STAR-SYSTEMS. NEBULAE. 



183 



unites the atoms that compose the earth, forms every rain-drop, and moulds the tear that 

 trickles down the cheek of sorrow in prevailing operation millions of leagues away from 

 our terrestrial residence, binding together in spherical masses whole sidereal systems. 

 Such a fact, however, commonly suggests no further remark than that the laws of nature 

 everywhere prevail, and with this, thought in general ends. But "what," says Paley, 

 " do we mean by the laws of nature, or by any law ? Effects are produced by power, 

 not by laws. A law cannot execute itself. A law refers us to an agent." An irresistible 

 conviction is forced upon us, of the universal agency, and, consequently, the omnipresence 

 of one Lawgiver, by the universal presence and execution of kindred laws ; and 

 confessedly incomprehensible as is the modus of His operation, it would be not 

 more irreligious to stumble at this than unphilosophical, considering the immense 

 amount of things of which we have certain evidence that they are, without having 

 any glimpse as to how they are. We cannot at all understand the physical agency of 

 the Deity ; but paying deference to the strong facts of nature, we are led to the conclusion 

 that He 



"Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 

 Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 



The conclusions are marvellous that are forced upon us by these objects. Here we 

 have firmaments or clusters, insulated in space, each constituting a sidereal family equal 

 to that to which our sun belongs. " It would be a vain task," says the highest authority 

 upon this subject, " to attempt to count the stars in one of these globular clusters. They 

 are not to be reckoned by hundreds ; and on a rough calculation, grounded on the 

 apparent intervals between them at the borders (where they are seen not projected on each 

 other), and the angular diameter of the whole group, it would appear that many clusters 

 of this description must contain, at least, ten or twenty thousand stars, compacted and 

 wedged together in a round space, whose angular diameter does not exceed eight or 

 ten minutes ; that is to say, in an area not more than a tenth part of that covered by 

 the moon. Perhaps it may be thought to savour of the gigantesque to look upon the 

 individuals of such a group of stars like our own, and their mutual distances, as equal to 

 those which separate our sun from the nearest fixed star : yet when we consider that 

 their united lustre affects the eye with a less impression of light than a star of the fifth 

 or sixth magnitude (for the largest of these clusters is barely visible 'to the naked eye), 

 the idea we are thus compelled to form of their* dis ta nee from us may render even such an 

 estimate of their dimensions familiar to our imagination ; at all events^ we can hardly look 

 upon a group thus insulated, in seipso totus, teres, atque rotundus, as not forming a system 

 of a peculiar and definite character." 



But the globular form, though common, is by no means unvarying. There are oval 

 shapes, while some are of very irregular outline, and present a fantastic appearance. The 

 30 Doradus, as sketched at Paramatta by Mr Dunlop, and examined by Sir John Herschel 

 at the Cape of Good Hope, resembles a number of loops, or a kind of " true lover's knot " 

 formed by a bunch of ribbons. An angular-shaped mass appears in the Twins, on a line 

 drawn from Pollux to the middle of Orion's belt, discovered by Herschel in 1783. 

 Another, in the form of a distant flight of wild-fowl, discovered by Kirch in 1681, is on 

 the shield which Hevelius framed among the stars in honour of John Sobieski, the deliverer 

 of Vienna from the Turks. 



One of the most conspicuous of these objects, called the " transcendently beautiful 

 queen of the nebulae," and the oldest known, appears below the girdle of Andromeda. It 

 is visible to the naked eye in the absence of the moon, and has often been mistaken for a 



