DR. NICHOL'S ARCHITECTURE OF THE HEAVENS.

THE form of this admirable work is that of letters to a lady. Its object is to popularize the stupendous wonders that have been discovered in astronomy, (and chiefly by the elder HERSCHEL,) during the present century ; and which, enveloped in dry or ex- traneous matter, have hitherto remained buried amid "the varied and massive collections of our learned societies." The subjects of the work, are — the form of the existing universe, and the firmaments of which it consists ; the mechanism, or vital prin- ciple of the stellar arrangements ; and the origin and probable destiny of the present form of the material creation. In accom- pan) ing Dr. NICHOL through these three divisions of astronomy, the reader will have impressed upon him the infinity of space; tad the eternity of time, if that can be called time which hints no idea of a beginning, no prospect of an end. He will also be made to fuel the stupendous magnitude of a universe — where planetary worlds are beyond sight and beneath regard; where the nearest suns—suns like ours, "The light and life Of all this wondrous world we see "— are reckoned by millions; whilst millions upon millions of the remotest, blended together by the incalculable distance, merely give out a dim nebulous light to the most powerful telescope, until the mind, overwhelmed by the vastness of creation, is crushed by the sense of its own insignificance, as well as of that of the "great globe and all which it inherit." Some feeling akin to this is felt by the reviewer, who with limited space, and a skill and a knowledge inferior to Dr.Nicisoa, approaches the Architecture of the Heavens. And perhaps the best mode of conveying an idea of the volume and its contents, will be to describe the character and nature of its leading sub- jects, and then allow the author to speak for himself in a few, of necessity, isolated extracts.

Stripping it of all secondary matter, "Firmaments" is the

subject of Dr. NICHOL'S First Part,—meaning by firmament. not our solar system, but the whole stellar system, of which our sun and his attendant planets form a very insignificant part. The firmanent in which we move and have our being, is the part of' the heavens called the Milky Way, and contains from eight to ten millions of stars or suns. Its internal shape can be readily understood, by supposing a long oblong strip of space, like a breadth of cloth, partially dividing at one end some- thing like the letter Y, and studded with innumerable spots. Its elevation, or form, as seen by one looking at it from the out- side, may be compared in shape to a cheese or grindstone, par- tially cloven, so as to have for a little space on the rim two distinct cheeks, which speedily unite again. And the reader can easily comprehend that any one within, and looking either up or down the star-studded strip, would see little save stars, but that, on turning his vision to either side, he would look into the immeasurable infinity of space. Up to the beginning of the present century, this circumstance was disregarded or un- known, when the mighty genius of the elder HERSCHEL, aided by his mechanical improvements in the telescope, enabled him and his followers to traverse a portion of space, and there to dis- cover many firmaments of various forms, grander and more glorious than our Milky Way. No attempt to reckon their numbers in the Southern Hemisphere appears yet to have been made. In the Northern, "after making all allowances, those whose places are fixed cannot be fewer than between one and two thousand." And, what is truly " perhaps the strangest and most unexpected circumstance which modern as- tronomy has revealed," on the confines of penetrable space, just visible on the outermost range of telescopic observation, though too distant to be as yet resolvable into distinct stars, hangs a fac- simile of our firmament—a double of our Milky Way ; con- taining, perhaps, another sun and another earth, (for the human mind, amidst the loftiest grandeur or the most gigantic vastness, still reverts to the home and the familiar,) and offering a more singular speculation than the cycular system of some philoso- phers—that of a counterpart existence to every thing in this world. What a thought—strange, yet comforting—that, at a dis- tance before which the combined powers of computation and fancy

totally fail, each of us has a double, acting, thinking, feeling, loving, suffering as we do, and from the same exciting causes.

Fancy that there should have been two HOMERS, two SHAH.. SPEARES. two MILTONS, two NEWTONS! and that whilst the astro- nomer was pointing his telescope and straining his vision through remotest space, to spy out new firmaments, a brother eye was crossing his on a similar errand !

Passing the Second Part with the remarks that the mode of doubles and even trebles seems to obtain pretty extensively throughout the stellar system, so far as human sense and intelli-

gence have examined it ; and that the law by which the whole of the firmaments, with their myriad suns and countless worlds, have been formed, are maintained, and will perhaps finally be destroyed,

is the uniform and the simple one revealed to us by NEWTON— the law of gravitation ; we proceed to Part the Third. This, sub- stantially, treats of the existing formation of new worlds, and of

the manner in which the Milky Way, including our sun and planets, were probably formed. Whilst reading the Universe, the telescopic eye of HERSCHEL often encountered a faint shining substance, sometimes resolvable into individual stars on the ap- plication of a more powerful glass, and sometimes not. His first inference, which he maintained for a long time, was that this cloudy appearance arose from the extreme distance of the mass; but at last lie noted a star with a dim atmosphere around It. " The star," lie writes in his observation, " is perfectly in the centre ; and the atmosphere so diluted, faint, and equal through.. out, that there can be uo surmise of its consisting of stars." The train of reasoning by which lie arrived at this conclusion is so cogent in itself, and such a specimen of the higher class of astronomical argument, that we give it with Dr. NICHOL'S com- mentary.

