PLATE XIV.
Is from an Observation I made myself, of a bright Part of this Zone near the Feet of Antinous; which, (by a Mistake of the Engraver) is, as it appears through a Tube of two convex Glasses. I saw it through a very good Reflector, and formed the Plan by a Combination of Triangles.
Milton takes notice of this Zone in a most beautiful Manner, where he describes the Creator's Return from his six Day's Work to Heaven, he introduces it as a Simile to express his Idea of the eternal Way, or Road to the celestial Mansions.
——A broad and ample Road, whose Dust is Gold
And Pavement Stars, as Stars to thee appear,
Seen in the Galaxie, that Milky Way,
Which nightly as a circling Zone thou seest
Powder'd with Stars.
But to infer from their Appearance only, that they are really Stars, without considering their Nature and Distance; and that nothing but Stars could possibly produce such an Effect, may perhaps be assuming too much, when we have nothing but the bare Credit of the Belgic Glasses to support our Conjectures; and although this may be sufficient for any Mathematician, yet for your greater Satisfaction, I have thought proper to give two or three more evincing Arguments, to confirm these important Discoveries. Democritus, as I have said before, believed them to be Stars long before Astronomy reaped any Benefit from the improved Sciences of Optics; and saw, as we may say, through the Eye of Reason, full as far into Infinity as the most able Astronomers in more advantageous Times have done since, even assisted with their best Glasses: And his Conjectures are almost as old as the philolaic System of the Planets itself; the Construction of which, though attempted by many, none have ever yet been able to confute.
The Light which naturally flows from this Crowd of radiant Bodies is mixt and confused, chiefly occasioned by the Agitation of our Atmosphere, and from a Union of their Rays of Light, by a too near Proximity of their Beams, altogether they appear like a River of Milk, but more of a pelucid Nature, running all round the starry Regions.
Plate XIV.
For in the azure Skies its candid Way
Shines like the dawning Morn, or closing Day.
There are also many more such luminous Spaces to be found in the Heavens of the same Nature with these, which we know to be Stars; in particular the Nebulæ, or cloudy Star in the Præsepe of 36; a cloudy Star in Orion of 21; [AC]a cloudy [AD]Knot not far from this in the same Asterism of 80; in one Degree of the same Constellation 500, and in the whole Form above [AE]2000. All of which are great Confirmations of the Truth of our Assertion, i. e. that this Zone of Light proceeds from an infinite Number of small Stars. Here it will not be amiss to observe, that it has been conjectured, and is strongly suspected, that a proper Number of Rays, meeting from different Directions, become Flame; and that hence it may prove not the Sun's real Body which we daily see, but only his inflamed Atmosphere. I begin to be of Opinion, and I think not without Reason, that the true Magnitude of the Sun is not near what the modern Astronomers have made it; and that it may not possibly be much above two Thirds of what it appears to us; I don't mean that this Expansion of the solar Flame is any Part of that dilated Light mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton, and conceived to be round all light Bodies in general; but you may consider it as not much differing from it, not of an unlike Nature, only greater in Degree, and peculiar to the Sun and Stars, who are all, as has been before in a manner demonstrated to be actually Globes of Fire.
[AC] Vide Galilæo
[AD] Betwixt the Sword and Girdle of Orion.
[AE] Vide Reitha.
This, tho' I presume to call it at present only meer Hypothesis, will in a great measure account for the excessive Changes in the Constitution of our Air and Atmosphere, which we often find very unnatural to the Season; also be a Means perhaps of reconciling the vast Disproportion so very remarkable betwixt the Sun and the lesser Planets, and many other Circumstances in the System of no small Consequence in Astronomy: One of which Particulars you have frequently expressed a great Mistrust and Disapprobation of, as suspecting some kind of a Fallacy in the Computation; and the other is Matter of general Complaint, being by many attributed to a Change in the Direction of the Earth's Axis[AF]; and by some, especially the Vulgar, to too near an Approximation of the Earth to some one of the celestial Bodies. But all this will very naturally be accounted for by the Levity, or expanding Quality of the Sun's circumambient Flame, or Atmosphere; and hence, according to its various State, being more condensed, or rare, we may have Heat or Cold in the greatest Extream, and alternately so, in a perpetual Vicissitude.
[AF] Which, through Ignorance of the true Case, is commonly called a Shock, a Brush, or Shove.
The Truth of this Doctrine will evidently appear from the Observations of the Sun's Diameter through the Year 1660, by the indefatigable Mouton: And, I must own, I am not a little surprized to find that no Conclusions have been drawn from them of this Kind. I am perswaded, if you once compare those Numbers, you will be very far from thinking this an improbable Suggestion. But this Digression has led me a little too far from the Via Lactea, and too near home again; I must now think of returning to the Stars, and my next Endeavours must be to give you some Idea of the Number of them. Through very good Telescopes there have been discovered in many Parts of this enlightened Space, and even out of it, several thousand Stars in the Compass of one square Degree; in particular near the Sword of Perseus, and in the Constellations of [AG]Taurus and Orion.
[AG] Galilæo in one cloudy Star of this Constellation, discovered no less than twenty-one, and in that of the Præsepe thirty-six.