Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/499

§ 317] 317. The great problem to which Herschel gave so much attention, that of the general arrangement of the stars and the structure of the system, if any, formed by them and the nebulae, has been affected in a variety of ways by the additions which have been made to our knowledge of the stars. But so far are we from any satisfactory solution of the problem that no modern theory can fairly claim to represent the facts now known to us as well as Herschel's earlier theory fitted the much scantier stock which he had at his command. In this as in so many cases an increase of knowledge has shewn the insufficiency of a previously accepted theory, but has not provided a successor. Detailed study of the form of the Milky Way (cf. fig. 104) and of its relation to the general body of stars has shewn the inadequacy of any simple arrangement of stars to represent its appearance; William Herschel's cloven grindstone, the ring which his son was inclined to substitute for it as the result of his Cape studies, and the more complicated forms which later writers have suggested, alike fail to account for its peculiarities. Again, such evidence as we have of the distance of the stars, when compared with their brightness, shews that there are large variations in their actual sizes as well as in their apparent sizes, and thus tells against the assumption of a certain uniformity which underlay much of Herschel's work. The "island universe" theory of nebulae, partially abandoned by Herschel after 1791 (chapter, § 260), but brought into credit again by Lord Rosse's discoveries (§ 310), scarcely survived the spectroscopic proof of the gaseous character of certain nebulae. Other evidence has pointed clearly to intimate relations between nebulae and stars generally; Herschel's observation that nebulae are densest in regions farthest from the Milky Way has been abundantly verified—as far as irresoluble nebulae are concerned—while obvious star clusters shew an equally clear preference for the neighbourhood of the Milky Way. In many cases again individual stars or groups seen on the sky in or near a nebula have been clearly shewn, either by their arrangement or in some cases by peculiarities of their spectra, to be really connected with the nebula, and not merely to be accidentally in the same direction. Stars which have bright lines