The daily Alaskan., 1909-12-22
\ GREAT CENTRAL SUN
MadIer's Theory Is That Ii Is the
 Star AlCyOne.
THE CENTER OF GRAVITY.

According to tho Astronomer, ths
 Principal Star of tho PIsiades To tho
 Body Around Which All Created
 Matter Within Our Ken Rovolvos.
 It has been the dream of all the TO. mantle astronomers since the time of Copernlcus to prove the existence of a central sun, says Lawrence Hodges, writing in the New York Tribune. By thls is meant a heavenly body as much larger than the sun as the sun itself is larger than the earth, round which the sun, with all It's planets, must re- volye. It has been proved that the sun and all It's satellites are rushing forward through space with enormous velocity, but whether the motion was in a straight llne or a circular path was not proved for some time.
 But even if 1t was proved a curved path and that there probably existed a central sun that transcended the earth's lord in slze why couldn't we see 1t? The only answers are that 1t would have to be nonluminous or else so far away that the light hadn'treach- ed us yet. But if all the stars, includ- ing our sun, were children of this big sun, just as the earth is the child of the sun and the moon of the earth, they would have had to have been flung or from the big sun with a greater velocity than that of light in order for the big sun not to be visible and suu be luminous; also the big sun would have to be luminous f any of its children were, for that is the in- variable law of the heavens. So the problem slmmered down to finding a star or group of stars that would take the place of the central sun.
 The motion of the solar system hay ing been settled as to fact, quantity and direction, astronomers set about to find the center of gravity of the whole astral system, for there, if any where, the central sun was to be found. An astronomer named Mad Ter thought he had found the star to satisfy the necessary conditions in the constellation known as Taurus, or the Bull. A closer search proved the spe- ciaI star under examination to be lack ing in some of the conditions, so thls one was left and the search begun anew. This same astronomer persist ed ln bis search with a wonderful faith in bis theory and at last found a star fulfilling iD the most wonderful and complete manner the necessary conditions. Every one is familiar with the beautiful little cluster known as the Pleiades, or seven stars. The teles- cope. however, shows fourteen stars clustered about the beautiful and bril- liant star Alcyone, which is the op- tlcal center of this group.
 The proper motions of all these have beer. determined with great exacness. They are all In the same direction and are all nearly equal % each other, and, what is still more important, the mean of their proper motions differs from that of the central star, Alcyone, by only one-thousandth of a second of arc in right ascension and by only two.thousandths of a second in decli- nation. Here, then, is found a mag nifcent group of suns either actually allied together and sweeping together through space or else composing a cluster so situated as to be affected by the same apparent motion produced by the suns progression through the celestial regions.
 But an extension of the limits of re- search round Alcyone exhibits also the wonderful trutb that out of no stars being within 10 degrees of this center there are sixty moving south-that is, in the same direction-in full accord- ance with the hypothesis that Acyone is the center, forty-nine showing prOc- tically no motion, while only one sin- gle individual that moves at all con- trary to the computed motion. Thus was Modler's profound speculation justified. Furthermore, assuming AL cyone as the grand center of the mil Hons of stars composing our astral sys- tenn and the direction of the suns mo- ton to be as before mentioned, Mad Ter investigated the consequent move ments of all the stars in every quarter of the heavens.
 Just where the swiftest motions should be found 10 accordance with tbIs ossumntlon there they actually eL- ist, this either demonstrating the truth of the theory or else showing a well nigh impossible series of colncidences. Therefore the concluson given out by Madler Is that Alycoue, the principal star of the Plelades, now occupies the center of gravity and Is at present the great central sun about which the unl- verse of stars and all created matter within our ken Is revolving, each en- dty in It's own special path.