270 Proceedings of the British Association. 



smaller portions down with rigorous accuracy ; yet as he had re- 

 peatedly gone over them, and verified them with much care, though 

 by estimation, he did not think the drawing would be found to need 

 much future correction. 



Sir J. Herschel said he could not explain to the Section the strong 

 feelings and emotion with which he saw this old and familiar acquain- 

 tance in the very new dress in which the more powerful instrument 

 of Lord Rosse had presented it. He then rapidly sketched on a 

 sheet of paper the appearance under which he had been accustomed 

 to see it, which was a nucleus surrounded by a ring-shaped nebulous 

 light, with a nebulous curve stretching from one part of the ring to 

 nearly the opposite. This had very strongly suggested to his mind 

 what our system of stars, surrounded by the milky way, dividing into 

 its two great branches, would appear if seen from a sufficient dis- 

 tance. But now this nebula is shown in such a way as greatly to 

 modify, if not totally to change, former impressions. In the first 

 place, under the examination of the more powerful instrument the 

 nucleus became distinctly resolved into its constituent stars, which 

 his telescope was not powerful enough to accomplish ; and it now 

 turned out that the appearance which he had taken for a second 

 branch of the ring, was a nebulous offshoot, stretching from the 

 principal nebula, and connecting it with a neighbouring much smaller 

 one. This was to him quite a new feature in the history of nebulae. 

 The general appearance of the nebula, as now presented, strongly 

 suggested the leading features of the shell of a snail rather than a 

 ring. He felt a delight he could not express when he contemplated 

 the achievements likely to be performed by this splendid telescope ; 

 and he felt no doubt that, by opening up new scenes of the grandeur 

 of creation, it would tend to elevate and ennoble our conceptions of 

 the great and beneficent Architect ; the raising of our thoughts to 

 Whom should be the aim of all our researches, as the advancing of 

 our knowledge of Him, and the grateful tracing of the benefits and 

 blessings with which He had surrounded us, was the noblest aim of 

 all that deserved the name of Science. 



* On the Heat of the Solar Spots/ by Prof. Henry, of Princeton 

 College, New Jersey. — Sir D. Brewster read an extract of a letter 

 which he had just received from Prof. Henry, who had recently been 



