HUGGENS, its first discoverer, gives the following description of it: "Astronomers place three stars close together in the Sword of Orion; and when I viewed the middle-most with a Telescope, in the year 1656, there appeared in the place of that one, twelve other stars; among these three that almost touch each other, and four more besides appeared twinkling as through a cloud, so that the space about them seemed much brighter than the rest of the heaven, which appearing wholly blackish, by reason of the fair weather, was seen as through a curtain opening, through which one had a free view into another region which was more enlightened. I have frequently observed the same appearance in the same place without any alteration; so that it is likely that this wonder, whatever it may be in itself, has been there from all times; but I never took notice of any thing like it among the rest of the fixed stars." Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL says, "If stars of the eighth magnitude are to be considered at an average of eight times further distant than those of the first, then this nebula cannot be supposed to be less than 320,000,000,000,000, three hundred and twenty thousand billions of miles from the earth. If its diameter at this distance subtend an angle of ten minutes, which it nearly does, its magnitude must be utterly inconceivable. It has been calculated that it must exceed 2,000,000,000,000,000,000, or two trillions of times the dimensions of the Sun, vast and incomprehensible as these dimensions are."--_See Dick's Siderial Heavens, Vol. VIII. pp. 181, 184._ Says this author--"Suffice it to say that such an enormous mass of luminous matter was not created in vain, but serves a purpose in the divine arrangements corresponding to its magnitude and the nature of its luminosity, and to the wisdom and intelligence of him whose power brought it into existence. It doubtless subserves some important purpose, even at the present moment, to worlds and beings within the range of its influence. But the ultimate in all its bearings and relations, may perhaps remain to be evolved during the future ages of an interminable existence." Page 184. Again, says the ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS of April 19th, 1845: "Marvellous rumors are afloat respecting the Astronomical discoveries made by Lord Rosse's monster Telescope. (This is said to be sixty feet long and its great speculum or reflecting large glass measures six feet in diameter and weighs three and three-fourths tons, and is calculated to discover glorious objects in the Heavens, to man heretofore unknown.) It is stated that Regulus, instead of being a sphere, is ascertained to be a Disc; and stranger still, that the nebula in the belt of Orion (meaning the bright place before stated) is a universal system, a sun with planets moving round it, as the earth and her fellows move around our glorious luminary."