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SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



The most startling shapes which have hitherto turned up are of the spiral or whirlpool 

 form, of which the annexed representations are specimens. 



Spiral Ncbulaa. 



Two very remarkable nebulae, well known to the mariners, being visible to the naked eye, 

 distinguish the southern firmament. They are cloudy masses of light, called the Nubecula 

 Major and Minor, greater and lesser cloud, but familiarly referred to as the Magelknic 

 clouds, after the navigator Magellan, who was one of their first European observers! 



However it may savour of the gigantesque, it is sufficiently evidenced that an area of 

 the heavens not exceeding T yh of the lunar diameter, contains a system of stars rivalling in 

 number those which constitute our firmament, and appearing only as a single faint 

 luminosity to us. Yet there are many areas so occupied. It follows therefore that our 

 firmament is but one of a series, and probably one of the smaller chambers in the great 

 mansion of the universe. All the stars and constellations that shine in the midnight sky, 

 constitute a stellar scheme which is but a unit of a countless number. As seen from the 

 faint objects we discern in the side of Hercules and the sword-handle of Orion, our whole 

 sphere would be compressed into a small streak of light, and appear in space like a snow- 

 flake in our atmosphere ! We may conclude, however, that as the firmament, which the 

 unaided eye of man surveys, is but a member of a vast family of systems which his assisted 

 vision scans, so that family may be no more than as a drop to the ocean, a grain of sand to 

 the mass of the globe, compared with what liea beyond the bounds of telescopic sight, hid 

 in regions which mortal gaze will never explore or visit. Suppose we could actually travel 

 across the space through which the terrestrial eye can penetrate, and take our station at 

 the point which is now the limit of vision, would there not be a territory lying before us, 

 equal to that we should have left behind, in the number, grandeur, and variety of its 

 works ? That the Divine capability has operated no further than where a limit is put to 

 human investigation that the length and breadth of the Divine dominions have been 



