Space will not permit us to go through this list star for star. We may be satisfied with some general remarks.
In the fourth column is the galactic square. We call to mind that all these squares have the same area, and that there is therefore the same probability _a priori_ of finding a star in one of the squares as in another. The squares GC and GD lie along the galactic equator (the Milky Way). We find now from column 4 that of the 20 stars here considered there are no less than 15 in the galactic equator squares and only 5 outside, instead of 10 in the galactic squares and 10 outside, as would have been expected. The number of objects is, indeed, too small to allow us to draw any cosmological conclusions from this distribution, but we shall find in the following many similar instances regarding objects that are principally accumulated along the Milky Way and are scanty at the galactic poles. We shall find that in these cases we may _generally_ conclude from such a partition that we then have to do with objects _situated far from the sun_, while objects that are uniformly distributed on the sky lie relatively near us. It is easy to understand that this conclusion is a consequence of the supposition, confirmed by all star counts, that the stellar system extends much farther into space along the Milky Way than in the direction of its poles.
If we could permit ourselves to draw conclusions from the small material here under consideration, we should hence have reason to believe that the bright stars lie relatively far from us. In other words we should conclude that the bright stars seem to be bright to us not because of their proximity but because of their large intrinsic luminosity. Column 8 really tends in this direction. Certainly the distances are not in this case colossal, but they are nevertheless sufficient to show, in some degree, this uneven partition of the bright stars on the sky. The mean distance of these stars is as large as 7.5 sir. Only [alpha] Centauri, Sirius, Procyon and Altair lie at a distance smaller than one siriometer. Of the other stars there are two that lie as far as 30 siriometers from our system. These are the two giants Canopus and Rigel. Even if, as has already been said, the distances of these stars may be considered as rather uncertain, we must regard them as being rather large.