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, sustained by what arrangements or forces we cannot tell, nor can we know what purposes it subserves.

Mr.Huggins' discovery that comets have gaseous nuclei, (so far as the two he has yet examined show) may suggest the speculation that in the Orion nebula we see a vast system of comets travelling in extensive orbits around nuclear stars, and so slowly as to exhibit for long intervals of time an unchanged figure.

"But of such speculations" we may say with Sir J.Herschel "there is no end." To return to our telescopic observations:--The trapezium affords a useful test for the light-gathering power of the telescope.

Large instruments exhibit nine stars.