ON A CHART OF 324,198 STARS. Ir is well known that, according to the theory of the universe enunciated by Sir W. Herschel in 1785,-that theory which is commonly, but erroneously, described as the outcome of his labours amid the star-depths, the stars visible to the unaided eye are included within a space which bears an exceedingly minute proportion to the dimensions of the galaxy itself. Herschel's original drawing of a section of the galaxy-as conceived by him in 1785-is before me as I write. It extends across a folding sheet in a quarto volume. On the same scale, he says, the distance of the nearest fixed star would be no more than the 80th part of an inch, so that probably all the stars which in the finest nights we are able to distinguish with the naked eye may be comprehended within a sphere,' in the middle of this picture of our galaxy, of less than half a quarter of an inch radius.' It was with reference to this view that in the paper called 'Notes on Star Streams,' which forms the first of the present series, I pointed out that the stars of the first five orders of magnitude, only, show too marked a tendency to follow the direction of that great star-stream, the Milky Way, for the flat-disc theory to be admissible. I then noted, and I am careful to mention the point, because objections have been urged which would imply that I had forgotten it,—that the first five orders of stars could give but very imperfect evidence if the accepted views about star distribution were just. But 'it is on that very fact,' I added, 'that I wish to dwell. If any connexion does appear between the configuration of our galaxy, and the arrangement of stars which are assumed to be much nearer to us than the Milky Way, it will be obvious that we must somewhat modify our views.' I was not then aware that the astronomer Piazzi had noted the same fact, though he had dealt rather with statistical evidence than with the more direct evidence I adduced from my star-charting. Nor was I then aware that Struve had followed up Piazzi's hint in the introduction to the Catalogus Regiomontanus,' and that he had been led to precisely my own conclusion,-viz., that the observed distribution of the stars of the leading orders of magnitude is incompatible with the accepted or text-book theory of the Sidereal System. Still less was I then aware, though I had carefully read through all Sir W. Herschel's papers on the heavens, that in his later papers he virtually abandoned the theory of 1785. This fact had wholly escaped my notice, as I believe it escapes the notice of nearly all who give to those papers but a single perusal, however carefully that perusal may be made. It was only on a careful re-investigation of the whole series of Sir W. Herschel's papers (well worth and indeed requiring many readings) that I observed how completely his views changed some fifteen years or so after the enunciation of the theory of 1785. Somewhat later I found that Struve had been led, by a second reading of Herschel's papers, to a similar conclusion. For, in his Études d'Astronomie Stellaire,' in which he extended his statistical inquiries to stars down to the 9th magnitude, he remarks that he had been chiefly led to this ulterior discussion by a re-examination (une |