22 ARABIC NAMES FOR THE STARS. 



ancients, we may gather from a passage in the " Phenomena " 

 of Aratus, a work partly translated by Cicero : 



" The Dragon, like the sinuous course of a river, uncoils his 

 long scaly body, and surrounds with undulating folds the two 

 constellations ofxUrsa Major and Ursa Minor. " 



Bringing together these different facts for the sake of com- 

 parison, we arrive at the conclusion that the Polar Star, by 

 whose scintillating light the early mariners steered their tiny 

 keels, was not the Polaris of to-day a in Ursa Minor but 

 a in the constellation of the Dragon. 



The Arabs, those navigators of the Waterless Sea (as they 

 poetically designate the desert of Sahara), have bestowed par- 

 ticular appellations on several stars ; but they guide themselves 

 rather by their radiance than by their position. Thus, such 

 stars as a Draco, a Cepheus, a Cygnus, which have occupied, 

 and, in the course of centuries, will again occupy the place of 

 Polaris, have received no special denomination ; while the stars 

 of Ursa Major, a and (B (occupying the posterior angles of the 

 chariot), are called Dubke and Merak ; * 7, d, s, , ??, which 

 follow in due succession Phegaea, or Phad, Megrez, Alioth, 

 Mizar, and Ackai'r, or Benetnasch. Certain stars in the same 

 constellation, which are barely visible, have also received dis- 

 tinctive names : such is Alcor, a star between the fifth and 

 sixth magnitude, in the tail of Ursa Major, between Mizar 



* These are also called the Pointers, because an imaginary line from the 

 lower to the upper, prolonged in the same direction, passes nearly over the 

 Polar Star. 



