246 THE NATIVES OF NATAL IN RELATION TO THE LAND. 



dependent. This growing tendency toward individualism is 

 deplored by many, but it is inevitable, and may be the nucleus of 

 an era oif progress for the race. But this largely depends upon 

 ourselves. If we neglect the signs of the times, and do nothing 

 to guide this movement into safe channels, it must lead to social 

 confusion and racial demoralisation : guided by our larger experi- 

 ence and wider political wisdom along such roads as I have 

 indicated, it will lead to the uplift and betterment of the race. 



{Finally received, Oct. 23. 1918.J 



Stellar Distances and Magnitudes. — Prof. \\ . 

 II. Pickering, in circulars Nos. 205 and 206 of Harvard College 

 Observatory, has discussed the distances of the great nebula in 

 Orion and of the Pleiades. The Orion nebula includes the whole 

 region of the " sword handle," and the naked-eye stars c, 6, 

 and t. As the nebula (whose diameter is estimated at 1,700 light 

 years) is looked at from our position in the heavens very nearly 

 along the axis of the great spiral, all the stars associated with it 

 must be at approximately the same distance from us : hence the 

 bright star i, which is eleven magnitudes brighter than many of 

 the fainter B stars associated wnth the nebula, must emit a light 

 25,000 times as great as theirs. It would seem, therefore, that t 

 Orionis is a super-giant among giants, since the 14th magnitude B 

 stars are by no means dwarfs. It has been proved that in order for 

 a star to reach the colour of type B it must be very massive, and 

 its total light enormous. The brightness of y8 Orionis is ten times 

 that of c. Now Sirius, to our vision, the brightest " fixed " star in 

 the heavens, is 20 times as bright as our Sun. Antares is 3.500 as 

 bright as our Sun. and Canopus is probably brighter than 

 Antares, indeed Walkley. in Knozvledge* makes its brightness 

 50,000 times that of our Sun. But these figures all fade into 

 insignificance when compared with some of the Orion stars. 

 According to Russell and Charlier. the average blue star has 210 

 times the brilliancy of our Sun, Init / Orionis is 1,000 

 times brighter than these average stars, and fi Orionis 

 is ten times as bright as /. It has therefore 2,100,000 

 times the brightness of our Sun, and is possibly the brightest of 

 all created objects. " In such a furnace," says Prof. Pickering. 

 " we can well imagine that our chemical elements might have 

 been born." In the case of the Pleiades there arq also, Prof. 

 Pickering finds, giants and super-giants, though not in such 

 marked degree. The Pleiades are just five times as remote from 

 our own system as the Hyades, and seen from the Hyades. would 

 appear much as they do to us. The diameter of the whole group 

 is about 70 light years, and while Alcyone is 2,100 times brighter 

 than our Sun. the other five bright stars average 800 times as 

 bright, and their real distances from Alcyone are about the same 

 as from our Sun to Sirius. 



*37 (1914), 288. 



