A New Determination of the Distribution of Stars with respect to Magnitude and Galactic Latitude

THE significance of the numbers of stars visible in different parts of the sky has been recognised since the time of Sir, William Herschel, whose star gauges first indicated the flattened, watch-shaped form of the galactic system. The stars having parallaxes which can be measured, either by trigonometric or spectroscopic methods, are all so near that their distances tell nothing of the structural features of the system. These must be learned from counts, like those of Herschel, of stars of different magnitudes in different parts of the sky.