194 COSMOS. 



the celestial river of the Arabs, 80 ) which forms almost a great 

 circle of the sphere, and is inclined to the equator at an angle 

 of 63. The poles of the Milky Way are situated in Right 

 Ascension 12h. 47m. N. Decl. 27; and R. A. Oh. 47m. S. 

 Decl. 27; the south galactic pole therefore lies near Coma 

 Berenices, and the northern between Phoenix and Cetus. 

 While all planetary local relations are referred to the ecliptic, 

 the great circle in which the plane of the sun's path intersects 

 the sphere we may as conveniently refer many of the 

 local relations of the fixed stars, as, for instance, that of their 

 accumulation or grouping, to the nearly complete circle of 

 the Milky Way. Considered in this light, the latter is to 

 the sidereal world what the ecliptic is to the planetary 



of the Milky Way, in both hemispheres, to Sir John Herschel, 

 in his Results of Astronomical Observations, made during the 

 years 1834-1838, at the Cape of Good Hope, 316-335, 

 and still more recently in the Outlines of Astronomy, 787- 

 799. Throughout the whole of that section of the Cos- 

 mos which treats of the directions, ramifications, and various 

 contents of the Milky Way, I have exclusively followed the 

 above named Astronomer and Physicist. (Compare also 

 Struve, Etudes d'Astr. stellaire, pp. 35-79 ; Madler, Ast., 1849, 

 213 ; Cosmos vol. i. pp. 88, 140, and 305.) I need scarcely 

 here remark that in my description of the Milky Way, in 

 order not to confuse certainties with uncertainties, I have 

 not referred to what I had myself observed with instruments 

 of a very inferior illuminating power, in reference to the very 

 great inequality of the light of the whole zone, during my 

 long residence in the southern hemisphere, and which I have 

 recorded in my journals. 



80 The comparison of the ramified Milky Way with a 

 celestial river, led the Arabs to designate parts of the con- 

 stellation of Sagittarius, whose bow falls in a region rich in 

 stars, as the cattle going to drink, and to associate with them the 

 ostrich, which has so little need of water. (Ideler, Untersuch- 

 ungen uber den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Sternnamen^ 

 78, 183, and 187 ; Niebuhr, Beschreihrng vonArabien, s. 112. 



