OF THE COSMOS. MILKY WAY. 125 



degrees broader than the brightness visible to the naked 

 eye. () 



Huygens, who examined the Milky Way with his 23 feet 

 refractor, had denied, as early as 1656, that its milky 

 whiteness was to be attributed to unresolvable nebulae. A 

 more careful application of reflecting telescopes of the 

 largest dimensions and greatest power of light, have subse- 

 quently proved wifh still more certainty, what Democritus 

 and Manilius had already conjectured respecting the ancient 

 path of Phaeton, viz. that the milky brightness was to be 

 ascribed solely to the crowded strata of small stars, and not 

 to the scantily interspersed nebulae. The general white or shin- 

 ing appearance is the same in points where all can be perfectly 

 resolved into stars, and even where these stars, thus viewed 

 through the telescope, are seen to be projected on a black 

 ground, entirely without any nebulous light. ( 25 ) It is in 

 general a remarkable characteristic of the Milky Way, that 

 globular clusters of stars, and nebulous patches of a regular 

 oval shape, are equally rare in it, ( 251 ) whereas at a great 

 distance from it both are congregated in large numbers ; 

 and in the Magellanic clouds we even find isolated stars, 

 globular clusters in all states of condensation, and nebulae 

 both of definite oval and of wholly irregular form, inter- 

 mingled. A remarkable exception to this rarity of globular 

 clusters in the Milky Way occurs in a region of it which is 

 situated between E. A. 16h. 45m. and 18h. 44m. ; between 

 the Altar, the Southern Crown, the head and body of 

 Sagittarius, and the tail of the Scorpion. Between the 

 stars e and 6 of the Scorpion, there is even one of those 

 annular nebula which are so exceedingly rare in the 

 southern celestial hemisphere. ( 252 ) In the field of view of 



