Dkcembbr, 1901.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



275 



oraiige star, niaiks the upper loft hand of the V, 

 Epsilon T«uri siniilaa-ly niai-ks tlic point on tho right. 

 wliiUt Gamma m;wks the auglo. Theta 1 and Thcta 2 

 lie between Alplia .;uid Gammas and three stai-s marked 

 Delta he Ix^twevn Gamma and Epsilon. FolKywing the 

 two bnuiches of the V eastward to about, four times 

 their length, we eomo to Beta and Zeta. which mark 

 the tips of the two horns. Beta, tlie northern horn, 

 being nuuh the brighter of the two. These are the 

 chief stai-s iu the constellation, for the Bull, like 

 Pegasus, is shown only iu half length, and beside his 





is ^.i"^ 





^PEMiUS ' 



LEO 



. . UMflOPAPOuS *^ ANWOMEOA 



PISCES 



,. ,• , . _mo A8IES ., 



HYMA . ^ ^ „Hfc^ *— * ^ ' ■- 



CAMS w r i g M JKa F A ,• ',' 



•* •*l^<'i"»N , ;cEm .• 



MONOCEROS ' .-• ERIDANU5 



\ --CANIS • . •• LEPUS • 



COlUMBA 



s 

 The Midnight Sky for London, 1901 , Deiember 3. 



head and horns possesses little but the fore-legs. Iota 

 Tauri stands just mid-way between Beta and Zeta on the 

 one "side, and Alpha and Epsilon on the other. A 

 straight line from Iota through Gamma leads to 

 Lambda Tauri, and followed on, pas.ses just below 

 Omicron Tauri, which forms a pair with Xi Tauri. 



The names in the constellation in familiar use to-day 

 are restricted to the names for the two groups, the 

 Pleiades and the Hyades. to the classical names for the 

 individual stars in the former group, and to the two 

 stars Alpha and Beta. Beta, as already noted, is Alnath, 

 "the horn-push'; Alpha is Aldebaran, "the follower,' 

 that is to say, of the Pleiades. 



"Near Perseus' knee, the Pleiads next are rolled 

 Like seven pure brilliants .set in ring of gold : 

 Though e;ich one small, their splendour all combine 

 To form one gem, and gloriously tliey shine. 

 Their number seven, thoueh some men fondly say 

 And poets feign that one lias passed away. 

 Alcyone — Celoeno — Merope — 

 Kleetra — Taygeta — and 8teroi)e — 

 With Maia. — honoured sisterhood — by Jove 

 To rule the seasons placed in heaven above. 

 Men mark them rising with the solar ray 

 The harbinger of summer's brighter day. 

 Men mark them ri.sing with Sol's setting light 

 Forerunners of the winter's gloomy night. 

 They guide the ploughman to the mellow land ; 

 The sower ca.sts his seed at their command. " 



Of all the star gi'oups none figures so largely in myth 

 and legend and literature as the Pleiades. The name 

 Pleiades is probably derived from the Greek Pleioncs. 

 " many," and accords with the Hebrew Kimah, " the clus- 



ter- '; the Babylonian " Kimtu," "the family, ' and tho 

 .fVi-abic Ath-thurayya, " the little ones." Tho uames given 

 to the individual stars are those of the seven daughters 

 of Atlas and Pleione. According to Aeschylus they 

 were placed in hoiiveu on account of their filial sorrow 

 when their father was turned into tho mountain and 

 laden with the weight of the firmament. Of tho 

 numerous other names which have been given them, tho 

 " Hen and Chickens" is ono of the most familiar. Thus 

 Miles Coverdalo in a marginal note to tho book of Job 

 in his ti-anslation of the Bible, calls them " the Clock 

 Henne with her chickens." Many of the Greek poets 

 refer to them as " tho doves " or " rock pigeons," 

 writing their name as " Peleiades." They were likewise 

 tho " Vergiliae," " the stars of spring," or the " Atlan- 

 tides,' from their father. Modern a.stronomcrs have 

 commemorated Atlas and Pleione, tho parents of tho 

 seven, in the pair of st;us on the cast of the group. 



Their value to the ancients as an indication of the 

 seasons and tho progress of the year was immense. As 

 noted in Dr. Lamb's unduly expanded paraphrase from 

 Aratus quoted above, their heliacal rising showed the 

 commencement of summer, their acronical rising the 

 commencement of winter. Four thousand years ago 

 they marked tho position of the sun at the spring 

 equinox, and were therefore then esjiccially closely con- 

 nected with the revival of the forces of nature in the 

 opening year. This no doubt is the first meaning of 

 the rcferciico to " the sweet influence of the Pleiades " 

 in Job .xx.wiii. Whilst in conjunction with tho sun 

 they were hidden from view for foi-ty days, reappearing 

 as summer drew neai-. Thus Hesiod sings : — 

 '■ There is a time when forty days they lie 

 And forty night.s concealed from human eye ; 

 But in the course of the revolving year 

 WTien the swain sharps the scythe, again appear." 



In November, on the other hand, they arc up all night 

 and are on the meridian at midnight. In some 

 mysterious way they became associated with the 

 memorial obsen'ances for the dead which in so many 

 nations have always been associated with this month 

 of November, and which seem to point to the great 

 Christian commemoration of All Saints' Day. 



A keen sight will count nine or ten stars in the group. 

 Moestlin, according to his pupil Kepler, counted four- 

 teen. Miss Christabel Airy plotted twelve; but these 

 high numbers are hardly obtained lcgitimat.ely, inasmuch 

 as they include stars lying at some considerable distance 

 from the main portion of the gioup. Six stars are 

 easily seen, and amongst nations the most widely 

 scattered and unconnected, we find the tradition that 

 though six stars ai-c only visible to-day, seven was their 

 original number. The probability seems that this is no 

 mero legend, but the record of an a.stronomical fact. 

 Several of the present Pleiads arc slightly variable, and 

 Alcyone, the leader in brightness to-day, would seem to 

 have only attained that rank within the last few 

 centuries. It is therefore quite conceivable that one 

 of the members of tho group, now too faint to bo de- 

 tected without a telescope, may in time past have fully 

 rivalled her sisters. 



Even such small magnifying power as an opera-glass 

 can lend greatly increases the beauty and interest of 

 both the Pleiades and the Hyades. and the whole region 

 between the Bulls honis. Close to Zeta Tauri, the 

 southern horn tip, is the Crab nebula, the first in 

 Messier's catalogue, and, from its comefc-liko appearance, 

 a snare to beginners in the art of comet seeking. Zeta 

 Tauri marks very nearly the radiant point of a shower 

 of very slow and bright meteors, active at the end of 



