It has been known since the most ancient times, and has been confirmed by the observations of Herschel and others in a most convincing manner, that the stars are strongly concentrated about the middle line of the Milky Way. It is not improbable that there was originally a nebula of enormous dimensions in the plane of the Milky Way, produced possibly by the collision of two such giant suns as Arcturus. This gigantic nebula has gathered up the smaller migrating celestial bodies which, in their turn, have condensed upon themselves nebular matter, and have thereby become incandescent, if they were not so before. The rotational movement in those parts which were far removed from the centre of the Milky Way may be neglected. At a later period collisions succeeded between the single stars which had been gathered up, and it is for this reason that gaseous nebulæ, as well as new stars, are comparatively frequent phenomena in the plane of the Milky Way. This view may some day receive confirmation, when we succeed in proving the existence of a central body in the Milky Way, evidence of which might possibly be deduced from the curvature of the orbits of the sun or of other stars. [Illustration: Fig. 58.—Cone-shaped star cluster in Gemini.] As regards the ring-shaped nebula in the Lyre (Fig. 50), the most recent measurements made by Newkirk point to the result that the star visible in its centre is distant from us about thirty-two light-years. As it appears probable that this star really forms the central core of the nebula, the distance of the nebula itself must be thirty-two light-years. From the diameter of the ring-shaped nebula which Newkirk estimates at one minute of arc, this astronomer has calculated that the distance of the ring from its central body is equal to about three hundred times the radius of the earth’s orbit—that is to say, the ring is about ten times as far from its sun as Neptune is from our sun. There is a faint luminescence within this ring. The nebular matter may originally have been more concentrated at this spot than in the outer portions of the ring itself. But this mass was probably condensed on meteors which immigrated from outside, and when these meteors coalesced dark planets were produced which move about the central body, and which have gathered about them most of the gases. If that central body were as heavy as our sun, the matter in the ring should revolve about it in five thousand years. That rotation would suffice to wipe out the original spiral shape, enough of which has yet been left to permit of our distinctly discerning the two wings of the spiral. The central body of this ring-shaped nebula gives a continuous spectrum of bright lines which is particularly developed on the violet side. The star would therefore appear to be much younger and much hotter than our sun, and its radiation pressure would therefore be much more intense. The period of rotation of the nebula may, for this reason, have to be