s, has,
since its discovery a few years ago, given a great impetus to
speculation concerning the transformation of nebulae into stars and star
clusters. No one can look at a good photograph of this wonderful
phenomenon without noticing its resemblance to the ideal state of things
which, according to the nebular hypothesis, must once have existed in
the solar system. It is to be remembered, however, that there is
probably sufficient material in the Andromeda nebula to make a system
many times, perhaps hundreds or thousands of times, as extensive as that
of which our sun is the center. If one contemplates this nebula only
long enough to get a clear perception of the fact that creation was not
ended when, according to the Mosaic history, God, having in six days
finished "the heavens and the earth and all the host of them," rested
from all his work, a good blow will have been dealt for the cause of
truth. Systems far vaster than ours are now in the bud, and long before
they have bloomed, ambitious man, who once dreamed that all these things
were created to serve him, will probably have vanished with the
extinguishment of the little star whose radiant energy made his life and
his achievements briefly possible.

[4] For further details on this subject see Astronomy with an
Opera-glass.

In August, 1885, a new star of magnitude six and a half made its
appearance suddenly near the center of the Andromeda nebula. Within one
year it had disappeared, having gradually dwindled until the great
Washington telescope, then the largest in use, no longer showed it. That
this was a phenomenon connected with the nebula is most probable, but
just what occurred to produce it nobody knows. The observed appearances
might have been produced by a collision, and no better hypothesis has
yet been suggested to account for them.

Near the opposite end of the constellation from alpha we find the most
interesting of triple stars in gamma. The two larger components of this
beautiful star are of magnitudes three and six, distance 10", colors
golden yellow and deep blue. The three-inch shows them finely. The
smaller star is itself double, its companion being of magnitude eight,
distance when discovered in 1842 0.5", color bluish green. A few years
ago this third star got so close to its primary that it was invisible
even with the highest powers of the great Lick telescope, but at present
it is widening again. In October, 1893, I had the pleasure of lo