The Herschels concluded that "the stars of our firmament, instead of being scattered in all directions indifferently through space, form a stratum of which the thickness is small, in comparison with its length and breadth; and in which the earth occupies a place somewhere about the middle of its thickness, between the point where it subdivides into two principal laminae inclined at a small angle to each other." This view does not differ essentially from our modern conception of the form of the Galaxy; but as the Herschels were unable to see stars fainter than the fifteenth magnitude, it is evident that their conclusions apply only to a restricted region surrounding the solar system, in the midst of the enormously extended sidereal universe which modern instruments have brought within our range. MODERN METHODS The remarkable progress of modern astronomy is mainly due to two great instrumental advances: the rise and development of the photographic telescope, and the application of the spectroscope to the study of celestial objects. These new and powerful instruments, supplemented by many accessories which have completely revolutionized observatory equipment, have not only revealed a vastly greater number of stars and nebulae: they have also rendered feasible observations of a type formerly regarded as impossible. The chemical analysis of a faint star is now so easy that it can be accomplished in a very short time--as quickly, in fact, as an equally complex substance can be analyzed in the laboratory. The spectroscope also measures a star's velocity, the pressure at different levels in its atmosphere, its approximate temperature, and now, by a new and ingenious method, its distance from the earth. It determines the velocity of rotation of the sun and of nebulae, the existence and periods of orbital revolution of binary stars too close to be separated by any telescope, the presence of magnetic fields in sunspots, and the fact that the entire sun, like the earth, is a magnet. [Illustration: Fig. 6. Lowest section of tube of 100-inch telescope, ready to leave Pasadena for Mount Wilson.] Such new possibilities, with many others resulting from the application of physical methods of the most diverse character, have greatly enlarged the astronomer's outlook. He may now attack two great problems: (1) The structure of the universe and the motions of its constituent bodies, and (2) the evolution of the stars: their nature, origin, growth, and decline. These two problems are intimately related and must be studied as one.[*] [Footnote *: A third great problem open to the astronomer, the study of the constitution of matter, is described in Chapter III.]