stars toward which we are going appear to move apart toward all points
of the compass, while those behind appear to close up together. Then
the spectroscopic principle already mentioned is invoked for studying
the shift of the lines, which is toward the violet in the stars ahead
of us and toward the red in those that we are leaving behind. Of
course the effects of the independent motions of the stars must be
carefully excluded. The result of the studies devoted to this subject
is to show that we are traveling at a speed of twelve to fifteen miles
per second in a northerly direction, toward the border of the
constellations Hercules and Lyra. A curious fact is that the more
recent estimates show that the direction is not very much out of a
straight line drawn from the sun to the star Vega, one of the most
magnificent suns in the heavens. But it should not be inferred from
this that Vega is drawing us on; it is too distant for its gravitation
to have such an effect.

Many unaccustomed thoughts are suggested by this mighty voyage of the
solar system. Whence have we come, and whither do we go? Every year of
our lives we advance at least 375,000,000 miles. Since the traditional
time of Adam the sun has led his planets through the wastes of space
no less than 225,000,000,000 miles, or more than 2400 times the
distance that separates him from the earth. Go back in imagination to
the geologic ages, and try to comprehend the distance over which the
earth has flown. Where was our little planet when it emerged out of
the clouds of chaos? Where was the sun when his ``thunder march''
began? What strange constellations shone down upon our globe when its
masters of life were the monstrous beasts of the ``Age of Reptiles''?
A million years is not much of a span of time in geologic reckoning,
yet a million years ago the earth was farther from its present place
in space than any of the stars with a measurable parallax are now. It