290 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF 



near the equator, or even south of it; but the reason of this 

 is to be ascribed to atmospheric differences, and to the 

 presence of vapours near the horizon reflecting white light. 

 In the interior of southern Arabia, the azure of the ce- 

 lestial vault, and the great dryness of the atmosphere, must 

 have favoured the recognition of the Magellanic clouds. 

 The probability that such was the case is shewn by exam- 

 ples of the visibility of comets' tails in clear daylight between 

 the tropics, and even in more southern latitudes. 



The arrangement of the stars near the southern pole into 

 new constellations belongs to the 17th century. What the 

 Dutch navigators, Petrus Theodori of Embden, and Fre- 

 deric Houtman, who (1596 1599) was a prisoner to the 

 king of Bantam and Atschin, in Java and Sumatra, had ob- 

 served with imperfect instruments, was laid down in the 

 celestial charts of Hondius Bleaw (Jansonius Csesius) and 

 Bayer. 



The more unequal distribution of the masses of light 

 gives to that zone of the southern heavens, between the pa- 

 rallels of 50 and 80, which is so rich in crowded nebulae 

 and clusters of stars, a peculiar, and one might almost say a 

 picturesque character; a charm arising from the grouping 

 of the stars of the first and second magnitude, and from the 

 intervention of regions which, to the naked eye, appear dark 

 and desert. These singular contrasts, the Milky Way, 

 which at several parts of its course shews a greatly increased 

 brilliancy, the insulated, revolving, rounded Magellanic 

 clouds, and the " coal bags/' of which the largest is so 

 near to a fine constellation, increase the variety of this na- 

 tural picture, and rivet the attention of susceptible spec- 

 tators to particular regions in the southern celestial hemis- 



