368 Notices respecting New Books. 



paratively starless interval." On p. 104 we meet with this state- 

 ment : — " If the Milky "Way be really as it seems ... a stream of 

 stars of many different orders with an enormous preponderance of 

 relatively small stars;" and on p. 194 Mr. Proctor, referring to 

 his correspondence with the late Sir John Herschel, remarks, " It 

 will be seen that Sir John Herschel here maintains at once the 

 reality of the aggregation of the brighter stars on the visible Milky 

 Way, and the justice of the statistics which related to the Milky 

 Way regarded as a zone. This is undoubtedly the true explanation 

 of the matter, as my equal-surface chartings have since abundantly 

 demonstrated." From these extracts we gather that Mr. Proctor 

 regards the Milky Way as a zone or belt of stars which includes 

 many different orders, the smaller stars preponderating ; and these 

 he endeavours to show in other parts of his essays to be greatly in- 

 ferior in size and brilliancy to the lucid stars, which he says, on 

 p. 194, " do unquestionably crowd upon the real Milky Way — that 

 altogether irregular region of star-streams and star-clusterings 

 which has been aptly compared to a band of broken cirrus clouds." 

 In several of the matters brought before the reader in these Essays 

 Mr. Proctor claims "originality of conception;" and it is of some 

 importance that these claims should be substantiated. Any one 

 looking at the beautiful charts (plate 8) showing the distribution 

 of star-clusters and nebulae with the Milky Way encompassing 

 the heavens, must come to the conclusion that the Galaxy is an ap- 

 parently reentering lucid zone ; but is this idea really new ? Is it 

 not rather the development of conceptions originating in the mind 

 of Wright, of Durham, who, supposing the sun to be plunged in a 

 vast stratum of stars of inconsiderable thickness compared with its 

 dimensions in other respects, considered that it was not difficult 

 to see that the appearance of the heavens might be explained ? Mr. 

 Proctor has been at vast pains to destroy the preexisting theories 

 of the Herschels and Struve ; but are they not successive steps in 

 the process of unravelling the complex and tangled phenomena 

 which alone are cognizable to us from our stand-point on the sur- 

 face of our little globe, circling around a star by no means, as we 

 suppose, the largest in the universe ? Might not Mr. Proctor have 

 saved himself the labour of writing down these theories ? for as- 

 suredly no man has as yet given to the world at first a perfect 

 theory of any one group of phenomena in the natural world. The 

 earlier conceptions of Wright in 1734 were moulded into shape by 

 the elder Herschel, and again those of his father by the younger 

 Herschel ; for, as Mr. Proctor states on p. 84, " In the conclusions 

 just deduced I am in agreement with Sir John Herschel, who indeed 

 says in one place that the Galaxy, looked at according to a certain 

 view, would ' come to be considered as a flat ring.' " The idea of the 

 zone or belt was entertained previously to Mr. Proctor taking up 

 his pen, the difference being (and an important difference it is) 

 that whereas Sir John Herschel considered the ring to be flat, 

 Mr. Proctor, if we mistake not, regards it as having the form 

 of a hoop, its breadth being generally at right angles to the visual 



