horizon, and then round the earth to form a girdle
about the heavens. When we examine the Milky Way with a telescope we
find, to our amazement, that it consists of myriads of stars, so small
and so faint that we are not able to distinguish them individually; we
merely see the glow produced from their collective rays. Remembering
that our sun is a star, and that the Milky Way surrounds us, it would
almost seem as if our sun were but one of the host of stars which form
this cluster.

There are also other clusters of stars, some of which are exquisitely
beautiful telescopic spectacles. I may mention a celebrated pair of
these objects which lies in the constellation of Perseus. The sight of
them in a great telescope is so imposing that no one who is fit to
look through a telescope could resist a shout of wonder and admiration
when first they burst on his view. But there are other clusters. Here
is a picture of one which is known as the "Globular Cluster in the
Centaur" (Fig. 2). It consists of a ball of stars, so far off that,
however large these several suns may actually be, they have dwindled
down to extremely small points of light. A homely illustration may
serve to show the appearance which a globular cluster presents in a
good telescope. I take a pepper-caster, and on a sheet of white paper
I begin to shake out the pepper until there is a little heap at the
centre and other grains are scattered loosely about. Imagine that
every one of those grains of pepper was to be transformed into a tiny
electric light, and then you have some idea of what a cluster of stars
would look like when viewed through a telescope of sufficient power.
There are multitudes of such groups scattered through the depths of
space. They require our biggest telescopes to show them adequately. We
have seen that our sun is a star, being only one of a magnificent
cluster that forms the Milky Way. We have also seen that there are
other groups scattered through the length and depth of space. It is
thus we obtain a notion of the rank which our earth holds in the
scheme of things celestial.

[Illustration: FIG. 2. GLOBULAR CLUSTER IN THE CENTAUR.]

The Rank of the Earth as a Globe in Space.

Let me give an illustration with the view of explaining more fully the
nature of the relation which the earth bears to the other globes which
abound through space, and you must allow me to draw a little upon my
imagination. I shall suppose that the mails of our c