CHAP. XXVIII.

PARLEY TELLS ABOUT THE STARS.

AFTER telling you about the two great luminaries, the sun and moon, I shall talk of those lesser luminaries which next attract our attention; that is, of the general multitude of stars. It is in the same order that the whole are presented to us in the book of Genesis:-" And God," it is said, "made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”

On the next page is a picture of some stars. You nightly see the stars. How pure and peaceful do they seem, as they twinkle far away in the clear blue sky! They appear very small, but recollect that they are at an immense distance. They are much further off than the moon; and though they seem smaller, they are in fact a

great deal larger than the moon. Some of them are millions of miles from us, and though they

appear so little, in reality they are prodigious in their size.

Some of the stars appear larger and brighter

Are the stars larger or smaller than the moon? larger, why do they appear to be smaller?

If they are

What are the stars?

than others. Some appear small, and are so faint as to be scarcely visible. Now those which appear largest are the nearest, and those which appear the smallest, and most indistinct, are the furthest off.

It is more usual to talk of the solar system, and of the constellations into which the visible fixed stars are grouped, than to remember how many wonderful things have latterly come to be known concerning the fixed stars, star by star.

Many will seem to tell you, that we know so little about the fixed stars that it is scarcely worth while to talk of them; but, to say this, is not to keep pace with the progress of modern discovery. At present, we have an express branch of astronomy for the fixed stars, which we call sidereal astronomy. Still, it is true, that as compared with what we know of the planets, we know but little of the fixed stars.

It is to the two Herschels, father and son, that we are particularly indebted for our ac

quaintance with sidereal astronomy, or the especial science of the fixed stars. Less than a hundred years ago, even the little that we know at present had not yet been discovered.

I have room for only a very few words about the fixed stars, but I wish you to know that there is much that may be learned.

CHAP. XXIX.

ABOUT THE FIXED STARS. IN WHAT RESPECT THE FIXED STARS, SO CALLED, ARE REALLY FIXED. REAL AND APPARENT MOTION. VARIETY OF COLOUR. DISTANCES FROM THE EARTH. NUMBER. SMALL NUMBER OF STARS ORDINARILY SEEN WITH THE NAKED EYE.

THE fixed stars are so called, because, unlike the planets, they never "wander," or change their places among each other. Night and morning, age after age, they rise and set in the same order.

In any other respect, these stars are not to be called "fixed." Altogether they move around the earth in one grand and ceaseless procession, exclusive of that apparent motion which results only from the real motion of the earth.

An apparent annual motion of a fixed star in the circuit of the celestial sphere, if even amounting to no more than five seconds of a degree, has been computed, in the star 61 Cygni, to be