DISTRIBUTION OF THE FIXED STARS. 117 



ions of stars in the Milky Way might be seen by his still 

 more powerful forty-feet reflcctiiif^ telescope.* 



After a careful consideration of all the fixed stars, wheth- 

 er visible to the naked eye or merely telescopic, whose po- 

 sitions are determined, and which are recorded in catalogues, 

 we turn to their distribution and grouping in the vault of 

 neaven. 



As we have already observed, these stellar bodies, from 

 the inconsiderable and exceedingly slow (real and apparent) 

 change of position exhibited by some of them — partly owing 

 to precession and to the diflerent influences of the progression 

 of our solar system, and partly to their own proper motion — 

 may be regarded as landmarks in the boundless regions of 

 space, enabling the attentive observer to distinguish all bod- 

 ies that miove among them with a greater velocity or in an 

 opposite direction — consequently, all which are allied to tel- 

 escopic comets and planets. The first and predominating 

 interest excited by the contemplation of the heavens is di- 

 rected to the fixed stars, owing to the multiplicity and over- 

 M'helming mass of these cosmical bodies ; and it is by them 

 that our highest feelings of admiration are called forth. 

 The orbits of the planetary bodies appeal rather to inquiring 

 reason, and, by presenting to it complicated problems, tend 

 to promote the development of thought in relation to astron- 

 omy. 



Amid the innumerable multitude of great and small stars, 

 which seem scattered, as it were by chance, throughout the 

 vault of heaven, even the rudest nations separate single 

 (and almost invariably the same) groups, among which cer- 

 tain bright stars catch the observer's eye, either by their 

 proximity to each other, their juxtaposition, or, in some cases, 

 by a kind of isolation. This fact has been confirmed by re- 

 cent and careful examinations of several of the languages of 

 so-called savage tribes. Such groups excite a vague sense 

 of the mutual relation of parts, and have thus led to their 

 receiving names, which, although varying among diflerent 

 races, were generally derived from organic terrestrial ob- 

 jects. Amid the forms with which fancy animated the 

 waste and silent vault of heaven, the earliest groups thus 

 distinguished were the seven-starred Pleiades, the seven stars 

 of the Great Bear, subsequently (on account of the repetition 

 of the same form) the constellation of the Lesser Bear, the 



* Compai-e Struve, Etude's iV Astr. Stellaire, 1847, p. 66 and 72 ; Cos- 

 mos, vol. i., p. 150 ; and IMadlec Astr., 4te Aufl., $ 417. 



