The river now divides. One short stream, which goes north from Centaur towards Antares, is faint and soon lost; but another northern stream is so bright and so persistent that from Centaur to Cygnus we may say that the Galaxy flows in a double current. This northern portion forms first the smoke of the Altar on which the Centaur is about to offer the Beast, then passes through the Scorpion into the Serpent-Holder, and here, between η Ophiuchi and Corona Australis, the double stream has its greatest width. The northern division soon grows dim and seems to die out, but begins again near β Ophiuchi, and, curving through a little group of stars, passes through the head of the Eagle and forms an oval lagoon in the Swan. The southern stream passes through the Scorpion’s Tail into Sagittarius, then through the Eagle and the Arrow till it flows close beside the northern stream in the Swan, and finally rejoins it in a bright patch round α Cygni. Except just here it is much brighter than the northern stream, and its structure is even fuller of wonderful detail than in Argo. In Sagittarius it consists of great rounded patches with dark spaces between. The brightest of these contains the star γ Sagittarii; then follows a remarkable region of small patches and streaks, the portion passing through Sagittarius and Aquila being thickly studded with nebulae. This is followed by another bright patch, rivalling that round γ Sagittarii, which involves the stars λ and 6 Aquilae. This ends the most brilliant and wonderful part of the Milky Way. When well seen, as we see it in the south, it recalls Herschel’s words, written at the Cape when it came into view in his telescope: “The real Milky Way is just come on in great semi-nebulous masses, running into one another, heaps on heaps.” And again: “The Milky Way is like sand, not strewed evenly as with a sieve, but as if flung down by handfuls, and both hands at once.” What is it? The ancients thought it the pathway of departed spirits, or fiery exhalations from the earth imprisoned in the skies, or a former road of the sun through the stars. But Democritus and some other inquiring Greeks believed it to be the shining of multitudes of stars too faint and too close together to be seen separately, and we know this to be the truth. We know also, from simply counting the stars in different regions of the sky, that their numbers increase regularly as we go from north or south towards the Milky Way, and stars of all magnitudes are most abundant within its course. We saw also that star-clusters and certain kinds of nebulae frequent it, while other kinds avoid it, and that blue and white stars are the most abundant near it, and tend to move through space in planes parallel with it, while the redder stars are scattered and move about in all directions.