This rift is the Milky Way. The dust
thrown aside toward the poles of the Milky Way is the substance of the
nebul? which abound there. Ahead, where the front of the star-plough
is clearing the way, the chaos is nearer at hand, and consequently
there the rift subtends a broader angle, and is filled with primordial
dust, which, having been annexed by the vanguard of the star-swarm,
forms the nebul? seen only in that part of the Milky Way. But behind,
the rift appears narrow because there we look farther away between
dust-clouds produced ages ago by the front of the plough, and no
scattered dust remains in that part of the rift.
In quoting an outline of this strikingly original theory the present
writer should not be understood as assenting to it. That it appears
bizarre is not, in itself, a reason for rejecting it, when we are
dealing with so problematical and enigmatical a subject as the Milky
Way; but the serious objection is that the theory does not
sufficiently accord with the observed phenomena. There is too much
evidence that the Milky Way is an organic system, however fantastic
its form, to permit the belief that it can only be a rift in chaotic
clouds. As with every organism, we find that its parts are more or
less clearly repeated in its ensemble. Among all the strange things
that the Milky Way contains there is nothing so extraordinary as
itself.
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