AN EVENING WITH THE TELESCOPE. 121 



that the crape ring is so subtle an object that multitudes 

 of astronomers gazed at Saturn for ages and never saw it 

 at all. Even the immortal William Herschel, with his ex- 

 cellent instruments and with his indefatigable perseverance, 

 never noticed the crape ring. Let the casual visitor bear 

 this in mind, and not expect to see Saturn exhibited as a 

 vast panorama which he that runs can read ; let him rather 

 expect to find an exquisitely wrought miniature, which 

 will demand the closest attention, but which will reveal 

 ever new beauties to those who know how to woo the real 

 loveliness of nature in the only way in which it can be 

 won. 



Widely different, indeed, are the attractions of the next 

 object we have to mention from those of which we have 

 just been speaking. Saturn is a planet lighted by a sun, 

 while the globular cluster of stars in the constellation of 

 Perseus is itself a group of suns. 



Girdling the entire heaven is that beautiful but some- 

 what irregular band of light, the Milky Way. It is com- 

 posed of myriads of stars, too small and too faint, by 

 reason of their vast distance, to be severally visible ; but 

 their different rays unite to give us the beautiful " Via 

 Lactea." This is a star cluster on the grandest scale, but 

 the several components are too much scattered to furnish 

 us with a brilliant or effective telescopic picture. 



In the sword handle of Perseus there are two densely- 

 packed groups of stars, which form the two celebrated 

 clusters. They are visible to the unaided eye as faintly 

 luminous spots, but in a grand telescope they unfold into 

 spectacles of the most gorgeous sublimity. Each of the 

 two clusters and they lie close together is sufficient to 



