100 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOG1CAL PORTION 



used in the celebrated star-gaugings or sweeps, with a 

 magnifying power of 1 80, Struve takes for the zones within 

 30 on either side of the Equator, 5800000 stars; and, for the 

 whole heavens, 20374000 stars. With a still more powerful 

 instrument, the 40-feet reflector, Sir William Herschel sup- 

 posed that 18 millions of stars would be visible in the Milky 

 Way alone. () 



Having considered the number of fixed stars, whether 

 telescopic or visible to the naked eye, which have been 

 entered in catalogues, together with the determination 

 of their places, we now turn to their distribution and grouping 

 on the celestial vault. We have seen that, from their small 

 and exceedingly slow (apparent and real) change of place, 

 due partly to precession and the unequal influence of the 

 progressive movement of our solar system, and partly to their 

 own proper motion, they may be regarded in the light of 

 fixed marks in space, enabling the attentive observer to 

 recognise all bodies moving amongst them, either at a morfc 

 rapid rate or in a different direction, as planets and tele- 

 scopic comets. In gazing on the vault of heaven, our first 

 and leading interest is attracted by the bodies which by 

 their multitude and mass fill space, it is the fixed stars 

 which claim and receive the homage of our admiration : 

 but the orbits of the moving planetary bodies speak more to 

 the investigating reason, to which they present complicated 

 problems, whose study promotes and accelerates intellectual 

 development in the domain of astronomy. 



From the multitude of stars, large and small, which 

 appear intermingled, as it were by accident, on the celestial 

 vault, the rudest tribes of men (as several now carefully- 



