The Stellar Universe: Views of Its Arrangements, Motions, and Evolutions

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J. Johnstone, 1848 - Astronomy - 257 pages
 

Contents

I
xi
III
29
V
55
VII
77
VIII
107
X
109
XII
171
XIV
217

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Page 28 - Of old hast THOU laid the foundation of the earth : And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but THOU shalt endure : Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment ; As a vesture shalt THOU change them, and they shall be changed : But THOU art the same, And thy years shall have no end.
Page 167 - ... a red and a green, or a yellow and a blue one — must afford a planet circulating about either; and what charming contrasts and "grateful vicissitudes," — a red and a green day, for instance, alternating with a white one and with darkness, — might arise from the presence or absence of one or other, or both, above the horizon.
Page 163 - ... variety of urgent instance that these are not the last of such announcements which they shall have to communicate, that there are yet behind, to search out and to declare, not only secrets of nature which shall increase the wealth or power of man, but TRUTHS which shall ennoble the age and country in which they are divulged, and, by dilating the intellect, react on the moral character of mankind. Such truths are things quite as worthy of struggles and sacrifices as many of the objects for which...
Page 165 - ... presents a new and remarkable phenomenon. STRUVE records that, in at least 104 binary systems, the two stars exhibit the complementary colours, that is, the colour of one constituent belongs to the red or least refrangible end of the spectrum, while that of the other belongs to the violet or most refrangible extremity — as if the entire spectrum had been divided into two parts, and distributed between the two companions.
Page 167 - It may be easier suggested in words," says Sir JOHN HERSCHEL, " than conceived in imagination, what a variety of illumination two stars — a red and a green, or a yellow and blue one, must afford a planet circulating around either ; and what cheering contrasts and grateful vicissitudes, a red and a green day, for instance, alternating with a white one, and with darkness, must arise from the presence or absence of one or other, or both, from the horizon...
Page 163 - I may venture on such a figure without irreverence) the messengers from heaven to earth of such stupendous announcements as must strike every one who hears them with almost awful admiration, that they may claim to be listened to when they repeat in every variety of urgent instance, that these are not the last of such announcements which they shall have to communicate, — that there are yet behind, to search out and to declare, not only secrets of nature which shall increase the wealth or power of...
Page 162 - ... of the national means in furtherance of the great objects they propose to accomplish. They enable them not only to hold out, but to redeem their promises, when they profess themselves productive labourers in a higher and richer field than that of mere material and physical advantages. It is, then, when they become (if I may venture on such a figure without irreverence) the messengers from heaven to earth of such stupendous announcements as must strike every one who hears them with almost awful...
Page 91 - Way ; for the state into which the incessant action of the clustering power has brought it, is a kind of chronometer, that may be used to measure the time of its past and present existence.
Page 106 - It surely is not impossible that to some infinitely superior being the whole universe may be as one plain, the distance between planet and planet being only as the pores in a grain of sand, and the spaces between system and system no greater than the intervals between one grain and the grain adjacent.
Page 76 - Herschel's great work on the southern skies, he notes the frequent recurrence of " an exceedingly delicate and uniform dotting, or stippling of the field of view by points of light too small to admit of any one being steadily or fully examined, and too numerous for counting, were it possible so to view them.

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