Royal Astronomical Society. 573 



Euphrates, and Tigris. The heavens would now appear to he 

 sufficiently covered, and it seemed that all the advantages which 

 the constellations could give to the memory and imagination, in 

 learning astronomy, had been obtained. But when Hevelius, in 

 the latter part of the seventeenth century, had finished, with incre- 

 dible labour and care, his valuable catalogue of stars, he considered 

 that those persons who were not observers themselves had no 

 right to institute new constellations : and although, with much 

 reluctance, he retained the Camelopard, the Unicorn, and the Fly 

 of Bartschius, yet he rejected the rivers ; and instead of them, and 

 in some other vacant spots, introduced the Hounds, the mountain 

 Menalus, Cerberus, the Fox and Goose, the Lizard, the Shield of 

 Sobieski, the Lynx, the Little Lion, the Little Triangle, and the 

 Sextant, and also gave to Antinous a bow and arrow. Unnecessary 

 as this increase of the constellations may be, the indefatigable 

 Hevelius may be allowed to retain it, as the best means of preser- 

 ving a remembrance of his great work. For his enumeration and 

 classification of the fixed stars, for which he had sacrificed the 

 greatest part of his life, his strength, and his fortune, and by which 

 he hoped to have gained immortal fame as an astronomer, was soon 

 after doomed to yield to the better and more complete British cata- 

 logue of Flamsteed, and has now become nearly useless. Astrono- 

 mers now no longer use it : nor, indeed, can they use it, except in 

 a few cases, and in some researches of little importance. Heve- 

 lius's constellations may be said to be analogous to the ancient 

 ones ; some of them may be considered as mythological : and as to 

 the rest, they, for the most part, represent animals. Therefore it 

 may be stated, if not in recommendation, at least in defence of them, 

 that if they overwhelm our maps of stars they do not disfigure them. 

 We have got on our maps only two of the constellations that were 

 introduced in the seventeenth century, namely, Charles's Oak and the 

 Brandenburgh Sceptre ; for the Heart of Charles is merely the name 

 of a star, and no constellation. Halley had formed Charles's Oak 

 out of the stars that belonged to Argo ; and, notwithstanding the 

 protest of Lacaille against this usurpation, this constellation still 

 remains. Kirch was desirous of introducing the Swords,' the Orb, 

 and the Sceptre of Brandenburgh. The electoral Swords were co- 

 vered by the mountain Menalus ; and the Orb yields its place to the 

 Bow and Arrow which Antinous had received from Hevelius ; and 

 although the new globes very often disarmed Antinous, yet he has 

 not yet taken the Orb in his hand. Moreover the Sceptre of Bran- 

 denburgh, although it did not interfere with any other constellation, 

 yet would not have had a place on our globes, if Bode had not been 

 the astronomer-royal of Prussia. The Cock, which was formed from 

 a portion of the ship Argo, has likewise disappeared ; the Sceptre of 

 Louis XIV. with which Royer wished to honour his sovereign, yielded 

 its place to the Lizard of Hevelius ; the French Lily could not push 

 away the Fly ; and so on with many others ; for example, the Little 

 Crab, the South Arrow, &c. are quite forgotten, and not even 

 known at the present day. One would now suppose that nearly 



