Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
The first quantitative evidence for a large scale density excess or “metagalactic cloud” including the Local Group was obtained by Holmberg (1937) and confirmed by Reiz (1941). the present concept of the Local Supercluster (LSC) as a flattened aggregate of field galaxies, small groups and larger clouds centered at the Virgo cluster was formulated 25 years ago (de Vaucouleurs 1953) even before large-scale superclustering was recognized as a general phenomenon. See review papers in Vistas in Astronomy (1956), Soviet Astronomy (1960), Science (1970), Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific (1971), and IAU Symp. No. 63 (Abell 1974).