XV.] THE GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF STARS. 127 



we may now say that the existence of this supplementary Star Way, 

 indicated by the line of extremely bright stars, is beyond all question. 



I quote the following from what Gould has written on this 

 subject : * 



" Few celestial phenomena are more palpable there than the ex- 

 istence of a stream or belt of bright stars, including Campus, Sirius, 

 and Aldebaran, together with the most brilliant ones in Carina, Puppis, 

 Columba, Canis Majw, Orion, &c., and skirting the Milky Way on its 

 preceding side. When the opposite half of the galaxy came into view, 

 it was almost equally manifest that the same is true there also, the 

 bright stars likewise fringing it on the preceding side, and forming a 

 stream which, diverging from the Milky Way at the stars a and ft 

 Centauri, comprises the constellation Lupus, and a great part of Scorpio, 

 and extends onwards through Ophiuchus towards Lyra. Thus a great 

 circle or zone of bright stars seems to gird the sky intersecting with 

 the Milky Way at the Southern Cross, and manifest at all seasons, 

 although far more conspicuous upon the Orion side than on the other. 

 Upon my return to the North, I sought immediately for the northern 

 place of intersection ; and although the phenomenon is by far less 

 clearly perceptible in this hemisphere, I found no difficulty in recog- 

 nising the node in the constellation Cassiopeia, which is diametrically 

 opposite to Cnw. Indeed it is easy to fix the right ascension of the 

 northern node at about hr. 50 mins., and that of the southern one 

 at 12 hrs. 50 mins.; the declination in each case about 60; so that 

 these nodes are very close to the points at which the Milky Way ap- 

 proaches most nearly to the poles. The inclination of this stream to 

 the Milky Way is about 25, the Pleiades occupying a position midway 

 between the nodes." 



Gould also had no difficulty in showing that the group of the fixed 

 stars to which I have just referred, at all events of fixed stars brighter 

 than the fourth magnitude, is more symmetrical in relation to this new 

 star line than to the Milky Way itself, and that the abundance of 

 bright stars in any region of the sky is greater as the distance from 

 this new star line becomes less. Practically 500 of the brightest 

 stars can be brought together into a cluster, independent of the 

 Milky Way altogether a cluster he points out of somewhat flattened 

 and bifid form. 



Connection of the Milky Way with Nebulce. 



Not only do we find that the stars are very much more numerous 

 near the Milky Way than elsewhere, but that the same thing happens 



* Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. Tiii, p. 332. 



