star-drift

She creates only to kill, and applies the rule as remorselessly to the units in a star-drift as to the tadpoles in a horse-pond.

The Crack of Doom Robert Cromie 1881

So famed he became that some deemed him an alchemist, who possessed the secret called _White-and-Yellow_, by which stones might be turned into gold; and others thought him a magician, having the ghastly power of murdering men with horror of nightmare, by hiding charmed effigies of them under the tiles of their own roofs; and others, again, averred that he was an astrologer who had discovered the mystery of those Five Hing which influence all things, -- those Powers that move even in the currents of the star-drift, in the milky _Tien-ho_, or River of the Sky.

Some Chinese Ghosts Lafcadio Hearn 1877

-- oh, yes, the long crimson stream flew, wavered in the gale, and broke into scattered star-drift.

A Dream of the North Sea James Runciman 1871

"It seems a far cry from a star-drift to a horse-pond.

The Crack of Doom Robert Cromie 1881

Messrs. Stone and Main, with the result of bringing to light the remarkable phenomenon termed by him "star-drift." [

A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition 1874