60 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



an approach as twelve to the number of months 

 in a year) do not. 



It seems to me highly probable that the date 

 to which all inquiries into the origin of the con- 

 stellations and the zodiacal signs seems to point 

 — viz., 2170 b. c. — was the date at which the 

 Chaldean astronomers definitely adopted the new 

 system, the luni-solar instead of the lunar divi- 

 sion of the zodiac and of time. One of the ob- 

 jects which the architects of the Great Pyramid 

 (not the king who built it) may have had, was not 

 improbably this — the erection of a building indi- 

 cating the epoch when the new system was en- 

 tered upon, and defining in its proportions, its 

 interior passages, and other features, the funda- 

 mental elements of the new system. The great 

 difficulty, an overwhelming difficulty it has always 

 seemed to me, in accepting the belief that the 

 year 2170 b. c. defined the beginning of exact as- 

 tronomy, has been this — that several of the cir- 

 cumstances insisted upon as determining that 

 date imply a considerable knowledge of astron- 

 omy. Thus astronomers must have made great 

 progress in their science before they could select, 

 as a date for counting from, the epoch when the 

 slow reeling motion of the earth (the so-called 

 preeessional motion) brought the Pleiades cen- 

 trally south at the time of the vernal equinox. 

 The construction of the Great Pyramid, again, in 

 all its astronomical features, implies considerable 

 proficiency in astronomical observation. Thus 

 the year 2170 b. c. may very well be regarded as 

 defining the introduction of a new system of as- 

 tronomy, but certainly not the beginning of as- 

 tronomy itself. Of course, we may cut the knot 

 of this difficulty, as Prof. Smythe and Abbe 

 Moigno do, by saying that astronomy began 2170 

 b. c, the first astronomers being instructed su- 

 pernatural!)-, so that the astronomical Minerva 

 came full-grown into being. But I apprehend 

 that argument against such a belief is as unneces- 

 sary as it would certainly be useless. 



And now let us consider how this theory ac- 

 cords with the result to which we were led by 

 the position of the great vacant space around the 

 southern pole. So far as the date is concerned, 

 we have already seen that the epoch 2170 b. c. 

 accords excellently with the evidence of the va- 

 cant space. But this evidence, as I mentioned 

 at the outset, establishes more than the date ; it 

 indicates the latitude of the place where the most 

 ancient of Ptolemy's forty-eight constellations 

 were first definitely adopted by astronomers. If 

 we assume that at this place the southernmost 

 constellations were just fully seen when due south, 



we find for the latitude about 38° north. (The 

 student of astronomy who may care to test my 

 results may be reminded here that it is not 

 enough to show that every star of a constella- 

 tion would when due south be above the ho- 

 rizon of the place : what is wanted is, that the 

 whole constellation when toward the south should 

 be visible at a single view. However, the whole 

 constellation may not have included all the stars 

 now belonging to it.) The station of the astrono- 

 mers who founded the new system can scarcely 

 have been more than a degree or two north of 

 this latitude. On the other side, we may go a lit- 

 tle farther, for by so doing we only raise the con- 

 stellations somewhat higher above the southern 

 horizon, to which there is less objection than to a 

 change thrusting part of the constellations below 

 the horizon. Still, it may be doubted whether 

 the place where the constellations were first 

 formed was less than 32° or 33° north of the 

 equator. The Great Pyramid, as we know, is 

 about 30° north of the equator; but we also 

 know that its architects traveled southward to 

 find a suitable place for it. One of their objects 

 may well have been to obtain a fuller view of the 

 star-sphere south of their constellations. I think 

 from 35° to 89° north would be about the most 

 probable limits, and from 32° to 41° north the 

 certain limits of the station of the first founders . 

 of solar zodiacal astronomy. What their actual 

 station may have been is not so easily estab- 

 lished. Some think the region lay between the 

 sources of the Oxus (Amoor) and Indus ; others 

 think that the station of these astronomers was 

 not very far from Mount Ararat — a view to which 

 I was led long ago by other considerations, dis- 

 cussed in the first appendix to my treatise on 

 "Saturn and its System." 



At the epoch indicated, the first constellation 

 of the zodiac was not, as now, the Fishes, nor, as 

 when a fresh departure was made by Hipparchus, 

 the Bam, but the Bull, a trace of which is found 

 in Virgil's words, 



" Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum 

 Taurus." 



The Bull then was the spring sign, the Pleiades 

 and ruddy Aldebaran joining their rays with the 

 sun's at the time of the vernal equinox. The 

 midsummer sign was the Lion (the bright Cor 

 Leonis nearly marking the sun's highest place). 

 The autumn sign was the Scorpion, the ruddy 

 Antares and the stars clustering in the head of 

 the Scorpion joining their rays with the sun's at 

 the time of the autumnal equinox. And, lastly) 



