As Kapteyn's result was based on materials which were not so full or reliable as those now available, Professor S. Newcomb has examined the question himself, using two recent lists of stars, one limited to those having proper motions of 10" a century, of which there are 295, and the other of nearly 1500 stars with 'appreciable proper motions.' They are situated in two zones, each about 5° in breadth and cutting across the Milky Way in different parts of its course. They afford, therefore, a good test of the distribution of these nearer stars with regard to the Galaxy. The result is, that on the average these stars are not more numerous in or near the Milky Way than elsewhere; and Professor Newcomb expresses himself on this point as follows:--'The conclusion is interesting and important. If we should blot out from the sky all the stars having no proper motion large enough to be detected, we should find remaining stars of all magnitudes; but they would be scattered almost uniformly over the sky, and show little or no tendency to crowd towards the Galaxy, unless, perhaps, in the region near 19h. of Right Ascension.'[7] A little consideration will show that, as the stars of all magnitudes which are, on the average, nearest to us are spread over the sky in 'all directions' and 'almost uniformly,' this necessarily implies that they form a cluster or group, and that our sun is somewhere not very far from the centre of this group. Again, Professor Newcomb refers to 'the remarkable equality in the number of stars in opposite directions from us. We do not detect any marked difference between the numbers lying round the opposite poles of the Galaxy, nor, so far as known, between the star-density in different regions at equal distances from the Milky Way' (_The Stars_, p. 315). And again he refers to the same question at p. 317, where he says: 'So far as we can judge from the enumeration of the stars in all directions, and from the aspect of the Milky Way, our system is near the centre of the stellar universe.' It will, I think, now be clear to my readers that the four main astronomical propositions stated in my article which appeared in the New York _Independent_ and in the _Fortnightly Review_, and which were either denied or declared to be unproved by my astronomical critics, have been shown to be supported by so many converging lines of evidence, that it is no longer possible to deny that they are, at least provisionally, fairly well established. These facts are, (1) that the stellar universe is not of infinite extent; (2) that our sun is situated in the central plane of the Milky Way; (3) that it is also situated near to the centre of that plane; (4) that we are surrounded by a group or cluster of stars of unknown extent, which occupy a place not far removed from the centre of the galactic plane, and therefore, near to the centre of our universe of stars.