198 COSMOS, 



beautiful and remarkable in themselves, and rendered still 

 more so by their mode of association" and grouping. 88 Next in 

 brightness to this portion of the southern heavens is the pleasing 

 and richly- starred region of our northern hemisphere in Aquila 

 and Cygnus, where the Milky Way branches off in different 

 directions. "While the Milky Way is the narrowest under the 

 foot of the Cross, the region of minimum brightness (where 

 there is the greatest paucity of stars in the Galactic zone) is 

 in the neighbourhood of Monoceros and Perseus. 



The magnificent effulgence of the Milky Way in the 

 southern hemisphere is still further increased by the circum- 

 stance, that between the star t Argus, which has become so 

 celebrated in consequence of its variability, and a Crucis, under 

 the parallels of 5 9 and 60 south lat. , it is intersected at an angle 

 of 20 by the remarkable zone of very large and probably very 

 proximate stars, to which belong the constellations Orion, 

 Canis Major, Scorpio, Centaurus, and the Southern Cross. The 

 direction of this remarkable zone is indicated by a great circle 

 passing through E Orionis and the foot of the Cross. The pic- 



88 " No region of the heavens is fuller of objects, beautiful 

 and remarkable in themselves, and rendered still more so by 

 their mode of association, and by the peculiar features as- 

 sumed by the Milky Way, which are without a parallel in any 

 other part of its course." Observations at the Cape, p. 386. 

 This vivid description of Sir John Herschel entirely coincides 

 with the impressions I have myself experienced. Capt. Jacob, 

 of the Bombay Engineers, in speaking of the intensity of light 

 in the Milky Way, in the vicinity of the Southern Cross, re- 

 marks with striking truth, " Such is the general blaze of star- 

 light near the Cross from that part of the sky, that a person 

 is immediately made aware of its having risen above the 

 horizon, though he should not be at the time looking at the 

 heavens, by the increase of general illumination of the atmo- 

 sphere, resembling the effect of the young moon."" (See Piazzi 

 Smyth, On the orbit of a Centauri, in the Transact, of the Royal 

 Soc. of Edinburgh, vol. xvi. p. 445.) 



