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THE REWARDS OF AUTHORS. The question, "Does Literature Pay?' is perhaps best answered by a study of the following table, which indicates the prices which celebrities have received for their books. The list is submitted in the hopes that other readers may add to it through the columns of this magazine, and, perhaps, when sufficiently complete, it may be printed in book or pamphlet form :

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"The wisest bard that lived on earth was he who sang of Hector, His song an ocean flowing, not with bitter brine but nectar."

John Tzetzes.

Constancy of Earth's Orbital Motion.

BY GEORGE STEARNS (DECEASED NOV. 30, 1894.]

[A posthumous essay.]

Everybody ought to know, though few seem to be aware of the predicament, that nothing is known or knowable concerning the Earth's orbital and rotary motions otherwise than by inference from the varying aspects of the Sun, Moon, and stars. These appear to revolve about the Earth daily, rising in the east and setting in the west; and in ancient times this appearance was generally believed to be real. Only within a few centuries has it been rationally conceived to result from the Earth's axial rotation. Still, it is alleged in the name of science that the apparent motion of the Sun round the Earth resembles the actual motion of the Earth round the Sun--that inasmuch as the velocity of the one is varient so is that of the other. Now, I have discovered that this assertion is fallacious, and I am prepared to demonstrate that the velocity of the Earth's orbital motion is as unvarying as that of its axial rotation.

The first step in the direction here proposed must be the rationale of variation in the Sun's apparent motion, and what the fact implies. Variation of an effect implies an equal variation of its cause; but though it may insinuate, it does not indicate, any resemblance of this to that. See, for example, how different is the Earth's rotation from the Sun's apparent daily revolution. Consider also the still greater dissimilarity between the Sun's visual veering from north to south and from south to north, and the inclination of the Earth's axis to the plane of its orbit, to which together with the Earth's orbital motion the optical illusion is ascribable. Herein we discover no resemblance of form between cause and effect; wherefore their similarity is in no case legitimately taken for granted. Yet it is certain that the variant velocity of the Sun's apparent motion is due to the varying distance between the Earth and Sun; and the consecutive question concerns the reason for this fact, which is ascertained by the observed varying dimensions of the Sun's disk. On this point, Dr. Olmsted has testified that "when the Sun's diameter is measured accurately by instruments, it is found to vary from day to day, being when greatest more then 32 minutes, and when smallest only 31 minutes, differing in all about 75 seconds" of degree. Sir John Herschel's testimony is also definite and supplemental. In his "Outlines of Astronomy," he says: "It appears that the greatest, the mean, and the least distances of the Sun from us in the respective proportions of the numbers are 1.01679, 1.000, and 0.98321; and that its apparent angular velocity diminishes as the distance increases, and vice versa." Now th

mean distance of the Earth from the Sun is 91,431,560 miles, and this number multiplied by 0.98321 gives 1,535,136 miles as the constant distance of the Sun from the center of the Earth's orbit. Here the question occurs, Why is the Sun thus permanently excentric to the Earth's orbit? To say it is because the Earth's orbit is elliptical, as has been said ever since the days of Kepler, is no answer so long as respondents are unable to go a step further and discover the cause of elliptic orbits as imputed to planets. This has never been done. Therefore any theory which can answer the previous question and show why the Earth is more distant from the Sun at one time than another must take precedence of that which conserves the prime mystery, or postulates its equivalent. Now that competence to account for the Earth's varying distance from the Sun, as well as for the Sun's permanent excentricity to the Earth's orbit-is a peculiar attribute of the Pericosmic Theory. But this theory obtains upon dynamic principles which precede and predetermine the form of the Earth's orbit to be circular.

