the stones into another, in pursuance of some one particular scheme. The corresponding conclusion in the case of the stars and nebula would clearly be that the stars had been drawn together in one direction and the nebulæ in another, out of a common world of cosmical matter. In other words we should look on the nebulæ as members of the same system or scheme that the stars belong to.

And here it may be asked how the conclusion thus deduced from the arrangement of stars and nebula can be said to tend to enlarge our views of the world of stars. On the contrary, it might be urged, the views which had prevailed before, presented us with nobler conceptions of the universe. For we were able to recognise in the thousands of nebula which fleck the dark background of the sky, sidereal systems as noble as that of which our sun is a member; and in the existence of countless star-systems we had a spectacle to contemplate before which the human intellect was compelled to bow in its utter powerlessness and insignificance: whereas it seems as though the new views would reduce the scope of our vision to a single galaxy of stars, unless some few members of the nebular system may still be looked on as outer star-schemes.

But on a closer inspection of the views I have been maintaining, it will appear that they largely enhance our conceptions of the scale on which the world of stars is constructed. Until now it has been held that the telescopes which man has been able to construct enabled us to scan the limits of our sidereal system, and to pass so readily beyond those limits as to become sensible of the existence of thousands of other schemes as noble as our own or nobler. But if the new views should be established, we should be compelled to recognise in the world of stars a system which

our most powerful instruments are not fully able to gauge. The clusters of stars, whose splendour has so worthily excited the admiration of the Herschels, the Rosses, the Struves, and the Bonds, must be looked upon as among the glories of our own system, and indicative of the multiplied forms of structure or of aggregation to be found within its boundaries. As of late, our conceptions of the wealth of the solar system have been enhanced by the discovery of numberless new objects and new forms of matter existing within its range, and co-ordinating themselves in regular relations with the earlier known members of the system, so we seem now called on to recognise in the stellar world an unsuspected wealth of material, a hitherto unrecognised variety of cosmical forms, and an extension into regions of space to which our most powerful telescopes have not yet been able to penetrate.

But now I would call attention to a peculiarity of the southern skies which, while apparently affording conclusive testimony in favour of the new views, has unaccountably (in my opinion) been urged as an argument tending in quite another direction. There are to be seen in those skies two mysterious clouds of light, which were called by the first Europeans who sailed the southern seas the Magellanic clouds, and are now commonly spoken of by astronomers as the Nubecule. Examined by the powerful telescope of Sir John Herschel, these objects have been found to consist of small fixed stars and nebulæ, grouped together without any evidence of special arrangement, but still obviously intermixed,not merely seen projected on the same field of view.

These strange objects have given rise to many speculations; and among the definite views put forward respecting them is one cently expressed in a most valuable

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communication to the Royal Astronomical Society from the pen of Mr. Cleveland Abbe, an astronomer who has laboured in the sound school of the Poulkowa Observatory. Having recognised in the peculiar arrangement of stars and nebula above referred to, an argument that the nebula lie beyond our system, Mr. Abbe suggests that the Magellanic clouds are two of the nearest of the nebular systems, which thus exhibit larger dimensions than their fellow-schemes.

The basis of this, which may be termed the positive theory of the Nubeculæ, is the hypothesis which may be termed the negative theory. Whatever these objects may be, astronomers have said, they are quite distinct from the sidereal system, nor are the nebulæ seen within them to be looked upon as fellows of the other nebula. For in the Nubeculæ we see what we recognise nowhere else, the combination namely of clustering groups of stars and freely scattered nebula. It is the characteristic (still I am quoting the theory) of the sidereal system that where its splendours are greatest nebulæ are wanting; it is the characteristic of nebular aggregation that it withdraws itself in appearance from the neighbourhood of clustering star groups. But in the Magellanic clouds neither of these characteristics is to be recognised; therefore these objects are distinct from either system.

Nor has another argument been wanting to indicate the distinction that exists between the Magellanic clouds and the other splendours of the celestial vault. Sir John Herschel, sweeping over their neighbourhood with his 18-inch reflector, was struck with the singular barrenness of the skies around them. With that expressive verbiage which gives

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so great a charm to his astronomical descriptions, he forces on our attention, again and again, the poverty of the regions which lie around the Nubecule. Oppressively barren' he describes them in one place; the access to the Nubeculae on all sides is through a desert,' he says in another. And this peculiarity thus established by the certain evidence of an observer so able and trustworthy, has been held by many to imply in the clearest and most distinct manner that there is no connection between the Nubeculæ and the stellar system.

