NO ASTRONOMER pretends to believe that a telescope can be made
which does not embrace more or less of the uncertainty of
astigmatism. No optician lives who does not know that the lens
of every human eye has more or less the uncertainty of
astigmatism; how, then, can an observation be made, involving
the immense distances pretended to obtain by the men who believe
in the Copernican system of astronomy? If correct calculations
are made of relative locations of stars in view of these
uncertainties, what comprise the factors of certainty? This may
be answered, first, by the statement that the stars are within
our atmosphere instead of beyond, therefore the factor of
refraction does not enter into the problem; second, the base
line is concave instead of convex; and the lines upon which the
relative location of the star is made, in the determination of
parallaxes, are convergent toward the object which is observed
within the atmosphere, and at a short distance from the point of
observation. We were asked the questi