Our thoughts, now half stunned, fly back across unthinkable starless intervals, back like a magnet to the phosphorescent gleam which is ours in the boundless ocean in which a universe is but a gleam. Nearer--nearer--nearer--the gleam has softened to a touch of mist, the mist has expanded to a definite shape studded with stars which are brightening, and widening apart. Now the shape has become an ethereal form, and before us rises a marvelous creation. As seen from this outer point, our Galaxy is neither a ring nor a wreath but is formed of huge spirals which reach far outward into the heavens. This cathedral of light, whose "lace-work" is of suns, covers an area so magnificent that a beam of light traveling 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year would require some 300,000 years to cross it! Around a modest, medium-sized star in the central cluster of this overwhelming and heroic structure, whirls a tiny planet named Earth, and on this Earth, the infinitesimal human being named Man, whose questioning mind thus flies from star to star. "Round That world of worlds His arm the Almighty wound; The bright immensity He raised, and pressed, All trembling, like a babe, unto His breast. Think ye that I, who thus do ye maintain; Thus always cherish ye, or all were vain-- Ye all would drop into your native void, If by my hand ye were not held and buoyed. --with God, 'tis one To guide a sunbeam or create a sun-- To rule ten thousand thousand worlds or none. Go, worlds! said God, but learn, ere ye depart, My favored temple is an human heart;" --_Festus_, _Philip James Bailey._ THE TWO CROSSES At the foot of the Northern Cross, the Milky Way divides into two large channels which are quite irregular along the edges. These two channels do not unite again for a distance of 150 degrees, which leads us around to the southern hemisphere. As seen from the southern hemisphere, one of these divisions is particularly bright, while the other is not only fainter but looks as if its streams of stars had encountered obstacles along their pathway and had been forced to run up little rills along its sides. On the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere, is the famous Southern Cross. [Figure 131] This Cross contains four bright stars set close together, one of the first magnitude, two of the second magnitude, and one of the third magnitude. Although its figure is not quite so large nor as perfect as that of the Northern Cross, its stars are brighter and it holds a prominent position near the southern pole. In the first maps of the southern hemisphere, South America is designated as "Terra sancti crucis," the land of the holy cross. When Vega is our Pole Star, the Northern Cross will hold a prominent position near the northern pole.