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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



reeling motion of our earth has changed the 

 place of the celestial pole in such a way as only 

 to depress these constellations southward with- 

 out much changing their position ; they are near- 

 ly upright when due south now as they were 

 4,000 years ago, only lower down. But the great 

 ship Argo has sufi'ered a much more serious dis- 

 placement. One cannot now see this ship like a 

 ship at any time or from any place on the earth's 

 surface. If we travel south till the whole con- 

 stellation comes into visibility above the southern 

 horizon at the proper season (January aud Feb- 

 ruary for the midnight hours) the keel of the ship 

 is aslant, the stern being high above the waist 

 (the fore-part is wanting). If we travel still far- 

 ther south, we can indeed reach places where the 

 course of the ship is so widened, and the changes 

 of position so increased, that she appears along 

 part of her journey on an even keel, but then she 

 is high above the horizon. Now, 4,000 years 

 ago she stood on the horizon itself at her south- 

 ern culmination, with level keel and upright 

 mast. 



In passing, I may note that there are those 

 who imagine that this great ship represented the 

 ark, its fore-part formerly being the portion of 

 the Centaur now forming the horse, so that the 

 Centaur was represented as a man (not as a man- 

 horse) offering a gift on the altar. Thus, in this 

 group of constellations men recognized the ark 5 

 and Noah going up from the ark toward the altar 

 " which he builded unto the Lord ; and took of 

 every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and 

 offered burnt-offerings on the altar." One here- 

 tic has even imagined that the constellation-fig- 

 ures of the ship, the man with an offering, and the 

 altar, painted or sculptured in some ancient astro- 

 logical temple, came at a later time to be under- 

 stood as picturing a series of events, interpreted 

 and expanded by a poetical writer into a com- 

 plete narrative. Without venturing to advocate 

 here so heterodox a notion, I may remark as 

 an odd coincidence that probably such a pict- 

 ure or sculpture would have shown the smoke 

 ascending from the altar which I have already 

 described, and in this smoke there would be 

 shown the bow of Sagittarius. This, interpreted 

 and expanded in the way I have mentioned, 

 might have accounted for the " bow set in the 

 clouds, for a token of a covenant." It is note- 

 worthy that all the remaining constellations form- 

 ing the southern limit of the old star-domes or 

 charts, were watery ones — the Southern Fish, 

 over which Aquarius is pouring a quite unnec- 

 essary stream of water, the great sea-monster, 



toward which in turn flow the streams of the River 

 Eridanus. The equator, too, was then occupied 

 along a great part of its length by the great 

 sca-serpeut Hydra, which reared its head above 

 the equator, very probably indicated then by a 

 water horizon, for nearly all the signs below it 

 were then watery. At any rate, as the length 

 of Hydra then lay horizontally above the ship, 

 whose masts reached it, we may well believe 

 that this part of the picture of the heavens 

 showed a sea-horizon and a ship, the great sea- 

 serpent lying along the horizon. On the back 

 of Hydra is the raven, which again may be sup- 

 posed by those who accept the theory men- 

 tioned above to have suggested the raven which 

 went forth to and fro from the ark. He is close 

 enough to the rigging of Argo to make an easy 

 journey of it. The dove, however, must not be 

 confounded with the modern constellation Co- 

 lumba, though this is placed (suitably enough) 

 near the ark. We must suppose the idea of the 

 dove was suggested by a bird pictured in the 

 rigging of the celestial ship. The sequence in 

 which the constellations came above the horizon 

 as the year went round corresponded very satis- 

 factorily with the theory, fanciful though this 

 may be. First Aquarius pouring streams of 

 water, the three fishes (Pisces and Piscis Aus- 

 tralis), and the great sea-monster Cetus, show- 

 ing how the waters prevailed over the highest 

 hills, then the ark sailing on the waters, a lit- 

 tle later the raven (Corvus), the man descending 

 from the ark and offering a gift on the altar ; and 

 last, the bow set amid the clouds. 



The theory just described may have little in 

 its favor. But wilder theories of the story of the 

 deluge have been adopted and advocated with 

 considerable confidence. One of the wildest, I 

 fear, is the Astronomer Royal's, that the deluge 

 was simply a great rising of the Nile. Sir G. 

 Airy is so confident respecting this that he says, 

 " I cannot entertain the smallest doubt that the 

 flood of Noah was a flood of the Nile," precise- 

 ly as he might say, " I cannot entertain the 

 smallest doubt that the earth moves round the 

 On one point we can entertain very little 



sun. 



doubt indeed. If it ever rained before the flood, 

 which seems probable, and if the sun ever shone 

 on falling rain, which again seems likely, nothing 

 short of a miracle could have prevented the 

 rainbow from making its appearance before the 

 flood. The wildest theory that can be invented 

 to explain the story of the deluge cannot be wild- 

 er than the supposition that the rays of sunlight 

 shining on falling rain-drops could have ever 



