BY

W. PEACE, ESQ., F.G.S.

[Remarks made at the opening of Pemberton Mechanics' Institution.]

FELLOW WORKMEN,-I have been requested to take the chair on this happy occasion, and I have acceded to the request with great pleasure, because I am always ready and desirous to contribute as much as possible towards the instruction, and consequent improvement, of my fellow-creatures; and because, in this instance, I consider myself more particularly called upon by the stake I possess in the township, and which contributes to afford employment and the means of livelihood to many families residing in it. The welfare of those families is a matter to me of lively interest; and in taking part in these proceedings, I hope and believe that I shall, in some degree, be the humble means of promoting it. The only difference of any material character between ourselves and what is called the brute creation, consists in the mind of man. In other

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respects, there is scarcely any quality in which we are not excelled by these very brutes. We are incapable of running like the greyhound, of tracking by smell like the pointer, or carrying weight like the horse, of flying like the eagle, or of diving like the whale. are, moreover, by nature less protected, and when young, more defenceless, and for a longer period, than the lower order of animals. We cannot boast of the armour of the tortoise or of the crocodile, nor of the warm covering of the sheep or the bear, nor the scaly coat of the fish; we do not possess the formidable weapons of destruction which render terrible the jaws of the tiger, and the deadly paw of the lion; neither can we escape danger by flight, like the deer, or bury ourselves from pursuit in a moment, like a mole; and

yet, notwithstanding all these unfavourable comparisons, every animal on earth, every bird of the air, every inhabitant of the world of waters, and every insect, is subdued, and compelled, to the utmost of their capacity, to contribute to the comfort and satisfaction of man. The deep recesses of the ocean do not enable the mighty whale to deny us his oil for our lamps, nor his whalebone for umbrellas; the sagacious and powerful elephant dies, that we may make ornaments of his ivory; the ostrich is pursued upon the burning deserts of Africa, that our females may enhance their natural beauty by its feathers; the bee renders up its honey, its formidable stings being an altogether insignificant protection; and the silk worm spins itself to death to contribute its splendid materials for our garments. But the powers of man are not confined to the animal kingdom; he digs deep down into the earth he treads upon, and he extracts from it materials which enable him to construct machines vastly exceeding in power the mightiest of living animals, and these he uses for the fabrication of his raiment, for the production of coal, his chief source of artificial light and warmth, for swift and easy transport by sea and land, for other purposes, whose number is myriad; showing that the superiority which mar has thus acquired, is solely attributable to his possession of a mind, and his cultivation of that mind. A human being who can neither read nor write, who knows and cares nothing about the marvellous works of his Maker, and who confines all his thoughts to the means of obtaining as much food and clothing as may be enough to preserve life and ordinary comforts for himself, his wife, and his children, is but a little more elevated than the animals that pair together, and that build their nests and nurse their young until they are able to provide for themselves. It was with the design of raising ourselves above this condition, and of preventing the necessity of any person remaining in it in this neighbourhood, that this institution has been formed.

ASTRONOMY.

BY THE REV. GEORGE ILIFF.

Delivered at the Sunderland Athenæum, January, 1854.]

THE subject on which I am about to address you this evening is, as you are aware, "Astronomy"-but, as before beginning to treat a subject it is as well to know what that subject is about, I shall commence by giving first the derivation of the name, and secondly the use of the science.

The name then is derived from two Greek words signify, the star-laws, i.e. the first part "astron" star, "nomoi" laws, and it is as well to be careful to distinguish the science of Astronomy from another of similar sound, "Astrology," which is supposed to treat of the influence which the stars have over the fortunes of mankind, a science which, I hope there is no need to tell any here present, has no foundation whatever, and which is contrary to the truths taught us by Divine revelation.

The uses of Astronomy are twofold-the first, a use which it has in common with all the natural sciences, viz. to teach us of the works of Him who created all things; the second, to determine the position of places on the earth with far greater accuracy than we are enabled to obtain it by other means, more especially with regard to navigation.

From the very earliest times Astronomy seems to have had considerable attention paid to it. In the time of Job, that is to say some 3,000 years ago, the stars seem to have been arranged in constellations, or groups, much the same as those of the present day. The Egyptians had a considerable acquaintance with astronomy; their pyramids are built with their four faces directed exactly to the four cardinal points, and are by some supposed to have been built as observatories. In the pyramids figures or representations are found, evidently referring to the aspect of the heavens, as a means of fixing the dates of particular

events.

In the year 500 B.C., Pythagoras taught that the sun was the centre of the universe and that the earth as well as the other planets moved round it in different periods; and his theory continued till about 1,800 years ago. Ptolemy, an Egyptian, taught that the earth. was the centre of the universe, and that all the heavenly bodies moved round it in twenty-four hours; to account for the changing of the positions of the sun, moon, and planets, he was obliged to have recourse to very elaborate and perplexing theories; so much so that the people in general adopted his theory and left that of Pythagoras, because that of the latter was far too easy to understand; this at least, seems to have been the reason, for otherwise it would be hard to account for the fact, that for a period of more than 1,400 years the Ptolemaic theory was that generally adopted. At the end of this period, however, Copernicus and after him his disciple Galileo, revived the theory of Pythagoras, and founded, or rather re-founded, the system of astronomy which is now universally adopted. There is one objection, or rather apparent objection, which some may urge, as it was urged against Galileo, viz., that the Bible contradicts the theory of the sun standing still and the earth going round; for it records as a miracle that the sun was made to stand still, evidently implying from that that the sun usually moved. At

the present day, astronomers speak of the sun rising and setting, of his changing his place, &c., though according to the system which we profess he does not move at all with reference to us. So in the same way, sailors talk of a light coming it sight, land coming in sight, because these phenomena do apparently take place. The expressions therefore refer to what seemed to take place.

We shall have to deal with high numbers-millions and billions. You may have heard of some persons trying to collect 1,000,000 old postage stamps to paper a room. If they did use the 1,000,000 in the papering, and did not put more than one in one place, the room must have been more than 80 feet long, 50 feet broad, and 20 feet high. To count a million would take upwards of 110 working days of ten hours each. Taking a view of the stars on any clear night we shall observe about 1,000 shining bodies moving apparently round a star nearly above our heads. Some of these stars are very bright, others small; in some places a large number together, &c. Continuing our observations from night to night, we shall notice that any star which one night is at a particular place, the next night will be there about four minutes earlier, and thirdly that though these stars generally keep the same places with respect to one another, yet that about five are continually changing and moving among the other heavenly bodies. These five are called planets, or wanderers.

The first of these phenomena could be occasioned in two ways, the first by the stars actually going round this one star, or by the earth turning round on its own axis, i.e. like a wheel with this star directly above the line on which it seems to turn. Now taking our choice of the two alternatives, there are an innumerable number of stars the nearest of which is so far from us that, had a person in Adam's time begun to count its distance in miles, and gone on with his task from the creation to the present day without intermission