84 Dr. Herschel’s Obfervations 
the corufcations of the eleCtrical fluid in the aurora borealis ? 
Or to the more magnificent cone of the zodiacal light as we 
fee it in fpring or autumn? The latter, notwithftanding I 
have obferved it to reach at lead 90 degrees from the fun, is 
yet of fo little extent and brightnefs as probably not to be 
perceived even by the inhabitants of Saturn or the Georgian 
planet, and muft be utterly invifible at the remotenefs of the 
neareft fixed ftar. 
More extenfive views may be derived from this proof of the 
exiftence of a fhining matter. Perhaps it has been too haftily 
furmifed that all milky nebulofity, of which there is fo much 
in the heavens, is owing to ftarlight only. Thefe nebulous 
ftars may ferve as a clue to unravel other myfterious phseno- 
mena. If the fhining fluid that furrounds them is not fo eflen- 
tially connected with thefe nebulous ftars but that it can alfo 
exift without them, which feems to be fufficiently probable, 
and will be examined hereafter, we may with great facility 
explain that very extenfive, telelcopic nebulofity, which, as I 
mentioned before, is expanded over more than fixty degrees of 
the heavens, about the conftellation of Orion ; a luminous 
matter accounting much better for it than cluftering ftars at a 
diftance. In this cafe we may alfo pretty nearly guefs at its 
fituation, which muft commence fomewhere about the range of 
the ftars of the 7th magnitude, or a little farther from us, and 
extend unequally in fome places perhaps to the regions of 
thofeof the 9th, 10th, nth, and 12th. The foundation for 
this furmife is, that, not unlikely, fome of the ftars that hap- 
pen to be fituated in a more condenfed part of it, or that per- 
haps by their own attraction draw together fome quantity of 
this fluid greater than what they are intitled to by their fitua- 
tion in it, will, of courfe, aflume the appearance of cloudy 
2 ftars ; 
