As to the distances of the stars, no method of ascertaining them has yet been discovered. They are so extremely remote, that we have no distances in the planetary system wherewith to compare them. The distance of the star Draconis, appears, by Dr. Bradley's observations, to be at least 400,000 times that of the sun; and the distance of the nearest fixed star, not less than 40,000 diameters of the earth's annual orbit, that is, the true distance from the earth of the former star is 38,000,000,000,000 miles; and of the latter (the nearest star) not less than 7,600,000,000,000 miles As these distances are immensely great, it may both be amusing* and help to a clearer and more familiar idea to compare them with the velocity of some moving body, by which they may be. measured.

The swiftest motion we know of, is that of light; which passes from the sun to the earth in about eight minutes; and yet this would be above six, years traversing the first space, and near a year and a quarter, in passing from the nearest star to the earth; but a cannon ball, moving on a medium at the rate of about twenty miles in a minute, would be three million eight hundred thousand years in passing from Draconis to the earth, and seven hundred and sixty thousand years passing from the nearest fixed star, Sound, which moves at the rate of about thirteen miles in a minute, would be five million six hun-dred thousand years traversing the former distance, and one million one hundred and twenty-eight thousand years in pa$r sing through the latter. The profound Astrologer Huygens, pursued speculations of this kind so far, as to believe it not impossible that there may be stars at such inconceivable dis-tances, that their light has not yet reached the earth since the creation!

" How distant some of these nocturnal suns !

So distant, says the sage, 'twere not absurd To doubt, if beams set out at nature's birth

Are yet arrived, at this so foreign world,

Though nothing half so rapid as their flight,

An eye of awe and wonder let me roll)

And roll for ever ! Who can satiate sight

In, such a scene - in such an ocean wide

Of deep astonishment ? where depth, height, breadth,

Are lost in their extremes; and where to count

The thick-sown glories in this field of fire,

Perhaps a seraph's computation fails".

Young.

The recent discoveries of the late Dr, Herschel (to whose labours the Royal Astronomical Society of London are adding "stores of richest science") were singularly remarkable; - they prove the fixed stars to be immense, their region* unbounded, and perhaps infinite. As the stars, contrary to the planets, shine tike oat sun by their own native light, philosophers suppose, that each of them is the centre of a system of inhabited worlds; which revolve around it A judicious writer observes, "Under this idea or persuasion, of how innumerable a family do we seem to make a part ! the immensity of the universe becomes peopled with fellow beings, and We feel an interest at what appears to be going On at distances so vast, that what we see, as in time present, We have reason to believe (swift, inconceivably swift as is the progress of light, darting from the spheres) must have happened ages ago. Under the idea of the nniverse being replenished with human beings, how magnifi-cent, how awful, are the spectacles that present themselves to the observer of the heavens ! the creature of a day, of a few fleeting moments, seems to obtain a glimpse of a new creation, a glimpse of the end of time in the passing away of a system". What an amazing conception , if human imagination can conceive it, does this give of the works of the Creator! thousands of thousands of suns, multiplied without end, and ranged all around us, at immense distances from each other, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand worlds, revolving in boundless space, upheld by nothing, confined by nothing, yet preserved in their rapid course, calm, regular and harmonious, invariably keeping the path assigned to them by the mighty artificer of the universe!