house." And to the angels which stood around His throne He said, "Take him, strip from him his robes of flesh; cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his nostrils, only touch not with any change his human heart, the heart that weeps and trembles." It was done and with a mighty angel for his guide the man stood ready for his infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes with the solemn flight of angel wings they passed through Zaharas of darkness, through wilderness of death, that divided the worlds of life; sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under prophetic motions from God. Then from a distance which is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a time through a shapeless film; by unutterable pace the light swept to them, they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment the rushing of planets was upon them; in a moment the blazing of suns was around them. Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed but were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left toward mighty constellations, that by self-repetitions and answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways, horizontal, upright, rested, rose, at altitude, by spans, that seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the archways, beyond memory the gates. Within were stairs that scaled the eternities around; above was below and below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body; depth was swallowed up in height insurmountable, height was swallowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite, suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights and other depths, were coming, were nearing, were at hand.

'Then the man sighed and stopped, shuddered and wept. His overladen heart uttered itself in tears, and he said, "Angel, I will go no farther; for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory of God. Let me lie down in the grave, and hide me from the persecution of the Infinite, for end I see there is none." And from all the listening stars that shone around issued a choral voice, "The man speaks truly; end there is none that ever yet we heard of!" "End is there none?" the angel solemnly demanded; "Is there indeed no end? And is this the sorrow that kills you?" But no voice answered, that he might answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens saying, "End is there none to the universe of God. Lo! also, there is no beginning."'

From the Quarterly Journal of Science for July 1872.

NOTES ON STAR-GAUGING.

As several telescopists have expressed a wish to take part in the work of star-gauging, and to be informed as to the best way of making their work effective, I venture to give a few hints on the subject.

In the first place, it is to be noted that the main object of the proposed method of observation is to obtain complete general surveys of the heavens with various apertures. It is the direct result of the researches which I have already made, that mere random star-gauging will not suffice to give just views of the structure of the sidereal system; that, on the contrary, such a process is more likely to prove deceptive than useful. What is wanted is a survey which shall include the whole heavens (eventually), or at the beginning shall include the whole of each region surveyed, without gaps or interstices. But the extent of such a survey renders it absolutely necessary that it should be conducted in a manner the least elaborate that can be devised, so only that no essential details be neglected. To map the whole heavens with telescopes of considerable light-gathering power would require an army of observers, while only a few volunteers are available; moreover, such mapping, while having a high value in other ways, would be less instructive regarded as star-gauging than a survey conducted by a few observers, each taking a considerable area. For the different powers of the observers engaged would cause noteworthy differences

in the apparent numerical distribution of stars, and such apparent differences would be confounded with the real varieties of distribution which it is the object of star-gauging to discover.

As respects the first point, completeness, I may remark that I have obtained very striking evidence on that subject. For the winter before last, with the 4inch Sheepshanks belonging to the Society, I surveyed the region of the heavens included in the parts of Taurus north of 15° North Dec., using circular gauge-fields, touching each other in R.A. Now, the results of the gauging thus conducted were so far interesting that they indicated in a very marked manner the prolongation (with increase of telescopic range) of that remarkable region poorly strewn with stars, which is shown in this part of the heavens in my chart of 324,000 stars. (See Plate XII.) But on commencing the re-examination of this part of the heavens with the same telescope and eyepiece, but a field reduced to the figure of a square, I found a marked difference in the result as respects many details, though the general distribution was not very different.'

As respects the method to be employed, I think the following notes may be useful :-

A square field is the most convenient, and the side of the square may conveniently correspond to 15' of a great circle. But this is not important—the field need not have any special size. An edge of the square should of course lie on a parallel of declination. The gauging eyepiece should be of rather low power, but not too low, especially with large instruments. The most suitable power will be indicated by what I have said as to the size of the field, if the

I had proposed to resume the survey with the same telescope (using square fields) this year. But having had one of Mr. Browning's 124-inch reflectors placed at my disposal by Lord Lindsay, I naturally prefer to devote my time to a deeper survey.

diaphragm used to reduce the field be such as to give a square not much less than the inscribed square within the original circular field. On this point, however, little need be said, as in fact each observer can consider his own convenience, and so long as the nature of the eyepiece and size of field are indicated in the gauge-book (together, of course, with the aperture of telescope, &c.), no difficulty will arise.

The most important point is the way of taking and recording gauges. The work must be done in the dark, except when a new sweep is to be commenced. Therefore the observer should provide a number of squares of paper (or preferably card) to be strung on a cord, and mark in, in pencil, the number of stars counted in each field, passing each paper when thus marked from the set of unused papers to those already marked.

When a sweep begins, the telescope (clamped of course in declination) is directed to the western extremity of the proposed sweep. The number of stars in the field is counted rapidly, and the telescope is moved eastwards until the western edge of the new field corresponds (as nearly as can be judged by estimation) with what had been the eastern edge of the former field. The process is repeated, field after field, until the proposed range of sweep has been completed (so nearly as can be judged). Thus, say the width of each field is 20′ in R.A., and that the observer desires to range 15° in R.A., he would count in this way 45 fields (or say two or three more to ensure the completion of the desired range). He must now determine the exact distance he has swept over, either in the regular way, when he has a suitable clock, or by noting the apparent difference of R.A., as indicated by the R.A. circle, adding so much as corresponds to the time occupied in sweeping. The necessity for this process is obvious, when it is remembered that the shift from field to field has been made by estimation only, and