166 Star anfr Meatber 



exceptionally keen vision ; Heiss is said to have been 

 able to see 3903 stars from mid-European latitudes. 

 But even to those casual observers who know nothing 

 of telescopic and photographic stars, there is always 

 the feeling that hosts of others are behind those stars 

 which they can see shining down upon them on a 

 clear night. To them the orbs of heaven are mys- 

 teriously multitudinous. The Milky Way itself, 

 though so nebulous, undoubtedly conveys the im- 

 pression of being the combined light of millions of 

 stars. When Belt was in Nicaragua, he wrote : " The 

 trembling stars peeped out from the vault of heaven, 

 and soon a million distant orbs proclaimed that the 

 world was but a grain of dust in the vast universe, that 

 the things of earth were but for a moment, and, as a 

 shadow, would pass away." One can understand the 

 impression of " a million distant orbs " in the skies of 

 Nicaragua. It is probable that the Milky Way was 

 shining with uncommon splendour. 



