Notes on Star- Streams. 7 



obvious that if our suu is placed within such a stratum as is 

 exhibited in Figs. 3, 4, and 5, no evidence whatever as to the 

 structure of that stratum can be afforded by considering the 

 comparatively few stars included within the small central circle. 

 But it is this very fact on which I wish to dwell. If any 

 connection does appear between the configuration of our 

 galaxy, and the arrangement of stars which are assumed to be 

 much nearer to us than the Milky Way, it will be obvious that 

 we must somewhat modify the views illustrated by these figures. 

 Now, taking Figs. 1 and 2, I think one can trace a con- 

 nection between the stars there depicted, and that stream of 

 nebulous light which the view we are examining teaches us to 

 consider as at an indefinite distance beyond those stars. In 

 the northern portion, perhaps, the connection is not very 

 remarkable. We see that a large number of the brighter stars 

 lie on or near the Milky Way, but it would require the exami- 

 nation of a somewhat wider zone than that here presented to 

 exhibit this arrangement as positive evidence of aggregation. 

 However, I think no one who has attentively examined the 

 glories of Orion, the richly -jewelled Taurus, the singular 

 festoon of stars in Perseus, and the closely-set stars of Cassio- 

 peia, but must have felt that the association of splendour along 

 this streak of the heavens is not wholly accidental. The stars 

 here seem to form a system, and a system which one can 

 hardly conceive to be wholly unconnected with the neighbour- 

 ing stream of the Milky Way. But in the southern portion the 

 arrangement is yet more remarkable and significant. From 

 Scorpio, over the feet of the Centaur, over the keel of Argo, 

 to Canis Major, there is a clustering of brilliant stars, which it 

 seems wholly impossible not to connect with the background 

 of nebulous light. It is noteworthy, also, that this stream of 

 stars merges into the stream commencing with the group of 

 Orion already noticed. Nor is this all. It is impossible not to 

 be struck by the marked absence of stars in that region of the 

 sky which lies in the upper right-hand corner of Fig. 2. One 

 has the impression that the stars have been attracted towards 

 the region of the stream indicated, so as to leave this space 

 comparatively bare. 



Now, this last circumstance would appear less remarkable 

 if the paucity of stars here noticed were common also in parts 

 of the heavens far removed from the Milky Way. But this is 

 not the case. Beyond this very region, which we find so bare 

 of stars, we come upon a region in which stars are clustered in 

 considerable density, a region including Crater, Corvns, and 

 Virgo, with the conspicuous stars Algores, Alkes, and Spica. 

 But, what is very remarkable, while we can trace a connection 

 between the stream of bright stars in Fig. 2, and the stream 



