The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-01-27
Celestial Distances.

I think the subject that l am to bring
before YOU is aninteresting one. know
of nothing in the whole range OF science
that more thoroughly illustrates the
power and reach of the human mind than
| fhis--the reaching out into inhnity, as
astronomical science has done, and
measuring the dimensions and distances
of the heavenly bodies about us. 1t sat
isles the appetite for knowing and that
is Just as much part of us as the appe-
site for eating, and more noble part.
The better part of us grows by learning.
Just as the material part Of us does by
taking food The eye does hunger once
in while to look up and try to get hold
of the methods and principles by means
of which astronomers and others have
come to the knowledge that they possess
of the worlds about us.
OF course need not tell any of you
that you live on a little ball of water and
rock, which is not hung in space, as the
Biographies tell us-uO more hung than
the ball that has been struck by the bat of
a l-player-but rushing through space
with velocity more than fifty times as
great as any ball. The ball on which
we live is moving around the sun, and
moving in the same way as the earth we
find eight larger planets, four of which
are conspicuous. Now, we have been
able to make out pretty certainly the
size and dimensions of our own earth.
That is not so very difficult. We have
reached out further, and now we are
able to tell with considerable accuracy
very nearly how far away and how large
the sun is. We are trying to reach out
for the stars. We cannot tell exactly
how far they may be, but we know that
our nearest neighbors are at most ire
mendous distance beyond the reach of
human conception. The earth is about
5000 miles in diameter. Ii you could
make a straight railroad around the
equator it would take just twenty-six
days to make the circuit of it, Mt forty
miles an hour, without any change of
stations. No practical means of con-
veyance will take you around in less
than three months. Then the moon, our
next neighbor, is about thirty times as
far away as the earth's diameter about
100000 miles. That is not very incon-
ceivable. Then when. we come to the
sun, we find its distance is about four
hundred times as great rs that of the
moon-a about 95,000,000o of miles.
Those figures mean nothing until you
take an illustration. Take railroad
from the earth TO the sun, with train
running forty miles an hour without
stops, and it would take about 265 years
and a little over to make the journey.
So that, if the first settlers of this coun-
try, at the time they started from the
mother country, had they started from
the sun by this railroad they would
be just about reaching this country
now. But very few Of them could have
afforded it, for even at a cent mile Che
fare would have been $930,000 You
see? There are very few people, even
in New York, that could afford to go to
the sun at that rate of cheap fare. But
when we come to consider the nearest
star, whose is distance two hundred thou
sand times as great, we can do nothing
with it, even in our imagination. If we
should count the money that it would
take for a railroad journey to it, even at
a cent mile, it would come to two hun
bred thousand millions of dollars
hundred times the amount of the Ma
tional debt of the United States. l do
not suppose there is money enough in
the world to pay the fare of one person.
The credit of this illustration, however,
is due to an English gentleman. Prof
Young, IN N. Y. Tribune.