38 COSMOS. 



happens In using the telescope. Three of this nuinljer were 

 almost in contact with one another, and fouj' of them shone 

 as if through a mist, so that the space around them, having 

 the form dra\Aai in the appended figure, appeared much bright- 

 er than the rest of the sky, which was perfectly clear^ and 

 looked almost black. This appearance looked, therefoie, al- 

 most as if there were a hiatus or interruption. I have fre- 

 quently observed this phenomenon, and up to the present time 

 as always unchanged in form; whence it would appear that 

 this marvelous object, be its nature what it may, is very 

 probably permanently situated at this spot. I never observed 

 any thing similar to this appearance in the other fixed stars." 

 (The nebulous spot in Andromeda, described fifty-four years 

 earlier by Sinion Marius, must therefore either have been un 

 known to him, or did not attract his attention.) That which 

 has usually been regarded as nebulous matter, adds Huygens, 

 " even the Milky AYay, when seen through telescopes, exhib- 

 its nothino: nebulous, and is nothins: more than a multitude 

 of stars, thronged together in clusters."* The animation of 



* " Ex his autem tres illte pene inter se contiguse stellee, cumque his 

 ahae quatuor, velut trans nebulam lucebant : ita ut spatium circa ip- 

 Bas, qua forma hie conspicitur, malto illustrius appareret reliqno omui 

 coelo ; quod cum apprime sereuum esset ac cerueretur nigerriinum, ve- 

 lut hiata quodam interruptum videbatur, per quem in plagam magis la- 

 cidara esset prospectus. Idem vero in banc usque diem nihil immutata 

 facie saspius atque eodem loco conspexi ; adeo ut perpetuam illic sedera 

 habere credibile sit hoc quidquid est portenti : cui certe simile aliud 

 nusquam apud reliquas fixas potui animadvertere. Nam cfBtertB nebu- 

 losfB olim existimatie, atque ipsa via lactea, perspicillo inspectas, nul!as 

 nebulas habere coraperiuntur, ueque aliud esse quam plurium stellaium 

 congeries et frequeutia." — Christiani Hugenii, Opera varia, Lugd. Bat., 

 1724, p. 540-541. " Of these, however, those three almost contiguous 

 stars, and, with these, four others, shone, as it were, through a nebula, 

 BO that the space around them, as is shown in tliis figure, is much moi'e 

 brilliant than all the rest of the sky ; and when this is very serene and 

 appears quite dark, it seemed broken by a sort of gap, through which 

 one looked upon a brighter region behind. The same thing I have 

 since beheld over and over again, without any change in its appearance 

 and in the same position, so that one might almost believe that this 

 marvelous object, whatever it is, is permanently fixed there ; it is cer- 

 tain I have nowhere else noticed any thing similar to this in the other 

 fixed stars ; for those which have generally been considered as nebul.ne, 

 and even tlie Milky Way itself, when seen through a telescope, arc found 

 to have nothing nebulous about them, but ai'e nothing more than a mul- 

 titude of several stars clustered together." Huygens himself estimated 

 the powers he employed in his twenty-five feet refractor as equal to a 

 hundred diameters (p. 538). Are the "quatuor stellae tians nebulam 

 lucentes" the stars of the trapezium ? The small and very rough sketch 

 (Tab. xlvii.. fig. 4, Phenomenon in Orione Novum) represents only a group 



