plate records details that no telescope is capable of showing. Suppose
we look at the photograph of this object as any person of common sense
would look at any great and strange natural phenomenon. What is the
first thing that strikes the mind? It is certainly the appearance of
violent whirling motion. One would say that the whole glowing mass had
been spun about with tremendous velocity, or that it had been set
rotating so rapidly that it had become the victim of ``centrifugal
force,'' one huge fragment having broken loose and started to gyrate
off into space. Closer inspection shows that in addition to the
principal focus there are various smaller condensations scattered
through the mass. These are conspicuous in the spirals. Some of them
are stellar points, and but for the significance of their location we
might suppose them to be stars which happen to lie in a line between
us and the nebula. But when we observe how many of them follow most
faithfully the curves of the spirals we cannot but conclude that they
form an essential part of the phenomenon; it is not possible to
believe that their presence in such situations is merely fortuitous.
One of the outer spirals has at least a dozen of these star-like
points strung upon it; some of them sharp, small, and distinct, others
more blurred and nebulous, suggesting different stages of
condensation. Even the part which seems to have been flung loose from
the main mass has, in addition to its central condensation, at least
one stellar point gleaming in the half-vanished spire attached to it.
Some of the more distant stars scattered around the ``whirlpool'' look
as if they too had been shot out of the mighty vortex, afterward
condensing into unmistakable solar bodies. There are at least two
curved rows of minute stars a little beyond the periphery of the
luminous whirl which clearly follow lines concentric with those of the
nebulous spirals. Such facts are simply dumbfounding for anyone who
will bestow sufficient thought upon them, for these are suns, though