Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885 — John Shaqi
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
The investigation of these objects possesses extraordinary interest.
As an index to the true nature of the relation undoubtedly subsisting
between the lucid orbs and the “shining fluid” which equally form part
of the sidereal system, their hybrid character renders them of peculiar
value. Their distribution—so far restricted to the Milky Way and its
borders—may perhaps afford a clue to the organisation of, and processes
of change in that stupendous collection of worlds. At present,
speculation would be premature; what we want are facts—facts regarding
the distances of these anomalous objects—whether or not they fall
within the range of the methods of measurement at present available;
facts regarding their apparent motions; facts regarding the specific
differences of the light emitted by them: its analogies with that
of other bodies; its possible variations in amount or kind. The
accumulation of any sufficient information on these points will demand
with every external aid, the patient labor of years; under average
conditions at the earth’s surface, it can scarcely be considered as
practically feasible. The facility of Dr. Copeland’s discoveries
sufficiently sets off the prerogatives, in this respect, of elevated
stations; it is not too much to say that this purpose—were it solely
in view—would fully justify the demand for their establishment.
Towards one other subject which we might easily be tempted to dwell
upon, we will barely glance. Most of our readers have heard something
of Dr. Huggins’s new method of photographing the corona. Its importance
consists in the prospect which it seems to offer for substituting
for scanty and hurried researches during the brief moments of total
eclipse, a leisurely and continuous study of that remarkable solar
appendage. The method may be described as a _differential_ one.
It depends for its success on the superior intensity of coronal
to ordinary sunlight in the extreme violet region. And since it
happens that chloride of silver is sensitive to those rays _only_ in
which the corona is strongest, the coronal form disengages itself
photographically, from the obliterating splendor which effectually
shrouds it visually, by the superior vigor of its impression upon a
chloride of silver film.
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