, but enough to excite our
interest and wonder. What is this marvellous light-cloud? One could
almost imagine that there was a strange prophetic meaning in the words
which have been translated "Canst thou loose the bands of Orion?"
Telescope after telescope had been turned on this wonderful object with
the hope of resolving its light into stars. But it proved intractable to
Herschel's great reflector, to Lassell's 2-feet reflector, to Lord
Rosse's 3-feet reflector, and even partially to the great 6-feet
reflector. Then we hear of its supposed resolution into stars, Lord
Rosse himself writing to Professor Nichol, in 1846, "I may safely say
there can be little, if any, doubt as to the resolvability of the
nebula;--all about the trapezium is a mass of stars, the rest of the
nebula also abounding with stars, and exhibiting the characteristics of
resolvability strongly marked."

It was decided, therefore, that assuredly the great nebula is a
congeries of stars, and not a mass of nebulous matter as had been
surmised by Sir W. Herschel. And therefore astronomers were not a little
surprised when it was proved by Mr. Huggins' spectrum-analysis that the
nebula consists of gaseous matter. How widely extended this gaseous
universe may be we cannot say. The general opinion is that the nebulae
are removed far beyond the fixed stars. If this were so, the dimensions
of the Orion nebula would be indeed enormous, far larger probably than
those of the whole system whereof our sun is a member. I believe this
view is founded on insufficient evidence, but this would not be the
place to discuss the subject. I shall merely point out that the nebula
occurs in a region rich in stars, and if it is not, like the great
nebula in Argo, clustered around a remarkable star, it is found
associated in a manner which I cannot look upon as accidental with a set
of small-magnitude stars, and notably with the trapezium which surrounds
that very remarkable black gap within the nebula. The fact that the
nebula shares the proper motion of the trapezium appears inexplicable if
the nebula is really far out in space beyond the trapezium. A very small
proper motion of the trapezium (alone) would long since have destroyed
the remarkable agreement in the position of the dark gap and the
trapezium which has been noticed for so many years.

But whether belonging to our system or far beyond it, the great nebula
must have enormous dimensions. A vast gaseous system it is