at the best, such is not its appearance to those who study it with
care. They perceive that it is an organic whole, though marvelously
complex in detail. The telescope shows that it consists of stars too
faint and small through excess of distance to be separately visible.
Of the hundred million suns which some estimates have fixed as the
probable population of the starry universe, the vast majority (at
least thirty to one) are included in this strange belt of misty light.
But they are not uniformly distributed in it; on the contrary, they
are arrayed in clusters, knots, bunches, clouds, and streams. The
appearance is somewhat as if the Galaxy consisted of innumerable
swarms of silver-winged bees, more or less intermixed, some massed
together, some crossing the paths of others, but all governed by a
single purpose which leads them to encircle the region of space in
which we are situated.

From the beginning of the systematic study of the heavens, the fact
has been recognized that the form of the Milky Way denotes the scheme
of the sidereal system. At first it was thought that the shape of the
system was that of a vast round disk, flat like a cheese, and filled
with stars, our sun and his relatively few neighbors being placed near
the center. According to this view, the galactic belt was an effect of
perspective; for when looking in the direction of the plane of the
disk, the eye ranged through an immense extension of stars which
blended into a glimmering blur, surrounding us like a ring; while when
looking out from the sides of the disk we saw but few stars, and in
those directions the heavens appeared relatively blank. 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