*(6) The Daguerreotype.
*(7) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the
distance of 61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is ascertained)
is so inconceivably great, that its rays would require more than ten
years to reach the earth. For stars beyond this, 20- or even 1000
years- would be a moderate estimate. Thus, if they had been
annihilated 20, or 1000 years ago, we might still see them to-day by
the light which started from their surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the
past time. That many which we see daily are really extinct, is not
impossible- not even improbable.
"Preposterous!" said the king.
"'The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise
magi,'" continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner
disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on
the part of her husband- "'the wives and daughters of these eminent
conjurers are every thing that is accomplished and refined; and
would be every thing that is interesting and beautiful, but for an
unhappy fatality that besets them, and from which not even the
miraculous powers of their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been
adequate to save.
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