-
Articles/Ads
Article SPECULATIVE RAMBLES AMONGST THE STARS. Page 1 of 5 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Speculative Rambles Amongst The Stars.
SPECULATIVE EAMBLES AMONGST THE STABSL .
" The stars Did wander darkling in th ' eternal space . " Byeon . It was upon a clear quiet night in the early spring , that we found ourselves speculating upon these same stars . What are they ? we asked ourselves . What conception did the early tribes of the East ,
who grouped them , form of them ? And what is our relationship to them ? Burthened with these thoughts , by some agency we know not what , we found ourselves wandering in space . There were « ome hundred miles between us and the surface of the globe we had trod so lately ; we were surrounded by intense darkness ; no zephyr played upon our cheek ; no sound greeted our ears ; no object caught our attention . We were in one dread silence . Then a sensation of more
terrible dread came over us , for approaching us through aether was a huge illumined ball of enormous proportions , rushing with the impetuosity of the highest speed of an express train multiplied by thousands , and the whole revolving ceaselessly upon its own centre * bringing with it another vast globular body , performing through its course a double revolution , one upon its centre , the other round
the larger body which it accompanied . When recovered from the surprise , by a similar agency we found ourselves brought back to our former sphere , and all about us going on , unconscious of the great motions of this globe of twenty-five thousand miles in circumference ; of its sixty-nine thousand miles an hour travel through space ; of its
whirl upon its centre of seventeen miles a minute ; and of its companion body , more than two thousand miles in diameter , of which we had lately become so sensible . The dread silence was changed to a ceaseless hum of discordant sounds ; our eyes were dazzled by the intensity of the light , and the variety of the forms presented to them .
We have gone on speculating ever since . Here are we , dwellers on this great globe ; around us float other bodies , shaped in the same monld as our home planet , lighted from the same sun , warmed by
the same heat , enjoying changes of seasons , and luxuriating in the same alternations of labour and repose * Of some of these bodies , at least , these are not bare speculations . Analogy will lead us to settled conclusions about those more distant , the fixed stars , and beyond these again , if we could only settle whether nebuhe be stars at all .
[ From the basis of this analogy , the physical constitution of our own globe , we enter a labyrinth of speculations : the hypothetical term of millions of years demanded by the geologist for the formation of strata ; the possible deposition of the same strata by a rapid precipitation . The absence of man from the earth at the early period of its formation , and the assumption raised by a living philosopher that " the future of geology may be pregnant with startling dis-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Speculative Rambles Amongst The Stars.
SPECULATIVE EAMBLES AMONGST THE STABSL .
" The stars Did wander darkling in th ' eternal space . " Byeon . It was upon a clear quiet night in the early spring , that we found ourselves speculating upon these same stars . What are they ? we asked ourselves . What conception did the early tribes of the East ,
who grouped them , form of them ? And what is our relationship to them ? Burthened with these thoughts , by some agency we know not what , we found ourselves wandering in space . There were « ome hundred miles between us and the surface of the globe we had trod so lately ; we were surrounded by intense darkness ; no zephyr played upon our cheek ; no sound greeted our ears ; no object caught our attention . We were in one dread silence . Then a sensation of more
terrible dread came over us , for approaching us through aether was a huge illumined ball of enormous proportions , rushing with the impetuosity of the highest speed of an express train multiplied by thousands , and the whole revolving ceaselessly upon its own centre * bringing with it another vast globular body , performing through its course a double revolution , one upon its centre , the other round
the larger body which it accompanied . When recovered from the surprise , by a similar agency we found ourselves brought back to our former sphere , and all about us going on , unconscious of the great motions of this globe of twenty-five thousand miles in circumference ; of its sixty-nine thousand miles an hour travel through space ; of its
whirl upon its centre of seventeen miles a minute ; and of its companion body , more than two thousand miles in diameter , of which we had lately become so sensible . The dread silence was changed to a ceaseless hum of discordant sounds ; our eyes were dazzled by the intensity of the light , and the variety of the forms presented to them .
We have gone on speculating ever since . Here are we , dwellers on this great globe ; around us float other bodies , shaped in the same monld as our home planet , lighted from the same sun , warmed by
the same heat , enjoying changes of seasons , and luxuriating in the same alternations of labour and repose * Of some of these bodies , at least , these are not bare speculations . Analogy will lead us to settled conclusions about those more distant , the fixed stars , and beyond these again , if we could only settle whether nebuhe be stars at all .
[ From the basis of this analogy , the physical constitution of our own globe , we enter a labyrinth of speculations : the hypothetical term of millions of years demanded by the geologist for the formation of strata ; the possible deposition of the same strata by a rapid precipitation . The absence of man from the earth at the early period of its formation , and the assumption raised by a living philosopher that " the future of geology may be pregnant with startling dis-