II. Preliminary paper on certain drifting motions of the stars

A careful examination of the proper motions of all the fixed stars in the catalogues published by Messrs. Main and Stone (Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vols. xxviii. and xxxiii.) has led me to a somewhat interesting result. I find that in parts of the heavens the stars exhibit a well-marked tendency to drift in a definite direction. In the catalogues of proper motions, owing to the way in which the stars are arranged, this tendency is masked; but when the proper motions are indicated in maps, by affixing to each star a small arrow whose length and direction indicate the magnitude and direction of the star’s proper motion, the star-drift (as the phenomenon may be termed) becomes very evident. It is worthy of notice that Mädler, having been led by certain considerations to examine the neighbourhood of the Pleiades for traces of a community of proper motion, founded on the drift he actually found in Taurus his well-known theory that Alcyone (the lucida of the Pleiades) is the common centre around which the sidereal system is moving. But in reality the community of motion in Taurus is only a single instance, and not the most striking that might be pointed out, of a characteristic which may be recognized in many regions of the heavens. In Gemini an there is a much more striking drift towards the south-east, the drift m Taurus being towards the south-west. In the constellation Leo there is also a well-marked drift, in this case towards Cancer.