Jlne, 1904.] 



KNOWLEDGE lS: SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



119 



AccordiDg to ColunK'll.i the sun enters Taurus on April 17, 

 and the dog sets with the sun on the last day of the numth. 



My principal object in writins; this letter is to call attention 

 to the German book {" Sphaera," by Fran/ Boll, Leipzig ; 

 Teubner. 1903) above referred to, which gives new Greek 

 texts, and sheds a flood of li.ght on the history of the constella- 

 tion signs. 



The new texts arc astrological, and indicate a promising 

 field of investigation. 



One vexed problem which is incidentally solved is that of 

 the so-called Zodiacs of Dendera, which, though neither 

 Zodiacs nor pictures of the heavens at any date, arc shown to 

 be of capital importance in a new direction. 

 I am. Gentlemen. 



Your obedient Serv.ant, 



T. K. AnNOLD. 



23. West Side, Wimbledon, 

 Feb. iS, 1904. 



[Mr. Arnold has not quite understood the significance of Dr. 

 Franz Boll's valuable work. The new Greek texts discovered 

 and discussed by him have no direct bearing on the origin and 

 antiquity of the constellations. They were found in late 

 mediaeval manuscripts and consisted of excerpts from astro- 

 logical writers of the first to (he fifth centuries of our era. 

 The chief interest attaches to the discovery of some texts of 

 the writings of the Babylonian astrologer Teucros ; perhaps 

 better known to P'nglish readers as Zeuchrus, who lived about 

 the Christian era or in the first century a.d. Mr. .Vrnold has 

 apparently been misled by Dr. Boll's use of the word " sterii- 

 bildcr." The additional constellations of which Mr. Arnold 

 speaks are mostlv not " constellations " at all in the sense in 

 which we ordinarily use that word, i.e., groups of actual stars, 

 but are simply decanal symbols. The •• decans," or portions of 

 the ecliptic ten decrees in length — th^(^e therefore to each sign 

 of the Zodiac — go back to a great antiquity, but are necess.Trily 

 of much later date than the original ma])|>iug out of the constel- 

 lations. For the actual constellations are most irregular in 

 length, and the division into decans implies that the ecliptic had 

 been previously divided into twelve equal parts, bearing 

 only a rough relationship to the constellations and not 

 corresponding to the actual stars, though the new " Signs " 

 naturally took their names from the old " Constellations." 

 The symbols attached to the 36 decans are therefore not 

 truly stellar at all ; they partly look back to the Egyptian 

 system of placing the year under the protection of 36 deities, 

 partly to the association of each of the twelve zodiacal 

 constellations with its " paranatellont;i " or extra-zodiacal 

 constellations, and p.artly to the desire of the astrologers to 

 have a fuller supply of prognostics to work with than the 

 twelve signs .ilone could give. Thus the " Agorii," or Market 

 Place, mentioned by Mr. .\rnold, was in tlu' second decau of 

 Libra; and was clearly lint an enlargement of the idea sug 

 gested by the Balances, of buying, selling, and weighing. 

 It is not a question of an actual star group bearing 

 that name. It simply indicated the middle ten degrees of 

 longitude of the •' Sign " Libra. The •' two skulls " are neither 

 new nor unidentified. Dr. Boll himself points out that they 

 are mentioned Ijy Albnmasar, one of the best known of 

 mediieval astrologers of the Ninth Cintmy a.o. They are 

 placed, usually with other symbols, in tin- third dee.in of 

 Libra, and quite possibly are nothing but a very coniipt form 

 of the " He.ivenly Twins," Adonis and Aphrodite, Tannrmz 

 and Istar, /.I-., the Sun and Moon. 'I'here is no reason for sur- 

 prise that so much variation is found in the symbols attached 

 to the decans and their sub-divisions. They never had the 

 authority, for they had not the antiquity, of the consti'Ilations, 

 and many, no doubt, owed their origin to the caprice of indi- 

 vidual astrologers, or to an imperfect understanding of symbols 

 employed in foreign systems. Dr. Boll's work supplies some 

 interesting cases of the wide differences shown in m.iimscripts 

 professedly based upon the same original authority. 



