116 THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION, 
NEBULZ AND STAR CLUSTERS. 
Delivered before the Astronomical Section of the Hamilton Scientific 
Association, March 29th, 1904. 
BY G. PARRY JENKINS. 
On March 29th our members were delighted with an address 
on the above subject by Mr. G. Parry Jenkins. 
The speaker gave in popular language a description of the best. 
known Nebulz and most familiar clusters from his personal obser- 
vations with the various telescopes he had employed at different 
times ; while the numerous experiments he made, at the close, by 
burning various chemicals, helped materially to explain how the com- 
position of both Nebulee and Star Clusters was revealed by “reading 
the light” from the Spectroscope. 
He said the word Nebula was derived from the Latin and 
signified a little cloud, on which account all the misty patches of 
light we come across in the sky are appropriately termed Nebule. 
In our hemisphere a few Nebulz could be detected without optical 
aid. One was the great Nebula in Orion, of which several magnifi- 
cent drawings and photographs were exhibited. Another was that 
in Andromeda, and was illustrated by Dr. Isaac Roberts’ famous 
photograph, taken December 29th, 1888. Through the courtesy of 
the late Professor Pritchard, of Oxford, Mr. Jenkins was privileged 
to see this photograph a few days after it was taken, and the Profes- 
sor expressed the opinion that no amount of time during which a 
normal eye could endure to gaze on a field ina 15-inch mirror, 
would disclose all the traces of feeble lights brought into easy view 
on photographs taken by the aid of such an instrument. The ex- 
planation lay in the fact that the impressions made on a photographic 
plate were cumulative, while those on the retina of the eye were only 
transient. It was thus possible to actually photograph the invisible. 
It had been proved that the Nebula surrounding the trapezium 
of Orion was composed of glowing gas, probably containing the raw 
material of a new world. It was a remarkable fact, that long before 
the famous Nebular Hypothesis was framed by LaPlace, the immor- 
