The nebulosity on the _preceding_ and _following_ ends of the ring protrudes a little, and is less dense than on the _north_ and _south_ sides. This probably suggested the filamentous appearance which Lord Rosse shows. Some photographs of the nebula have been taken between 1887 and 1891, and the central star is strongly shown on some of them, but on others it is scarcely visible, which points to the star being variable.” On a photograph taken by MM. Androyer and Montaugerand of the Toulouse Observatory, with an exposure of nine hours (in multiple exposures), about 4,800 stars are visible on and near the nebula in an area of three square degrees. Another object of the annular class will be found a little to the southwest of the star Lambda Scorpii. It is thus described by Sir John Herschel: “A delicate, extremely faint, but perfectly well defined, annulus. The field crowded with stars, two of which are on the nebula. A beautiful, delicate ring of a faint, ghost-like appearance, about 40″ in diameter in a field of about 150 stars, eleven and twelve magnitude and under.” Near the stars 44 and 51 Ophiuchi is another object of the annular class, which Sir John Herschel describes as “exactly round, pretty faint, 12″ diameter, well terminated, but a little cottony at the edge, and with a decided darkness in the middle, equal to a tenth magnitude star at the most. Few stars in the field, a beautiful specimen of the planetary annular class of nebula.” The Planetary Nebulæ form an interesting class. They were so named by Sir William Herschel from their resemblance to the disks of the planets, but, of course, much fainter. They are generally of uniform brightness, without any nucleus or brighter part in the centre. There are numerous examples of this class, one of the most remarkable being that known as 97 Messier, which is situated about two degrees southeast of Beta Ursæ Majoris—the southern of the two “pointers” in the Plow. It is of considerable apparent size, and even supposing its distance to be not greater than that of 61 Cygni, its real dimensions must be enormous. Lord Rosse observed two openings in the centre with a star in each opening, and from this appearance he called it the “owl nebula.” One of the stars seems to have disappeared since 1850, and a photograph recently taken by Dr. Roberts confirms the disappearance. Another fine object of the planetary class is one which lies close to the pole of the ecliptic. Webb saw it “like a considerable star out of focus.” Smyth found it pale blue in color. Dr. Huggins finds a gaseous spectrum, the first discovery of the kind made. Professor Holden, observing it with the great Lick telescope, finds its structure extraordinary. He says it “is apparently composed of rings overlying each other, and it is difficult to resist the conviction that these are arranged in space in the form of a true helix,” and he ranks it in a new class which he calls “helical nebulæ.”