Before considering more recent theories than Laplace’s, let us see what the nature of the photographic revelations is. The vast celestial maelstrom discovered by Lord Rosse in the “Hunting Dogs” may be taken as the leading type of the spiral nebulæ, although there are less conspicuous objects of the kind which, perhaps, better illustrate some of their peculiarities. Lord Rosse’s nebula appears far more wonderful in the photographs than in his drawings made with the aid of his giant reflecting telescope at Parsonstown, for the photographic plate records details that no telescope is capable of showing. Suppose we look at the photograph of this object as any person of common sense would look at any great and strange natural phenomenon. What is the first thing that strikes the mind? It is certainly the appearance of violent whirling motion. One would say that the whole glowing mass had been spun about with tremendous velocity, or that it had been set rotating so rapidly that it had become the victim of “centrifugal force,” one huge fragment having broken loose and started to gyrate off into space. Closer inspection shows that in addition to the principal focus there are various smaller condensations scattered through the mass. These are conspicuous in the spirals. Some of them are stellar points, and but for the significance of their location we might suppose them to be stars which happen to lie in a line between us and the nebula. But when we observe how many of them follow most faithfully the curves of the spirals we cannot but conclude that they form an essential part of the phenomenon; it is not possible to believe that their presence in such situations is merely fortuitous. One of the outer spirals has at least a dozen of these star-like points strung upon it; some of them sharp, small, and distinct, others more blurred and nebulous, suggesting different stages of condensation. Even the part which seems to have been flung loose from the main mass has, in addition to its central condensation, at least one stellar point gleaming in the half-vanished spire attached to it. Some of the more distant stars scattered around the “whirlpool” look as if they too had been shot out of the mighty vortex, afterward condensing into unmistakable solar bodies. There are at least two curved rows of minute stars a little beyond the periphery of the luminous whirl which clearly follow lines concentric with those of the nebulous spirals. Such facts are simply dumbfounding for anyone who will bestow sufficient thought upon them, for these are _suns,_ though they may be small ones; and what a birth is that for a sun!