From ancient times it has been the custom to divide the stars into classes according to their apparent size. This apparent size depends chiefly upon their nearness to us, and evidently, as the few only are near, and the many are far off, stars of the first magnitude are few in number, and as they diminish in apparent size the number embraced in the successive classes increases. Thus we find but eighteen stars of the first magnitude; but of the third there are one hundred and seventy, of the fourth five hundred, and thus on. When we look upward in a starry winter night we fancy we can see millions of stars. In truth with the unaided eye we can see only six thousand at most, and it needs very strong eyes to see more than four thousand. But when we turn a telescope upon the sky we begin to count stars by millions. All the stars are in apparent motion; they have their rising and their setting as does the sun; the constellations appear above the horizon, and move swiftly down the sky. Only one star is, as viewed from our world, immovable, remaining forever fixed in its place; we call it the North Star, or the Pole Star, because to us of the Northern hemisphere it seems to be always watching above the Northern Pole. But, while unalterable as regards us, the Pole Star is not released from the general law of motion which rules the stars. When we begin to trace out constellations, we usually take the Pole Star as our starting-point. The Pole Star is in the tail of the constellation of the Little Bear, and we find it by imagining a straight line drawn from the two upper stars in the square of the Great Dipper. The Great Dipper we shall easily find, as it is composed of seven large, bright stars, four of which form an irregular four-sided figure and from one corner of this square three others extend in a slightly curved line. This constellation, seen from any place north of New Orleans, La., never sets, but slowly turns around the fixed Pole Star. In ancient times the Great Dipper was sometimes called the Chariot, or David’s Chariot, and among English country people it is known as Charles’s Wain, a wain being an old English name for a wagon. The Chinese name the Great Dipper “The God of the North”; the Mohammedans often call it “The Hand of God.” It is also called the Great Bear. Of all the stars the one nearest us is in the southern constellation of the Centaur; but that is so far off that its distance is beyond our comprehension, being over two hundred and eleven thousand times as far distant as the sun. If we could take a ray of light for our steed we must ride three years and six months to reach this sun that is nearest to our sun in the starry hosts. But is light for a steed all that is wanted for such a trip among the stars? No; for a very little way from our earth we should be in want of an atmosphere, or air to breathe, and also in want of light and heat. Light, heat, and air are probably alike lacking in starry space.