40 OUR PHYSICAL WORLD 



the prevalence of such early notions. One is capricious if 

 Capricornus was in the ascendant house at birth, saturnian when 

 the baneful influence of this planet was potent at his birth. 

 The whole process of forecasting one's nativity or of predicting 

 what might be expected on a particular voyage or in special 

 circumstances was a complicated one; enough has been sug- 

 gested to give some simple notions of the basis on which the 

 astrologer proceeded. The books of the astrologers make strange 

 reading now. 



There is one other procession of constellations that passes 

 in review in the southern skies that is exceedingly interesting, 

 because it seems to be a memorial of a great disaster, the flood, 

 the legend of which has come down to us in many literatures 

 also. 



At 6: co P.M. in the middle of January there is a brilliant 

 first-magnitude star in the southwestern horizon, Formalhaut, in 

 the constellation of the Southern Fish. A line drawn down 

 through the two westernmost stars of the square of Pegasus leads 

 a little to the west of this star. West of this line and not quite 

 halfway from the square to Formalhaut is a line of three close- 

 set, third-magnitude stars that mark Aquarius, the Water-Bearer. 

 The ancient figures show Aquarius pouring a flood out into the 

 mouth of the great fish. In the same region are the Whale, the 

 Dolphin, and the other fish, already located. In the eastern sky 

 is to be seen the river Eridanus. It is an irregular line of stars 

 ending near Rigel and including all the plainly visible stars in 

 the southeastern sky at this time. 



When Sirius is nearing the western horizon in the evenings of 

 spring, say at 8 : oo in the middle of April, there lies close to the 

 horizon, stretching from a point south of Cam's Major over past 

 the meridian, a string of dim stars with a few of the third magni- 

 tude that mark the figure of a ship or ark, if much imagination is 

 used, the constellation Argo Navis. 



In the southeastern sky, symmetrically placed with respect 

 to the meridian with Sirius is a close crescentic group of five stars, 



