May it not consist of the denser parts of meteoric systems travelling round the sun?
Leverrier has shown, and Mr Buxendell has helped to show, that the motion of Mercury's perihelion indicates the presence of a ring of bodies in the vicinity of the sun; but we have good reason for believing that for each meteor system our earth encounters, there must be millions on millions whose perihelia lie within the earth's orbit. Since the earth meets with fifty-six such systems, it will be seen how enormous probably is the total number.
Is, then, the corona simply the projection of these systems, illuminated as they must be by an intensity of solar light exceeding many hundred-fold that which illumines our summer days, nay, in certain places, were raised by his heat to a state of incandescence?
Such are some of the questions which, it is hoped, the eclipse of December 1870 will help to solve; and we think our readers will admit that their importance justifies us in looking forward to the approaching phenomenon with anxious curiosity. The bounds of human knowledge are gradually enlarging; and as they enlarge, they do but more vividly illustrate the infinite wisdom and perfectness of the scheme of creation.
Coloured Stars.
Before bringing these pages to a close, and appending to our description of Everyday Objects (everyday, but not commonplace) the word "Finis," we wish to direct the reader's attention to the subject of coloured stars; not because these beautiful spheres can be fairly classed under our general title, but because they serve to show the peculiar attractiveness and novelty of scientific inquiry, and the wonderful results that spring from the persevering study of God's universe.
To the eye of the ordinary observer, one star seems much like another; these "lamps of night" differ, indeed, in brilliancy, in their distance from the earth, in their relative magnitudes; but to all appearance they exhibit a complete identity in physical constitution, and their white light has furnished poetry with one of its commonest images.
But the astronomer, armed with his wonder-revealing glass, has discovered that innumerable stars are exquisitely coloured; that some are blue, and others green, and others red. If on a clear night you examine Perseus with your telescope, you will find that the star Eta is of a glowing red. In the system of Ophiuchus you will encounter a blue star; in that of Draco, a deep red star; Taurus has a large red and a small bluish star; and in Argo, a blue sun is attended by a dark-red satellite.
The stars occur in double, triple, or multiple groups or clusters; and the systems so constituted differ from what we presumptuously call the Solar System in their colouring; and in this variety or diversity, yet another variety is visible. The binary coloured systems are not all composed of blue and red suns. In that of Gamma Andromedæ the great central orb is of an orange hue, the moon revolving round it green as emerald. What results from the marriage of these two colours—from this union of orange and emerald? Do we not see in it, says a French astronomer,[94] a combination, if the phrase is allowable, full of youth (assortiment plein de jeunesse)—a grand, a magnificent orange-coloured sun in the midst of the firmament—next to it, a resplendent emerald, which interweaves with the gold its greenish gleams?