100 THE WORLD, 



And we find in Job an allusion to the Pleiades, as harbingers 

 of spring : " Canst thou bind the swee( influences of the 

 Pleiades," &c. [Job 38 : 31]. The symbol of Taurus is tf , once 

 intended for a bull's head and horns. The sign Gemini, or the 

 Twins, which the sun enters two months after the commence- 

 ment of spring, was denoted by the symbol n intended to 

 represent the twin sons of Leda ; as this was the month when the 

 flocks brought forth, this sign was adopted as the harbinger of a 

 fruitful increase. The 'next sign is .Cancer, the Crab, the sun 

 enters this sign at the time of the summer solstice, or at mid- 

 summer. Previous to entering this sign, it had been rising, each 

 day, higher and higher, until now, having reached its highest 

 point, it begins to return ; hence the sign, a crab, an animal 

 fabled to run backwards as well as forwards, and its symbol g^, is 

 intended to illustrate this. In the Zodiacs discovered at Dendera 

 and^Esne, alluded to in the last chapter, the place of this sign is, 

 occupied by a Scarabeus, or Beetle ; but in the Hindoo Zodiac, 

 which was probably borrowed from the Chaldeans, and is therefore 

 older than the Egyptian, we find the figure of a crab. It will be 

 understood that these divisions of the ecliptic, which heretofore 

 we have marked as hours, see the figure, page 91, are the com- 

 mencement and middle of the twelve signs, each sign compre- 

 hending two hours, corresponding to the first point of Aries, II 

 the first point of Taurus, &c. It will be noticed that the sun 

 reaches the highest point of his orbit at VI, or the first point of 

 Cancer, where the solstitial colure intersects the ecliptic. 



The fifth sign is Leo, the Lion. The sun entered this sign 

 about the time of the overflowing of the Nile, at which period, the 

 lions, driven from the interior by the heat, hunted along its banks. 

 This sign is figured in the Egyptian and Indian Zodiacs 

 very near as we have it now. The symbol is ^, probably a 

 corruption of an hieroglyphical character, intended for a crouching 

 lion. The next month, the sun entered Virgo, the virgin. This 

 was the harvest month, and hence was appropriately represented 

 by a virgin with a sheaf of wheat. The Egyptians represented 

 it under the figure of Isis; the symbol is 1TJ7.. This is probably an 

 hieroglyphical character. The next sign is Libra, the balance, 



