MOVEMENTS IN THE STAR-DEPTHS. 73 



other parts of the heavens, to see whether perchance a 

 like feature might not present itself elsewhere. 



Having been myself led by other inquiries than 

 Madler's to the conclusion that the stellar motions 

 might afford useful information as to the structure of 

 the heavens, I thought it desirable to make a chart 

 showing all the known stellar motions in such a way 

 that wherever a community of direction exists it would 

 be at once apparent in the chart. Little arrows affixed 

 to the star-discs on the map, showed by their direction 

 and length the nature and amount of the stellar thv^art 

 motions. When the map was completed, it was easy 

 to see that the community of motion in Taurus was 

 only one instance, and by no means the most striking 

 which could be recognised, of a phenomenon which I 

 have since called star-drift. Certain sets of stars are 

 seen to be moving athwart the heavens, nearly in the 

 same direction, and nearly at the same rate, in such 

 sort as to show that they form distinct families of suns, 

 travelling onwards each family as a single group 

 through the celestial spaces. 



If this view is just, Madler's theory is at once shown 

 to be unsound ; since the stars in Taurus thus appear 

 as simply a drifting family of stars, one among several 

 such families. 



All that was required to make the proof convincing 

 was, that one of these sets of drifting stars should be 

 shown to be either approaching the earth or receding 

 from it as a single group. 



Now, among the instances of star-drift, there was 



