Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/525

Rh stars does not hold even in the region of space immediately about our solar system. Since the ratio of number is smaller than it should be to correspond to that of light, the density in which the stars are aggregated—if the expression be permitted—must diminish as the distance increases. Our sun is therefore in a part of space more closely filled than are neighboring parts. This is perhaps the most interesting result to which the study of photometry leads us, because it seems so strange at first sight—and even more strange when we remember that the nearest of the other suns is distant from us more than three years' journey of light. Truly, astronomy is without a rival in its special mission, to contradict on every point the evidence of superficial observation. We would most naturally suppose our universe to be as we are told it appeared to a distinguished visitor, when at once

But this appearance of standing aloof is wholly misleading, and, moreover, as our sun would rank by no means first among the fixed stars if placed at the distance of the nearest of them, and would sink below the third magnitude if removed as far as Sirius, its real insignificance in the stellar firmament is almost as striking as its supremacy in its own planetary system. The reflection is an interesting one, how lamentably the grandest of poems must have suffered had its author been compelled to regard the true proportions of the sidereal universe; but for the true lover of nature, it may be hoped, the glory of the Almighty handiwork will not be lessened through the disappearance from fancy of the universal sovereignty of the sun along the track made for it centuries ago by the vanished delusion that our earth was the unmoved center of all things.

It is very certain that an equable distribution could not hold throughout all space (for an infinite number of stars impartially scattered would, however vast the distances among them, give us a heaven shining like the sun in every part, with heat to correspond) unless, owing to the presence of innumerable dark bodies, or to a discontinuity in the luminiferous ether itself, as some physicists have suggested, light from remote distances is wholly or partly cut off before reaching us. But to this view, though it would agree with all the facts, that of a limitation of our firmament of stars, in extent and number, is generally preferred. That such a limitation exists we have other reasons for believing: prominent among these is the system of distribution which a census of the heavens brings to light. We could not expect