Jam-aky 1, 1901." 



KNOWLEDGE. 



13 



signifies both "Bear" and "Star," that is, " blight " 

 or ■■ shining " one, and the latter word, — very justly 

 applicable to the seven stars, as being pro-cmiucntly 

 the stars, the shining ones of the noithcrn sky, — may 

 perhaps have been punningly represented by the figure 

 of a bear. But this assumes that the title is Aryan 

 in its origin, which is indeed far from certain. In 

 default of a better theory I am mvsclf inclined to think 

 that the three striking paii-s of stars below the Plough 

 suggested the feet of a great plantigrade anijnal. The 

 lesser Bear no doubt obtained its name from the greater, 

 since its principal stars are a distorted and fainter copy 

 of the seven brilliants of its near neighbour. Classical 

 tradition, according to Aratus, held that they were 

 transfen-ed to heaven as a reward for hiding Zeus in 

 Crete, from his cannibal father Kronos, or else the 

 Great Bear is Callisto, one of Zeus's many loves, and 

 Areas the Lesser Boar her son. The seven gi-eat stars 



in Job, Chap, xxxviii., the patriarch is asked, " Canst 

 thou guide Arcturus with his sons?' " Arcturus " being 

 the erroneous rendering adopted in the A.V. for " Aish ' 

 the " Bier " or the " Assembly.' This star preserves to 

 us, therefore, almost unchanged the name which the 

 constellation bore at the time when the great drama of 

 Job wa.s written. 



By far the most interesting object in the whole con- 

 stellation to the " astronomer without a telescope " is 

 Mizar with its near comi)anion Alcor, 80 in Flamsteed's 

 enumeration. Mizar is in every way the (ii-st of the 

 double stai"s. Alcor forms with it a. double to the 

 eye; it has a much closer bright companion which 

 rendered it the first double star to be detected in the 

 telescope, it was the first double stai- to be photographed, 

 and it was the first case in which the .spectroscope 

 showetl that the principal star which appears to us even 

 j with the most powerful telescope a,s single is really in 



XXI XXII XXIII 



XXIV 



ANDROMEDA 



PERSEUS 



•S8 



AURIGA 



•>. 



MX IX " 'X XI IIIA IIA 



Star Map Xo. 1 ; Xorth Circumpolar Region. 



of the Plough are now known by the seven first letters 

 of the Greek alphabet, proceeding in order from the 

 front of the ploughshare back to the handle. The ; 

 names which they popularly bear at the present day 

 are as follows: — Alpha is Dubhe. that is, the " bear "; 

 Beta, Merak the " loin ' ; Gamma is Phccda the 

 "thigh''; Delta, the faintest of the seven, is Megrez, 

 " the root of the tail ' ; Epsilon is usually called 

 Alioth ; but whether this name has much authority is 

 not clear; Zeta is Mizar, a " girdle " or" waistcloth — • 

 but this is a comparatively modern appellation ; Eta, 

 the star at the tip of the tail, has the most interesting 

 name of all, since it is called Alkaid or Bcnetna.sch; j 

 the two names together meaning the " chief of the ! 

 daughters of the Bier." It will be remembered that ' 



itself double. Epsilon Ursao Majoris marks very 

 nearly the place of the radiant point of a shower of 

 Ursid meteors, the date of which is the 30th of Novem- 

 ber. For those a,stronomers who add the opera-glass 

 to naked-eye work, the three stars of the plough handle 

 and their immediate neighbourhood offer many interests 

 ing fields. So, too, the feet of the Bear, the three pairs 

 of stars to which we have already alluded, are also 

 worth studying with this amount of optical aid. The 

 fore foot is" composed of Iota and Kappa, Lambda and 

 Mu mark the next, Nu and Xi the last. 



Beta and Alpha are, as is well known, commonly called 

 the " Pointers," inasmuch as the straight line drawn 

 through them leads us veiy nearly to the Pole Star, 

 which is about the same distance from Alpha as Alpha 



