a veil would render impossible-viz., infinite increase of numbers and diminution of magnitude, terminating in complete, irresolvable nebulosity;" and Professor Grant says, in his "History of Physical Astronomy," "If such an hypothesis were true, we might reasonably presume that, in consequence of the light being everywhere extinguished at the same distance, the Milky Way would present a uniform. aspect throughout its course. As, however, observations of the actual aspect of the Milky Way do not accord with this conclusion, the hypothesis from which it is deduced is manifestly inadmissible."

In a memoir recently published by Professor Schiaparelli, the famous Italian astronomer, on the distribution of the stars visible to the naked eye, he discusses the question of the supposed extinction of stellar light. Finding that the hypothetical extinction would reduce the light of very distant stars to an enormous degree, he rejects the hypothesis as improbable. Admitting, however, a very small and slow absorption-for instance, one eight-hundredth of the light at the distance of stars of the first magnitude, as supposed by Olbers--he suggests that possibly this small absorption may be due to very finely-comminuted matter scattered through interstellar space. Assuming the most probable distance for stars of the first magnitude, he computes the quantity of matter which would be necessary to produce the assumed absorption, and finds that the quantity would be so small that, if all the particles scattered through a space equal in volume to that of the terrestrial globe were collected together, they would form a small opaque ball a little less than one inch in diameter ! If we consider the tenuity of a comet's tail, we can well admit the existence in space of matter in such a finely-divided

state.

But even if we do not admit any extinction of light within the limits of the sidereal system, we may, I think, explain the limited number of the visible stars in the following way. Suppose each star to be attended by a family of planets-as many of them probably are-forming a solar system similar to our own, as in the hypothesis proposed by Lambert in the eighteenth century. Call each of these systems a system of the first order. Then suppose all the visible stars, clusters, and nebula-the Milky Way included-to form a system of a higher order. Call this a system of the second order. We may then imagine an immense number of these systems of the second order to exist in infinite space, which, all combined, would form a system of the third order; and so on to higher orders still. But for our present purpose we need not go beyond systems of the second order.

Assuming now the distance of the nearest fixed star—or the distance between two solar systems, or systems of the first order— to be 4,500 times the diameter of our solar system (which is about correct for Alpha Centauri), or the diameter of Neptune's orbit, and the distance of the faintest stars visible in our largest telescopes at 2,300 times the distance of the nearest fixed star (corresponding to the distance of stars of about the seventeenth magnitude). If we further assume that the distance between the systems of the second order bears the same ratio to the diameter of our sidereal system that the distance between two stars of that system bears to the diameter of the solar system, I find that the distance of the nearest external system from the earth would be expressed in miles by the number 520 followed by eighteen cyphers, a distance which light, with its immense velocity of 186,000 miles per second, would take nearly ninety millions of years to traverse!

This hypothesis affords an obvious explanation of the fact that the visible stars and nebulæ are limited in number. They all form part and parcel of one great sidereal cluster—our visible universewhich is separated from all external galaxies by a vast starless void, in the same way that the solar system is separated by empty space from the surrounding star-sphere.

The invisibility of the external galaxies may be explained, either by supposing a "thinning-out" of the ether beyond the limits of our sidereal system, or by supposing a small extinction of light to take place in objects placed at immense distances. The light of even the nearest external universe, enfeebled by a distance of twenty million times that of Alpha Centauri, might well be extinguished altogether by a very small absorption of light in such a vast thickness of a fluid medium perhaps not absolutely perfect. I find that Alpha Centauri placed at such a distance would, even if there were no absorption, be reduced to a star of the thirty-sixth magnitude, which would theoretically require a telescope of over 24,000 feet in diameter even to glimpse !

We are, however, not precluded by this hypothesis from supposing that numerous similar systems may exist in external space, and although we must consider the number of the visible stars as strictly limited, the number of suns and systems really existing, but invisible to us, may still be practically infinite.

J. ELLARD GORE

THE MALT LIQUORS OF THE

ENGLISH.

La cerveyse vos chantera
Alleluia !-Old Song.

7ICTOR HEHN has pointed out, in his "Wanderings of Plants

VICTO

and Animals," how modern Europe may be roughly divided into a region of wine and oil bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, and a region of beer and butter lying towards the North Sea and the Baltic, and how greatly the former sphere has extended at the expense of the latter in recent times. As the Roman Empire advanced its borders, the wines of the Sunny South were introduced into the beer-drinking countries, and sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently, supplanted the home-brewed beverages of the conquered nations, while, for purposes of cooking, olive oil took the place of butter.

