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.
PLATE XV.
Represents the Pleides, a well known Knot of Stars in the Sign Taurus, as they appeared to me thro' a one Foot reflecting Telescope: And Plate XVI. is a View of the Persides, another surprizing Knot of Stars in the Constellation Perseus, exactly as they appear through a Tube of two convex Glasses. There are also other luminous Spaces in the starry Regions, not unlike the Milky Way, which I have had no Opportunity of observing; such as the Nebeculæ, near the South Pole, called by the Seamen Magellanic Clouds; and which likewise viewed through Telescopes, present us with little Nebulæ, and small Stars interspersed: One of these Kind is situated between Hydrus and Dorado; and another, something less than this, betwixt Hydrus and the Toucan.
Now admitting the Breadth of the Via Lactea to be at a Mean but nine Degrees, and supposing only twelve hundred Stars in every square Degree, there will be nearly in the whole orbicular Area 3,888,000 Stars, and all these in a very minute Portion of the great Expanse of Heaven. What! a vast Idea of endless Beings must this produce and generate in our Minds; and when we consider them all as flaming Suns, Progenitors, and Primum Mobiles of a still much greater Number of peopled Worlds, what less than an Infinity can circumscribe them, less than an Eternity comprehend them, or less than Omnipotence produce and support them, and where can our Wonder cease?
Plate XV.
Plate XVI.
In this Place perhaps I ought not to pass over the astonishing Phenomenon of several new Stars, &c. which have frequently appeared, and soon again vanished, in the same Point of the Heavens. But as the Business of this Theory is rather to solve the general, than any particular Phænomenon, I shall only here by way of Note subjoin a Table of such as has been regularly observed, and by whom they were first discovered.