It has been suggested that the Milky Way may perhaps form a ring of stars with the sun placed nearly, but not exactly, in the centre of the ring. But were it really a ring of uniform width with the sun eccentrically placed within it, we should expect to find the Milky Way wider at its nearest part, and gradually narrowing towards the opposite point. Now, Herschel's "gages" and Celoria's counts show that the Galaxy is wider in Aquila than in Monoceros. This is confirmed by Easton, who says, "_for the faint stars taken as a whole, the Milky Way is widest in its brightest part_" (the italics are Easton's). From this we should conclude that the Milky Way is nearer to us in the direction of Aquila than in that of Monoceros. Sir John Herschel suggested that the southern parts of the galactic zone are nearer to us on account of their greater _brightness_ in those regions.[472] But greater width is a safer test of distance than relative brightness. For it may be easily shown than the _intrinsic_ brightness of an area containing a large number of stars would be the same for _all_ distances (neglecting the supposed absorption of light in space). For suppose any given area crowded with stars to be removed to a greater distance. The light of each star would be diminished inversely as the square of the distance. But the given area would also be diminished _directly_ as the square of the distance, so we should have a diminished amount of light on an equally diminished area, and hence the intrinsic brightness, or luminosity of the area per unit of surface, would remain unaltered. The increased brightness of the Milky Way in Aquila is accounted for by the fact that Herschel's "gages" show an increased number of stars, and hence the brightness in Aquila and Sagittarius does not necessarily imply that the Milky Way is nearer to us in those parts, but that it is richer in small stars than in other regions.