[Illustration: Fig. 40.—A REMARKABLE SPIRAL (n.g.c. 628; in Pisces). (_Photographed by Dr. Isaac Roberts, F.R.S._)]
The spiral form of structure is one in which Nature seems to delight. We find it in the organic world allied with objects of the greatest interest and beauty. The ammonite, a magnificent spiral shell sometimes exceeding three feet in diameter, belongs to a type which dominated the waters of the globe in secondary times, and which still survives in the nautilus. The same form is reproduced in minute creations totally different from ammonites in their zoological relations. Among the exquisite foraminifera which the microscopist knows so well may be found most delicate and beautiful spirals. Just as we see every range of spiral in the animal world, from an organism invisible to the naked eye, up to an ammonite a yard or more across, so it would seem that there are spiral nebulæ ranging from such vast objects as the great spiral in Canes Venatici down to such relatively minute spirals as those whose humble function it is to develop a solar system. It is no more than a reasonable supposition that the great spirals in the heavens are probably only the more majestic objects of an extremely numerous class. The smaller objects of this type—among which we might expect to find nebulæ like, in size and importance, to the primæval nebula of our system—are so small that they have not yet been recognised.
It should at this stage be mentioned that several curious small planetary nebulæ have in these modern days been discovered by their peculiar spectra. If the nebulous character of these most interesting objects had not been accidentally disclosed by characteristic lines in their spectra, these undoubted nebulæ would each have been classified merely as stars. This fact will lead us to the surmise that there must be myriads of nebulæ in the heavens, too small to come within the range of our telescopes or of our most sensitive photographic plates. Suppose that a facsimile of the primæval nebula of our system, precisely corresponding with it in size and identical with it in every detail, were at the present moment located in space, but at a distance from our standpoint, as great as the distance of, let us say, the great spiral; it seems certain that this nebula, even though it contained the materials for a huge sun and a potential system of mighty planets, if not actually invisible to us here, would in all probability demand the best powers of our instruments to reveal it, and then it would be classed not as a nebula at all but as a star of perhaps the 12th or 15th, or even smaller magnitude.