KNOWLEDGE 



[October 1, 1896. 



PHILOLOGICAL NOTE ON THE CONSTELLA- 

 TIONS URSA MAJOR AND URSA MINOR. 



By John H. Reynolds. 



THERE is probably no constellation in the heavens 

 which has excited such general interest amongst 

 all nations and in all ages as the (neat Bear. Its 

 seven principal stars, nearly equal in magnitude, 

 seem so conspicuously connected to the eye that 

 even primeval man must have been impressed with their 

 very definite appearance." It is mentioned in the Rig 

 Veda, perhaps the oldest piece of Aryan literature extant ; 

 it is recorded in Chaldscau and Egyptian monuments ; 

 Homer makes mention of it in the " Iliad " when 

 dcTcribing the shield of Achilles : — 



" The Pleiades, tlie Hvades, tlie might 

 Of hii^^e Orion : witli lier Arelos ealled. 

 Known also by the people's name, the Wain, 

 Thut spins around the I'ole." 



And it is noticed in the works of Hesiod, Aratus, Ovid, 

 Virgil, and Dante. 



Its general name in Europe at the present time is "The 

 Great Bear," which is simply a translation of the Latin 

 "Ursa ]\Iajor." However, it goes by several other names 

 besides. It is known in the British Isles as " The Plough," 

 "The Waggon and Hors s," and " Charles's Wain " ; in 

 Fiance as "Le Grand Chariot" ; in America — thatcountry 

 of vulgarisms — as "Tuo Great Dipper," ■?'.«., "ladle"; 

 while the North American Indians call it " Paukimiwaw," 

 which ia said to mean " Ye stand alone." 



Its likeness to a plough or waggon is very easily 

 discernible, and it is only natural that we should find this 

 idea generally adopted in all countries, ancient and modern. 

 The Romans grouped the Great and Little Bear together 

 and called them " Triones," literally "The Ploughing 

 Oxen." The Great Bear by itself was called " Septen- 

 triones," or " The Seven Ploughing Oxen," the idea 

 contained in this phrase being that the constellation known 

 to us as " The Little Bear " was a plough, drawn by seven 

 oxen, which were represented by the seven bright stars of 

 the Great Bear. It was known to the Greeks also as 

 a/iata, the " Waggon " or " Wain." The Greek mariners 

 always sailed by the Great Bear, which they called IXt/o), 

 " The Swinger," as it appeared to swing round the Pole 

 once every twenty-four hours. The Pho-nicians, on the 

 other hand, used the Little Bear, which received from them 

 the name of " Cynosura " (" The Dog's Tail "). 



The ancient Egyptians, iancying they saw a resemblance 

 to the haunch of an ox, called it " JIaskhait," and depicted 

 it as the detached leg, shoulder, and head of an ox ; one 

 of their " nomes " or provinces was named " The Nome of 

 the Haunch " after it. f The Babylonians also had a name 

 for it, but up to the present the constellation has not been 

 satisfactorily identified. 



The Latin itisa is of course the feminine form of iir.sus, 

 and should be properly translated as "The She-Bear": 

 the Greek word cipnTos, when Latinised, became urctns, con- 

 tracted into ursus, and the idea of calling it " The Bear " 

 came originally from the Greeks. 



How it came to be called "The Bear" is a very interesting 

 question. Virgil calls it " Lycaonis Arcton," or " Lycaon's 

 Bear," which is explained by Ovid thus : — Callisto, the 

 daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, being beloved by 

 Jupiter, was metamorphosed into a she-bear by Juno (or 



* Besides this apparent connection there seems to be a real physical 

 one existing, as all the seven stars have been found to have a c.p.m. 

 through space 



t This constellation is still known to the Arabs of the Pyramids 

 as " Er-rigl " (" The Haunch "). 



Diana), who was jealous of her ; whilst in this shape she 

 was killed in the chase, whereupon Jupiter transferred her 

 to the stars. This legend, however, arose after the constel- 

 lation was called " The Bear," and was invented simply to 

 explain its presence in the sky. It is impossible that the 

 Greeks should first have given it this name from a supposed 

 resemblance to the animal, as they must have known what 

 bears were like well enough not to have credited the animal 

 with such a preposterous length of tail. 



The most likely solution is that treated so eloquently 

 in Max Miiller's " Science of Languages." In the Rig 

 Veda, before mentioned, there is the following passage : — • 

 " The Riksha, which are placed on high, and are seen 

 by night, whither do they go by day?" The root rich 

 means " to shine," and rihs/m meant primarily " the 

 shining ones," and was applied to this constellation by 

 the ancient Aryans ; but the name rikslut was also given 

 to the animal with shining eyes and shining glossy hair, 

 i.e., the bear. By a natural coufusion of ideas, the con- 

 stellation itself ultimately became to be known as " The 

 Bear," while the similar arrangement of seven smaller 

 stars near Polaris was termed " The Little liaar." As Max 

 Miiller says in the book already referred to : — " The sur- 

 prise with which many a thoughtful observer has looked at 

 these seven bright stars, wondering why they were ever 

 called ' The Bear,' is removed by reference to the early 

 annals of human speech." 



[I do not think it at all impossible that the Great Bear 

 was so named by the ancients from a supposed resem- 

 blance to the animal. The distinguishing feature of the 

 bear is its broad, flat feet, and these the celestial Bear 

 certainly possesses in the three remarkable pairs of stars, 

 I and K, A and jx, and v and 0. If the name of any animal was 

 to be given to the group, the bear was certainly the most 

 natural to be chosen, in spite of the long tail which Ursa 

 Major has to carry. On the other hand, Max Miiller's 

 explanation seems to me a little forced. Surely the 

 ancient Aryans did not know the Polar bear ; whilst the 

 brown bear has no special claim to be regarded as " the 

 animal with shining eyes and shining glossy hiir." — 

 E. Walter Maunder.] 



TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. 



THE following are the attendant phenomena that 

 were observed during the total eclipse of the 

 sun, occurring August 9th, and seen from the 

 American line s.s. Ohio, off Stot Island, on the 

 west coast of Norway, latitude C6° 57' N., 

 longitude 13° 80' E. 



According to Greenwich mean time, the first contact 

 occurred at 8d. 14hrs. 5Hmin. 223ec., and careful watch 

 was made for the shadow bands. As the black disc of the 

 moon slowly encroached upon the sun, a sombre, yellowish 

 hue spread over the ocean and the hills on the Kuunen 

 promontory near by, and just before totality a bank of 

 grey clouds settled on the top of the hills. At the same 

 instant the temperature fell two degrees, from 53° to 51°, 

 whilst the seagulls flew affrighted from the approaching 

 darkness. In the vicinity of the sun during totality the 

 sky was cloudless, but of a dull greyish hue, and we were 

 fortunate in having a perfect and uninterrupted view of the 

 coronal streamers. A brief second before totality a faint 

 outline of the inner corona could be seen, whilst during 

 totality it was noticeable that the streamers directed from 

 the solar poles were shorter and less brilliant than those 

 extending along the eastern line. Along the western line a 

 streamer reached to a distance equalling apparently three 



