DEAD STARS.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1524, 11 April 1882, Page 3

DEAD STARS.

Like the sands of the sea, the stars of heaven, says Sir John Lubbuck in his opening address at the recent meeting of the British Association for the advancement of science, have ever been used as effective symbols of number, and the improvements in our methods of observation have added fresh fdrce to our original impressions. We now know that our earth is but a fraction of one of at least 75,000,000 worlds. But this is not all. In addition to the luminous heavenly bodies, we cannot doubt that there are .countless others, invisible to us from their 'greater distance, smaller size, or feebler light ; indeed, we know that there are many dark bodies which now emit no light or comparatively little. Thus in the case of Procyon, the existence of an **\invisible body is proved by the movement Sjjjjl^fithe visible star. Again'l may refer to 'f|&e curious phenomena presented by Agol, - 5 a bright star in the head of Medusa. The star shines without chatrgeffor two days and thirteen hours; thdn; in three hours i ' and a half, dwindles from a star of the second to one of the fourth magnitude ; and then, m another,, three, an.d a half hours, resumes its original' brilliancy. These - changes seem 'certainly »to~indicate the presence of an opaque body, which inter- "'" ' 'cepts'at regular/ ipterVals a te&rt of the light emitted by Algol- Thud, the floor ;.' 'of ;heav6nis not onty '"'ihiclt'inlaid with ' pantines of bright gold," but* studded also with extinct stars— ouce probably as

brilliant as our .own sun, but now dead and cold, as Hehnholtz tells us that our sun itself will be some seventeen millions of years hence. — New York Tribune.