184 SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



line passing from Almaach to Algol in the head of Medusa, about 4 to the east of the 

 former star. It is at a bewildering distance from us, and is no doubt a great congregation 

 of suns and planetary systems, equal in extent to our own firmament. Between /3 and y 

 Lyrae, exactly midway, there is a remarkably well-defined annular nebula, one of the 



curiosities of the heavens, presenting the appearance 

 of a flat elliptic solid ring, readily seen with a telescope 

 of moderate power. The two axes of the ellipse are 

 to each other nearly in the proportion of 4 to 5. The 

 central region is not entirely dark, but has a faint 

 hazy light spread over it. The distance of 950 times 

 that of Sirius has been assigned to this object. 



It was one of the great tasks of Herschel to gauge 

 the heavens, and to ascertain the relative distances of 



Elongated Nebula. the reso lved and resolvable clusters ; and, as many of 



those views which were deemed wild and visionary by his compeers, have, since his day, been 

 triumphantly established, his enquiries and conclusions in general are entitled to attention 

 and confidence. To the centres of the easily resolved spherical nebulae of the largest 

 diameter, he assigned a remoteness 400 times that of Sirius. Those of half their diameter, 

 whose stars appear to be more closely wedged, he supposed to be double the distance of 

 the former ; and at four times their distance, or 2400 times more remote than Sirius, he 

 placed those clusters which plainly indicate resolvability, but whose components are not 

 with our present means apprehensible. In the last case we have an extent of space equal 

 to at least 45,000,000,000,000,000, or forty-five thousand billions of miles. The dumb- 

 bell nebula is certainly not within that range, and probably much farther off. Light, 

 which comes to us from the sun in eight minutes flashing along at the immense rate of 

 190,000 miles in a second of time, or nearly twelve millions of miles in a minute, would 

 require upwards of seven thousand years to perform its passage across the gulf ! But 

 Herschel went to a still more tremendous depth in space that of 35,175 times the 

 distance of Sirius as the site of some clusters; a comparison with which the distance 

 of the stars themselves from us, mighty as it appears, shrinks into insignificance ! Such is 

 Creation ! or at least that part of it with which we have some acquaintance. These are 

 views which render the language of Coleridge not chargeable with extravagance : "It 

 is surely not impossible," said that highly gifted man, " that to some infinitely superior 

 Being the whole universe may be as one plain the distance between planet and planet 

 being only as the pores in a grain of sand, and the spaces between system and system no 

 greater than the intervals between one grain and a grain adjacent! " 



But nebulas, properly so called, have quite a different character from the two classes 

 which have been noticed, those which resolve into closely packed clusters of stars, or are 

 capable of being so resolved by mightier instruments than have yet been brought to 

 bear upon them. They are objects which in their physical constitution more exactly 

 answer to their title a cloud or mist, being luminous portions, or modifications of 

 matter, extending over immense regions of space, and presenting very varying appear- 

 ances. It was indeed supposed at first that all faintly illuminated spots in the heavens 

 were stellar constitutions, so remote that no individual object could be seen, but only the 

 general light which the whole afforded ; but subsequent observation has disproved this 

 idea, for the nebulous matter exhibits appearances widely different from what the aggre- 

 gation of an immense number of minute stars might be expected to produce. 



A remarkable nebulosity appears in the constellation Orion, in the middle of the sword, 

 which a good eye may discern without the assistance of a glass. Huygens was the 

 first to describe this object, though Galileo is said to have observed it through his tele- 