The Pericosmic Theory accords with the cardinal elements of physical science, and is also inductive from the concept of natural causation by means which preordinate all the attributes of planetary motion; its postulates being justified by their exclusive relevance to the rationale of cosmic evolution. In fact, it exacts but one prime or fundamental postulate, and that is the axial rotation of the whole physical world; this being indispensable to the dynamic agency of the Ether, which occasions the universal vehicular motion of Matter as the counterpart of gravity, and whereon depends the varying distance of the Earth from the Sun, as well as the Sun's permanent excentricity to the Earth's orbit. The core of the Pericosmic Theory is the conception of the luminiferous Ether as a single stupendous atom of concentric force, rotating as well as compressive, and embracing all Matter as the vehicle thereof, whence ensues Matter's centrifugation coevally with its gravitation. It is only by means of this theory that most of the conventionally recognized facts of astronomy are explica ble, especially the dual subject of this brief essay.

It is a well attested matter of fact in practical astronomy that the Sun's apparent motion round the Earth increases during one-half the year-from a little after the Summer solstice to a little before the Winter solstice, during the Earth's orbital motion from its apohelion to its perihelion position — at the mean rate of 13,337 miles a day, and then decreases at the same rate during the opposite half the year, making in aggregate 2,435,652 miles either way, so that the yearly aggregate of its variation or the sum of its alternate increment and decrement, is 4,871,304 miles. The cause of this alternate increment and decrement of the Sun's apparent motion round the Earth is identified with a coincident variation of the Earth's distance from the

Sun, in effect of the Earth's orbital motion and the Sun's static excentricity to the Earth's orbit, the latter amounting to 1,535,136 miles, as deduced from the variant diameter of the Sun's disk. This effect of the Earth's orbital motion (hitherto unduly accounted for by imputing it to an elliptical form of the Earth's orbit) is duly accounted for as resulting from the Earth's vehicular motion thus rendered variant anent that of the Sun not so effected. The Earth in its perihelion position is as much nearer to the Sun than to the center of its orbit as the Sun's distance therefrom; and of course, in its apohelion position, its distance from the Sun is greater than its least distance by twice that measure, that is, 3,070,272 miles. The mean distance between the Earth and the Sun being 91,431,560 miles, the extremes are 92,966,696 miles and 89,896,424 miles. It thus appears that the Earth alternately recedes from and regresses toward the Sun at the mean rate of 16,812 miles a day, as 3,070,272 ÷ 182.6281 = 16,812. The Earth's orbit measures 574,482,779 miles, of which 293,281,998 miles pertain to Spring and Summer, and 281,200,780 to Autumn and Winter. But during Autumn and Winter the Sun appears to move 283,585,239 miles in 178.787557 days, or 2,384,489 miles more than the Earth moves in the same time; whereas, during Spring and Summer, it appears to move but 290,795,064 miles in 186.4688 days, or 2,486,935 miles less than the Earth's contemporary orbital motion. Yet the counterfeit cycle of the Sun tallies with the Earth's orbit. That is to say, notwithstanding its simulation, the yearly aggregate of the Sun's apparent motion round the earth is precisely equal to that of the Earth's annual motion in its orbit, though its variation amounts to 4,871,424 miles a year, whereas the Earth's orbital motion is unvarying. It follows by induction from these alleged facts that the maximum velocity of the Sun's apparent motion round the Earth exceeds its minimum by 2,435,652 miles. This entails the corollary that there is one day in the year when the Sun appears to move 2,798,646 miles, and six months later there is also a day when it appears to move but 354,994 miles. The former of these phenomena occurs a little before the Winter solstice and the latter a little after the Summer solstice. Between these two points of the Earth's orbit there are two other points, opposite to each other and equidistant from the Earth's perhelion and apohelion positions, when the mean velocity of the Sun's apparent motion tallies precisely with that of the Earth, namely, 1,572,820.7556 miles a day; this coincidence twice a year (near the end of September and near the end of March), a little more than 1.92 days before the autumnal and after the vernal equinox. So it results again, and I repeat with emphasis, that the annual aggregate of the Sun's apparent motion round the Earth is neither more nor less than that of the Earth in its orbit, and this differs from that, in the scope of frisky apprehension, only in re

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