Everyday Objects; Or, Picturesque Aspects of Natural History.Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
History
Everyday Objects; Or, Picturesque Aspects of Natural History.
Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
Natural history
Others, again, are wholly dominated by blue and yellow, or, at least,
are kindled by a blue sun and a yellow sun, which afford but a
limited series of the tints or shades comprised in the combinations
of these primitive colours; such are the systems of Ceta, Eridanus
(where one is straw-coloured, the other blue), Cameleopardalis,
Orion, Rhinoceros, Gemini, Boötes (where the greater one is yellow,
and the lesser a greenish blue), and Cygnus (where the smaller is
"blue as a sapphire"). On the other hand, combinations of red and
green may be found in Cassiopeia, Coma Berenices, and Hercules.
* * * * *
There are other stellar systems which, according to Flammarion,
more nearly approximate to our own, in the sense that one of the
suns illuminating them has, like ours, a white light,--the source
of all colours,--while its neighbouring luminary casts a permanent
reflection upon everything. Such, for instance, are the worlds
revolving round the great sun of Alpha, in Aries; this great sun is
white, but a smaller sun is constantly visible in the sky, whose
azure reflections cover as with "a diaphanous veil" the various
objects exposed to its rays. Number 26 in Ceta presents the same
conditions, which are those, too, of a great number of the most
brilliant stars. In the case of the worlds gravitating round the
principal world of these binary systems, the originative white
lustre would appear to create the infinite varieties noticeable upon
the earth, with the distinction, of course, that an azure gleam
constantly issues from the other sun; but for the planets gravitating
round the latter, the predominant colouring will be blue, tempered by
the action of the remoter white sun.
And just as white suns have blue suns for their companions, so
have red suns yellow, or _vice versâ_. What a strange and curious
radiance--like that of "a dome of many-coloured glass"--must be shed
upon a planet by its red and green or yellow and blue suns! What
striking contrasts, what fairylike changes, must be produced by a red
day and a green day succeeding alternately to a white day, or a day
of darkness! Why do not our poets take up such a theme as this? Can
they find aught more remarkable or more eëry in the dreams of their
imagination?
Supposing that these wonderful spheres are surrounded, like Jupiter
or Saturn, by a ring of satellites, what can be their aspect when lit
up by several suns, each sun a source of different-coloured light?
This one, we may imagine, will be divided into hemispheres, red
and blue, that will suspend in the firmament a crescent of gold;
another will seem to drop from the azure circle like a gorgeous
cluster of emerald fruit. Ruby moons, opaline moons, moons of
jasper and amethyst,--all shining with a mystic and indescribable
radiance,--surely the heavens are decked with jewels like an Eastern
queen!
[Illustration: FIG. 82.--"Bright with the beauty of the silver moon."]
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