The eye
had no instinctive sense of distance; any star might have been within
a stone's throw. I need hardly observe that, while on one hand the
motion of the vessel was absolutely imperceptible, there was, on the
other, no change of position among the stars which could enable me to
verify the fact that I was moving, much less suggest it to the senses.
The direction of every recognisable star was the same as on Earth, as
it appears the same from the two extremities of the Earth's orbit, 19
millions of miles apart. Looking from any one window, I could see no
greater space of the heavens than in looking through a similar
aperture on Earth. What was novel and interesting in my stellar
prospect was, not merely that I could see those stars north and south
which are never visible from the same point on Earth, except in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Equator; but that, save on the small
space concealed by the Earth's disc, I could, by moving from window to
window, survey the entire heavens, looking at one minute upon the
stars surrounding the vernal, and at another, by changing my position,
upon those in the neighbourhood of the autumnal equinox.
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