The peoples of all ages have honored the Milky Way in story and legend. It has been universally referred to as The Sky River and The Pathway of Souls. To the little Hiawatha, we remember, the "wrinkled old Nakomis"
"Showed the broad white road in heaven Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, Running straight across the heavens, Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. To the Kingdom of Ponemah To the land of the hereafter."
In _The Galaxy_, Longfellow thus describes the Milky Way:
"Torrent of light and river of the air Along whose bed the glimmering stars are seen Like gold and silver sands in some ravine Where mountain streams have left their channels bare!"
In Sweden, where the Milky Way arches high through the zenith in winter, it is called the Winter Street, and Miss Edith Thomas writes thus beautifully of it in her poem entitled, "The Winter Street":
"Silent with star dust, yonder it lies-- The Winter Street, so fair and so white; Winding along through the boundless skies, Down heavenly vale, up heavenly height.
Faintly it gleams, like a summer road When the light in the west is sinking low, Silent with star dust! By whose abode Does the Winter Street in its windings go?
And who are they, all unheard and unseen-- O who are they, whose blessèd feet Pass over that highway smooth and sheen? What pilgrims travel the Winter Street?
Are they not those whom here we miss In the ways and the days that are vacant below? As the dust of that Street their footfalls kiss Does it not brighter and brighter grow?"
Beautiful indeed are these poetic fancies but none of them picture even remotely the awe-inspiring grandeur of the Milky Way as it actually exists.
[Illustration: A DARK NEBULA: THE DARK BAY OR DARK HORSE NEBULA IN ORION Taken with 100-inch Hooker Telescope of the Mt. Wilson Observatory]
Millions upon millions of far distant suns equal to or surpassing our own sun in brilliancy are gathered within this vast encircling zone of the heavens, their combined light giving to the naked eye the impression of a milky band of light. Nine-tenths of all the stars, it has been estimated, lie close to the plane of the Galaxy, as well as all the vast expanses of luminous gaseous nebulæ and clouds of dark obscuring matter all seemingly intermingled in chaotic confusion; yet law and order govern the motions of all. Here also are the great moving star clusters such as the Pleiades and the Hyades and all of the brilliant "Orion" stars.