156 SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



man, at the sight of the Southern Cross, warns them that it is time to separate ! " Mrs. 

 Hemans has entered into the feeling here described, and sung of the Southern Cross in 

 the spirit of a settler in the New World from old Spain : 



" But to thee, as thy lode-stars resplendently burn 

 In their clear depths of blue, with devotion I turn, 

 Bright Cross of the South ! and beholding thee shine, 

 Scarce regret the loved land of the olive and vine. 



Thou recallest the age when first o'er the main 

 My fathers unfolded the ensign of Spain, 

 And planted their faith in the regions that see 

 Its unperishing symbol emblazon'd in thee. 



Shine on my own land in a far distant spot, 

 And the stars of thy sphere can enlighten it not, 

 And the eyes that I love, tho' e'en now they may be 

 O'er the firmament wandering, can gaze not on thee 1 



But thou to my thoughts art a pure blazing shrine, 

 A fount of bright hopes and of visions divine ; 

 And my soul, like an eagle exulting and free, 

 Soars high o'er the Andes to mingle with thee ! " 



A powerful impression is made upon the mind by the changed aspect of the celestial 

 vault upon a first voyage to the southern hemisphere. The thought of being far from 

 home occurs with a power never known before. By degrees, many of the old stars, those 

 which have been watched in the northern sky, in the days of childhood and youth, with 

 such interest and delight, decline towards the horizon, sink below it, and are looked for 

 in vain. Others customarily seen in the south approach the zenith, and pass to the north, 

 while strangers rise above the southern horizon, ascending higher and higher, till a new 

 heaven appears aloft, without any intimation that the old earth has passed away. Generally 

 speaking, the southern celestial hemisphere is extremely dissimilar to the northern, not 

 only in the grouping of the stars, but in its whole character. There are many large tracts 

 or spaces of deep and solemn blackness starless voids to the naked eye which do not 

 occur, or but rarely, in our own firmament. But these unlighted spaces give great effect 

 by their darkness to the constellations; and render them in a high degree rich and 

 magnificent. Yet notwithstanding these voids, as they appear to the naked eye, the 

 southern firmament, when telescopically examined, is thought to be rather richer in stars 

 than the northern. 



To examine those regions of the heavens which are hid by southern declination from the 

 view of the stay-at-home Europeans, astronomers have frequently visited localities beyond 

 the equator. They were first systematically and scientifically surveyed by Halley, who, 

 though only in his nineteenth year, was expressly selected by the Koyal Society for this 

 mission. He sailed to St Helena, and spent two years, 1676-8, upon the island, 

 its climate was found unfavourable for observation, he executed his work in a manner 

 which procured him the name of the southern Tycho, in allusion to that astronomer's 

 labours on an island of the Baltic. Lacaille next proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope, in 

 1751, under the auspices of the French government, and resided there four years, during 

 which he observed ten thousand stars, measured an arc of the meridian, and the length o: 

 the second's pendulum. In 1820 the British government established an observatory at 

 the Cape, and appointed the Rev. F. Fallows its director, a post now honourably held by Mr 



