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There would, however, also be regions throughout the extent of the nebula, in which subsidiary centres of condensation would be found. In its long course of cooling, the nebula would, therefore, tend ultimately to form a mighty central body with a number of smaller bodies disposed around it.

The nebula had not been there before, and no one could doubt that it represented a phase of the same catastrophe that had produced the outburst of the new star.

Æons upon æons elapse, before the primary nebula consolidates into a solar system such as ours is now; but science shows, that from the time when the nebula first spreads its spiral across the heavens, the mathematical element of Law asserts itself, and it is by means of our recognition of the mathematical relations between the forces of attraction and repulsion, that we have been able to acquire any knowledge on the subject.

One of these is the beautiful little double 6, magnitudes five and six, distance 3.8", p. 77°, colors yellow and blue; and the other, the nebula 352, which equals in extent the star cluster in Andromeda described above, but nevertheless appears very faint with our largest glass.

Go and look out of the window at London." For the great smoky cloud which began to rise in the rainy horizon was indeed London. Soon through the thickening nebula of houses they converged to what was then the nucleus of all railway traveling, the Euston Terminus, and were hustled on to the platform, and jostled helplessly to and fro these poor country ladies!

Its image on the sensitive plate is the masterpiece of astronomical photography; for wild, incomprehensible beauty there is nothing that can be compared with it. Here, if anywhere, we look upon the spectacle of creation in one of its earliest stages. The Andromeda Nebula is apparently less advanced toward transformation into stellar bodies than is that in Triangulum.

A minute after the coachman entered to take his dram, followed by the guard; a more lamentable spectacle of condensed moisture cannot be conceived; the rain fell from the entire circumference of his broad-brimmed hat, like the ever-flowing drop from the edge of an antique fountain; his drab-coat had become a deep orange hue, while his huge figure loomed still larger, as he stood amid a nebula of damp, that would have made an atmosphere for the Georgium Sidus.

There must have been an enormous absorption of water into the interior, far greater than I ever imagined possible. But wait until the nucleus of the nebula strikes us! In the meantime, this lowering of the water renders it necessary for us to make haste, or we may not get over the mountains round Suez before the downpour recommences."

Not only, therefore, are we driven to the inference that our solar system was once a vaporous nebula, but we find that the mere contraction of such a nebula, under the influence of the enormous mutual gravitation of its particles, carries with it the explanation of both the more general and the more particular features of the present system.

This town, where the first University of the United States was founded, is justly celebrated for its astronomical staff. There are assembled the greatest men of science; there is the powerful telescope which enabled Bond to resolve the nebula of Andromeda and Clarke to discover the satellite of Sirius.