MILKY WAY. 195 



world of our solar system. The Milky Way cuts tne equator 

 in Monoceros, between Procyon and Sirius, R. A. 6h. 54m.. 

 (for 1800), and in the left hand of Antinous, R. A. 19h. 15m. 

 The Milky Way, therefore, divides the celestial sphere into 

 two somewhat unequal halves, whose areas are nearly as 8 to 

 9. In the smaller portion lies the vernal solstice. The Milky 

 Way varies considerably in breadth in different parts of 

 its course." At its narrowest, and at the same time most 

 brilliant, portion, between the prow of Argo and the Cross, 

 and nearest to the Antarctic pole, its width is scarcely 3 

 or 4; at other parts it is 16, and in its divided portion, 

 between Ophiuchus and Antinous, as much as 22. William 

 Herschel has observed, that judging from his star-gaugings, the 

 Milky Way would appear in many regions to have 6 or 7 

 greater width than we should be disposed to ascribe to it from 

 the extent of stellar brightness visible to the naked eye.** 



Huygens, who examined the Milky Way with his twenty- 

 three feet refractor, declared, as early as the year 1656, that 

 the milky \vhiteness of the whole Galactic zone was not to be 

 ascribed to irresolvable nebulosity. A more careful application 

 of reflecting telescopes of great dimensions and power of light 

 has since proved, with more certainty, the correctness of the 

 conjectures advanced by Democritus and Manilius, in re- 

 ference to the ancient path of Phaeton, that this milky 

 glimmering light was solely owing to the accumulated strata 

 of small stars, and not to the scantily interspersed nebulae. 

 This effusion of light is the same at points, where the whole 

 can be perfectly resolved into stars, and even in stars which 

 are projected on a black ground, wholly free from ne- 

 bulous vapour. 84 It is a remarkable feature of the Milky 



81 Outlines, p. 529 ; Schubert, Ast., th. iii. s. 71. 

 83 Struve, Etudes (TAstr. stellaire, p. 41. 

 a Cosmos, vol. i. p. 140. 



** " Stars standing on a clear black ground." (Observations 

 o2 



