THE COLOR OF THE STARS 135 



Btars, Struve enumerates about 300 in which both stars are 

 white .* Procyon, Atair, the Pole Star, and more especially 

 (3 Ursae Min. have a more or less decided yellow light. We 

 have already enumerated among the larger red or reddish stars 

 Betelgeux, Arcturus, Aldebaran, Antares, and Pollux. Rum 

 ker finds y Crucis of a fine red color, and my old friend, Cap 

 tain Berard, who is an admirable observer, wrote from Mada 

 gascar in 1847 that he had for some years seen a Crucis grow 

 ing red. The star r\ Argus, which has been rendered cele- 

 brated by Sir John Herschel's observations, and to which 1 

 shall soon refer more circumstantially, is undergoing a change 

 in color as well as in intensity of light. In the year 1843, 

 Mr. Mackay noticed at Calcutta that. this star was similar in 

 color to Arcturus, and was therefore reddish yellow ;f but in 

 letters from Santiago de Chili, in Feb., 1850, Lieutenant Gil- 

 liss speaks of it as being of a darker color than Mars. Sir 

 John Herschel, at the conclusion of his Observations at the 

 Cape, gives a list of seventy-six ruby-colored small stars, of 

 the seventh to the ninth magnitude, some of which appear 

 in the telescope like drops.of blood. The majority of the vari- 

 able stars are also described as red and reddish,! the excep- 



moreover unaccredited form of oeipidv), is likewise entirely erroneous. 

 While the motion of heat and light is implied by the expression aeipcor, 

 the radical of the word Zeiprjv represents the flowmg tones of this phe 

 nomenon of nature. It appears to me probable that Seip^v is connect- 

 ed with elpEiv (Plato, CratyL, 398, D, to yap elpeiv leyeiv eori), in which 

 the original sharp aspiration passed into a hissing sound." (From let 

 ters of Prof. Franz to me, January, 1850.) 



The Greek Xeip, the sun, easily admits, according to Bopp, " of be- 

 ing associated with the Sanscrit word svar, which does not indeed sig- 

 nify the sun itself, but the heavens (as something shining). The ordi- 

 nary Sanscrit denomination for the sun is surya, a contraction of svdrya, 

 which is not used. The root svar signifies in general to shine. The 

 Zend designation for the sun is hvare, with the h instead of the s. The 

 Greek i?fp, -&ipor, and -dspnor comes from the Sanscrit word gharma 

 (Nom. gharmas), warmth, heat." 



The acute editor of the Rigveda, Max Mttller, observes, that " the 

 special Indian astronomical name of the Dog-star, Lubdhaka, which sig- 

 nifies a hunter, when considei'ed in reference to the neighboring con- 

 stellation Orion, seems to indicate an ancient Arian community of ideas 

 regarding these groups of stars." He is, moreover, principally inclined 

 " to derive 'ZeipioQ from the Veda word sira (whence the adjective sain 

 ya) and the root sri, to go, to wander ; so that the sun and the bright- 

 est of the stars, Sirius, were originally called wandering stars." (Com- 

 pare also Pott, Etymologische Forschungen, 1833, 8. 130.) 



* Struve, Stellarum compositarum Mensurce Micrometritce, 1837, p. 

 lxxiv. et lxxxiii. 



t Sir John Herschel, Observations at the Cape, p. 34. 



X Madler's Astronomie, s. 436. 



