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New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1396, 9 May 1868, Page 4

Tub Earth.—The very earth iteolf is an unsteady basis of science. Dr. Robinson said to theißritish Association, that "he found the entire maSB of rock and hill on which the Armagh Observatory ia.orected to bo slightly, but to an ustronomerquito.perceptibly' tilted or canted, at one season of the year to the east; : at another to the west." And, what is still more startling to the astronomical world, the Gheenwich transit instrument, the very ark of the covenant of scientifio certainty itself— must we utter it—has wavered. The high priest of that sanctum Banctorum of science, Prof. Airey, the Astronomer Koyal, makes the alarming confession as follows : " While the construction of this instrument, and the modes of observation with it, have given a warranty such; as the world never possessed before, for the steadiness of the instrument arid its adjuncts, there have been instances where the azimuth of the instrument, greatlyto the surprise of tho astronomer, has variedfour secindi, as determined by opposite passages of the polar star." Mr. Airey has no other way in explaining this than by the supposition, that " the Bound and firmest earth itsolf is in motion." A supposition fatal to the scientific certainty of observations m'ado on! such a troublesome baeis; for if tho whole, hill on which Armagh observatory stands, can be canted ,to the cast, and to the west, and if the solid earth, iit, { Greenwich, had been detected wavering four secon'dn who can assume greater stability for any othef observatory P Or who can tell whether such trepidations have not vitiated the most for searching observations? It is only occasionally that sidereal rectifications can be made, and in all intervening hours nobody can ' I tell how muoh wavering may ariee from the |secular ; and magnetical expansions and contradictions of the earth, whieh physical geographers assure us ate con- i, tinually active. Yet we are askod to accept visionary theories of ths formations of worlds, based oij obser-; ■ f vations of minute angles, where the error, of the tenth of a second in tho parallax of a distant star involves an error of distance of thousands of milliopß of ■ miles! The whole modern theory of the lenticular formation of this earth's universe, and of ihq actual distances of the fixed stars, has absolutely no broader basis of observation than the accuracy of obseryatiODg of the sixtieth or hundredth part of tv degree! What then are we to thing of the scientific certainty of ob- ' servations continually exposed to such disturbanpes I and jostlings ?—Family Treasury. t