130 



♦ KNOAVLEDGE ♦ 



[April 2, 1888. 



former much the more fiequently, probably because the 

 word " about " is constantly used in mathematical works 

 when rotation or revolution is in question. In passing, I 

 may remark that my first acquaintance with the American 

 usage was formed when (somewhere about the year 1855) I 

 heard Mrs. Florence as the " Yankee Gal " singing tbe 

 well-known song " Bobbin' Around." But the refrain " As 

 we went bobbin' around," familiar though it became, did not 

 so far affect my English as to make me write of Saturn as 

 bobbin' around the sun. He still continued seilateh-, even 

 Saturninely, to " revolve about " the ruler of the solar 

 system. 



Hano Out, To. Bartlett not only regards this as an 

 Americanism, but identifies it as Western, almost as 

 Chicagoese. It was already old in England before Chicago 

 began to be a place. Those elegant medical students, Messrs. 

 Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen, could have enlightened 

 ^Ir. Bartlett more than half a century ago about this bit of 

 old English slang. 



Haxg Up One's Fiddle, To. To give up ; an expression 

 frequently heard in the Middle and Noi-thern States, but 

 probably of southern (nigger) origin. " Hang up nm fiddle 

 and um bow-ow-ow " will be recognised as part of the refrain 

 of a very ancient nigger song. 



Happex in. To. To come in accidentally, short for " to 

 happen to come in." 



Happen on. To. To happen to meet, short for " to happen 

 to come upon " such and such a person. The later, but now 

 not very recent, Americanism for this idea, is " to strike." 

 Where of old a man would say, " I happened to come on 

 our friend Mr. Jones yesterday," an American would 

 formerly have said (and many Americans would still say), 

 " I happened on friend Jones yesterday," while an American 

 of to-day, especially if a westerner, would be apt to say, " I 

 struck Jonas yesterday." 



Hard Case. A term not unknown to the British police 

 for an irreclaimable criminal, extended as an Americanism to 

 hopeless rakes, blackguards, drunkards, poker-players, et id 

 r/enus omne. 



Hard Pan. Bartlett describes this as primarily a geolo- 

 gical term ; but though a geologist may occasionally speak 

 of a hard and water-tight stratum of hollow shape as a hard 

 pan of clay or gravel, or describe such a stratum as the 

 hard pan below such and such strata, yet the term " hard 

 pan " has not in this indefinite form }"et taken its place in 

 the geological vocabulary. " Hard pan " as an Americanism, 

 signifying the bottom of things, is doubtless derived from 

 mining experience. A man might dig for gold through sti'atum 

 after stratum without altogether losing hope, till he came 

 down to the hard water-tight stratum below ; but when he 

 had thus reached " hard pan " he gave up. To say, then, 

 " W'e are coming to ' hard pan,' " or " we have now reached 

 ' hard pan,' " is equivalent to saying. We are now beginning 

 to know with certainty, or we can now form a definite 

 opinion. The ide;\ is more poetically expressed, but with 

 the same inner significance, in Wordsworth's well-worn 

 lines : — 



To the solid ground of nature 

 Trusts the mind that builds for aye. 



Hard Row to Hoe, A. A tough business to get through. 

 Haliburton has made us familiar with this expression as an 

 Americanism, but it may be regarded as surely of English 

 agricultural origin. 



Hardshell, used as an adjective for thorough-going, is 

 probably a pure Americanism, since the term was originally 

 suggested as the difi'erence between the hardshell and soft- 

 shell crab, and we have no soft-shell crabs in the old 

 country. 



{To he continued.) 



THE STARS OF OTHER TIMES. 



{C ontimoed from page 112.) 



HE southern stereogi-aphic map in the present 

 number needs no separate explanation, being 

 drawn on the same plan as the northern, 

 and having the same general interpreta- 

 tion. 



It is, however, altogether the more in- 

 tei-esting map of the two. The stars north 

 of the ecliptic have alwaj's been visible up to about 60° 30' 

 north latitude, and the stars in the northern map, which 

 ranges 10° south of the ecliptic, have been always visible, at 

 suitable times and seasons, as far north as about 56° 00'. 

 But stars shown in the southern map are for the most part 

 such as are only brought into view in northern latitudes by 

 the .slow precessional motion of the equator along the 

 ecliptic, and after being thus in view for a time — hundreds, 

 or it may be thousands of years, according to their position 

 on the star-sphere — are carried out of view again, so a-s to 

 be unknown in the latitudes where they had so long been 

 known, during hundreds of future generations. Moreover, 

 the aspect of the .southern stir groupings as they rise to 

 their greatest height above the horizon of northern lati- 

 tudes, changes continuously with the precessional movement, 

 much as the aspect of northern star-groupings changes 

 during the night. As Cassiopeia and Andromeda, for 

 example, Auriga, Bootes, and Cepheus, are sometimes pre- 

 sen'ed in such positions that tbe figures associated with 

 them have the uprightness desirable with men and women, 

 but at other times are aslant or inverted, prone or supine, 

 so the ship Argo and the altar Ara have held very diflerent 

 positions at their culmination in past times than now, and 

 will continue slowly to change in position as the precessional 

 motion continues. 



Doubtless it is due to such changes as these that several 

 southern constellations are no longer recognisable from any 

 resemblance between their configuration and such objects 

 as altars, .ships, animals, and men. For a star-grouping 

 which will readily suggest to the imaginative mind the idea 

 of some known object when that object, so imagined, would 

 be in a natural attitude, will suggest no such idea in any 

 other position. To see this we have only to consider the 

 case of the constellation Orion. In one position this grand 

 star-group suggests the idea of a giant holding a shield of 

 some sort in front of him, and standing upright, while in 

 another it suggests the idea of the giant raising himself 

 towards the upright position, and in yet another, that 

 of the giant slanting forwards as if running down a slope. 

 But seen near the horizon at the equator, when the giant 

 would have to be imagined either prone or supine (supine 

 in the east and prone in the west), the constellation does 

 not suggest the idea of a man at all : while in the southern 

 hemisphere, though the idea of a giant is again suggested, 

 it is a giant of another figure and presented in a diflferent 

 way, the shoulders of our northern Orion representing 

 the knees of the southern giant, and vice versa. 



Thus it becomes a problem of some interest to determine 

 how the star-groupings associated with diflerent objects and 

 figures appeared when those particular constellations re- 

 ceived their names : for thus not only may we be able to 

 correct our determination of the date of such naming, but 

 we may obtain evidence more or less satisfactoi-y respecting 

 the occurrence of changes among the stars, we may be able to 

 find some explanation of the ideas of men in old times 

 respecting the constellations, and we may even be able to 

 find an interpretation of certain religions which were 

 associated in far-off" times with the stars. 



The study of the .southern star-chart will serve to show 



