> as lemmas

1845 tr. A. von Humboldt Κοσμος I. 93 Unter den vielen selbstleuchtenden ihren Ort verändernden Sonnen..welche unsre Weltinsel bilden.]

1867 A. J. Davis Stellar Key to Summer Land vi. 32 The expression ‘Island Universe’ was suggested by the immense distance of the fixed stars from our Sun and Planets; giving the impression that our Solar System occupies an isolated position in the boundless ocean of space.

1887 R. A. Proctor Other Suns than Ours i. 1 Our ‘island universe’, as Humboldt poetically called the stellar system.

1887 R. A. Proctor Other Suns than Ours i. 11 The results which Sir W. Herschel published in 1817 and 1818 justify the belief that..large numbers of the nebulæ must be regarded as external galaxies. This grand conception fascinated..some who, like Humboldt,..had understood and appreciated the work of the great observer. The idea of ‘island universes’ strewn throughout the ocean of space impressed the world.

1898 Daily News 7 May 8/1 The distance between these separate systems—or ‘island universes’ as they have been called—may be very great compared with the diameter of each system.

1928 J. H. Jeans Astron. & Cosmogony i. 19 These figures amply show that these nebulae and star-clouds are quite outside our system of stars; they constitute what Herschel described as ‘island-universes’ distinct from the universe which contains our sun.

1959 R. D. Davies & H. P. Palmer Radio Stud. Universe i. 2 Many..nebulae were discovered. However, it was not until the 1920's that the problem of their distance and spacing was unravelled by Hubble, who showed that they were very distant island universes (galaxies) of stars many of which were similar to our Milky Way system.