48 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [10:2— Feb., 1914 



1. Do the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia's Chair ever set? 



2. Does Orion rise and set? 



3. Why do not the Big Dipper and the Chair rise and set like 

 Orion? 



4. If you should stand at the North Pole where would the Pole 

 Star appear in the skies ? 



5. If you were at the North Pole would any star seem to rise 

 and set? 



From this lesson the pupils should reason out for themselves 



the following facts. It is very important for us to kn.ow the Pole 



Star because the northern end of the earth's axis points toward it 



and it is, therefore, situated in the heavens almost directly above 



our North Pole. For those of us who live 



j^B in the Northern Hemisphere the North Star 



*'* never sets but is always to be seen. How- 



^ ever, the North Star does not have any 



more to do with the axis of our earth than 



the figure on the blackboard has to do with 



^ '^ the pointer; this star simply happens to 



'ti lie in the direction toward which the north- 



^ em end of the earth's axis points. In the 



J ^ southern skies there is no convenient star 



* which lies directly above the South Pole, so 



^ there is no South Pole Star. The Pole Star 



^ ^ cannot be seen from the Southern Hemis- 



DiAGRAM IV phere because of the curvature of the earth. 



0"on But if we should start on a journey from 



/?-Riiei^^"^^ Florida toward Baffin's Bay we should 



5-sword discover that each night the Pole Star 



would seem to be higher in the sky, and if 



we should succeed in reaching the North Pole, we should find the 



Pole Star directly over our heads. And none of the stars which 



we could see would rise or set but would move around us in 



circles parallel to the horizon. 



Since the earth is a great magnet and since the poles of the 

 magnet are almost coincident with the poles of the earth's axis the 

 magnetic needle naturally points north and south. Thus it is 

 that the North Star happens to be nearly in the direction toward 

 which the northern end of the compass needle points. 



In correlating the myths which have to do with the names of 

 the constellations, the pupils should be made to imderstand that 



