58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fluence and recorded liis gratitude in its name, we are not informed. 

 Thus, at every step, we find how shreds of history and bits of super- 

 stition are entangled among the stars. Surely, humanity has reflected 

 itself in the heavens, at least as lastingly as it has impressed itself 

 upon the earth. 



Starting from the group of stars just described as making the 

 Water-Bearer's urn, follow with a glass the winding stream of small 

 stars that represents the water. Several very pretty and striking as- 

 semblages of stars will be encountered in its course. The star Tau (t) is 

 double and presents a beautiful contrast of color, one star being white 

 and the other reddish-orange — two solar systems, it may be, appar- 

 ently neighbors as seen from the earth, though really enormously 

 far apart, in one of which daylight is white and in the other red ! 



Point a good glass upon the star marked Nu {y), and you will see, 

 somewhat less than a degree and a half to the west of it, what appears 

 to be a faint star of between the seventh and eighth magnitudes. You 

 will liave to look sharp to see it. It is with your mind's eye that you 

 must gaze, in order to perceive the wonder here hidden in the depths 

 of space. That faint speck is a nebula, unrivaled for interest by many 

 of the larger and more conspicuous objects of that kind. Lord Rosse's 

 great telescope has shown that in form it resembles the planet Saturn ; 

 in other words, that it consists apparently of a ball surrounded by a 

 ring. But the spectroscope proves that it is a gaseous mass, and the 

 micrometer — supposing its distance to be equal to that of the stars, 

 and we have no reason to think it less — that it must be large enough 

 to fill the whole space included within the orbit of Neptune ! Here, 

 then, as has been said, we seem to behold a genesis in the heavens. If 

 Laplace's nebular hypothesis, or any of the modifications of that hy- 

 pothesis, represents the process of formation of a solar system, then we 

 may fairly conclude that such a process is now actually in operation in 

 this nebula in Aquarius, where a vast ring of nebulous matter appears 

 to have separated off from the spherical mass within it. This may not 

 be the true explanation of what we see there, but, whatever the ex- 

 planation may be, there can be no question of the high significance of 

 this nebula, whose form proclaims unmistakably the operation of great 

 metamorphic forces there. Of course, with his insignificant optical 

 means, our observer can see nothing of the strange form of this object, 

 the detection of which requires the aid of the most powerful tele- 

 scopes, but it is much to know where this unfinished creation lies, and 

 to see it, even though diminished by distance to a mere speck of light. 



Turn your glass upon the star shown in the map just above Mu (ju.) 

 and Epsilon («). You will find an attractive arrangement of small 

 stars in its neighborhoorl. The star marked 104 is double to the naked 

 eye, and the r(»w of stars below it is well worth looking at. The star 

 Delta (8) is interesting, because, in 1756, Tobias Mayer narrowly es- 

 caped making a discovery there that would have anticipated that 



