A Wonderful New Star

The romance of astronomy is wel] lllustrated in an articlc by Edward S. Holden, director of the Lick observar tory, in the Forum. Mr. Holden describes the queer antics of a new star discovered last year, which resembles our sim and which in two days incrcased in brilliancy sixteenfold and then gTadually went out. Such phenomena as this star has presented, says he, are of the extremest value to astronomers and phj'Sicists. Hy the study of exceptional cases old laws are tried and new ones discovered. Apparent exceptions "prove" (i. e., test) the rule. Such cases are also of the greatest popular interest since thcv throw a light on the. past and on the futuro of the solar system. The Nova was, no doubt, a star like our sun. It was. no doubt, very distant from the earth, since its original luster made it at least as faint as the ninth magnitude. The catastrophe which we say occurred in December, 1891, was announced to s by lig-ht which reached us then, bnt this light must have left the star twentj-, perhaps fifty. years earlier. This recent event is, in fuct. aacient history. Lel us imagine what fate ours will be, if our sun slioiuc suuirmh) lucrenne w liyht and heat some hundretls of . and tlien fall oiï some thonKvery restige of life on our earth would be ixtinffuished; ain! the only Bign of it to the imirerse at larg-e would be th.-.t a sinall star - our sun - had rone th'ongh a remarkable es.