7 6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions could be recognized by their superior lustre, but yet were almost 

 lost amid myriads of stars unseen by the inhabitants of earth. 

 Nearly overhead shone the Pleiades, closely girt round by hundreds 

 of lesser lights. From them toward Aldebaran and the clustering 

 Hyades, and onward to the belted Orion, streams and convolutions of 

 stars, interwoven as in fantastic garlands, marked the presence of that 

 mysterious branch-like extension of the Milky-Way which the ob- 

 server on earth can, with unaided vision, trace no farther than the 

 winged foot of Perseus. High overhead, and toward the north, the 

 Milky- Way shone resplendent, like a vast inclined arch, full ' thick in- 

 laid with patines of bright gold.' Instead of that faint, croud-like 

 zone known to terrestrial astronomers, the galaxy presented itself as 

 an infinitely complicated star-region 



' "With isles of light and silvery streams, 

 And gloomy griefs of mystic shade.' 



" On all sides, this mighty star-belt spread its outlying bands of 

 stars, far away on the one hand toward Lyra and Bootes, where on 

 earth we see no traces of milky lustre, and on the other toward the 

 Twins and the clustering glories of Cancer the ' dark constellation ' 

 of the ancients, but full of telescopic splendors. Most marvellous, 

 too, appeared the great dark gap which lies between the Milky- Way 

 and Taurus ; here, in the very heart of the richest region of the heav- 

 ens with Orion and the Hyades and Pleiades blazing on one side, and 

 on the other the splendid stream laving the feet of the Twins there 

 lay a deep, black gulf which seemed like an opening through our star- 

 system into starless depths beyond. 



Tet, though the sky was thus aglow with starlight, though stars 

 far fainter than the least we see on the clearest and darkest ni^ht were 

 shining in countless myriads, an orb was above the horizon whose 

 light would pale the lustre of our brightest stars. This orb occupied 

 a space on the heavens more than twelve times larger than is occupied 

 by the full moon as we see her. Its light, unlike the moon's, was 

 tinted with beautiful and well-marked colors. . . . 



" The globe which thus adorned the lunar sky, and illuminated the 

 lunar lands with a light far exceeding that of the full moon, was our 

 earth, The scene was not unlike that shown to Satan when Uriel 



' One of the seven 

 Who in God's presence, nearest to the throne, 

 Stand ready at command " 



pointing earthward from his station amid the splendor of the sun, 

 said to the arch-fiend : 



1 Look down-ward on that glohe whose hither side 

 "With light from hence, though hut reflected, shines : 

 That place is earth, the seat of man ; that light 

 His day, which eke, as th' other hemisphere, 

 Night would invade.' 



i 



