A Great Astronomical Discovery.
A late number of an astronomical journal published at Altona, near Hamburg, contains a long article by Dr. Maedler, director of the Dorpat Observatory, Russia, well known to the astronomical world, in which he announces the extraordinary discovery of the grand central star or sun, about which the universe of stars is revolving, our own sun and system among the rest.
This discovery, the result of many years of incessant toil and research, has been deduced by a train of reasoning and an examination of facts scarcely to be surpassed in the annals of science.
He announces his discovery in the following language: 'I therefore pronounce the Pleiades to be the central group of that mass of fixed stars limited by the stratum composing the Milky Way and Alcyene as the individual star of this group, which, among all others, combines the greatest probability of being the true Central Sun.'
By a train of reasoning, which I shall not attempt to explain, he finds the probable parallax of this great central star to be six thousandths of one second of arc, and its distance to be 34 millions of times the distance of the sun, or so remote that light, with a velocity of 12 millions of miles per minute, requires a period of 537 years to pass from the great centre to our sun.
As a first rough approximation, he deduces the period of the revolution of our sun, with all its train of planets, satellites and comets, about the grand centre, to be eighteen millions two hundred thousand years.
Ocean Steam Navigation.
The 'Ocean Steam Company,' which has the patronage of the United States Government to the amount of $400,000 per annum, are getting on rapidly with the first steamship of their line. She is to be completed and commence running on the first of March next.
