Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1883-01-22
CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS.

iHc iOllOHlHS Is ILL eSlfaCl from Il re-
cent lecture by Professor C.. 4. Young, OF
Princeton College, n. j.:
Il always feel a little embarrassment in
bringing such 4 subject rs that I am to
bring before you tonight to the attendance
OF Il popular audience, because ] know that
1t Is not an amusing one \ very good
friend of mine, who has delivered Il lecture
upon astronomical subjects in one of our
ncighboring cities, wrote me day or two
ago, hearing that | was to lecture on the
. "Transii Of Venus asking How can you
make Il rlght-angled triangle amusing p !
think the subject that / am to bring before
you is al interesting one. / know of moth
ing in the whole range Of science that more
thoroughly illustrates the power and reach
o! the human mind than this--the reaching
ont into inllnty, as astronomical science has
| done, and measuring the dimensions and
distances Of the heavenly bodies about us.
1t satisfies the appetite for knowing and
that IS just rs much u part of us as the APP
petite Tor eating, and u more noble part.
The better part ofus grows by learning, just
as The material part Of us docs by taking
food. The eye docs hunger once in while
to look up and try to get hold of the
methods and principles by means Of which
knowledge that they possess Of the worlds
about us.
"Of course need not tell any of YOU that
you live on Il little ball of water and rock,
which is not hung in space, as the geo.
gIaphlcS tell us--no more hung than the
ball that has been struck by the bat of Il
ball player-but rushing through space with
Il velocity more tfan fifty times as great us
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 isnot so very difficult. We have
reached out further, and now VIC 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 tel! exactly how fart they may be- but
we know that our nearest neighbors are at
Il most tremendous distancc-beyond the
reach Of human conception. The earth is
about 5000 miles is diameter Ifyou could
make Il straight railroad around the equator
it would take just about twenty-six
days TO make the circuit of it at forty
miles an hour, without any change of
stations. No practical means of con-
vcyau3e will take you around in less than
three months Then the moon, our next
ne.Shhor, is about thirty times as far away
as the carth's Giametcr--about 240 900 miles.
That is not SO very inconceivable Then,
when we come TO the sun, we find its dis
tancc is about four hun dred times as great
a that Of the moon--about 95,000.000 of
miles
'Thosc figures mean nothing until you
take an illustration. Take railroad from
the earth to the sun, with q train running
forty miles an hour without stops, and it
would take about 30 years and y little over
TO make the journey. So that, if the first
settlers OF this country. at the time they
started from the mother country, had
started from the sun by this railroad
they would be lust about reaching this
country now. But very few of them
could have afforded it, for even at a
cent nilc the fare would have been $780,,
900. You see? There are very few people
even in New York, that that could afford
to 80 TO the sun al that rate of cheap fare
| But when we come to consider the nearest
star whose distance is 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 hundred thousand
millions OF dollars-a hundred times the
amount of the national debt Of the United
States. do not suppose there is money
enough III the world to pay the fare of one
person. The credit of this illustration
however, is due to an English gentleman.