ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS. 519 



as that of the Thelas, described above ; but I think it improbable that 

 anybody could separate them with the naked eye, as there is a full 

 magnitude between them in brightness, and the smaller star is only of 

 magnitude 6*5, while sixth-magnitude stars are generally reckoned as 

 the smallest that can be seen by the naked eye. Above the Kappas, 

 and in the same group in the ear, are the two Upsilons, forming a 

 wider pair. 



Next we come to the Pleiades. 



" Though small their size and pale their light, wide is their fame." 



In every age and in every country the Pleiades have been watched, 

 admired, and wondered at, for they are visible from every inhabited 

 land on the globe. To many they are popularly known as the Seven 

 Stars, although few persons can see more than six stars in the group 

 with the unaided eye. It is a singular fact that many of the earliest 

 writers declare that only six Pleiades can be seen, although they all 

 assert that they are seven in number. These seven were the fabled 

 daughters of Atlas, or the Atlantides, whose names were Merope, Al- 

 cyone, Celaeno, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, and jVIaia. One of the 

 stories connected with them is that Merope married a mortal, where- 

 upon her star grew dim among her sisters. Another fable assures us 

 that Electra, unable to endure the sight of the burning of Troy, hid 

 her face in her hands, and so blotted her star from the sky. While 

 we may smile at these stories, we can not entirely disregard them, for 

 they are intermingled with some of the richest literary treasures of the 

 world, and they come to us, like some old keepsake, fragrant with the 

 perfume of a past age. The mythological history of the Pleiades is 

 intensely interesting, too, because it is world wide. They have im- 

 pressed their mark, in one way or another, upon the habits, customs, 

 traditions, language, and history of probably every nation. This is 

 true of savage tribes as well as of great empires. The Pleiades fur- 

 nish one of the principal links that appear to connect the beginnings 

 of human history with that wonderful prehistoric past, where, as 

 through a gulf of mist, we seem to perceive faintly the glow of a 

 golden age beyond. The connection of the Pleiades Avith traditions 

 of the Flood is most remarkable. In almost every part of the world, 

 and in various ages, the celebration of a feast or festival of the dead, 

 dimly connected by tradition with some great calamity to the human 

 race in the past, has been found to be directly related to the Pleiades. 

 This festival or rite, which has been discovered in various forms among 

 the ancient Hindoos, Egyptians, Persians, Peruvians, Mexicans, Druids, 

 etc., occurs always in the month of November, and is regulated by the 

 culmination of the Pleiades. The Egyptians directly connected this 

 celebration with a deluge, and the Mexicans, at the time of the Span- 

 ish conquest, had a tradition that the world had once been destroyed 

 at the time of the midnight culmination of the Pleiades. Among the 



