That nebulae do sometimes change we have evidence: there are cases in which some have grown indisputably brighter during the years they have been under observation, and some nebulae that have been recorded by careful observers seem to have vanished. When we consider that these strange bodies fill many, many times the area of our whole solar system to the outermost bounds of Neptune's orbit, it is difficult to imagine what force it is that acts on them to revive or quench their light. That that light is not the direct result of heat has long been known; it is probably some form of electric excitement causing luminosity, very much as it is caused in the comets. Indeed, many people have been tempted to think of the nebulae as the comets of the universe, and in some points there are, no doubt, strong resemblances between the two. Both shine in the same way, both are so faint and thin that stars can be seen through them; but the spectroscope shows us that to carry the idea too far would be wrong, as there are many differences in constitution. We have seen that there are dark stars as well as light stars; if so, may there not be dark nebulae as well as light ones? It may very well be so. We have seen that there are reasons for supposing our own system to have been at first a cool dark nebula rotating slowly. The heavens may be full of such bodies, but we could not discern them. Their thinness would prevent their hiding any stars that happened to be behind them. No evidence of their existence could possibly be brought to us by any channel that we know. It is true that, besides the dark rifts in the bright nebulae, which may themselves be caused by a darker and non-luminous gas, there are also strange rifts in the Milky Way, which at one time were conjectured to be due to a dark body intervening between us and the starry background. This idea is now quite discarded; whatever may cause them, it is not that. One of the most startling of these rifts is that called the Coal-Sack, in the Southern Hemisphere, and it occurs in a part of the sky otherwise so bright that it is the more noticeable. No possible explanation has yet been suggested to account for it. Thus it may be seen that, though much has been discovered, much remains to be discovered. By the patient work of generations of astronomers we have gained a clear idea of our own position in the universe. Here are we on a small globe, swinging round a far mightier and a self-luminous globe, in company with seven other planets, many of which, including ourselves, are attended by satellites or moons. Between the orbits of these planets is a ring or zone of tiny bodies, also going round the sun. Into this system flash every now and then strange luminous bodies--some coming but once, never to return; others returning again and again.