pella, Aldebaran: these are yellow stars
with golden rays, like our Sun, and the vapor of iron, of sodium, and of
many other metals can be identified in their spectrum. These stars are
older than the first, and the ruddy ones, such as Antares, Betelgeuse,
[alpha] of Hercules, are still older; several of them are variable, and
are on their way to final extinction.

The Heavens afford us a perennial store of treasure, wherein the
thinker, poet or artist can find inexhaustible subjects of
contemplation.

You have heard of the celestial jewels, the diamonds, rubies, emeralds,
sapphires, topazes, and other precious stones of the sidereal casket.
These marvels are met with especially among the double stars.

Our Sun, white and solitary, gives no idea of the real aspect of some of
its brothers in Infinitude. There are as many different types as there
are suns!

Stars, you will think, are like individuals: each has its distinct
characteristics: no two are comparable. And indeed this reflection is
justified. While human vanity does homage to Phoebus, divine King of
the Heavens, other suns of still greater magnificence form groups of two
or three splendid orbs, which roll the prodigious combinations of their
double, triple, or multiple systems through space, pouring on to the
worlds that accompany them a flood of changing light, now blue, now red,
now violet, etc.

In the inexhaustible variety of Creation there exist Suns that are
united in pairs, bound by a common destiny, cradled in the same
attraction, and often colored in the most delicate and entrancing shades
conceivable. Here will be a dazzling ruby, its glowing color shedding
joy; there a deep blue sapphire of tender tone; beyond, the finest
emeralds, hue of hope. Diamonds of translucent purity and whiteness
sparkle from the abyss, and shed their penetrating light into the vast
space. What splendors are scattered broadcast over the sky! what
profusion!

To the naked eye, the groups appear like ordinary stars, mere luminous
points of greater or less brilliancy; but the telescope soon discovers
the beauty of these systems; the star is duplicated into two distinct
suns, in close proximity. These groups of two or several suns are not
merely due to an effect of perspective--_i.e._, the presence of two or
more stars in our line of sight; as a rule they constitute real physical
systems, and these suns, associated in a common lot, rotate round one
another in a more or les