208 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Sirius occupies sixteen years in mak- 

 ing its long journey to us, while that with 

 which we view Proc}^on left the sur- 

 face of that distant sun no less than 

 twenty-six years ago. Each of the Dog 

 Stars is attended by a darker sun which 

 revolves around it. From the study of 

 the motions of these we learn that 

 Sirius is three times as large and forty 

 times brighter than our own sun, while 

 Procyon is nearly twice as large as 

 Sirius. When we remember that our 

 earth is only one-millionth part as 

 large as our sun, we realize that the 

 stupendous size of these wonderful sys- 



trologers it was known as the Dark 

 Sign, and its influence was considered 

 particularly unfortunate. To the Chal- 

 deans it was known as the Gate of Men, 

 —the region of the stars through which 

 when men were born their souls de- 

 scended in their passage from Heaven 

 to the earth. Its most interesting ob- 

 ject in a small telescope is the striking 

 cluster of stars at A, Figures I and 2, 

 which appears to the eye as a faint 

 cloud of light, but in a very small tele- 

 scope is readily seen to be composed 

 of about 150 stars crowded closely to- 

 gether. 



NORTH 



5DUTH 



Figure 1. The Constellations at 9 P .M., December 1. (If facing east, hold "East" below; if facing west, 

 hold "West" below. If facing south, hold the map upright; if facing north, hold the map inverted.) 



terns is truly inconceivable. It should 

 be added that both of the darker atten- 

 dants to the Dog Stars were discovered 

 from a mathematical discussion of the 

 positions of their primaries many years 

 before they were ever seen in any 

 telescone. 



North of Procyon and below the 

 twins there may now be seen the most 

 interesting constellation of the Crab. 

 This is the faintest of all the constel- 

 lations of the zodiac, so that to the as- 



The very slowly moving, far-distant 

 planet Neptune is now just entering 

 the borders of Cancer and has there- 

 fore again been brought into our even- 

 ing sky. As this outermost known 

 member of our sun's family of worlds 

 occupies 165 of our years in passing 

 around the heavens, its motion among 

 the stars is very slow. As will be seen 

 from Figure 2, it has during the past 

 three years moved but a short distance 

 toward the border of Gemini. Nep- 



