414 THE MILKY WAY. [SECT, xxxvii. 



50,000 passed through the field of Sir "William Herschel's 

 telescope in the course of an hour, in a zone only two de- 

 grees hroad : in many places they are numerous beyond 

 estimation, and most of them are extremely small, on 

 account of their enormous distances. 



All the stars scattered over the sky belong to and are 

 part of the Milky Way, which forms so conspicuous a portion 

 of the firmament. It is a vast and somewhat flattened stra- 

 tum, or congeries of stars, encircling the heavens in a broad 

 band, split through one part of its circumference into two 

 streams of stars, bearing a strong resemblance to figure 5th, 

 Plate 5th. It is contorted and broken in some places, and 

 occasionally lengthened into branches stretching far into 

 space. In some directions it is unfathomable even with the 

 best telescopes ; in others there is reason to believe that it is 

 possible to see through it, and even beyond it, in its own 

 plane. There is a gradual but rapid increase in the crowd- 

 ing of the stars on each side of the Milky Way, and a re- 

 markable similarity in the law of gradation of the quantity 

 of stars towards its course. 



The solar system is deeply, though excentrically plunged 

 into this mass of stars, near that point where the circular 

 stratum splits into two streams. Sir John HerscheFs de- 

 scription of the stars of the southern hemisphere shows that 

 the Milky Way is a most magnificent object there. " The 

 general aspect of the southern circumpolar regions (includ- 

 ing in that expression 60 or 70 of south polar distance) is 

 in a high degree rich and magnificent, owing to the superior 

 brilliancy and large development of the Milky Way, which, 

 from the constellation of Orion to that of Antinous, is a 

 blaze of light, strangely interrupted, however, with vacant 

 and entirely starless patches, especially in Scorpio, near 

 a Centauri and the Cross, while to the north it fades 

 away pale and dim, and is in comparison hardly traceable. 

 I think it is impossible to view this splendid zone, with the 

 astonishingly rich and evenly distributed fringe of stars of 