To me the evidence afforded by the barrenness of the regions round the Magellanic clouds points irresistibly in the opposite direction. Why should some outer system, free as is assumed of all association with our own, occupy that peculiarly barren space which so attracted the attention of Sir John Herschel? But if we look on the coincidence as striking in the case of one, how much more remarkable will it appear when the only two outer systems of the sort thus brought within our ken are associated in this way with the most singularly barren region in the whole heavens! Surely the more natural conclusion to be drawn from the phenomenon is that the richness of the Magellanic clouds and the poverty of the surrounding districts stand to each other in the most intimate correlation. Is there not reason for concluding that those districts are poor because of the action of the same process of aggregation which has attracted within the Nubeculæ a larger share than usual of stellar and nebular glories ? 1

It need hardly be mentioned that the former argument, on which the distinction between the Nubecula and other celestial objects has been

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founded, is disposed of at once if we recognise the stellar and nebular systems as in reality forming but a single scheme. Not only so, but the Nubeculæ afford a striking argument in favour of the latter view. To return to the somewhat homely illustration made use of above. Our conceptions of the original association between the stones and the gravel arranged in the manner indicated would certainly be strengthened, or would even be changed into absolute certainty, if we perceived in a part of the ground two heaps in which stones and gravel were intermixed. When I add that there are two distinctly marked nebular streams leading towards the Nubeculæ, as well as several well-marked star-streams tending in the same direction, the evidence of association seems irresistibly strengthened.

If these views be accepted, we shall have to look upon the world

of stars as made up of all classes of clustering aggregations, besides strange wisps and sprays extending throughout space in the most fantastic convolutions. Then also, while dismissing the idea that the nebulæ as a class are external systems, we may accept as highly probable the conclusion that some of the spiral or whirlpool nebulæ really lie far beyond the confines of our system. For we see in these objects the very picture of what the new views show our sidereal system to be. There are the spiral whorls corresponding to the double ring of the Milky Way; there are faint outlying streamers corresponding to the phantom starstreams traced by Sir John Herschel; there also, are bright single stars and miniature clusters, nay, there also may even be recognised large knobs or lobes of clustering stars, forming no inapt analogue of the Magellanic clouds.

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perience to be in every way a superior man; in vain did the best men complain that their better education, their greater linguistic or scientific knowledge was thrown away: they were all levelled by the obdurate roll, and you must take whoever was pointed out by that detested document. The men who could thus tyrannise over another and over the public in one way could of course do so in other ways, and they established a system of charges which was outrageous enough to be ridiculous if it had not been too annoying to laugh at. By this Draconian code every traveller who wished to go up Mont Blanc was obliged to take four guides, and if the party consisted of two or three friends they must take eight or a dozen guides as the case might be.

Each of these men received one hundred francs, so that every traveller had to pay 161. to begin with, besides extravagant charges for feeding the party and numerous extras which were sure to be tacked on at the end. On the whole it may be considered that 251. apiece, the usual total, was rather a large payment for a couple of days' amusement in the ascent of what is after all the easiest of the very high mountains of the Alps: at all events it was eight times as much as we had paid in the previous year for the much more difficult ascent of Monte Rosa. We knew that a party of plucky Englishmen had lately discovered a new route from St. Gervais, and succeeded in reaching the summit of the mountain without the assistance of guides beyond the top of the Aiguille du Goûté. The regulations of Chamouni were not binding upon the inhabitants of St. Gervais; but we wished to do something towards bringing the old route more within the reach of the aspiring public, especially on account of the great advantages offered by the hut of the Grands Mulets over the cold and

dreary halting-place upon the somewhat formidable Aiguille. We spent the first day in a leisurely ascent of the Brevent, which enabled us to study the monarch' for several hours with our telescopes, and gave our legs the first stretching after a long imprisonment in London. The next day we increased the good effect upon our own limbs, and saved two Americans a certain number of francs by undertaking to be their amateur guides to the Jardin. This was good practice, and we then began the preparations for our main undertaking.

A man named Bossoney held what in diplomatic language would be called the portfolio of guide-chef; that is to say he sate behind a table in a little room called the Bureau des Guides, where he was engaged in the perpetual study of the book of the roll, like Buddha absorbed in the contemplation of his own perfections. He was a hard man, one who would like to reap without sowing; and we knew that poaching in his preserves would be considered an unpardonable offence. Nevertheless the thing was to be done; and, as Englishmen are rightly taught to study the means by which their forefathers obtained liberty, so ought the rising generation of mountaineers to know and appreciate the difficulties gone through by their predecessors before the complete establishment of the right by which they are now enabled to break their necks as they please, and in such company as they may select for themselves.

We knew that any revelation of a wish to ascend Mont Blanc accompanied by any amount of supplication would be perfectly useless with M. Bossoney; we therefore had recourse to subtlety and throwing dust in his tyrannical eyes. walked quietly into the lion's den with a 'Bonjour, monsieur Bossoney.' 'Bonjour, messieurs,' he replied.

We

We proceeded to tell him we