Page:In the high heavens.djvu/217

 most memorable papers, Sir W. Herschel presents us with a summary of his observations on the nebulæ arranged in such a manner as to suggest his theory of the gradual transmutation of nebulæ into stars. He first shows us that there are regions in the heavens where a faint diffused nebulosity is all that can be detected by the telescope. There are other nebulæ in which a nucleus can be just discerned; others again in which the nucleus is easily seen; and still others where the nucleus is a brilliant starlike point. The transition from an object of this kind to a nebulous star is very natural, while the nebulous stars pass into the ordinary stars by a few graduated stages. It is thus possible to enumerate a series of objects, beginning at one end with the most diffused nebulosity, and ending at the other with an ordinary fixed star or group of stars. Each object in the series differs but slightly from the object just before it and just after it.

It seemed to Herschel that he was thus able to view the actual changes by which masses of phosphorescent or glowing vapour became actually condensed down into stars. The condensation of a nebula could be followed in the same manner as we can study the growth of the trees in a forest by comparing the trees of various ages which the forest contains at the same time. In attempting to pronounce upon the positive evidence available in the discussion of Herschel's theory, we encounter a well-known difficulty. To establish this theory, it would be necessary to watch the actual condensation of one single nebula from the primitive gaseous condition down to the stellar points. It may easily be conceived that such a process would require a vast lapse of time, perhaps enormously greater than the period between the invention of the telescope and the