THE HEAVENS SOUNDED. 33 



space-penetrating power is again augmented, and still no more 

 stars are brought into view. The observer, therefore, legiti 

 mately concludes that he has reached the outer limits of the 

 great cluster to which we belong, and is now traversing the 

 blank void beyond. 



But is he to conclude that he has sounded the system of 

 stellar creations to its remotest depths, and that beyond these 

 boundaries, there are no more vestiges of the Creator's 

 energy 7 Let him augment the optical power but one degree 

 more, and perhaps in the dim and awful distance he will be- 

 hold a faint and scarcely discernible speck or streak of whitish 

 light. In the excitement of irrepressible curiosity, he hastens 

 to direct to the spot the largest telescope the observatory 

 affords, and that same whitish spot glows into myriads of beau- 

 tiful stars another galaxy or Milky Way another firma- 

 ment, perchance, displaying its glories to its own unnumbered 

 worlds, and pealing its own notes of silent harmony, respon- 

 sive to the movements of all kindred systems ! 



As by the indefatigable exertions of the two Herschels, the 

 heavens have been swept by the telescope in all directions, 

 more than two thousand five hundred of these isolated stellar 

 systems have been brought to light, some smaller and some 

 larger than the grand cluster in the midst of which our own 

 sun and system are situated. 



Let us now look at some of the phenomena which these vast 

 starry congregations present, and from which inference may 

 be drawn as to whether, in regard to their internal structure 

 and laws, and hence their modes of origin, they have any thing 

 in common with our own solar system, and whether the anal- 

 ogies of one may be applied in unfolding the mysteries of the 

 other. 



And the first thing that naturally attracts attention in such 



