In the next place, the telescope has been the means of enlarging our views of the sublime scenes of creation, more than any other instrument which art has contrived. Before the invention of this instrument the universe was generally conceived as circumscribed within very narrow limits. The earth was considered as among the largest bodies in creation; the planets were viewed as bodies of a far less size than what they are now found to be; no bodies similar to our moon were suspected as revolving around any of them; and the stars were supposed to be little more than a number of brilliant lamps hung up to emit a few glimmering rays, and to adorn the canopy of our earthly habitation. Such a wonderful phenomenon as the Ring of Saturn was never once suspected, and the sun was considered as only a large ball of fire. It was suspected, indeed, that the moon was diversified with mountains and vales, and that it might possibly be a habitable world; but nothing certainly could be determined on this point, on account of the limited nature of unassisted vision. But the telescope has been the means of expanding our views of the august scenes of creation to an almost unlimited extent. It has withdrawn the veil which formerly interposed to intercept our view of the distant glories of the sky. It has brought to light five new planetary bodies, unknown to former astronomers, one of which is more than eighty times larger than the earth—and seventeen secondary planets which revolve around the primary. It has expanded the dimensions of the solar system to double the extent which was formerly supposed. It has enabled us to descry hundreds of comets which would otherwise have escaped our unassisted vision, and to determine some of their trajectories and periods of revolution.
It has explored the profundities of the Milky Way, and enabled us to perceive hundreds of thousands of those splendid orbs, where scarcely one is visible to the naked eye. It has laid open to our view thousands of Nebulæ, of various descriptions, dispersed through different regions of the firmament—many of them containing thousands of separate stars. It has directed our investigations to thousands of double, treble and multiple stars—suns revolving around suns, and systems around systems, and has enabled us to determine some of the periods of their revolutions. It has demonstrated the immense distances of the starry orbs from our globe, and their consequent magnitudes; since it shows us that, having brought them nearer to our view by several hundreds or thousands of times, they still appear only as so many shining points. It has enabled us to perceive that mighty changes are going forward throughout the regions of immensity—new stars appearing, and others removed from our view, and motions of incomprehensible velocity carrying forward those magnificent orbs through the spaces of the firmament. In short, it has opened a vista to regions of space so immeasurably distant, that a cannon ball impelled with its greatest velocity, would not reach tracts of creation so remote in two thousand millions of years, and even light itself, the swiftest body in nature, would require more than a thousand years before it could traverse this mighty interval. It has thus laid a foundation for our acquiring an approximate idea of the infinity of space, and for obtaining a glimpse of the far distant scenes of creation, and the immense extent of the universe.
Again, the telescope, in consequence of the discoveries it has enabled us to make, has tended to amplify our conceptions of the attributes and the Empire of the Deity. The amplitude of our conceptions of the Divine Being bears a certain proportion to the expansion of our views in regard to his works of creation, and the operations he is incessantly carrying forward throughout the universe. If our views of the works of God, and of the manifestations he has given of himself to his intelligent creatures, be circumscribed to a narrow sphere, as to a parish, a province, a kingdom, or a single world, our conceptions of that Great Being, will be proportionably limited. For it is chiefly from the manifestation of God in the material creation that our ideas of his Power, his Wisdom, and his other natural attributes, are derived. But in proportion to the ample range of prospect we are enabled to take of the operations of the Most High, will be our conceptions of his character, attributes, and agency. Now, the telescope—more than any other invention of man—has tended to open to our view the most magnificent and extensive prospects of the works of God. It has led us to ascertain that, within the limits of the solar system, there are bodies which, taken together, comprise a mass of matter nearly two thousand five hundred times greater than that of the earth—that these bodies are all constituted and arranged in such a manner as to fit them for being habitable worlds—and that the sun, the centre of this system, is five hundred times larger than the whole. But, far beyond the limits of this system, it has presented to our view a universe beyond the grasp of finite intelligences, and to which human imagination can assign no boundaries. It has enabled us to descry suns clustering behind suns, rising to view in boundless perspective, in proportion to the extent of its magnifying and illuminating powers—the numbers of which are to be estimated, not merely by thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands, but by scores of millions—leaving us no room to doubt that hundreds of millions more, beyond the utmost limits of human vision, even when assisted by art, lie hid from mortal view’s in the unexplored and unexplorable regions of immensity.
