THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



with the naked eye is very small. All stars discernible by the keenest of 

 human sight,* without the aid of a telescope, have long been noted down 

 on charts, and their position in the vaulted dome exactly determined. 



Should one count up all the stars in those parts of the heavens that 

 become visible to us in the course of a year, even this sum would not 

 by far approach seven thousand. However, if one resorts 

 to a telescope, matters grow to be quite different ; more 

 and more stars then become visible, the number depend- 

 ing on the strength of the instrument in use. Fig. 1 rep- 

 resents a certain portion of the heavens as seen by the 

 fig. i. unaided eye. One discerns two brighter stars and several 



smaller ones. Fig. 2 shows this same spot, but as seen through a pow- 

 erful telescope. This picture has not merely been drawn from fancy. 

 Each point, even the smallest, was, after close observation, entered 

 with the utmost care on a large chart, of which this illustration 



Fig. 2. 



is a copy, but reduced in size. And each single one of these 

 stars is a mighty body, in its sphere a shining sun, equaling ours 

 in grandeur and splendor. From the beginning, each of these suns 

 has traveled its prescribed round, and has filled its place in the vast 

 universe. Such charts of the stars are leaves from the great volume of 



