they may be small ones; and what a birth is that for a sun!

Look now again at the glowing spirals. We observe that hardly have
they left the central mass before they begin to coagulate. In some
places they have a ``ropy'' aspect; or they are like peascods filled
with growing seeds, which eventually will become stars. The great
focus itself shows a similar tendency, especially around its
circumference. The sense that it imparts of a tremendous shattering
force at work is overwhelming. There is probably more matter in that
whirling and bursting nebula than would suffice to make a hundred
solar systems! It must be confessed at once that there is no
confirmation of the Laplacean hypothesis here; but what hypothesis
will fit the facts? There is one which it has been claimed does so,
but we shall come to that later. In the meanwhile, as a preparation,
fix in the memory the appearance of that second spiral mass spinning
beside its master which seems to have spurned it away.

For a second example of the spiral nebulæ look at the one in the
constellation Triangulum. God, how hath the imagination of puny man
failed to comprehend Thee! Here is creation through destruction with a
vengeance! The spiral form of the nebula is unmistakable, but it is
half obliterated amid the turmoil of flying masses hurled away on all
sides with tornadic fury. The focus itself is splitting asunder under
the intolerable strain, and in a little while, as time is reckoned in
the Cosmos, it will be gyrating into stars. And then look at the
cyclonic rain of already finished stars whirling round the outskirts
of the storm. Observe how scores of them are yet involved in the
fading streams of the nebulous spirals; see how they have been thrown
into vast loops and curves, of a beauty that half redeems the terror
of the spectacle enclosed within their lines -- like iridescent cirri