Finally it was
recognized that this theory did not correspond with the observed
appearances, and it became evident that the Milky Way was not a mere
effect of perspective, but an actual band of enormously distant stars,
forming a circle about the sphere, the central opening of the ring
(containing many scattered stars) being many times broader than the
width of the ring itself. Our sun is one of the scattered stars in the
central opening.
As already remarked, the ring of the Galaxy is very irregular, and in
places it is partly broken. With its sinuous outline, its pendant
sprays, its graceful and accordant curves, its bunching of masses, its
occasional interstices, and the manifest order of a general plan
governing the jumble of its details, it bears a remarkable resemblance
to a garland -- a fact which appears the more wonderful when we recall
its composition. That an elm-tree should trace the lines of beauty
with its leafy and pendulous branches does not surprise us; but we can
only gaze with growing amazement when we behold a hundred million suns
imitating the form of a chaplet! And then we have to remember that
this form furnishes the ground-plan of the universe.
As an indication of the extraordinary speculations to which the
mystery of the Milky Way has given rise, a theory recently (1909)
proposed by Prof.
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