.^s to another point raised by Mr. Arnold, the conslellaticins 

 of the Zodiac, so far as we can trace them with cert.unty, 

 were always accounted twelve, even if only eleven separate 

 figures were shown. The Scorpion had a double portion 

 allotted to him in schemes which did not display the B.ilance ; 

 sometimes, as in tlx^fireek sclu-me, his claws extended to the 

 feet of Virgo; sometimes a second scorpion took the place nosv 

 held by the_Balance. But it will be noted that Libra is recog- 



nised by the astrological scheme ; so lliat whenever tin: B.il- 

 ance was introduced it nnisl liave been before the working out 

 of systematic astrology, and befoietlu- division of the "signs" 

 into '■ decans." 



Mr. Arnold's explanation of the name of Kegulus does not 

 lead us far. It leaves unexplained why a lion was designed in 

 that part of the sky. But if Kegulus got its name of •' King " 

 wlien it marked actually the higlic-st point of the ecliptic, on 

 account of its pre-eminent position, it would not be very 

 mmatural that the form of the ■• King of Beasts" should be 

 figured out round it. The Southern l''ish and the Scorpion 

 .are certainly not ''royal" beasts at .ill: the Hull ([ueslion.ibly 

 one ; so that no astrological reason is likely to have gained 

 that title for l^omalhaut, Antares, and .'\ldebaran. But their 

 relation to the other cohues being so simil.ir to that which 

 Kegulus held to the colure of the sunmier solstice may well 

 have caused thetitle to be extended to them ; especially astlie 

 date indicated agrees so will with (h.it suggested by the un- 

 mapped space in the south. 



I'he three signs which face nowhere in particul;u' are Libra, 

 which had no face to turn, and Pi-sces and (iemini, which had 

 each two, looking in opposite dii'cctions. DoiibtU'ss the 

 ancients had some special reasons for making the h'ishes swim 

 away from each other, and the Twins face each other, but I 

 fear it would be only guess-work to suggest them now. It is 

 clear that tlie nine remaining signs, which have all one face 

 apiece, are arranged as I state. 



Is not Mr. Arnold a little inconsistent in saying that " it is 

 not safe to base arguments on poetry" and tlu;n immediately 

 proceeding to adopt the methotl he condemns ? And how 

 does lie know that V'ergil was thinking of .-Xpril ? The n^al 

 significance of the familiar quotation from the Geurgics lies in 

 the fact that not only did the Kam actually "open the year" 

 in Virgil's time, but that it was generally recognised as doing 

 so. The i|uotations from (.)vi(l and Columella are as little re- 

 levant to the ([uestion before us as the one from Chauct;r. 



Dr. Boll's examination of the planisphere of Denderah is 

 sutficient to show, what has long been recognised, that th.at 

 monument can throw no light upon the anlicinity of the con- 

 stellations. — E. Wai.tku Maunuku.J 



The MecKaLrvicoLl StaLte 

 of the S\jn. 



i!y I'rofeshor K. A. S.\mi'son, I'Mv.S. 



A Gi.ANCic backwards at tlie theories wliitli have altenipted 

 to give a reasoned and connected view of current knuvv- 

 le(l,t;e of the Sun sugf,'ests that kn()wled,t,'e and theory are 

 coriiplenientary, .so much more detailed and precise was 

 tlieory when little or nothinj.; was known. It was from 

 little more than the tlarkiiess of the sunspots, with 

 Wilson's theory that they were de[)ressions in the photo- 

 sphere, that Sir William I lerschel elaborated his doctrine 

 of a Sun with iuhabiiaiits and luxuriant vej,'etation ; ■ and 

 if it is now clear tlnit we shall need an imaj^ination as 

 intrepid as 1 lerschel s to realise the state of the Sun, it is 

 no less clear that it must be a vastly more creative 

 imatjination. 'J'hankstophotof,'raphy,of which M. Janssen 

 has for so long given us such admirable examples, thanks 

 above all to the spectroscope, which, in its latest ap[)lica- 

 tions in the spectrolieliograph, actually maps out the 

 forms of clouds of hydrogen and calcium at different 

 levels of the Sun's atmosphere, we seem to have the 

 means of gaining some real knowledge of the structure 

 as well as the composition of the Sun's atmosphere. 

 N(jr are these the only signals that tlu;ory should hold 

 its peace. A fresh discussion of the sl.atistics of sunspots 

 and prominences by Sir Norman Lockye^r has shown 



* The doctrine is not yet extinct ; t have mel jiersuns, hardly in 

 middle life, who learnt it at school, and held it without question. 



