The Voices of the Stars; Or, the Supernatural Revealed in the Natural Science of the Heavens (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1894 Excerpt: ... THE SUN. I. 'The golden sun, in splendour likest heaven, (Aloof the vulgar constellations thick, That from his lordly eye keep distance due, ) Dispenses light from far: they, as they move Their starry dance in numbers, that compute Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp Turn swift their various motions; or are turned By his magnetic beam, that gently warms The universe, and to each inward part With gentle penetration, though unseen, Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep; So wondrously was set his station bright.' Milton: Paradise Lost, Book iii. 571-587. The distance between the sun and the earth1 is calculated as from ninety-two to ninety-three millions of miles.2 Until a recent date, owing to certain inaccuracies in their calculations, astronomers supposed this distance to be some ninety-five millions; but now with more exact methods of conducting such calculations, they have concluded that the 1 The various methods employed by astronomers to ascertain the solar parallax are well described in Mr. Proctor's valuable book, 'The Sun, ' to which the reader may be referred. The earliest calculations, of Aristarchus and Hipparchus, though based on ingenious methods, signally failed. Indeed, till the time of Tycho Brahe, the sun's distance was never computed at more than 5,000,000 of miles. 2 Prof. Newcomb would place it between 92,200,000 and 92,700,000 miles. ('Astronomy, 'p. 200.) Sir E. Beckett remarks, to assist the mind to a conception of the value of a million, that in 2,730 years there are only one million of days; so that 'there have not been much more than two million days, since the creation of Adam, according to the Hebrew chronology.' mean distance is only some 92,700,000 miles. The distance varies, being sometimes greater than at ot