DISTRIBUTION OF THE FIXED STARS. 157 



ployed in making the celebrated star-gauges or sweeps, that a 

 magnifying power of 180 would give 5800000 for the number 

 of stars lying within the zones extending 30 on either side of 

 the equator, and 20374000 for the whole heavens. Sir 

 William Herschel conjectured that 18 millions of stars in the 

 Milky Way, might be seen by his still more powerful forty- 

 feet reflecting telescope. 8 * 



After a careful consideration of all the fixed stars, whether 

 visible to the naked eye or merely telescopic, whose position? 

 are determined, and which are recorded in catalogues, we tun 

 to their distribution and grouping in the vault of heaven. 



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 pre- 

 cession and to the different 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 bodies that 

 move among them with a greater velocity or in an opposite 

 direction consequently all which are allied to telescopic 

 comets and planets. The first and predominating interest ex- 

 cited by the contemplation of the heavens is directed to the 

 fixed stars, owing to the multiplicity and overwhelming 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 astronomy. 



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 



* Compare Struve, Etudes d'Astr. stellaire, 1847, pp. 66 and 

 72; Cosmos, vol. i. p. 140; and Madler, Astr., 4te Aufl. 417. 