Here, then, we are presented with a scene which gives us a display of Omnipotent Power which no other objects can unfold, and which, without the aid of the telescope, we should never have beheld—a scene which expands our conceptions of the Divine Being, to an extent which the men of former generations could never have anticipated—a scene which enables us to form an approximate idea of Him who is the “King Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible,” who “created all worlds, and for whose pleasure they are, and were created.” Here we behold the operations of a Being whose power is illimitable and uncontrollable, and which far transcends the comprehension of the highest created intelligences—a power, displayed not only in the vast extension of material existence, and the countless number of mighty globes which the universe contains—but in the astonishingly rapid motions with which myriads of them are carried along through the immeasurable spaces of creation,—some of those magnificent orbs moving with a velocity of one hundred and seventy thousand miles an hour. Here, likewise, we have a display of the infinite Wisdom and Intelligence of the Divine Mind, in the harmony and order with which all the mighty movements of the universe are conducted—in proportionating the magnitudes, motions and distances of the planetary worlds—in the nice adjustment of the projectile velocity to the attractive power—in the constant proportion between the times of the periodical revolution of the planets and the cubes of their mean distances—in the distances of the several planets from the central body of the system, compared with their respective densities—and in the constancy and regularity of their motions, and the exactness with which they accomplish their destined rounds—all which circumstances evidently show that He who contrived the universe is “the only Wise God,” who is “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.” Here, in fine, is a display of boundless benevolence. For we cannot suppose, for a moment, that so many myriads of magnificent globes, fitted to be the centres of a countless number of mighty worlds, should be nothing else than barren wastes, without the least relation to intelligent existence. And if they are peopled with intellectual beings of various orders—how vast must be their numbers, and how overflowing that Divine Beneficence which has provided for them all, every thing requisite to their existence and happiness!
In these discoveries of the telescope, we obtain a glimpse of the grandeur and the unlimited extent of God’s universal empire. To this empire no boundaries can be perceived. The larger, and the more powerful our telescopes are, the further are we enabled to penetrate into those distant and unknown regions; and however far we penetrate into the abyss of space, new objects of wonder and magnificence still continue rising to our view—affording the strongest presumption, that were we to penetrate ten thousand times farther into those remote spaces of immensity, new suns, and systems, and worlds would be disclosed to our view. Over all this vast assemblage of material existence, and over all the sensitive and intellectual beings it contains, God eternally and unchangably presides; and the minutest movements, either of the physical or the intelligent system, throughout every department of those vast dominions, are at every moment “naked and open” to his Omniscient eye. What boundless Intelligence is implied in the Superintendence and arrangement of the affairs of such an unlimited empire! and what a lofty and expansive idea does it convey of Him who sits on the throne of Universal Nature, and whose greatness is unsearchable! But without the aids of the telescopic tube, we could not have formed such ample conceptions of the greatness, either of the Eternal Creator himself, or of the universe which he hath brought into existence.
