36 COSMOS. 



the Galaxy (fully 15^) still even it may perhaps belong tc 

 that prolongation of its branch ■which appears to lose itself 

 from a and e Persei toward Aldebaran and the Hyades, and 

 to which w^e have already referred at p. 147. The brilliant 

 stars which gave early celebrity to the constellation of Orion, 

 are, moreover, reckoned to belong to that zone of very largo 

 and probably less remote stars, whose prolonged direction in- 

 dicates the vast circle of the Southern Galaxy, passing through 

 fe Orionis and a Crucis.* 



The opinion which at one time prevailed so extensively! 

 hi the existence of a galaxy of nebula, intersecting the stellar 

 Milky Way almost at right angles, has not been confirmed by 

 more recent and accurate observations in reference to the dis- 

 tribution of symmetrical nebulae in the firmament. $ There 

 certainly are, as has already been observed, very great accu- 

 mulations at the northern pole of the Galaxy, while a very 

 considerable abundance of nebulous matter is also observed 

 at the south galactic pole near Pisces ; but in consequence of 

 the many interruptions which break the zone, we are unable 

 to indicate any large circle connecting these poles together, 

 and formed by a continued line of nebulce. William Her- 

 schel, in advancing this view in 1784, at the close of his first 

 treatise on the structure of the heavens, developed it with a 

 caution worthy of such an observer, and from which doubt 

 was not entirely excluded. 



Some of the irregular, or, rather, unsymmetrical nebulas 

 (as those in the sword of Orion, near 7] Argus in Sagittarius 

 and in Cygnus), are remarkable for their extraordinary size ; 

 others (as Nos. 27 and 51 of Messier's Catalogue) for their 

 singular forms. 



It has already been noticed in reference to the large nebula 

 in the ^loord of Orion, that Galileo never mentioned it, al- 

 though he devoted so much attention to the stars between the 

 girdle and the sword, § and even sketched a map of this re- 



* Cosmos, vol. iii., p. 147. Outlines, $ 7S.i. 



t Cosmos, vol. i., p. 150, and note ; Sir John Herscbel's first edition 

 of his Treatise on Astronomy, 1833, in Lardncr^s Cabinet Cyclopcedia, 

 \ 616; Littrow, Thcoretische Astronomic, 1834, th. ii., $ 234. 



X See Edinburgh Review, Januaiy, 1848, p. 187, and Observationg at 

 the Cape, § 96, 107. " The distribution of \he nebulae is not like that 

 of the Milky Way," says Sir John Ilerschel, *' in a zone or band en- 

 circling the heavens; or if such a zone can bo at all traced out, it is 

 with so many interruptions., and so faintly marked out through by far 

 the greater part of its circumference, that its existence as such can be 

 hardly more than suspected." 



^ " There can be no doubt," writes Dr. Galle, " that the drawing' 



