A GLANCE AT THE STARS. 



Io3 



" Night on the earth pour'd darkness ; on the sea 

 The wakesome sailor to Orion's star 

 And Helice turn'd heedful. Sunk to rest, 

 The traveller forgot his toil ; liis charge 

 The sentinel ; her death-devoted babe 

 The mother's painless breast. The village dog 

 Had ceas'd his troublous bay. Each busy tumult 

 Was hush'd at that dead hour ; and darkness slept, 

 Lock'd in the arms of silence. She alone, 

 Medea, slept not." 



As Ursa Major is always above the horizon of Europe, it has been an object of universal 

 observation to its inhabitants in all ages of the world, and is familiarly known to those 

 who take no interest in astronomy by three stars which form a triangle in the tail, and 

 four a quadrangle in the body of the Bear. Commencing with the former, the first star 

 at the tip of the tail is Benetnasch of the second magnitude ; the second Mizar, and the 

 third Alioth ; and passing to the latter the first star at the root of the tail is Megrez ; the 

 second below it, Phad ; the third in a horizontal direction, Merak ; and the fourth above 

 the latter, Dubhe, of the first magnitude. By common consent, the two latter stars, Merak 

 and Dubhe, are called the Pointers, because an imaginary line drawn from the lower to the 

 upper, and carried on in the same direction, passes almost over Polaris in Ursa 

 Minor, a star close to the north polar point of the heavens, from which its name 

 is derived. It may be useful here to state, for the purpose of measuring angular 

 distances in the heavens with the eye, that the space between the Pointers may 

 be approximately considered 5, and between the Pointers and the pole-star, 29. 

 The direction merely of the polar star is exhibited in the diagram, and not the 

 distance. Ursa Minor has no conspicuous stars, nor any thing remarkable in its 

 appearance ; but from the important service rendered by its position to naviga 

 tion and surveying, it has engrossed more of the serious attention of mankind 

 than any other constellation in the skies. Polaris is a star between the second 

 and third magnitude. It appears stationary during the apparent daily revolu 

 tion of the sphere, the rest of the stars in the asterism making a complete swing 

 round it every twenty-four hours, as in the diagram. The pole-star is not, however, 

 the true polar point, but at present about 1 32' from it, a distance which will be lessened 

 down to 26' 30" about the year 2100. At the time when the Chaldean shepherds watched 

 the heavens, a star in Draco, now 24 52' from the polar point, was within 10' of it, 

 and was consequently the pole-star of that era. The proximity of Polaris to that point 

 in the heavens which is directly opposite the north pole of the earth, enables the mariners 



and travellers in the northern hemisphere with 

 facility to find their latitude, for the distance of a 

 place from the equator is always equal to the 

 altitude of the pole. The navigator therefore 

 applies his quadrant to the polar star, ascertains 

 its elevation, and after making allowance for its 

 polar aberration, he arrives at his latitude. The 

 same advantage is not enjoyed on the other side of 

 the equator, for the southern heavens have no guide 

 so convenient to the south polar point. In close 

 attendance upon the Bears, the ancients arranged 

 the asterism Arctophylax, the Bear-keeper, other 

 wise called Bootes, the Herdsman, now represented 

 holding in his left hand the leash of the two grey- 



