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H. C. Russell, at Sydney in 1890, successfully imitated Professor Barnard's example. His photographs of the southern Milky Way have many points of interest. They show the great rift, black to the eye, yet densely star-strewn to the perception of the chemical retina; while the "Coal-sack" appears absolutely dark only in its northern portion.
There is a similar, but less perfect, ``coal-sack'' in the northern hemisphere, in the constellation of ``The Swan, which, strange to say, also contains a well-marked figure of a cross outlined by stars. This gap lies near the top of the cross-shaped figure. It is best seen by averted vision, which brings out the contrast with the Milky Way, which is quite brilliant around it.
My mind continually strays from things non-understandable to things incomprehensible from our Samurai captain with the exquisite Gabriel voice that is heard only in the tumult and thunder of storm; on to the ill-treated and feeble-minded faun with the bright, liquid, pain-filled eyes; to the three gangsters who rule the forecastle and seduce the second mate; to the perpetually muttering O'Sullivan in the steel-walled hole and the complaining Davis nursing the marlin-spike in the upper bunk; and to Christian Jespersen somewhere adrift in this vastitude of ocean with a coal-sack at his feet.
Perhaps if we could carry our telescopes to the verge of the great ``Coal-sack'' near the ``Cross, being then on the frontier of our starry system, we could discern, sparkling afar off in the vast night, some of the outer galaxies. They may be grander than ours, just as many of the suns surrounding us are immensely greater than ours.
One of the most startling of these rifts is that called the Coal-Sack, in the Southern Hemisphere, and it occurs in a part of the sky otherwise so bright that it is the more noticeable. No possible explanation has yet been suggested to account for it. Thus it may be seen that, though much has been discovered, much remains to be discovered.
We urge our "Phantom" fleetly to the southern pole. Here, over the other hemisphere of the earth, there shines another hemisphere of heaven. The stars are changed; the southern cross, the Magellanic clouds, the "coal-sack" in the milky way, attract our notice.
Now that observatories are multiplying in the southern hemisphere, the great austral ``Coal-sack'' will, no doubt, receive attention proportioned to its importance as one of the most significant features of the sky.
The white man calls it the coal-sack, and explains how it comes about. The black-fellow looked at it in wonder, and worked his brains for the reason of its existence and the use that it might serve, and gradually, unconsciously, inexplicably, there crept into the lore of the nomad tribes the story of its origin and the use it had to serve.
To them, as well as to those who listened in rapt wonder to their tales, the ``Coal-sack'' seemed to possess some occult connection with the mystic ``Cross. In the eyes of the sailors it was not a vacancy so much as a sable reality in the sky, and as, shuddering, they stared at it, they piously crossed themselves.
When he was made a "young man," he was told of it, and told how men of his own tribe, who had gone up through the coal-sack by the blazing rope, were coming back; and how, when they came back, the black-fellow's life would be never-ending, with food enough every day to satisfy his appetite, and no flood, no drought, no sickness, nothing but life free, happy, and enjoyable.
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