75 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the bursting of a sky-rocket." And Webb adds that there is an " ele- 

 gant festoon near the center, starting with a reddish star." 



No one can gaze upon this marvelous phenomenon, even with the 

 comparatively low powers of an opera-glass, and reflect that all these 

 swarming dots of light are really suns, without a stunning sense of the 

 immensity of the material universe. 



The Twins are just now entertaining a visitor whose presence may 

 cause some perplexity to the beginner in star-lore. The planet Saturn, 

 in his great thirty-year journey around the sun, is passing nearly through 

 the center of this constellation. You will see the planet a little west 

 of the star marked Delta (8) in the map of Gemini, and making a con- 

 spicuous triangle with Castor and Pollux. It outshines both of those 

 stars, but its golden light is more steady than theirs. Turn your glass 

 upon it, and the difference in the aspect of a planet and that of a star 

 will at once become apparent. 



The map will enable you next to find Procyon, or the Little Dog-Star, 

 more than twenty degrees south of Castor and Pollux, and almost di- 

 rectly below the Manger. This star will interest you by its golden- 

 yellow color and its brightness, although it is far inferior in the latter 

 respect to Sirius, or the Great Dog-Star, which you will see flashing 

 splendidly far down beneath Procyon in the southwest. About four 

 degrees northwest of Procyon is a third-magnitude star, called Go- 

 melza, and the glass will show you two small stars which make a 

 right-angled triangle with it, the nearer one being remarkable for its 

 ruddy color. 



Sirius, Orion, Aldebaran, and the Pleiades, all of which you will per- 

 ceive in the west and southwest, are generally too much involved in the 

 mists of the horizon to be seen to the best advantage at this season, 

 although it will pay you to take a look through the glass at Sirius. 

 But the beautiful star Capella, in the constellation Auriga, may claim 

 a moment's attention. You will find it high up in the northwest, half- 

 way between Orion and the pole-star, and to the right of the Twins. 

 It has no rival near, and its creamy-white light makes it one of the 

 most beautiful as well as one of the most brilliant stars in the heavens* 

 Its constitution, as revealed by the spectroscope, resembles that of our 

 sun. but the sun would make but a sorry figure if removed to the side 

 of this giant star. About seven and a half degrees above Capella, and a 

 little to the left, you will see a second-magnitude star called Menkalina. 

 Two and half times as far to the left, or south, in the direction of Orion, 

 i- another star of equal brightness to Menkalina. This is El Nath, and 

 marks the place where the foot of Auriga, or the Charioteer, rests upon 

 the point of t lie horn of Taurus. Capella, Menkalina, and El Nath make 

 along triangle which covers the central part of Auriga. The naked 

 eye shows two or three misty-looking spots within this triangle, one 

 to the right of El Nath, one in the upper or eastern edge of the con- 

 stellation, near a third-magnitude star called Theta, and another on a 