Besides the above, the following uses of the telescope, in relation to science and common life, may be shortly noticed:—
In the business of astronomy, scarcely any thing can be done with accuracy without the assistance of the telescope. 1. It enables the astronomer to determine with precision the transits of the planets and stars, across the meridian; and on the accuracy with which these transits are obtained, a variety of important conclusions and calculations depend. The computation of astronomical and nautical tables for aiding the navigator in his voyages round the globe, and facilitating his calculations of latitude and longitude, is derived from observations made by the telescope, without the use of which instrument, they cannot be made with precision. 2. The apparent diameters of the planets can only be measured by means of this instrument, furnished with a micrometer. By the naked eye no accurate measurements of the diameters of these bodies can be taken; and without knowing their apparent diameters, in minutes or seconds, their real bulk cannot be determined, even although their exact distances be known. The differences, too, between their polar and equatorial diameters cannot be ascertained without observations made by powerful telescopes. For example, the equatorial diameter of Jupiter is found to be in proportion to the polar as 14 to 13, that is, the equatorial is more than 6000 miles longer than the polar diameter, which could never have been determined by observations made by the naked eye. 3. The parallaxes of the heavenly bodies can only be accurately ascertained by the telescope; and it is only from the knowledge of their parallaxes, that their distances from the earth or from the sun can be determined. In the case of the fixed stars, nothing of the nature of a parallax could ever be expected to be found without the aid of a telescope. It was by searching for the parallax of a certain fixed star, that the important fact of the Aberration of light was discovered. The observations, for this purpose, were made by means of a telescope 24 feet long, fixed in a certain position. 4. The motions and revolutionary periods of Sidereal systems, can only be determined by observations made by telescopes of great magnifying and illuminating powers. Without a telescope the small stars which accompany double or treble stars cannot be perceived, and much less their motions or variation of their relative positions. Before the invention of the telescope such phenomena—now deemed so wonderful and interesting—could never have been surmised. 5. The accurate determination of the longitude of places on the earth’s surface is ascertained by the telescope, by observing with this instrument the immersions and emersions of the satellites of Jupiter. From such observations, with the aid of a chronometer, and having the time at any known place, the situation of any unknown place is easily determined. But the eclipses of Jupiter’s moons can be perceived only by telescopic instruments of considerable power. 6. By means of a telescope, with cross hairs in the focus of the eye-glass, and attached to a Quadrant, the altitude of the sun or of a star, particularly the pole-star, may be most accurately taken; and, from such observations, the latitude of the place may be readily and accurately deduced.
Again, in the Surveying of land, the telescope is particularly useful; and for this purpose it is mounted on a stand with a horizontal and vertical motion, pointing out by divisions the degrees and minutes of inclination of the instrument. For the more accurate reading of these divisions, the two limbs are furnished with a Nonius, or Vernier’s scale. The object here is to take the angular distances between distant objects on a plane truly horizontal; or else the angular elevation or depression of objects above or below the plane of the horizon. In order to obtain either of those kinds of angles to a requisite degree of exactness, it is necessary that the surveyor should have as clear and distinct a view as possible of the objects, or station-staves, which he fixes up for his purpose, that he may with the greater certainty determine the point of the object which exactly corresponds with the line he is taking. Now, as such objects are generally at too great a distance for the surveyor to be able to distinguish with the naked eye, he takes the assistance of the telescope, by which he obtains, 1. A distinct view of the object to which his attention is directed, and 2. he is enabled to determine the precise point of the object aimed at, by means of the cross hairs in the focus of the eye-glass. A telescope mounted for this purpose is called a Theodolite, which is derived from two Greek words θεομαι to see, and οδος, the way or distance.
In the next place, the telescope is an instrument of special importance, in the conducting of Telegraphs, and in the conveyance of signals of all descriptions. Without its assistance telegraphic dispatches could not be conveyed with accuracy to any considerable distance, nor in quadruple the time in which they are now communicated, and the different stations would need to be exceedingly numerous. But by the assistance of the telescope information may be communicated, by a series of telegraphs, with great rapidity. Twenty-seven telegraphs convey information from Paris to Calais—a distance of 160 miles—in 3 minutes; twenty-two from Paris to Lisle in 2 minutes; forty-six from Strasburg to Paris in 4½ minutes; and eighty from Paris to Brest in 10 minutes. In many other cases which occur both on land and on sea, the telescope is essentially requisite for descrying signals. The Bell-Rock Light House, for example, is situated 12 miles from Arbroath, and from every other portion of land, so that the naked eye could not discern any signal which the keepers of that light could have it in their power to make; but by means of a large telescope in the station-house in Arbroath, the hoisting of a ball every morning at 9 A.M.—which indicates that ‘All is well’—may be distinctly recognised.
Many other uses of this instrument, in the ordinary transactions of life, will readily occur to the reader; and therefore I shall only mention the following purpose to which it may be applied, namely,—