114 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE UllAXOLOGICAL PORTION 



of the rising of the Nile, but also the heliacal rising of Sothis, 

 fell upon the day of the first water-month (on the first 

 Pachon). The most recent and hitherto unpublished re- 

 searches on the etymology of Sothis and Sirius in the Coptic, 

 the Zend, the Sanscrit, and the Greek, have been brought to- 

 gether by me in a note( 218 ), which cannot be otherwise than 

 welcome to those who, from interest in the history of astro- 

 nomy, are led to recognise, in languages and their affinities, 

 monuments of earlier knowledge. 



At the present time, besides Sirius ; Yega,Deneb, Eegulus, 

 and Spica, are decidedly white stars ; and among the small 

 double stars, Struve counts 300 in which both stars are 

 white. ( 219 ) Procyon, Atair, Polaris, and especially /3 Ursse 

 Minoris, have a yellow or yellowish light. Of red or 

 reddish large stars, we have already named Betelgeuze, 

 Arcturus, Aldebaran, Antares and Pollux. Eiimker finds y 

 Crucis to have a fine red colour ; and my old friend Captain 

 Berard, who is an excellent observer, wrote from Madagascar 

 in 1847, that he had for some years perceived a Crucis to be 

 reddening. The star ri Argus, which has acquired celebrity 

 from Sir John HerscheFs observations, and of which I shall 

 soon have occasion to speak in more detail, is changing the 

 colour as well as the intensity of its light. In 1843, at 

 Calcutta, Mr. Mackay found this star like Arcturus in colour, 

 therefore of a reddish yellow; ( 22 ) but in February 1850, 

 Lieutenant Gilliss, in letters from Santiago de Chile, calls it 

 " of a darker colour than Mars/' Sir John Herschel, at the 

 conclusion of his Cape observations, gives a list of 76 ruby- 

 coloured small slars, from the 7th to the 9th magnitude. 

 The appearance of some of them in the telescope is like drops 

 of blood. The majority of " variable" stars are described 



