(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. George C. Comstock may be mentioned. Starting with
the data (first) that the number of stars increases as the Milky Way
is approached, and reaches a maximum in its plane, while on the other
hand the number of nebulæ is greatest outside the Milky Way and
increases with distance from it, and (second) that the Milky Way,
although a complete ring, is broad and diffuse on one side through
one-half its course -- that half alone containing nebulæ -- and
relatively narrow and well defined on the opposite side, the author of
this singular speculation avers that these facts can best be explained
by supposing that the invisible universe consists of two
interpenetrating parts, one of which is a chaos of indefinite extent,
strewn with stars and nebulous dust, and the other a long, broad but