110 



rality, occasionally coloured. The appearance of Regulus 

 was very splendid, but there is no allusion to the newspaper 

 paragraph, that Sirius had been discovered to be a disc. 



By far the most interesting objects, however, examined 

 through the telescope, were the nebula. Their appearance 

 was most striking, in some instances presenting a siderial 

 picture such as had never been seen before, and such as 

 cannot be described. The actual result was, on the whole, 

 what some of the most intelligent of modem astronomers 

 had anticipated, — viz., the resolution of a large number of 

 supposed nebulae into fixed stars. Of forty- three of Her- 

 schell's nebulae considered unresolvable by him, all were 

 found to be composed of stars, the blight centres in some 

 of them, which he had supposed to be proofs of condensa- 

 tion, being found to consist of clusters of much larger stars. 

 Dr. Robinson farther adds, " this seems to be a general 

 arrangement." In his paper at the Royal Irish Academy, 

 he is reported to have said that " if Ins statement were dis- 

 puted (that all nebula? resolved into stars), it should 

 be shown by those who objected to it that there were 

 nebulae not resolvable." Again, " it remained to exa- 

 mine into the faint nebulae, but if the bright were all re- 

 solved, analogy would lead them to suppose that these were 

 also resolvable." 



These observations are intrinsically important, and they 

 are useful in a secondary way, as removing, almost entirely, 

 the presumptive evidence on which the nebular hypothesis 

 was based. 



/-33 



Printed by Thomas Baines,, Castle-street, Liverpool. 



