(It is
interesting to recall that Mr Edison was once credited with the
intention to construct a gigantic microphone which should render the
roar of sun-spots audible by transforming the electric vibrations into
sound-waves). On this supposition each starry system would be
enveloped in its own globule of ether, and no light could cross from
one to another. But the probability is that both the ether and
gravitation are ubiquitous, and that all the stellar systems are
immersed in the former like clouds of phosphorescent organisms in the
sea.
So astronomy carries the mind from height to greater height. Men were
long in accepting the proofs of the relative insignificance of the
earth; they were more quickly convinced of the comparative littleness
of the solar system; and now the evidence assails their reason that
what they had regarded as the universe is only one mote gleaming in
the sunbeams of Infinity.
Star-Clouds, Star-Clusters, and Star-Streams
In the preceding chapter we have seen something of the strangely
complicated structure of the Galaxy, or Milky Way. We now proceed to
study more comprehensively that garlanded ``Pathway of the Gods.''
Judged by the eye alone, the Milky Way is one of the most delicately
beautiful phenomena in the entire realm of nature -- a shimmer of
silvery gauze stretched across the sky; but studied in the light of
its revelations, it is the most stupendous object presented to human
ken.
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