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Flashing Thoughts for Consideration and Facts Taken From Many Sources.

By Torpedo.

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Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.

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A Short Chapter of Figures

According to Popular Astronomy.

As many of those that read my "Electric Universe" may not have read or thought much of the size or distance of the spheres of our solar system, and the immensity of space, I do not think it will be out of place to insert here, for the use of those, a few plain figures, in a plain simple way. The following are determined by the most reliable method, and will give a rough outline of the dimensions of our solar system, and a very, very poor conception or estimate of the immensity that is impossible for any finite mind to grasp—the eternal immensity of the universe.

The sun's distance from the earth is about 95,000,000 of miles, and the diameter of the sun is not less than 882,000 miles in length. It would take 1,384,472 globes like our earth to fill up the vast interior of a hollow sphere as large as the sun. Mercury is 36,725,000 miles from the sun, and is 3,089 miles in diameter. Venus is distant from the sun 68,713,500 miles, and has a diameter of 7,890 miles. The earth, which is next in order, is about 95,000,000 miles from the sun, and has a polar diameter of 7,898 miles, an equatorial diameter of 7,924 miles, and a mean diameter of 7,916 miles. The moon is distant from the earth 240,000 miles, and has a diameter of 2,200 miles in length, Mars' distance from the sun is 145,750,000 miles, and 4,070 miles in diameter. Jupiter is 494,256,000 miles from the sun, and is 92,164 miles in diameter. There arc four satellites revolving around and keeping company with Jupiter. Saturn is 906,205,000 miles from the sun, and has a diameter of 75,070 miles, and eight satellites. Uranus, or Herschel, is 1,822,328,000 miles from the sun, and is 36,210 miles in diameter. Uranus has four satellites. Neptune is distant from the sun 2,853,420,000 miles, and 33,610 miles in diameter; Neptune also has a satellite. The nearest of the fixed stars is supposed to be about twenty trillions (20,000,000,000,000) of miles distant from the earth; the next nearest fixed star about eighty trillions(80,000,000,000,000)of miles away from us. Electricity travels at the rate of about 12,000,000 of miles a minute, and if we had a telegraph wire spanning the distance from the earth to the second nearest of the fixed stars, and we wished to send a telegraph page 34 message to that far distant sphere, and the message was to fly continually with its lightning speed, without any break or detention, till it arrived there, it would take over 10 years in spanning the intervening space, or before it arrived at its destination; and yet this distance would shrink into an inconceivable nothing compared to the distance of the stars, or systems of stars, or otherwise worlds, or systems of worlds, that are farther beyond.