The Portland daily press., 1881-10-11
TUESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER II.

earth We tread is only vast burJing ground,
which contains the remains not on OF count
less generations of men, but of whole races
aud tribes OF various animals and plants. just
90 In the heavens above us the dead are min
rled with the living. 1t is to my mind the
most snepestive discovery OF modern astronomy
that the universe is full of dead suns suns
whose light has gone out, whose rays have
been extinguished, and which no longer shed
life giving and life preserving rays upon the
worlds that may be imagined yet circliDg in
culdne and gloom about them. What has
this TO do with the Winking Demon? Why,
everything. / believe it is generally needed
though Prof Newcsmb seems to dissent, that
the variations in the light Of Algoi are caused
by some huge dark body revolving round it at
frigh,ful rate of speed. Tners are other va
riabls stars whose appearance can be accounted
for in the same way In the case of Algol
there il evidence that the dark body IS rapidly
approaching the star, drawing nearer WIN eV-
cry circle. When il strikes if it is 10 strike,
who can picture the extent OF that catastropht!
Theu indeed, that mysterious dark body Will
become visible, blazing with the light OF
hundred suus and unable to escape from the
f-ry destruction that il has brought upon the
star
known to astronomers?
"Oh, YES; the great star Sirius is accompanied
BY huge body OF the kind. L. is not alCogeth-
or dark. for with large telescopes it can occa-
sionalv be seen glimmering family close to
tho star Astronomers knew il was there be
fore they got glimpse OF II, for it caused dis
furbsnces in the proper motion of the star.
Another of these dark bodies which astrono
mers are sure exists, alth sugh no human eye
ever saw il. is DIGGING the star Procyon, one o.
she brightest in the sky You may see me sta
now low down in the east north of SIRIUS aud
below the Twins. The Invisible body thai
hovers about il is evidently OF large slz-, for II
causes considerable perturbation i'll the star
motion. Il may ouce have been sun as bril-
liant as Procyon itself, but now not ray CONES
from II. Still, astrDnOmsrs can point out the
changes in its position, and its attraction pulls
the star now this way and now that
"If space is filled with these mysterious
dark bodies, collisions between them aud liv-
ing, or light-giving suns are not impossible
You know that our sun is in rapid motion,
carrying bis family of worlds along with him
In his flight So all the stars are instinct with
motion. Oar lives are so short aud their dis
tances are so great that we can hardly appreci-
ate these motions, yet they are swift beyond
comprehension. Some of the stars ap-
preaching, others receding, all moving in sone
direction. The consultations whose forms are
- familiar to us are falling to pieces like card
houses In few Thousand years there, will be
no Great DiDper, 10 Orion with his CLUB, no
Southern Cross. The h .ayens would look like
new universe to one of us who revisited the
earth In the ten-thousaudth century. Nov, il
We suppose that there are as many dark or
dead suns as there are living ones. it is not
difficult to believe that occasionally there
might be collisions between them OF course,
the chances against any such collision would
be very, very great, and-yet some of the Cases
OF stars that have suddenly bazsd out with as
touishing brilliancy and then disappeared, mas
be accounted for ia this way. To show YOU
that there is no exsggeraiion in what am say
ing about the multitude of dead suns in the
universe, see what Sir john Lubbock said in
his inaugural address at the meeting OF the
British Association in August last:
1.-THE floor of heaven is not only "thick in
laid with patines of bright gold bat studded
also with extinct stars, once probably as bril-
liant rs our own sun, but now dead and cold
- Helmholz tells us that our sun itself will
be some II ,001, 900 years hence"
"But We need not wander off in space IN
search of the sky's untombed dead. We have
right at hand, circing about our own earth,
not au extinct sun, but dead world. The
moon is dead, and has been dead these million
years. There the astronomer if he fancies
himself the worlds Surgeon, may study the
effects of malady that no surgery could cure.
Even worlds and suns, like men and women,
grow old aud die; but unlike men and women,
they have no grave ut the open and bound
less heavens"