NOTES. Ixvii 



suppositions similar to those enounced by Kepler on the appearance of the 

 new star in Ophiuchus in 1604, believed the star of the Wise Men, from the 

 frequent confusion between acrr?)p and aarpov, to have been not a single 

 great star, but a remarkable arrangement of stars, presented by the near' ap- 

 proximation of two bright planets within less than a diameter of the moon 

 from each other. (Compare Tychonis Progymnasmata, p. 324 330, with 

 Ideler, Handbuch der Mathematischen und Technischen Chronologic. Bd. ii. 

 (S. 399407). 



( 269 ) p. 136. Progymn. p. 324 330. Tycho Brahe supports himself in his 

 theory of the formation of new stars from the cosmical vapour, or nebulous 

 matter of the Milky Way, on the remarkable passages of Aristotle, to which 

 I have aUuded in the 1st Vol. of Kosmos (Bd. i. S. 109 and 390, Note 18, 

 Engl. ed. p. 96 and xviii. Note 48,) respecting the supposed relations subsist- 

 ing between the tails of comets and the gaseous emanations from the nuclei 

 of comets, and the Milky Way. 



( 2?0 ) p. 140. Other statements place the phenomenon in the year 388 or 

 398 ; Jacques Cassini, Elemens d'Astronomie, 1740 (Etoiles nouvelles), 

 p. 59. 



( 271 ) p. 148. Arago Annuaire pour 1842, p. 332. 



( 272 ) p. 149. Kepler de Stella nova in pede Serp. p. 3. 



( 273 ) p. 152. On instances of stars which have not disappeared, see Arge- 

 lander in Schumacher's Astronom. Nachr. No. 624, S. 371. To cite an ex- 

 ample connected with antiquity, I will here recall how the carelessness of 

 Aratus, in drawing up his poetic Catalogue of stars, has led to the often- 

 renewed question, whether Vega (a Lyra), may be either a new star or one 

 which varies in long periods, since Aratus says that the constellation of the 

 Lyre has only small stars. It may, indeed, seem surprising that Hipparchus 

 does not notice this as an error in his Commentary ; whilst yet he blames 

 Aratus for his statements respecting the relative brightness of the stars in 

 Cassiopeia, and in Ophiuchus. However, all this is merely accidental, and 

 proves nothing ; for, Aratus having ascribed to the constellation of the Swan 

 only stars of middling brightness, Hipparchus (i. 14), in expressly contra- 

 dicting this error, adds, that the bright star in the tail (Deneb) is but little 

 inferior to "the star in the Lyre (Vega). Ptolemy places Vega among the 

 stars of the first order of magnitude ; and in the Catasterisms of Eratosthenes 

 (cap. 25), it is called XEUKOV icai XajuTrpov. Seeing the many inaccuracies of 

 a poet who was not himself an observer, would it be reasonable to found 

 upon his statement the belief that a Lyric (Pliny's Fidicula, xviii. 25) first 



