"Astronomers inform us there are innumerable Suns, each of which is supposed to control a separate, or its own system of planets; giving light and heat thereto, even as our Sun does to this Earth, and its own system of planets. Their distances from the Sun that lights up our Heavens are immeasureable--far transcending our conceptions, or even our imagination--in illimitable space. They also inform us that the distance from this Earth, to the nearest one of these distant stars, or suns, is about _twenty billions of miles_." So vast is the distance here stated, that the mind cannot grasp or comprehend it. We can more nearly approximate by the measurement of light; a ray of which darting from its surface and travelling at the speed of 192,000 miles a second, would not reach our eye under three years and eight months. "Such then," says Sir John Herschel, "is the length of the sounding-line with which we first touch bottom in the attempt to fathom the great abyss of the sidereal heavens." Says Olmsted, "Until recently, astronomers gave almost exclusive attention to observations, and the study of the solar system. But Dr. William Herschel turned his attention to the sidereal heavens, and opened up new and wonderful fields of discovery, as well as of speculation. His son, Sir John Herschel, and Sir James South, of England, have followed the old master, with grasping minds and brilliant intellects, until more has been accomplished by them, and others of the present day, than all preceding astronomers had even ventured to conjecture," and that their deductions are founded mainly on facts, no intelligent mind will--on investigation--have reason to doubt. But having thrown anchor and "touched bottom" in the wide expanse of the unlimited sphere of the sidereal heavens, "let us," says Dr. Child, "take another flight. Here next, within the domain of Sirius, we find ourselves six times as far distant as when at Centauri, first mentioned"--say one hundred and twenty billions of miles--"from which it would require _twenty-two years_ for a ray of light travelling at the rate of 192,000 miles a second to reach our Earth." But, far distant, yonder, we behold the beauteous _Capella_, in all its splendor and glory, throwing its effulgent rays across the wide expanse of universe, and yet these rays of light, travelling at the same mentioned rate--192,000 miles each passing second of time--require about _seventy years_ in transit, before the inhabitants of our Earth catch a glimpse of their brilliancy and beauty. And yet now the mind has only entered the borders of '_the starry regions_'--far beyond, in illimitable space, lie the 'Hosts of the Stars;' their vast distances cannot be computed even by light itself."