NEBULA 305 



maintains the same view, as well in his opening address 

 before the British Association at Cambridge in 1845, as in 

 the Outlines of Astronomy, 1849, where he expresses him- 

 self as follows : "The magnificent reflecting telescope con- 

 structed by Lord Rosse, six feet in aperture, has resolved or 

 rendered resolvable multitudes of nebulce which had resisted 

 all inferior powers. . . . Although, therefore, nebula? do exist 

 which, even in this powerful telescope, appear as nebula?, 

 without any sign of resolution, it may very reasonably be 

 doubted whether there be really any essential physical dis- 

 tinction between nebulas and clusters of stars." * 



sur les grands Telescopes de Lord Oxmantown, aujourd'hui 

 Earl of Rosse (JBibliotheque universelle de Geneve., torn. Ivii. 

 1845, pp. 342-357), we find the following passage: "Sir 

 James South rappelle que jamais il n'a vu de representations 

 sideriales aussi magnifiques que eel les que lui ofl'rait 1'instru- 

 ment de Parsonstown; qu'une bonne partie des nebuleuses 

 se presentaient comme des amas ou groupes d'etoiles, tandis 

 que quelques autres, a ses yeux du moins, n'offraient aucune 

 apparence de resolution en etoiles." " Sir James South 

 remarks that he never beheld more magnificent representa- 

 tions of the stars than those he saw in the Parsonstown 

 telescope, and that a great number of nebula? appeared like 

 clusters or groups of stars, whilst others, at least to his 

 sight, presented no appearance of resolution." 



86 See Outlines, pp. 597, 598 ; also the Report of the 

 Fifteenth Meeting of the British Association held at Cambridge 

 in June, 1845, p. xxxvi. : "By for the major part," says 

 Sir John Herschel, " probably, at least, nine-tenths, of the 

 nebulous contents of the heavens consist of nebula? of spherical 

 or elliptical forms, presenting every variety of elongation and 

 central condensation. Of these a great number have been 

 resolved into distant stars (by the reflector of the Earl of 

 Rosse) and a vast multitude more have been found to present 

 that mottled appearance which renders it almost a matter of 

 certainty that an increase of optical power would show them 



