Among the variable stars we find quite a number which display considerable irregularity in their fluctuations of brightness, and which remind us of the new stars. To this class belongs the just-mentioned star Eta, in Argus. Another example (the first one which was recognized as “variable”) is Mira Ceti, which may be translated, “The Wonderful Star in the Constellation of the Whale.” This mysterious body was discovered by the Frisian priest Fabricius, on August 12, 1596, as a star of the second magnitude. The priest, an experienced astronomer, had not previously noticed this star, and he looked for it in vain in October, 1597. In the years 1638 and 1639 the variability of the star was recognized, and it was soon ascertained to be irregular. The period has a length of about eleven months, but it fluctuates irregularly about this figure as a mean value. At its greatest intensity the star ranks with those of the first or second order. Sometimes it is weaker, but it is always of more than the fifth magnitude. Ten weeks after a maximum the star is no longer visible, and its brightness may diminish to magnitude 9.5. In other words, its intensity varies about in the ratio of 1: 1000 (or possibly more). After a minimum the brightness once more increases, the star becomes visible again—that is to say, it attains the sixth magnitude—and after another six weeks it will once more be at its maximum. We have evidently to deal with several superposed periods. The spectrum of this star is rather peculiar. It belongs to the red stars with a band spectrum which is crossed by bright hydrogen lines. The star is receding from us with a velocity of not less than 63 km. (39 miles) per second. The bright hydrogen lines which correspond to the spectrum of the nebula may sometimes be resolved into three components, of which the middle one corresponds to a mean velocity of 60 km., and the two others have variable receding velocities of 35 and 82 km.—that is to say, velocities of 25 or 22 km. less or more than the mean velocity. Evidently the star is surrounded by three nebulæ; one is concentrated about its centre; the two others lie on a ring the matter of which has been concentrated on two opposite sides. The ring, which recalls the ring nebula in the Lyre, seems to move about the star with a velocity of 23.5 km. per second. As this revolution is accomplished within eleven—or, more correctly, within twenty-two months, since there must be two maxima and two minima during one revolution—the total circumference of the ring will be 23.5 × 86,400 × 670—1361 millions, and the radius of its orbit 217 million km., which is 1.45 times greater than the radius of the earth’s orbit. Now the velocity of the earth in its orbit is 29.5 km. (18.3 miles) per second. A planet at 1.45 times that distance from the sun would have the (1.203 times smaller) velocity of 24.5 km. per second, which is approximately that of the hypothetical ring of Mira Ceti. We conclude, therefore,