TALES. AUNT ANNE, 81, 144, 199, 267, 330, 399, Mathematical Master's Love-Story, The Five Voices from an Old Music-Book, Great Water-Cress Tragedy, The . Like Father, Like Son, . Little Napoleon of Caribou, The . Old Roses, 14 382 TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and moncy-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. Pretty robin, there's a maiden tall, and fair, With a voice as soft as yours is, dwelling And her tresses catch the sunbeams, though And her eyes are just the color of a blue Whisper, robin-can you tell me is she wan- Where the catkins clothe the willows and Tell me robin, pretty robin, and I'll be your For her father does not love me, and so, M. ROCK. PAN IN THE ORCHARD. HE carved a flute of elder green, For it was springtime holiday, A sun-tanned boy was he, "I will come," he said. Ah! Love, come With russet freckles on his face Oн, you pretty robin, keeping watch beside a lowly dwelling, Where the happy sunshine rushes o'er the gorse bloom bright and gay, Where the blackbirds and the thrushes are their loud love-stories telling Do you know, I fancy, robin, you as sweetly sing as they. Do you see that verdant meadow where the buttercups are growing, Where the golden-hearted daisies twinkle 'mid the tender grass? Do you mark the lights and shadows that the fleecy clouds are throwing, As across the sky of azure they fantastically' pass? Just above it there's a cottage, sheltered by the budding beeches, Where the cherry bloom is scattered on the serried crocus lines By the playful south wind's antics, where the glistening ivy reaches To the red-tiled roof and chimneys where the green wisteria twines. And a patch upon his knee. The apple boughs above him flung He knew the secrets of the grass, Orphaned and poor as poor could be, Could bring him comfort true; From The Nineteenth Century. I. A BREATH of youthful energy and youthful hopes inspires modern astronomical work. 66 Astronomy, the oldest of the sciences, has more than renewed her youth," as William Huggins said at the end of the inaugural address he delivered before the last meeting of the British Association. Since the spectroscope, formerly used but to study and reveal the chemical composition of the celestial bodies, has become an instrument for measuring their unseen movements and for penetrating into the secrets of their history, and since photography has been taken as a necessary auxiliary by astron omers, a new chapter of astro-physics has been opened. The proper movements of the stars have acquired a new meaning; Still more interesting results have been obtained by H. C. Russell with his photographs of nebulæ in the constellation of Argus. His earlier photographs, obtained by a three-hours' exposure, have already been referred to with admiration by William Huggins in his address. But when the photographic film was exposed for eight hours to the faint light of the nebula, not only shows that the nebulous matter new facts were revealed. The photograph the faint masses of nebulous matter, scattered round and amidst the stars, have extends far beyond the limits assigned to become animated indications of the gene-servations at the Cape, while confirming it by Herschel during his memorable obsis of solar systems; and the great prob- at the same time the great accuracy of the lems relative to the life of the stellar description of what he did see; it also worlds their origin, their growth, their proves that the nebula has lived since decay, and their rejuvenescence have 1837, and has altered considerably its come again to the front, supported by renewed hopes as to the proximity of their aspect during the last fifty years. At the very same place where Herschel saw one of its brightest and most conspicuous parts, we have now a dark oval space, upon ultimate solution. It is not possible, indeed, to examine the splendid photographs, made by Mr. Roberts, of the nebula in Andromeda, and to see this whirlpool of luminous matter, divided into dark and bright rings surrounding a large, undefined central mass, without perceiving in it a gigantic solar system in the way of formation, and without concluding in favor of a similar origin, on a much smaller scale, of our own solar Pleiades which no trace of luminous matter can be detected. The matter either has been drawn elsewhere, or is luminous no more; may be, it is passing through some stage preparatory to the appearance of a new star. We are thus convinced that these tic their dimensions, are living at a much accumulations of matter, however giganmore rapid speed than we were prepared to admit. Changes occur in them, even within the short limits of one man's life; and as the new star in Auriga, rapidly passing through a series of transforma birth of new suns, so also we may hope that the study of the modifications of the nebula will initiate us into the secrets of the earlier stages of development of the tions, reveals to us the secrets of the stellar worlds. In the movements of those • See an article by Mr. Norman Lockyer in LIVING AGE, No. 2497, p. 323. |