DISTANCE AS REVEALED BY THE HEAVENLY BODIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 179, 1 September 1876, Page 8

DISTANCE AS REVEALED BY THE HEAVENLY BODIES.

[Prom the Quebec ' Journal of Education.'] A railway train travelling day and night at the rate fifty miles an hour, without making any stoppages, would run from New York to San Francisco in sixty-six hours, or less than three days. At the same rate it would make the circuit of the earth at the equator in a little less than twenty-one days ; and should it then leave the earth en route for the sun, it would arrive at the solar station in 76,250 days more, or about 209 years ; but to reach Polaris, it would require no less than 636,600,000 years. Had Adam taken passage in such a train moved on at the above rate without a single pause until the present time, less than the one hundred-thousand part of his journey would now be accomplished. And had Eve started at the same time upon a tour round the earth, travelling just fast enough to finish her journey by the time Adam reached Polaris, sl|§u^ would now have travelled less than a quarter of a mile. Even light, which moves with the fearful velocity of 183,000 miles per second, requiring but eight and a quarter minutes to pass from the sun to the earth, is nearly fifty years in crossing this vast chasm. The time required for the light of the nearest fixed star to reach the earth is about three years and nine months, while that of some of the furthest visible to the naked eye requires one hundred and twenty-five years. Over what an infinite expanse must the eye wander as we gasw at the starry heavens on a clear night ! And yet the number of stars visible to the unaided eye is but as a handful of sand scattered upon the sea-shore when compared with the myriads revealed by the telescope.