" In the first place," says lie, " if the nebulosity consists of stars appearing nebulous because of their distance, which causes them to run into each other, what must be the size of the central body which, at so enormous a distance, yet so far outshines all the test? In the next place, if the central star be no bigger than common, how very small and compressed must be the other lumi- nous points which send us only so faint a light ? In the former case, the central body would far exceed what we call a star ; and in the latter, the shining matter about the centre would be too small to come under that designation. Either, then, we have a central body which is not a star, or a star involved in a shining fluid of a nature wholly unknown to us." The latter alternative may, at first sight, appear the strangest and the most remote, )et it is the one to which the balance of probability manifestly inclines. And our judgment rests upon this: the nebulous fluid, supposing it to exist, could not become known under any other aspect or modification ; while, if stars of enormous comparative dimen- sions were scattered through space, the likelihood is, that some one such body would be sufficiently near us to permit of our recognizing it under less ambigu- ous characters.

Many facts and further examinations both by himself and others confirm the existence of these nebulae, or matter in its pristine state. Beyond this all is conjecture, but the conjecture of genius and science. It would seem that in space, not only suns and worlds, but firmaments themselves, are in the course of gradual. formation; some having so far advanced, that suns exist, like the star which laid the foundation of HERSCHEL.S conclusions, with embryo suns around them, whilst others are still in a nebulous state. Gravitation is the means by which this pristine matter is drawn together : the probable cause of the rotatory motion of these condensing bodies was deduced by Hamelin.. Observing that when eurrents of water meet, however gently, a dimple or whirl- once of mountains; those of Venus, nod, in all probability, of Mercer), 14 --

pool is produced, the ever quick and reflective mind of the philo-

which the sun was driven to revolve upon his axis; and as each existing mountains were thrown up, when the pinnacles of the eldest runs sun, we know that our system, and by inference all the rest, con-

than the power of the central attraction.' If, from any cause,

Clearly, a separation of the rim from the mass of the rotatory body building the lens in zones and segments." For the honour of British science, ,

sluice where the balance or equilibrium of the forces was restored." also give an example of what Dr. 'slimiest. displays throughout—

a ready answer is given to the first difficulty suggesting itself— The idea of the ultimate dissolution of the solar system, has usually been fth bow came all our planets and their satellites, with one distant, as painful, and forcibly resisted by philosophers. When Newton saw no nets obscure, and insufficiently observed exception, to revolve in their the deranging effect of the common planetary perturbations, he called for th orbits in the direction of the sun's rotation upon his axis, and in the rejoicing when that recent analyst descried a memorable power of eers the same direction to rotate upon their own ? — that upon this servation mama system's constituent phenomena ; but after all, why should it death: Amongst other effects, the nebulous ether, which worn

have omitted all proofs ; all allusion to collateral or su bordinae and a time may come when the veil can be drawn aside—when spirit shall

points; and almost all the sketches of the characters of the great c,nverse directly with spirit, and the °avatar. fr:1784 31,;11 1,■••■1•••••••.■ •••• .1.c astronomers, which are picturesquely indicated in the narration

reader what they are. tidings of Man's immortal destiny !

figures, indicating how much further they can pierce than the first or neatest

range of the fixed stars. In the case of the forty-feet reflector, this number is 2,304; which signifies that, if 2,304 stars, extended in a straight line beyond descry a cluster of stars, consisting of 5,000 individuals, were it situated three them, of long standing: but better late than never. lundred thousand times deeper in space than Sirius probably is; or, to take a more distinct standard of comparison, were it at the remoteness of PICTURE-BOOKS.

of all. The inspection of the different planets then, shows us this elevating

gigaratic, when compared with the existing elevation of the Earth ; fuel ;44 di' we reach our own Moon, we find a picture of that torn, crateriform, and dis. wh

BREWSTER'S PROPOSAL TO MAP TUE MOON. ," fiel,

In a better addressed to me by Sir David Brewster, on occasion of our pro. ;..' prii and vallies of the moon. This planet is much within our reach ; and an arm at e rate knowledge of the phenomena it presents, and of the changes these under g; tier and no person can say that it is impracticable to do in glass what we have door ' away of arrangements which have fulfilled their objects, that they nlightel alralanoldi special interference of the Almighty to avert the catastrophe; and great wo

to the close of one mighty cycle in the history of the solar orb—the passim feat The broken bowl will yet be healed and beautified by the potter, and a voiced -joyful dm joyful note will awaken, one day, even the silence of the urn !

been gathered up and rolled away, these funetionsbeing complete. That gorge. tin effulgent face of its Creator ; but even then—no, not in that manhood or full ill

maturity of being, will our fretted vault be forgotten, or its pure inhabitaati st pet milted to drop away. Their reality may have passed, but their rennet.

as now, we walked upon the beauteous earth and fondly gazed upon these far•

Herschel considered that his ten.feet telescope had a space-penetrating power It may not be needful after this to recommend the volume, bet sing the character of a popular compilation, it shows that name!