STELLAR DISTRIBUTION. 219 



the Herschelian gauges showed the minutest 

 telescopic stars to be most crowded, my chart 

 of 324,198 stars shows the stars of the higher 

 orders (down to the eleventh magnitude) to be 

 so crowded, that by their mere aggregation 

 within the mass they show the Milky Way with 

 all its streams and clusterings. It is utterly im- 

 possible that excessively remote stars could seem 

 to be clustered exactly where relatively near 

 stars were richly spread." 



Proctor showed also that in all probability the 

 stars composing the nebulous light of the Galaxy 

 are much smaller than the brighter stars, and 

 not at such a great distance as their faintness 

 would lead us to suppose, a conclusion confirmed 

 by the work of Celoria. Proctor was not so for- 

 tunate in theorising as in direct investigation. 

 He thought that the Magellanic clouds were 

 probably external galaxies ; and further, he put 

 forward the idea that the Milky Way is a spiral, 

 the gaps and coal- sacks being due to loops in 

 the stream, but neither of these ideas has found 

 favour with astronomers. But the chief work 

 accomplished by Proctor was a revision of our 

 knowledge of the Universe, which he thus 

 describes : " Within one and the same region 

 coexist stars of many orders of real magnitude, 

 the greatest being thousands of times larger 



