the lucid stars might extend thoughout the whole of thecloven-disc star-system' conceived by Sir William Herschel, and yet the averages on which he based his conclusions might not be disturbed. It is when another and most unexpected relation is mentioned that the accepted theories are found to fail. The aggregation of stars distinctly recognised in some regions and very marked in others is most marked of all along the Milky Way. Not only are lucid stars so richly strewn on the Milky Way that for the whole heavens to be as richly spread 6,000 new lucid stars would be wanted, but the gaps and lacunæ in the Milky Way are so bare and vacant that were the whole heavens no richer 4,600 stars now visible would have to be blotted from our view. Such, briefly stated, is the statistical evidence on this point. There can be no question that it is of the most convincing character. The probabilities against such a result if chance distribution were alone in question—that is, if no real relation existed between the lucid stars seen amid the milky light of the galaxy and the clustering groups of telescopic stars which produce that light-may be readily shown to be so overwhelming that no illustration can be devised to convey an adequate idea of their immensity. The chance that the Sun will rise to-morrow is ridiculously small (at least as Quêtelet calculates it) by comparison. So that as long as the laws of probability are to be our guide in such matters (and in every scientific conclusion ever yet adopted we have had no other evidence) it must be regarded as certain that the lucid stars seen

on the Milky Way are for the most part immersed among the crowds of minute stars forming the diffused light of the galaxy. These galactic stars then are much nearer than had been supposed, and they are really minute, not reduced merely to apparent minuteness by the vastness of their distance.

When we add to the considerations thus suggested that the nebulæ have been shown by unmistakable signs of association to form a system intimately connected with the system of stars, we begin to see that the sidereal system regarded as a whole is very different from that scheme of suns pictured in the accepted theories. Our Sun and his fellow suns are associated with groups of minor suns, with clusters of star-dust, with masses of star-mist. We trace amid the complex system thus disclosed the signs of as yet unthought-of laws. Here the large suns gather into well-marked clusters; here they form streams amid the celestial depths. In one region we find them associated with that strange spiral of minute stars forming the galaxy* (see fig. 87); in another they are grouped with discrete nebula; and yet elsewhere they are immersed amid the whorls and convolutions of nebulous matter. Lastly, in two regions we see suns and minor stars, star-clusters and discrete nebulæ, and masses of nebulous matter, combined into vast spherical aggregations-the Magellanic Clouds of the seaman-and these aggregations them

* Such is at least a figure which (as shown in my Other Worlds) accounts in a satisfactory manner for all the observed peculiarities of the Milky Way.

selves forming the centre of a remarkable group of lucid stars. This group, numbering more than 2,500 orbs, covers one half of the southern heavens. It sweeps in a mighty spiral* around the greater Magellanic Cloud. It gathers its host of lucid orbs so densely along one part of its course that that region of the heavens alone suffices to light up the southern skies as with the light of a young moon. It presents, in fine, phenomena which leave little room for question that it

The Milky way regarded as a Spiral.

forms a great and distinct system, within whose bounds are included all the characteristic features of the sidereal system itself, if indeed we are not to regard it as forming the noblest half of that portion of the universe of which we have hitherto become cognisant.

The features here referred to are very strikingly exhibited in the isographic maps of the northern and southern heavens accompanying the second edition of my Other Worlds. These maps show all the stars visible to the naked eye (in white on a black ground) truly distributed

area for area.

It is not without a purpose that I have thus directed the reader's attention to the vast southern star-system which constitutes the most striking and instructive feature of the heavens. If there is no feature of the northern heavens which to ordinary vision seems to correspond to this southern star-system, yet statistical research reveals the fact that the southern region has its true analogue in our northern heavens. The widely extended group of stars surrounding the projection of the Milky Way in Cepheus, and including within its limits the singularly rich portion of the Milky Way in Cygnus, has not only well-defined limits, but presents a well-marked superiority to the rest of the northern heavens as regards richness of star-distribution. Though smaller in extent, it is not less rich on the average than the great southern rich region. corresponds also with that region in some other and rather peculiar respects. It covers a region where the Milky Way throws out projections, and shows vast vacuities. The Milky Way reaches it on one side as a single stream, on the other as a double stream; and, further, the brightest portions of the Milky Way, in the northern and southern heavens, lie near these two rich regions, and both also towards that edge of the rich region whence the double stream of milky light extends.

It

Now, I would invite attention to the circumstance that the Sun's proper motion, according to the best estimates hitherto made, is carrying him from the borders of the southern rich region towards the borders of the northern

rich region. He is passing away from the neighbourhood of Canis Major, Columba, and Lepus (not to define too precisely the as yet scarcely determined path along which he travels), and he is urging his way with inconceivable velocity towards the region between Hercules and Lyra. Of the true habitudes of those regions of space through which he is bearing, and has lately borne, his family of planets we know little. But as we look back along the extended track he has pursued, and see the richness of those regions he has left, and as we look onwards and trace his course in imagination towards the borders of that rich region whose glories gather into their chiefest splendour in Cygnus, the conception is suggested that he is now winging his way through a relatively barren region, that he has left and will again visit more glorious stardepths than those through which he now pursues his

course.

And here we may pause for a moment to consider the nature of that path along which we ourselves are borne as the Earth sweeps on her course round the Sun.

Let the foreshortened circle in fig. 88 represent the path of the Earth about the Sun, the globe NS representing on a large scale the slope of the Earth's axis throughout her annual revolution. When the Earth is at it is mid-winter; when she is at it is spring; at it is summer; and lastly, when she is at T it is autumn. Then the path of the Sun has the position indicated in the figure, being inclined some 53 degrees to the plane of the Earth's orbit, and some 15 degrees in advance