Britain was one of the "beer lands," for Pytheas, as quoted by Strabo, relates, nearly sixteen centuries ago, how the inhabitants of "those countries which approach the frozen zone (among which he appears to include Britain and Thule) made their drink from corn and honey. Mr. Elton, in his fascinating work "Origins of English History," considers this drink to have been what the Welsh called and still call metheglin, but metheglin is composed of honey and water only, while the beverage referred to by Pytheas evidently contained a large substratum of malt liquor, like the Korma of ancient Gaul. Of the same character, I have no doubt, was the mead of the hardy Norsemen, the inhabitants of distant Thule.

The Monk Jonas, writing in the sixth century, states that beer boiled out of the juices of corn and barley was the drink of the nations which inhabited the shores of the ocean, namely: Gaul, Britain, Hibernia, Germany, and other countries which did not differ from them in manners, but he excepts from that category the Scots and the Dardans. The Scots were the inhabitants of the opposite shores of Ireland and Scotland, a piratical people of whom we hear much at the close of the Roman rule in Britain, and the Dardans were probably a Welsh tribe, whose name may have given some colour to the

absurd theory of medieval writers, that the ancient Britons came from Troy.

Our English and Scandinavian forefathers were all drinkers of malt liquor. The old English word béor, and the old Norse bjór-r are respectively connected with, if not derived (in a sense both etymological and physical) from, bere and barr (barley), the bear of the modern Scot. The Norseman, however, preferred the term öl to describe his national drink. Thus in the old Icelandic saga, or mythical poem, known as the Alvismál we have the line

Ale it is called among men, and among gods beer;

Similarly

the less familiar name being referred to another world. the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of this country used the term ale (alu) in preference to beer (béor), and in the Middle Ages the latter word had completely dropped out of the English tongue. Chaucer does not use it, nor yet does Langland in his poem of "Piers Plowman " (1377). A third element of population in the British Isles, the Celts, also called the liquor ol (drink), so that we have no difficulty in understanding why the word "beer" had become obsolete in middle English. In the fifteenth century, however, we see the latter word beginning to crop up again, but with a new shade of meaning. It no longer signified the old English drink, but a novel preparation introduced from abroad, viz.:-Malt liquor, containing an infusion of hops.

The "Promptorium Parvulorum" of 1440 defines the word "beer" as cervisia humulina, that is, hopped ale. It is evident, from sundry references made by writers of that period, that the use of hops in brewing, and the name of beer applied to the decoction, were introduced into this country from Holland. "Elynour Rummynge,"

a poem of Henry VIII.'s reign, contains the couplet :

The Dutchman's strong beer

Was not hopped over here.

The word hopped being here used with a double meaning; and old Andrew Boorde, in his " Dietary," published in 1542, draws the following distinction between ale and beer :

Ale is made of malt and water, and they which put any other thing to ale than is rehersed (except yeast barm or godsgood) do sophisticate their ale. Ale for an Englishman is a natural drink.

Barm and godsgood are old names for yeast.

Beer is made of malt, of hops, and water. It is a natural drink for a Dutchman, and now of late days it is much used in England, to the detriment of many Englishmen.

The comparison is an odious one, and the writer displays much prejudice against the foreign drink which has since become so very popular in this country.

In 1520 King Henry VIII. introduced some reforms in his household, and amongst other things directed that the brewer should not in future put any hops or brimstone into the royal ale. Hops, like tobacco, were at first regarded by Englishmen as a noxious weed, and no doubt the King considered hops and brimstone as ingredients more suited to the broth in a witch's caldron than to the ale in a brewer's copper.

The word "beer" came very slowly into general use after its reintroduction into the English language. Even Shakespeare uses it

but sparingly :

Here's a pot of good double beer,

Neighbour, drink, and fear not your man.-Henry VI. Part 2.

But at the present day it is beer which is the popular term, and the word ale is gradually falling out of use except in some provincial dialects or as a trade name. The light of these two variable stars alternately waxes and wanes, now grows more conspicuous, now dies down again.

Our Norse cousins not only drank ale and mead at their feasts, but, if we are to believe old writers, sometimes used those liquors for sacred purposes. Huidtfeldt's Chronicle states that the Norsemen in the year 1250, and again in 1290, obtained permission of the Pope to use mead in the Sacrament of the Altar, on account of the great scarcity of wine which prevailed. And in 1241, the people of the far north are said to have baptized in beer (cervisia) because they had so little water; and Nashe's "Terrors of the Night" (1594) tells us that the Pope had long since given the people of Iceland a dispensation to receive the Communion in ale because wine was turned to ice the moment that it was imported into the island!

The Normans who were of Scandinavian origin, like the English, and unlike the French, were drinkers of malt liquor. This appears from an old poem which I have quoted in a former paper on the same subject.

Just as the members of religious houses in France excelled in the manufacture of choice wines, so those of English monasteries were adepts in the art of brewing ale. In many English parishes it was the custom to hold festivals called "Church ales." They were maintained by collecting contributions of malt from the parishioners, and with that ale was brewed, and the proceeds of sale devoted to church expenses. The ale was sometimes drunk in the churchyard,