STAR STREAMS AND STAR SPRATS. 
411 
even in the intricate constitution of the nebulae the existence 
of streams and sprays, sometimes spiral, sometimes but slightly 
curved, sometimes disposed with singular regularity, at others 
extending in irregularly shaped branches, growing gradually 
fainter and fainter until they am at length lost altogether 
either by diffusion or through extreme faintness. 
But it remains to be considered that we have strong evidence 
in favour of the view that the Milky Way itself is but a stream, 
or rather a congeries of streams of stars. The evidence on 
which Sir William Herschel rested his theory that the galaxy 
is of the shape of a cloven flat disc, was abandoned by himself 
Fig. 5. 
A portion of one of Cliacornac’s ecliptic charts, the centre being- in S., and 
23h. 26m. E. A. 
during the later years of his career as an observer ; and he 
recognised clearly that some of those rich nodules of the Milky 
Way which can be seen in the northern heavens are real aggre- 
gations of stars (not vast depths along which the stars are 
arrayed as in a sort of procession),, and that such aggregations 
approach in figure to the spherical form. In the southern 
heavens Sir John Herschel recognised galactic regions to 
which Sir William Herschel’s later mode of reasoning could 
be applied even more convincingly. Now precisely the same 
reasoning by which Sir W. Herschel was led to regard the rich 
clustering regions of the Milky Way in Cygnus as spherical in 
form, seems to show that the well-marked portions of the 
galactic stream are really stream-shaped. And this view of 
the galaxy, which might seem to agree ill with the usual 
