6 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



part of the sphere that they could perceive above their horizon. 

 Others, of a less advanced civilization, only named the more con- 

 spicuous groups of stars. They merely made a start. Yet the 

 problem presented itself everywhere under the same aspect, for the 

 solution was much of the same kind. Thus, the Scandinavians had 

 a dog, a chariot, a cross, and a spindle in the sky. The Eskimos 

 put seal-hunters there. The Makah Indians of the strait of San 

 Juan de Fuca, living on the sea-coast, chose figures of fishes and 

 cetaceans. The Aztecs and Mayas saw animals there, including a 

 scorpion, which does not correspond with our constellation Scor- 

 pio. The Peruvians designated a jaguar, a cross-bearer, and a 

 sheep suckling her lamb. The Puelches of Patagonia set ostrich- 

 feathers in the Magellanic clouds. The Oceanian peoples applied 

 figures to the constellations that impressed them. 



These facts will lead the reader to ask if the resemblance pre- 

 sented by the configurations of some of the stars with familiar 

 objects has not provoked comparisons of which the pictured 

 sphere is a result. Thus, the constellation Gemini is composed 

 of two lines of stars, each beginning with one of the first magni- 

 tude. There is a striking duality in this, which has seemed to 

 suggest the same representative idea in many quarters. But the 

 Accadians, who gave us the constellation of the Twins, did not 

 figure it as we do, nor as the Tahitians do. Instead of arranging 

 the brothers side by side, they opposed them foot to foot. 



The small number of similitudes that we meet in the spheres 

 of peoples distant from one another have an important signifi- 

 cance. The Pleiades were nearly everywhere the first group that 

 was remarked and named. The agglomeration of stars in it was 

 of a nature to provoke the same kind of impressions. Yet differ- 

 ent peoples attached different figures to it. The ancient Egyptians 

 were struck by the idea of number, and, running into a prodigious 

 exaggeration, called it by a name that signified thousands. In 

 India they saw a hen and chickens in the group. This name 

 spread thence to western Asia and then to Europe, and is still 

 common. The similitudes were different in the New World. The 

 Eskimos called the group the " bound together " ; in a great part 

 of North America the thought is of a dance with the Iroquois, of 

 men and women; with the Chokitapias, or Blackfeet, a sacred 

 dance around the sacred seed. We may pertinently recollect that 

 in classic antiquity Hyginus said that the Pleiades were so dis- 

 posed as to seem to be dancing around. 



The second stellar object that impressed primitive peoples is 

 the milky way, which naturally suggests the idea of a road and a 

 river. It is called the celestial river in China. To the ancient 

 poets it was the stream of milk which Alcmene spilled when nurs- 

 ing Hercules. To the philosophers it was the highway of souls, 



