Feb., 1904.] 



KNOWLHDCIK c^- SCII'XTIFIC NEWS. 



Vet we may be sure that it would be only uiulcr sonic- 

 thing like compulsion that the change would be made, 

 for we see how tenacious men are of old traditions by 

 our own case, since we still speak of the hrst point ot 

 Aries, although the equinox has almost traversed the 

 entire length of Pisces. It is almost universally for- 

 gotten that it was not until the equinox had been brought 

 by the effect of precession right through a sign, to its 

 very boundary, that that particular sign was in its true 

 position to correspond with the iirst month of tiie year. 

 The equinoctial point moves through the centuries by 

 the effect of precession in the direction of diminishing 

 longitudes; the sun in its annual course through the 

 year moves in the direction of increasing longitudes. 



It could not have been early, therefore, in the period 

 which precession would ascribe to Aries that the primacy 

 was transferred to that constellation. It is scarcely con- 

 ceivable that it can have been l)efore Ilamal, the huida 

 of the constellation, had reached the cohire, which it did 

 about 700 B.C. There are no bright stars between Delta 

 Arietis and Hamal ; there is nothing whatsoever to have 

 compelled an abandonment of a primeval custom. Indeed, 

 it seems to me that there is only one theory by which we 

 can account for the transference of the dignity of leader 

 from the Bull to the Ram. If in the course of time the 

 science of astronomy fell into abeyance, possibly through 

 wars and revolutions and the conflicts of races, and all 

 that remained was just the recognition of the old con- 

 stellation forms which might well have been preserved 

 by the peasantry, and then at a later date the science was 

 built up anew, the position of Aries as the leader con- 

 stellation would be perfectly natural. Bui if so, whilst 

 we must take 2800 B.C., or perhaps, to speak in rounder 

 numbers, 3000 B.C., as the time of the rise of the first 

 astronomy, with Taurus as leader, the time of its 

 revival with Aries as leader can hardly have antedated 

 700 B.C. 



If, then, we find a poem or myth, evidently based upon 

 the Ram-Zodiac, we may be fully assured that the date 

 of its first origin w-as certainly not earlier than 700 B.C., 

 and probably considerably later. For a myth is not likely 

 to have taken thorough hold upon men's imaginations 

 immediately after the acceptance of a novel scientific 

 system, to explain which that myth had been imagined. 

 Such a process is necessarily one of slow development. 



I will take but one illustration ; the epic of Gilgamesh 

 has been sometimes claimed as a solar legend on account 

 of a supposed connection between the twelve successive 

 tablets which contain it, and the twelve signs of the 

 Zodiac. The hero is the sun, and the epic describes his 

 progress through the twelve signs in the course of a year, 

 the eleventh tablet which gives the account of the Deluge 

 corresponding to the constellation Aquarius, the eleventh 

 sign of the Ram-Zodiac. But Assyriologists would not 

 be willing to admit that the Deluge Story was no older 

 than the eighth century B.C. It follows, therefore, that 

 the original Deluge poem must have been written when 

 Aquarius was the tenth sign of the Zodiac, so that the 

 legend cannot be interpreted as a poetic expression of the 

 constellation figure. What applies to one sign applies to 

 the rest, and the entire correlation imagined between epic 

 and Zodiac breaks down at every point. 



The question on which we have no light at present is 

 as to the steps of the evolution, or the character of the 

 catastrophe by which the Bull-Zodiac was superseded by 

 the Ram-Zodiac. We can only be sure of one point, that, 

 given the connection between the constellations and the 

 months of the year which is usually assumed, then the 

 Ram-Zodiac must be of comparatively modern times ; 

 later, probably a good deal later, than 700 B.C. 



A Motor AeroploLFve, 



Sviccessful Trials witK a Ma>.rv- 

 Ca.rrying Machine. 



Many of our readers have tloubtless been keenly inter- 

 ested in some of the experiments now being conducted 

 in luigland, and especially in .Vmerica, with Hying 

 machines. Hitherto but little success has attendeil the 

 efforts of inventors, and though on a few occasions a 

 model has shown its power of progressing through the 

 air, yet all attempts to raise a man from the ground have 

 proved abortive. 



Various vague and sensational accounts have appeared 

 in the Press durmg the last few weeks of a most impor- 

 tant experiment made in .America by the brothers Wright. 

 We are now able to give an authentic account, kindly 

 sent by Mr. Orville Wright himself, of what actually 

 occurred. He states that he had not intended at present 

 making any public statement with regard to the trials, 

 but that "newspaper men " gave out "a fictitious story 

 incorrect in almost every detail," so that the inventors 

 feel impelled to make some corrections. The real facts 

 were as follows : - • 



On the morning of December 17, between the hours of 

 10.30 o'clock and noon, four flights were made, two by 

 Orville Wright and two by Wilbur Wright. The starts 

 were all made from a point on the levels and about 

 200 feet west of our camp, which is located a quarter of a 

 mile north of the Kill Devil sand hill, in Dare County, 

 North Carolina. The wind at the time of the flights had 

 a velocity of 27 miles an hour at 10 o'clock, and 24 miles 

 an hour at noon, as recorded by the anemometer at the 

 Kitty Hawk weather bureau station. This anemometer 

 is 30 feet from the ground. Our own measurements, 

 made with a hand anemometer at a height of four feet 

 from the ground, showed a velocity of about 22 miles 

 w-hen the first flight was made, and 2oi miles at the time 

 of the last one. The flights were directly against the 

 wind. Each time the machine started from the level 

 ground by its own power alone with no assistance from 

 gravity, or any other sources whatever. After a rim of 

 about 40 feet along a mono-rail track, which held the 

 machine eight inches from the ground, it rose from the 

 track and under the direction of the operator climbed 

 upward on an inclined course till a height of eight or ten 

 feet from the groimd was reached, after which the course 

 was kept as near horizontal as the wind gusts and the 

 limited skill of the operator would permit. Into the teeth 

 of a December gale the " Flyer" made its way forward 

 with a speed of ten miles an hour over the ground and 

 30 to 35 miles an hour through the air. It had previously 

 been decided that for reasons of personal safety these 

 first trials should be made as close to the ground as 

 possible. The height chosen was scarcely sufficient for 

 mancEuvring in so gusty a wind and with no previous 

 acquaintance with the conduct of the machine and its 

 controlling mechanisms. Consequently the first flight 

 was short. The succeeding flights rapidly increased in 

 length, and at the fourth trial a flight of 59 seconds was 

 made, in which time the machine flew a little more than 

 a half mile through the air, and a distance of 852 feet over 

 the ground. The landing was due to a slight error of 

 judgment on the part of the operator. v\fter passing over 

 a little hummock of sand, in attempting to bring the 

 machine down to the desired height, the operator turned 

 the rudder too far, and the machine turned downward 

 more quickly than had been expected. The reverse 



