This is our _neighbor_ star. The second, the nearest after it, is nearly double as far, and is found in quite another region of space, in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan, always visible in our northern hemisphere. If we wish to understand the relative situation of our sun and the nearest two, let us take a celestial globe, and draw a plane through the center of the globe and through Alpha Centauri and 61 Cygni. We shall thus have before us the relation which exists between our position in infinitude and those of these two suns. The angular distance which separates them on the celestial sphere is 125°. Let us make this drawing, and we shall discover certain rather curious particulars. In the first place, these two nearest stars are in the plane of the Milky Way, so that we can also represent the Milky Way on our drawing; again, this celestial river is divided into two branches, precisely in the positions occupied by these two nearest stars, the division remaining marked along the whole interval which separates them. This drawing shows us, further, that if we wish to trace the curve of the Milky Way with reference to the distance of our two stars, it will be nearer to us in the constellation of the Centaur than in that of the Swan; and, in fact, it is probable that the stars of that region of the sky are nearer than those of the opposite region. Another very curious fact is, that both the nearest stars are double. But look at Sirius, that beautiful star so familiar to us all. The light which reaches you to-night, left his surface from nine to ten years ago. Look at the Little Bear, with the Pole-star shining at the end of his tail. That ray of soft light quitted the Pole-star some forty years ago. Almost half a century it has been speeding onward and ever onward, with ceaseless rapidity, till its vast journey is so far accomplished that it has reached the earth. Look at Capella, another fair star of the first magnitude. The light which reaches you from her has taken over thirty years to perform its voyage. Ten, thirty, forty years--at the rate of 186,000 miles per second! These stars are among the few whose distance can be roughly measured. Others lie at incalculable distances beyond. There are stars whose light must, it is believed, have started hundreds or even thousands of years before the soft, faint ray at length reaches the astronomer’s upturned eye through the telescope.