WCP2821

[1]

68 Redcliffe Square,

London, S.W.

17.4.03.

Dear Dr Wallace,

You have certainly hit a blot as regards the movement of the sun. There is not the slightest warrant for the assumption that it will proceed indefinitely in its present direction. Indeed, it must follow some kind of curve, though the curve may not be a re-entering one. All that we know is that our system is at present travelling towards the constellation Lyra at the rate of about 12 miles a second.

Mr Maxwell Hall’s¹ papers are not very easy reading, and he has never attempted tp to popularise his views. His name has in fact, rather dropped out of astronomical literature. Nor has his theory ever gained vogue. It was a bold attempt to harmonise the very scanty data then disposable, but it failed to give any kind of coherence to those subsequently accumulated. He did not attack the problem of the Galaxy. His efforts were limited to combining into dynamical unity [2] a comparatively small group of stars, including our sun. He supposed them to revolve round a common centre situated in a direction near ε Andromedae, and at a distance from ourselves measurable by 490 years of light-travel.

Professor Kapteyn² is at present the foremost investigator of sidereal construction, and his leading results are embodied in t Newcomb’s³ ‘Stars’.⁴But even he has made very little progress towards methodising stellar motions. I amy may remark, by the way, that his preliminary inference of a ‘solar cluster’ was not supported by further enquiry, and was consequently abandoned by himself.

I enclose a spare proof of a Letter which I was asked to contribute to the next number of ‘K[n]owledge’. The Editors thought presumably that the controversy might be prolonged with advantage to their Journal, and accordingly requested me to keep the ball flying.

Sincerely your’s [sic] | Agnes M. Clerke⁵ [signature]