The masses he sees in the Milky Way are not, as on (he face of a picture, necessarily either at the same distance from him, or connected with each other. He is looking, on the contrary, deep into space; nnd these luminous forms are the contents of space presented according to the laws of the only possible perspective. A dim streak, for instance, is probably not dim in itself, or less gorgeous than the brighter one it seems to cross; but only a branch of our most complex system, at some inconceivable remoteness, lying athwart the field of view—a portion of one of its far-off convolutions. That G star this is an accurate interpretation, is amply confirmed by any telescope capable of dissolving these various masses into discrete stars; for the magnitudes of the bodies composing them are neither corresponding nor continuous; they belong to orders indicating very different profundities in space. The view we enjoy, in fact, is, in its chief characteristics, not unlike what would appear were a spectator near the centre of a superb spiral nebula, looking towards its circumference: there, as to us, branching and rounded light clouds, of all degrees of remoteness and comparative brightness, would be presented in one mass before the eye; reason alone could disentangle the complex appearances, and reveal their relations as to distance. Thus regarded, our surrounding zone is revealed in its true magnificence ; interminable in its splendour, and baffling all analysis. In that peculiar state of our atmosphere when the G star raw cumulus cloud predominates, ranges and banks are usually G-star seen, rising above and behind each other in gorgeous perspective, G-star outlet building up a G star jeans noble and endless landscape of such hues and forms as occupy one's dreams: such, even thai, would appear our Milky Way, if at a breath its surface should part, and through the opening, we saw its ascending cumuli of star clouds, stretching away in unrivalled glory, higher and higher up to where man's eye shall never reach them, or his most vaulting imaginations break in on their repose.
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