830 B. A. Gould—Number and Distribution 
accordance is not such as to warrant any great faith in the 
correctness of our assumptions, yet a certain approximation in 
the numbers cannot be denied, extending apparently as far as 
the 8th magnitude, if we assume the numbers of the Durch- 
for any of those rough estimates which are needed in cosmo- 
logical inquiries regarding these numbers. As soon as We 
have extended our researches to that distance at which the 
agglomeration of stars in the Milky Way begins to be appecia- 
ble, all further inquiries of this character are futile, and it 
star-gauges in the poorest regions of the sky, he fixes upon a 
magnitude not far from 11! as indicating the outer limit of this 
equable distribution, and thus assigns 4: millions as the proba- 
ble number of stars within this limit. To me neither premise 
appears very tenable. If the influence of the Milky Way is not 
appreciable even for stars of the 9th magnitude, then the num- 
ber of stars at a less distance than the limit of galactic agglome- 
ration Is not even approximately conformable to geometric pro- 
gression ; so that these inferences from the star-gauges must be 
illusory. The rapid increase in the number of stars after pass- 
ing the 9th magnitude may be partially accounted for by the 
difficulty of estimating magnitudes correctly, near the inferior 
