. . .e, nevertheless, abundant in the broader half of the Milky Way which he designates as the front of the gigantic ``plough'' supposed to be forcing its way through the enveloping chaos. In and around the Sagittarius region the intermingling of nebulæ and galactic star clouds and clusters is particularly remarkable. That there is a causal connection no thoughtful person can doubt. We are unable to get away from the evidence that a nebula is like a seed-ground from which stars spring forth; or we may say that nebulæ resemble clouds in whose bosom raindrops are forming. The wonderful aspect of the admixtures of nebulæ and star-clusters in Sagittarius has been described in Chapter 1. We now come to a still more extraordinary phenomenon of this kind -- the Pleiades nebulæ.

The group of the Pleiades, although lying outside the main course of the Galaxy, is connected with it by a faint lo. . . Read More