440 



NATURE 



[September 7, 1893 



4 



referred to as taking place in a solar temple. Thus at 

 Marduk's temple, E-Sagila we are told " two hours after 

 nightfall the priest must come and take of the waters of 

 the river, mist enter into the presence of Bil, and 

 putting on a stole in the presence of Bll must say this 

 prayer," &c.' The temple then will have been probably 

 oriented to the north. 



Nor was this all ; movements in relation to the ecliptic 

 had been differentiated from movements in relation to the 

 equator. We have inscriptions running : — 



" 77(1" way in reference to Anu," that is the ecliptic with its 

 pole at Anu. 



" The way in reference to Bil," ihe equator with its pole at 

 Bll. 



In other words, the daily and yearly apparent move- 

 ments of the heavenly bodies were clearly distinguished, 

 while we note also 



Kabal }ami, "the middle of the Heavens" defining the 

 meridian. 



So far as I have been able to gather any myth like 

 that of Horus involving combats between the sun and 

 circumpolar star gods is entirely lacking, but a similar 

 myth in relation to some of the ecliptic constellations is 

 among the best known. 



The Ecliptic Constellations. 



I have already in previous articles pointed out that at 

 On we seemed limited to Set as a stellar divinity ; so soon 

 as pyramid times are reached, however, this is changed. 

 I have given before the list of the gods of Heliopolis, 

 and have shown that with the exception of Sit none 

 are stellar. But we find in pyramid times the list is 

 increased ; only the sun gods Ra, Horus, Osiris, are 

 common to the two. As new divinities we have - : — 



Isis. 



Hathor. 



Nephthys. 



Ptah. 



Selkit. 



Sokhit. 



Of these the first two and the last two undoubtedly 

 symbolised stars, and there can be no question that the 

 temples of Isis built at the pyramids, Bubastis, Tanis, and 

 elsewhere, were built to watch the rising of some of them. 

 The temple of Sais, as I have said, had east and west 

 walls, and so had Memphis, according to Lepsius. The 

 form of Isis at Sai-s was the goddess Neith, which, accord- 

 ing to some authorities, was the precursor of Athene. 

 The temple of Athene at Athens was oriented to the 

 Pleiades. 



There is also no question that the goddess Selk 

 symbolised Antares. 



We find ourselves then in the presence of the worship 

 of the sun and stars in the constellations of the ecliptic in 

 Egypt, in pyramid times, an! in constellations connected 

 with the Equinoxes ; for if we are right above the Pleiades 

 and Antares these are the stars which would herald the 

 sunrise at the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox respectively, 

 when the sun was in Taurus and Scorpion. 



Now associated with the introduction of these new 

 worships in pyramid times was the worship of the bull 

 Apis. 



The worship of Apis preceded the building of pyramids. 

 Mini is credited by some authors with its introduction,-' 

 but at any rate Kakau of the second dynasty issued pro- 

 clamations regarding it,'' and a statue of Hapi was in the 

 temple of Cheops.'' 



The first question which now arises is When were these 

 constellations established in Babylonia? Is there any 

 information ? 



1 Sayce, p. loi. 



3 Maspero, op, cii. p. 44 note. 



6 Maspero, op. cit. p. 46. 



NO. 1245, VOL 48] 



- Maspero, op. cit. p. 64. 

 ^ Maspero, op. cit. p. 64. 



With regard to the constellations of the Bull and 

 Scorpion, there does seem to be some information, and 

 on this point in a subsequent article I shall have to refer 

 at some length to Jensen's recent important book.' 



J. Norman Lockyer. 



( To be continued?) 



PUBUCATIONS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL 

 STATION AT NAPLES."" 



TOURING the winter of 1876, when the Zoological 

 '—^ Station was already a fact in brick and mortar, and 

 my late friend, Mr. Frank Balfour, had already shown by 

 his famous work on the Elasmobranch Development how 



; profitable its arrangements might turn out for the progress 

 of research in morphology, I began to busy myself with 



i the literary phase of my enterprise. From the very 

 beginning it had been my intention to erect not merely a 



; simple laboratory, in which a more or less long series of 

 " Contributions to the knowledge " of all sorts of groups 



j or problems ought to be worked out, but to create ao 

 organisation which by its own power and weight might 

 influence the further progress and development o" mor- 

 phological science in the direction of greater concentra- 

 tion and by production of such scientific work as could 

 hardly be taken up and still less carried throujh by 

 individual effort alone. Of course the Zoological Station 

 ought to have its own Journal, similar to the many 

 Journals or Zeitschriften or Archives of other and perhaps 

 less powerful institutions or societies, but I hoped to do 

 more than that. If my ideas of, and confidence in, the 

 future development of the Zoological Station were right, 

 more important productions might be expected from it, 

 and thus it became only a question of organisation 

 and combination of means and ends to secure such a 

 result. I had learned by almost daily experience how 

 difficult, almost hopeless, it was to succeed with the 

 specific determination of all the numberless organisms, 

 worms, crustaceans, hydroids, tunicates, &c., &c., which 

 our fishermen brought to light day by day. Even if the 

 library of the Zoological Station at that time had. been 

 complete enough, it would have been almost impossible 

 to ascertain the names of all these creatures, the descrip- 

 tions and figures in former works being far too incom- 

 plete and too superficial to enable even specialists of all 

 these groups to decide which name belonged to which 

 animal. All attempts to form a well-determined collec- 

 tion of any group — not excluding even the larger crusta- 

 ceans, echinoderms, and medusas— failed, and sometimes 

 to such a degree that my assistants and myself simply felt 

 ourselves in the midst of chaos. This may sound strange 

 to conchologists, ornithologists, and entomologists, who 

 can rely on splendid monographs and innumerable 

 synopsis and similar works for classification, but it is never- 

 theless a deplorable fact for the marine fauna of almost 

 all the seas. And the want is greatly felt, for the 

 marine organisms in by far the greater number of cases 

 require not only an outside investigation by a simple 

 magnifying glass, but microscopical examination of 

 anatomy and development, both embryological and larval, 

 to state definitely to which species they belong, the sexual 

 difference being often so great as to have given occasion 

 to create different genera and even groups for male and 

 female of the same species, and the larval forms in many 

 cases being so utterly unlike the adults that they have been 

 classified in different orders ! Tornaria is now known as 

 the larva of Balanoglossus, whereas not long ago it was 



I " Koimologie de- Babylonier," p. 315, 't seq. ^ ,f _, 



= ■' Systematik und Faunistik der Pelagischen Copepoda des Oolte »on 



Neapel," von Wilh. Giesbrecht. XIX. '^Monograph of the Fauna ana 



Flora of th: Gulf of Naples," published by the Naples Zjological btanon, 



1802, pp. l-8ll, pi. 1-54' 



