But looking at the series of figures in the table, and again as quoted by Professor Newcomb, they seem to me to show in some measure what he says they do not show. I therefore drew out the above diagram from the figures in the table, and it certainly shows that the density in regions I., II., and III., and in regions VII., VIII., and IX., may be said to be 'about the same,' that is, they increase very slowly, and that they _do_ 'suddenly increase' in IV. and VI. as the boundary of the Galaxy is approached. This may be explained either by a flattening towards the poles of the Galaxy, or by the thinning out of stars in that direction. In order to show the enormous difference of star-density in the Galaxy and at the galactic poles, Professor Newcomb gives the following table of the Herschelian gauges, on which he only remarks that they show an enormously increased density in the galactic region due to the Herschels having counted so many more stars there than any other observers. +-----------+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ |Region, .| I. | II.|III.| IV.| V. | VI. | VII.|VIII.| IX. | | | | | | | | | | | | |Density, .|107 |154 |281 |560 |2,019| 672 | 261 | 154 | 111 | +-----------+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ [Illustration: DIAGRAM OF STAR-DENSITY From a table in _The Stars_ (p. 249).] But an important characteristic of these figures is, that the Herschels alone surveyed the whole of the heavens from the north to the south pole, that they did this with instruments of the same size and quality, and that from almost life-long experience in this particular work they were unrivalled in their power of counting rapidly and accurately the stars that passed over each field of view of their telescopes. Their results, therefore, must be held to have a comparative value far above those of any other observer or combination of observers. I have therefore thought it advisable to draw a diagram from their figures, and it will be seen how strikingly it agrees with the former diagram in the very slow increase of star-richness in the first three regions north and south, the sudden increase in regions IV. and VI. as we approach the Galaxy, while the only marked difference is in the enormously greater richness of the Galaxy itself, which is an undoubtedly real phenomenon, and is brought out here by the unrivalled observing power of the two greatest astronomers in this special department that have ever lived. We shall find later on that Professor Newcomb himself, as the result of a quite different inquiry arrives at a result in accordance with these diagrams which will then be again referred to. As this is a very interesting subject, it will be well to give another diagram from two tables of star-density in Sir John Herschel's volume already quoted. The tables are as follows:--