has changed place, this enormous journey caused it, and the change
equals a line 91,400,000 miles long as viewed from the star. For years
many such observations were made; but behold the star was always in the
same place; the whole distance of the sun having dwindled down to the
diameter of a pin point in comparison with the awful chasm separating
us from the stars. Finally micrometers were made that measured lines
requiring 100,000 to make an inch; and a new series of observations
begun, crowning the labors of a century with success. Finite man
actually told the distance of the starry hosts and gauged the universe.

When the parallax of any object is found, its distance is at once known,
for the parallax is an arc of a circle whose radius is the distance.
By an important theorem in geometry it is learned, that when anything
subtends an angle of one second its distance is 206,265 times its
own diameter. The greatest parallax of any star is that of Alpha
Centauri--nine-tenths of a second; hence it is more than 206,265 times
91,400,000 miles--the distance of the sun--away, or twenty thousand
billions of miles. This is the distance of the nearest fixed star, and
is used as a standard of reference in describing greater depths of
space. This is not all the micrometer enables man to know, When the
distance separating the earth from two celestial bodies that revolve
is learned, the distance between the two orbs becomes known. Then
the period of revolution is learned from observation, and having the
distance and time, then their velocity can be determined. The distance
and velocity being given, then the combined weights of both suns can be
calculated, since by the laws of gravity and motion it is known how much
weight is required to produce so much motion in so much time, at so much
distance, and thus man weighs the stars. If the density of these bodies
could be ascertained, their diameters and volumes would be known, and
the size of the fixed stars would have been measured. Density can never