290 COSMOS. 



ta, ill his Histoi'ia Natural y Moral de las Indias,^ remarks, 

 that in the Spanish settlements of tropical America, the first 

 settlers were accustomed, even as is now done, to use, as a 

 celestial clock, the Southern Cross, calculating the hours from 

 its inclined or vertical position. 



In consequence of the precession of the equinoxes, the star- 

 ry heavens are continually changing their aspect from every 

 portion of the earth's surface. The early races of mankind 

 beheld in the far north the glorious constellation of our south- 

 ern hemisphere rise before them, which, after remaining long 

 invisible, will again appear in those latitudes after the lapse 

 of thousands of years. Canopus was fully 1° 20' below the 

 horizon at Toledo (39° 54' north latitude) in the time of Co- 

 lumbus, and now the same star is almost as much above the 

 horizon at Cadiz. While at Berlin and in the northern lati- 

 tudes the stars of the Southern Cross, as well as a and j3 Cen- 

 tauri, are receding more and more from view, the Magellanic 

 clouds are slowly approaching our latitudes. Canopus was 

 at its greatest northern approximation during the last century, 

 and is now moving nearer and nearer to the south, although 



holy lights, ' hici sante.' The three stars which light the pole repre- 

 sent the theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity. The first of these 

 beings themselves reveals their double nature, chanting, ' Here we are 

 nymphs, in lieaven we are stars ;' Noi sem qui ninfe, e net cielo semo 

 stelle. In the land of truth, in the terrestrial paradise there are seven 

 nymphs. In cerckio faceran di se claustro le sette ninfe. This is the 

 union of all the cardinal and theological virtues. ' Under these mystic 

 forms we can scarcely recognize the real objects of the firmament sepa 

 rated from each other, according to the eternal laws of the celestial mech 

 anism. The ideal world is a free creation of the soul, the product of 

 poetic inspiration." (Exameti Crit., t. iv., p. 324-332.) 



* Acosta, lib. i., cap. 5. Compare my Relation Historique, t. i., p. 209. 

 As the stars a and y of the Southern Cross have almost the same rigiit 

 ascension, the Cross appears perpendicular when passing the meridian ; 

 but the natives too often forget that this celestial clock marks the hour 

 each day 3' 56" earlier. I am indebted to the communications of my 

 friend, Dr. Galle, by whom Le Verrier's planet was first discovered in 

 the heavens, for all the calculations respecting the visibility of southern 

 stars in northeni latitudes. " The inaccuracy of the calculation, accord- 

 ing to which the star a of the Southern Cross, taking refraction into ac- 

 count, would appear to have begun to be invisible in 52° 25' north 

 latitude, about the year 2900 before the Christian era, may perhaps 

 amount to more than 100 years, and could not be altogether set aside, 

 even by the strictest mode of calculation, as the proper motion of the 

 fixed stars is probably not uniform for such long intervals of time 

 The proper motion of a Crucis is about one third of a second annmiUy, 

 chiefly in right ascension. It may be pi-esunied that the uncertninty 



fu'oduced by neglecting this does not exceed the above-niontioued 

 imit." 



