at the Cape of Good Hope. 99 
: are visible in those latitudes, has reference to its situation with 
F- respect to the Milky Way; the numbers contained in a given 
8 space, as a quarter of a degree, rapidly increasing as we approach 
Le this zone on both sides; and that the visible firmament of stars 
eS belong to and form part of a vast stratwm, or considerably flatten- 
. ed and unsymmetrical congeries of stars, in which our system is 
ply, though excentrically, plunged, being situated near a point 
where the stratum divides itself into two branches. Pursuing a 
a similar investigation in the southern hemisphere, Sir John Her- 
schel made 2300 gauges, embracing so many distinct fields of 
view, and comprising 68948 stars actually enumerated. In con- 
formity to what had been observed by his Father, he found the 
average number of stars at points most remote from the Milky 
Way, only 6 in a field, while, in the immediate vicinity of the 
Milky Way, the average number is 59, and the rates of increase 
isible heavens, are all arranged 
much greater than this, for large tracts of the Milly Way are so 
crowded as to defy counting the gauges, by reason not of the 
smallness, but of the number of stars. 
The observations of Sir John Herschel on Halley’s comet, 
observed amounting to 14-7 in two hours and a quarter. Indeed, 
So rapid was the augmentation of volume that the comet mag: 
almost be said to grow. Secondly, the preservation of the same 
regular geometrical form of the distorted and dilating envelope ; 
thirdly, the rapid disappearance of the coma; and fourthly, the 
increase in density and relative brightness of the nucleus. 
_ The concluding chapter ‘gives a series of observations on the 
remarkable clusters of Solar Spots, which appeared on the Sun’s 
disk in the years 1836 and 1837. Of these Sir John took accu- 
tate drawings, thirteen of which are inserted among the engrav- 
ings at the end of the volume; and he retains the rest, and an- 
hexes a list of them, in case it should ever be considered neces- 
_ _ Sary to appeal to any of them as records of the state of the Sun’s 
‘Surface at that time. We are happy to find among the list (though 
