258 Clusters and Nebulce. 



immediately found in the galaxy between Cassiopea and the 

 principal stars of Perseus (see Intellectual Observer, xi. 373). 

 Even small telescopes will here disclose a scene of wonder. 

 Smyth has described it as a brilliant mass of stars, from 7th to 

 15th mags., filling the whole field of view, and emitting a 

 peculiarly splendid light. In the centre, he says, is "a coronet, 

 or rather ellipse, of small stars, above an 8th mag. one. . . . 

 The 7th mag. star which follows is handsome from the black- 

 ness of the space immediately around it. . . . This is fol- 

 lowed by another gorgeous group of stars from the 7th to the 

 15th mags, at about 3 m , and nearly on the parallel. It is 

 34 Ijl vi. The components gather most towards the centre, 

 but there is little disposition to form; the sprinkle, however, 

 is in a direction parallel to the equator. One of the central 

 individuals is of a fine ruby colour, and a 7th mag. in the nf is 

 of a pale garnet tint, with two sparkling but minute triplets 

 south of it. These two clusters are quite distinct, though the 

 outliers of each may be brought into the same field under rather 

 high powers; and, on the best nights, the groups and light are 

 truly admirable, affording together one of the most brilliant 

 telescopic objects in the heavens. It is impossible to contem- 

 plate them and not infer that there are other laws of aggrega- 

 tion than those which obtain among the more scattered and 

 insulated stars." 



If these clusters are, as Sir W. Herschel thought, a pro- 

 tuberant part of the Milky Way, and if magnitude is not 

 a wholly fallacious guide as to distance, the splendour of their 

 components, as compared with the average minuteness of the 

 individuals which make up the feeble light of the galaxy, 

 would indicate that they must be very much nearer to us than 

 the general situation of that zone, and that this region must 

 consequently be the foreshortened projection of a long irregular 

 stream of stars, whose direction is towards the spectator. 

 The whole of this district is truly magnificent. Whoever 

 would gain an extended idea of the infinite riches of the Crea- 

 tor's handiwork, may find it in sweeping over this, as well as 

 many other portions of the galaxy, where He has literally 



" Sowed with stars the heaven thick as a field." 



Our second object will be one of an entirely different 

 character; less brilliant, indeed, but mysterious in the highest 

 degree : — 



II. The driiii Nebula in Orion. Beneath the lowest, or 

 most easterly of the three gems of Orion's belt, wc see a 

 depending lino of smaller stars, forming the sivord,* one among 



• In 1807, the University of Leipzig formed a new constellation out of the 

 belt and sword of Orion, to be called by the name of Napoleon. What a melan- 

 clioly, but instructive, instance of human weakness! 



