ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 317, 9 March 1878, Page 16

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. Sir, —The following extract from Dean Swift’s writings is very amusing and interesting. It was sent me by Mr. Travers. I fancy others will be as glad to read it as I was. Query, how Dean Swift was able to put down so marvellous a coincidence with what the American astronomers have discovered ?—I am, &c., A. Stock. “They spend the greater part of their lives in observing the celestial bodies, which they do with the assistance of glasses far excelling ours in goodness. For although their largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they magnify much more than those of a hundred would with us, and show the stars with greater clearness. This advantage hath enabled them to extend their discoveries much further than our astronomers in Europe ; for they have made a catalogue of 10,000 fixed stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one-third of that niirabe. 1 . They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve round Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost, five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter twenty-one and a half ; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars, which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.”