urst of a great solar conflagration.

Before proceeding to inquire into the singular and significant
circumstances of the recent outburst, it may be found interesting to
examine briefly the records which astronomy has preserved of similar
catastrophes in former years. These may be compared to the records of
accidents on the various railway lines in a country or continent. Those
other suns which we can stars are engines working the mighty mechanism
of planetary systems, as our sun maintains the energies of our own
system; and it is a matter of some interest to us to inquire in how many
cases, among the many suns within the range of vision, destructive
explosions occur. We may take the opportunity, later, to inquire into
the number of cases in which the machinery of solar systems appears to
have broken down.

The first case of a solar conflagration on record is that of the new
star observed by Hipparchus some 2000 years ago. In his time, and indeed
until quite recently, an object of this kind was called a new star, or a
temporary star. But we now know that when a star makes its appearance
where none had before been visible, what has really happened has been
that a star too remote to be seen has become visible through some rapid
increase of splendour. When the new splendour dies out again, it is not
that a star has ceased to exist; but simply that a faint star which had
increased greatly in lustre has resumed its original condition.
Hipparchus's star must have been a remarkable object, for it was visible
in full daylight, whence we may infer that it was many times brighter
than the blazing Dog-star. It is interesting in the history of science,
as having led Hipparchus to draw up a catalogue of stars, the first on
record. Some moderns, being sceptical, rejected this story as a fiction;
but Biot examining Chinese Chronicles[32] relating to the times of
Hipparchus, finds that in 134 B.C. (about nine years before the date of
Hipparchus's catalogue) a new star was recorded as having appeared in
the constellation Scorpio.

The next new star (that is, stellar conflagration) on record is still
more interesting, as there appears some reason for believing that before
long we may see another outburst of the same star. In the years 945,
1264, and 1572, brilliant stars appeared in the region of the heavens
between Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Sir J. Herschel remarks, that, 'from the
imperfect account we have of the places of the two earli