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The recent SSRS (Southern Sky Redshift Survey) data are used to discuss the structure of the universe as viewed from the distribution of galaxies at scales ranging from 1 h^-1^ Mpc up to ~ 20 h^-1^ Mpc. In addition to the two-body correlation function, the J₃_ integral and galaxy counts in clustered regimes that describe the clustering especially in the dense parts, we focus also on the statistical indicators that best describe the underdense regions: statistics of voids and counts in cells. We determine the typical size of voids and its dependence on the galaxy density. By considering samples of various depths (40, 60, and 80 h^-1^ Mpc), we carefully examine the variations of these statistical indicators. We find that the density decrease for the deeper samples is solely due to the variations of the galaxy diameter limit, and that all indicators, when corrected for their obvious density dependence, show only quite small variations. They, however, are systematic and can be attributed to variations of the correlation length due to diameter (luminosity) segregation. We find a density-dependent but depth-independent, limit for the size of the voids that for a sample with 10^-2^ h^-1^ Mpc^-3^ galaxies have a diameter smaller than 20 h^-1^ Mpc at the 99% confidence limit. We also find strong evidence that the galaxy distribution obeys scaling laws in both the dense and underdense regions, that relate the observed distribution at different scales and densities over the entire range considered. The physical process that led to the galaxy clustering may thus be expected to have been the same at all the scales we have examined here.
Maurogordato et al. (Fri,) studied this question.