This explanation appears all the more probable because one
would naturally expect that flocks of meteors would abound in a close
aggregation of stars. It is also consistent with Perrine's discovery
-- that the globular star clusters are powdered with minute stars
strewn thickly among the brighter ones.
In speaking of Professor Comstock's extraordinary theory of the Milky
Way, the fact was mentioned that, broadly speaking, the nebul? are
less numerous in the galactic belt than in the comparatively open
spaces on either side of it, but that they are, nevertheless, abundant
in the broader half of the Milky Way which he designates as the front
of the gigantic ``plough'' supposed to be forcing its way through the
enveloping chaos. In and around the Sagittarius region the
intermingling of nebul? and galactic star clouds and clusters is
particularly remarkable. That there is a causal connection no
thoughtful person can doubt. We are unable to get away from the
evidence that a nebula is like a seed-ground from which stars spring
forth; or we may say that nebul? resemble clouds in whose bosom
raindrops are forming. The wonderful aspect of the admixtures of
nebul? and star-clusters in Sagittarius has been described in Chapter
1. We now come to a still more extraordinary phenomenon of this kind
-- the Pleiades nebul?.
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