SOUTHERN STARS. 185 



of the heavens in like manner are indicated by these four 

 groups. 62 



While a large and splendid portion of the southern heavens 

 beyond stars having 53 S. Decl. were unknown in ancient 

 times, and even in the earlier part of the middle ages, the know- 

 ledge of the southern hemisphere was gradually completed 

 about a century before the invention and application of the 

 telescope. At the time of Ptolemy there were visible on the 

 horizon of Alexandria, the Altar, the feet of the Centaur, 

 the Southern Cross, then included in the Centaur, and 

 according to Pliny also called Ccesaris Thronus, in honour 

 of Augustus, 63 and Canopus (Canobus) in Argo, which is 

 called Ptolemceon by the scholiast to Germanicus. 64 In the 



' 2 Lepsius, Chronol. der JHgypter, bd. i. s. 143. In the 

 Hebrew text mention is made of Asch, the giant (Orion?), the 

 many stars (the Pleiades, Gemut ?) and " the Chambers of the 

 South." The Septuagint gives: o TTOIWI/ 'EXeidSa Kai^Ea-ircpov 

 Kal ApKTOvpov Kal raffia VOTQV. 



The early English translators, like the Germans and Dutch, 

 understood the first group referred to in the verse to signify 

 the stars in the Great Bear. Thus we find in Coverdale's 

 version, " He maketh the waynes of heaven, the Orions, the 

 vii. stars and the secret places of the south." Adam Clarke's 

 Commentary on the Old Testament. (TR.) 



63 Ideler, Sternnamen, s. 295. 



64 Martianus Capella changes Ptolemceon into Ptolemceus ; 

 both names were devised by the flatterers at the court of the 

 Egyptian sovereigns. Amerigo Vespucci thought he had 

 seen three Canopi, one of which was quite dark (fosco), Cano- 

 pus ingens et niger of the Latin translation : most -probably one 

 of the black coal-sacks. (Humboldt, Examen crit. de la Geogr. 

 torn. v. pp. 227, 229.) In the above-named Elem. chronoL et 

 Astron. by El Fergani (p. 100), it is stated that the Christian 

 pilgrims used to call the Sohel of the Arabs (Canopus) the 

 star of St. Catherine, because they had the gratification of 

 observing it, and admiring it as a guiding star when they 

 journeyed from Gaza to Mount Sinai. In a fine episode to 

 the Ramayana, the oldest heroic poem of Indian antiquity, the 



