SPIRAL AND PLANETARY NEBULÆ

Too Long; Didn't Read

A Substitute for History—Photograph of the Great Spiral taken at the Lick Observatory—Solar System Relations Unimportant—Chaotic Nebulæ—Lord Rosse’s Great Discovery—Dr. Roberts’ Photographs—The Astonishing Discovery of Professor Keeler—The Perspective of the Spirals—The Spiral Nebulæ are not Gaseous—The Spiral is a Nebula in an advanced Stage of Development—Character of the Great Nebula in Andromeda. In a great college in America a new educational experiment has been tried with some success. Instead of the instruction in history which students receive in most other institutions, an attempt has been made in this college to give instruction in a very different manner, which it is believed will not be of less educational value than the more ordinary processes of teaching. In the course of study to which I am now referring the student is invited to consider, not so much the history of the development of the Constitution of one particular country, as to make a broad survey of the different Constitutions under which the several countries of the world are at this moment governed. The promoters of this scheme believe that many of the intellectual advantages which are ordinarily expected to be gained by the study of the history of one country may be secured equally well by studying only existing conditions, provided that attention is given to several countries which have arrived at different stages of civilisation.