Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1886 — All Whirling Through Space. [ARTICLE]

All Whirling Through Space.

A careful comparison of the positions of the stars from one time to another shows in many cases a real motion in space. Eeallv accurate ascertainment of position began in the time of Bradley, who lived about the middle of the last century, so that we have only the records of a little over 100 years on which to base our knowledge of stellar “proper motion.” European astronomers gave us in the last century several catalogues of stars which are reliable, and the work of comparison with the present places has been undertaken for a number of faint stars, the bright ones having already been considered by an English gentlemen, J; L. E. Dreyer, who has just published the results. By such efforts as his, continued over centuries of time, it will be possible finally to deal intelligently with the great problem of the motion of the universe as a whole. To appreciate the feebleness of any efforts if confined to a single century, it must be remembered that the stars are so immensely remote that but very few of them show any perceptible shifting of place as a result of the motion of the earth in its orbit. Hence any motion, rapid though it may be, is scarcely perceptible here. A change of a second of arc a year, which might be a perfectly amazing, velocity, would require 1,800 years to carry the star over a space in the sky equal to that which the full moon covers. A 1 second a year is a large proper motion.— Philadelphia, Ledger. " The editor of the Corsicana, Texas, Observer, Mr. G. 1\ Miller, had a Severe attack of rheumatism in his left knegy which became so swollen and painful that be could not walk up the stairs. He writes that after a few applications of St. Jacobs Oil, the pain entirely disappeared, and the knee assumed its normal proportions.