully performed. The
nearest star is at least 200, 900 times further
away than the sun. In the triangle formed
for the purposes of the survey, the two long
lines run 100000 times further than the
length of the base separating them before
they meet. The light-beam comes from the
sun to the earth in eight minutes and quar-
ter, but it must consume three gears and a
quarter upon its journey before it can arrive
from the nearest star.
But the nearest star is only on the inner
confines of the vast star-galaxy; the space
that it takes the fash of light three years
and a quarter to traverse, is nevertheless
but little space, almost swallowed up in
the immensity by which it is surrounded
By the application of another principle, Sir
William Herschel convinced himself that
the most remote stars of the Milky-Way are
$50 times as far again away as the nearest
one. In making this estimate, he gave up
surreying and its proceedings, as no longer
of any avail in the task in hand, and he
took to sounding the vast depths before him
in its place. First, he ascertained, by ex-
periments on the way in which light is weak
ene7 by increasing distance, that if the near
est star were withdraw until ten times its
present distance, it would appear like the
faintest star that can be discerned by the
naked eye. He next satisfied himself, that
if the star were yet again Withdrawn to sew
enty-fve times that distance, it would still
be seen by telescope, with an aperture
eighteen inches across, as faint star
Then, knowing that he could see myriads
of such faint stars in the Milky-Way, when
he employed telescope of this dimension
in seeking them, he at once arrived at the
conclusion, those stars were seventy-fve
times ten times as far again off as the star
from which light-beams come in three years
and a quarter. These stars consequently
twinkle in region so stupendously remote,
that even the flashing lightbeams cannot
reach the earth from them-when sent upon
its telescope mission of revealing their exis-
tence to MANN less period than 1925.
years. The astronomer, looking though his
wonderful tube, now sees those stars by
means of light that started off from them on its
errand of revelation to his eye when Rome
and Jerusalem were both in their early
glories, and ruled by their kings.
BY an extension of.the same ingenious
reasoning, it has been determined that the
external galaxies are themselves many times
more distant than the remotest stars of the
Milky-Way. Sir William Herschel found
that star-group, consisting of 5000 indi-
viduals, would have been discerned in the
midnight heavens, by the help of his large
four-feet wide telescope, as faint speck of
light, if 10000 times as remote again as the
nearest star in the armament AS, therefore,
numbers of such faint specks of light were
visible to the glance of this noble instru-
ment, he inferred that those specks were star
galaxies thus far away that they were really
star-groups, so far off that light beams could
only flash from them by passage Of close
upon million of years. The recent dis.
coveries of Lord Rose have gone long
way to confirm the sagacious deductions of
the illustrious astronomer Of the eighteenth
century. In his still more gigantic instru-
ment, many of Sir William HerschePs faint
specks are now seen as glorious masses of
stars, clustering round each other as thick as
bees in dense swarm. The leviathan tele-
scope of Lord Rose, which has accomplish
ed this interesting result, opens its enormous
pupil with something like an $4,000 eye
penetrating power, and pierces as far again
into remoteness as the great telescope of Sir
William Herschel did. Still, it seems only
to have carried human vision a comparative
ly triaing and unimportant step nearer to the
bounds of universal space for there, upon
the new horizon which its penetrating glance
brings into sight, fresh faint specks of star
less light loom, as intractable and irresolva-
BILE to its powers as the old ones were before.
The veteran philosopher, Baron Humboldt,
avery high authority in these matters, after
deliberate consideration of all the circum-
stances concerned, has placed his belief upon
record in the. pages of Cosmos, that some of
these specks reveal themselves to the obser-
yer by means of light-beams which started
from them millions Of gears ago. And so
again, in all probability, still larger telescopes,
that would discern stars in these specks,
would still find other specks beyond them
which have never yet presented themselves
to human vision. Such is the universe which
astronomical science now calls upon the in
tellect of mankind to recognise; a scheme in
which star-systems, each composed of myri-
ads of orbs, are as numerous as the stars
themselves are in the glorious armament of
night, and in which these star-systems are
distributed through an expanse that flashing
light cannot cross in millions of years, al
though it can circle round the earth, SEEM
ingly so vast, eight times in secoud To
an intelligence that has been made capable
of fathoming these depths, and comprehend
ing these results, the universe really presents
itself as ''unfnished" or ''infnite." "In-
fnity" properly means that which is not fin
ished or bounded (infnttus) within the scope
of human investigation or research.
To KEEP FURs.-Roll the furs (of any
description into compact, close bundles, and
wrap around them two, three, or more wrap