Paved With Extinct Stars

In a recent scientiflc paper Sir John Lubbock sajs : "Like tbe sands of the sea, the stars of beaven have ever been used as effective symbols of number, and the improvements in our methods of observation have added fresh force to our original impressions. We now know that our earth is but a fraction of one out at least 75,000,000 worlds. But this is not all. In addition to the luminous heavenly bodies, we cannot doubt that there are countless others invisible to us fromtheir great distance, jmalter size, or feebier üght; indeed, we know that there are many dark bodies whioh now admit no light. or comparatively little. Thus, in the case of ProcyoD, the existence of an invis ble body is proved by the movement o the visible star. Again I may refer to the curious phenomena presented by Algol, a bright star in the head of dusa. This star shines without change for two days and thirteen hours ; then in three hoürs and a half, dwindles froin a star of the secondto one of tho fourth magnitude ; and then, in another three and a half hours, resumes its original brilliancy. These changes seem certainly to indicate the presence of an opaque body which intercepta at regular intervals part of the light admitted by Algol. Thus the floor of heaven is not only 'thick inlaid with patines of bright gold,' but studded also with extinct stars - once probably as brilliant as our own sun, but now dead cold, as Helmholtz tells us that or sun itself will be, some aeventeen millions of years henee."