To find the distance of the fixed stars has been a problem which many eminent astronomers have attempted to solve; but about which, after all, we remain in a great measure still in the dark. Various methods have been pursued without success, and the result of the finest observations has hardly given us more that a distant approximation, from which we may conclude, that the nearest of the fixed stars cannot be less than forty thousand diameters of the whole annual orbit of the earth distant from us.