Conjlruciton of the Heavens, 2 1 9 



common telefcope, he begins to fufped that all the milkinefs 

 of the bright path which furrounds the fphere may be owing 

 to ftars. He perceives a few clufters of them in various parts 

 of the heavens, and finds alfo that there are a kind of nebu- 

 lous patches ; but ftill his views are not extended fo far as to 

 reach to the end of the ftratum in which he is fituated, fo that 

 he looks upon thefe patches as belonging to that fyflem which 

 to him feems to comprehend every celeftial obje£l. He now 

 mcreafes his power of vifion, and, applying himfelf to a clofe 

 obfervatlon, finds that the milky way is indeed no other than a 

 qolle5:ion of very fmall flars. He perceives that thofe objects 

 which had been called nebulae are evidently nothing but clufters 

 of ftars. He finds their number increafe upon him, and when 

 he refolves one iiebula into ftars he difcovers ten new ones 

 which he cannot refolve, He then forms the idea of immenfe 

 ftrata of fixed flars, of clufters of ftars and of nebula (^) ; till^ 

 going on with fuch interefting obfervations, he now perceives 

 that all thefe appearances muft naturally arife from the con- 

 fined fituation in which we are placed* Confined it mayjuftly 

 be called J though in no lefs a fpace than what before appeared 

 to be the whole region of the fixed ftars ; but which now has 

 affumed the fhape of a crookedly branching nebula ; not, in- 

 deed, one of the leaft, but perhaps very far from being the 

 moft confiderable of thofe numberlefs clufters that enter into 

 the conftrudiou of the heaven s* 



"Result of Obfervaiionsk 



1 (hall now endeavour to fhew, that the theoretical view of 

 the fyftem of the nniverfe, which has been expofed in the 

 (tf) See a former paper 00 the Conftrudion of the Heavens. 



F f 2 fore* 



