January, 11)02. 



KNOWLEDGE 



The lino 4222 appears as a broad band in the Nova. 

 The last band is very broad or perhaps a continuous 

 spectnuu extending in both objects from about wave 

 length 5300 to 6000. The lines in the two spectra appeal" 

 to resemble each other closely both in position and in 

 intensity. On September 15, 1901, a photograph was 

 obtained with the 11-iuch Draper Telescope, showing 

 nearly thirty bright lines. Some of these show a curious 

 doubling, the separation varying in different portions 

 of the flash. Apparently, this is due to another flash, 

 in whose spectrum only a portion of the lines appear. 

 Edward C. Pickering. 

 November 16, 1901. 



CONSTELLATION STUDIES. 



By E. Walter Mau.nder, f.r,a,s. 

 XII.— THE GREAT HUNTER AND HIS DOGS. 

 The long nights of winter are the time when the 

 heavenly hosts gather in their most resplendent 

 squadrons. Sinus, by far the brightest of all the fixed 

 stars, reaches the mei-idian at midnight of New Year's 

 Day. Orion, the most splendid single constellation, is 

 crossing from 10.30 to 11.10, the same night. Procyou, 

 the Lesser Dog star, follows Sirius in its southing by 

 about forty minutes. East and west of these ai-e the 

 two bright zodiacal constellations of the Twins and the 

 Bull. South and east of Sirius is the liugest of the 

 constellations, the ship Argo, resplendent with many 

 brilliant stai-s, but distinguished amongst all the stellar 

 groups by the numbers and the compact clustering of 

 the small stars just clearly within the grasp of the 

 unaided sight. Aratus marks the special glory of this 

 region, though Dr. Lamb faUs, as he too often does, to 

 represent his exact meaning. 



" First rise athwart the Bull — majestic sight, 

 Orion's giant limbs and shoulders bright. 

 \\Tio but admires him stalking through the sky. 

 With diamond studded belt and glittering thigh. 

 Xor with less ardour, pressing on his back. 

 The mottled Hound pursues his tiery traek. 

 Dark are his lower parts as wintry night. 

 His head with burning star, intensely bright, 

 Men caU him Siiius, for his blasting breath. 

 Dries mortals up in pestilence and death." 

 Both the Authorised and the Revised Versions of 

 the Bible refer the Kesil of Job xxxviii., 31, to this 

 constellation. There is much probability that the 

 rendering of the Revised Version for the other two 

 constellation names mentioned in this text, Aish and 

 Kimah, " the Bear ' and " Pleiades," are quite coirect, 

 but there is more uncertainty in the present identificar 

 tion. Kesil means " impious, mad, rebellious," and as 

 such is traditionally supposed to refer to Nimrod, " the 

 mighty hunter before the Lord," supposed to be the first 

 great conqueror, and the first to set up a tyranny based 

 upon militai-y power. One difiiculty in rendering Kesil 

 by Orion is that the same word occurs in the plural in 

 Isaiah xiii., 10, where the word is translated " constelW 

 tioiis. ' If Kesil, therefore, really refers to Orion we 

 must suppose that in this passage the most glorious 

 constellation of the sky is put for constellations in 

 general. The context, however, would rather lead t« 

 the idea that we should look for a winter constellation 

 to correspond to Kesil; for just as " the sweet influences 

 of the Pleiades ' evidently refer to the revival of nature 

 in the spring, so " the bauds of Orion " may be naturally 

 supposed to point to its imprisonment by the cold of 

 winter. If Nimrod be really the original Orion, there 

 was an unsuspected appropriateness in the sycophantish 



proposal of the University of Leipsig to give the centi'e 

 stars of the group the name of Napoleon, the most 

 modern example of the same mad ambition. 



Brown traces the name Orion to the Akkadian Ur-ana, 

 " the light of Heaven, ' a poetical and most natural title 

 for the most beautiful and brightest of all the stellai- 

 groups. And it may well havo been that, as Brown 

 further thinks, this name was given because the con- 

 stellation was taken as a stellar reduplication of the one 

 great light of heaven, the sun, or the same name having 

 been given independently to both the sun and the con- 

 stellation, the latter was taken as representing the 

 fomier. The stellar giant, therefore, on this view 

 presents to us a personification of the sun, " rejoicing aa 

 a giant to run his race. ' 



But what does ho pursue i His prey is found in the 

 little constellation beneath his feet, on© of no distinction 

 or brilliancy, the Hare. 



" Up from the east the Hare before him flies. 

 Close he ])ursues her through the southern skies." 

 Now it is cei-tain, as Brown points out, that " the amount 

 of folklore and zoological myth which all over the world 

 connects the moon and the hare is simply astonishing. ' 

 Of coiu-se it does not necessarily follow that the Hare 

 as a constellation is also a symbol of the moon, but at 

 least the suggestion has no improbability. It is possible, 

 therefore, that in Orion the mighty hunter trampling 

 on the timid fleeting hare, we ought to recognise a 

 primeval emblem of the rising sun overpowering and 

 crushing with his vastly more powerful light the feebler 

 rays of the moon as she flees before him towards the 

 west. But whether the two Dogs which we find attend- 

 ing and following Orion have any deeper meaning than 

 the natural desire to piece out this picture of a hunter 

 and his chase, by providing him with a leash of hounds, 

 may well ba doubted. 



The figure of the giant hunter is one of the very easiest 

 to make out of all the constellatioji figiu'es. Seven bright 

 stars stand out with special distinctness. That furthest 

 to the north-east of the seven is obviously orange in 

 colour, and is Alpha, Betelgeuse, " the shoulder of the 

 giant." The star in the north-western comer is Gamma, 

 Bellatrix, " the female warrior." This last title is from 

 the translation in the Alphonsine Tables of the Arabic 

 title Al Najid, " the conqueror." The south-western 

 comer is held by Beta, Rigel, the " foot," the brightest 

 star of the constellation. The fourth corner, the south- 

 eastern, belongs to Kapjia, now known as Saipli, '' the 

 sword,' the name having been transferred to this star 

 from Iota, to which it really belongs. Three stars mark 

 the Belt of the giant, as the four foregoing mark his 

 two shoulders and his legs. These in succession are. 

 Delta, Mintaka. " the girdle " ; Epsilon, Al Nilam. " the 

 string of peai-ls " ; and Zcta. Al Nitak, " the belt." The 

 sword is marked by a short row of stai-s in a straight 

 line below Epsilon. These are, 42, Theta and Iota. 

 Theta, to the eye, is a misty star ; its diffused 

 appearance being due to the great nebula, the most 

 glorious object in the heavens. Between Alpha and 

 Gamma, but a little to the north, is a compact little 

 triangle of stars. Lambda and Phi 1 and Phi 2, which 

 mark Orion's head. His club stretches up across the 

 Milky 'Way to the feet of Gemini and the horns of 

 Taiinis, whilst between Bellatrix and Aldebaraii a 

 curving line of stais runs nearly due south, marking the 

 lion s mane, which the Hunter is shaking before the eyes 

 of the Bull, as if it was the scarlet cloak of a toreador. 



The little constellation of the Hare does not contain 

 much of interest for the naked-eye observer. Its 

 principal star, Alpha, sometimes known as Ameb, " the 



