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NATURE 



[April 2^, 1887 



much as a square inch of foundation is laid for the astro- 

 logical superstructure. It is true that Sirius is a "baleful 

 star" ; but it is in the sense of being a harbinger of hot 

 weather. Possibly, or probably, it is regarded as a con- 

 comitant cause, lio less than as a sign of the August 

 droughts ; indeed the post hoc and the propter hoc were, 

 in those ages, not easily separable ; the effect, however, in 

 any case, was purely physical, and so unfit to become the 

 starting-point of a superstition. 



The Homeric names of the stars, too, betray common 

 reminiscences rather than foreign intercourse. They are 

 all either native, or naturalised on Greek soil. The trans- 

 planted fable of Orion has taken root and flourished 

 there. The cosmopolitan Bear is known by her familiar 

 Greek name. Bootes is a Greek husbandman, variously 

 identified with Arkas, son of Callisto, or with Ikaros, the 

 luckless mandatory of Dionysos. The Pleiades and the 

 Hyades are intelligibly designated in Greek. The former 

 word is usually derived from plc'in, to sail ; the heliacal 

 rising of the " tangled " stars in the middle of May having 

 served, from the time of Hesiod, to mark the opening 

 of the season safe for navigation, and their cosmical 

 setting, at the end of October, its close. But this etymo- 

 logy was most likely an after-thought. Long before rules 

 for navigating the .-Egean came to be formulated, the 

 " sailing-stars " must have been designated by name 

 amongst the Achaian tribes. Besides, Homer is ignorant 

 of any such association. Now in Arabic the Pleiades are 

 called Eth TliiiraiyA-, from therwa, copious, abundant. The 

 meaning conveyed is that of many gathered into a small 

 space ; and it is quite similar to that of the Biblical 

 kiinah, a near connexion of the Assyrian liintii, family 

 (R. Brown, " Phainomena of Aratus," p. 9 ; Delitzsch, 

 " The Hebrew Language," p. 69). Analogy, then, almost 

 irresistibly points to the interpretation of Pleiades by the 

 Greek p/t'/o/iL's, many, or ptdos, full ; giving to the term, 

 in either case, the obvious signification of a " cluster." 



Of the Hyades, similarly, the " rainy " association seems 

 somewhat far-fetched. They rise and set respectively 

 about four days later than the Pleiades : so that, as 

 prognostics of the seasons, it would be difficult to draw a 

 permanent distinction between the two groups ; yet one 

 was traditionally held to bring fair, the other foul weather. 

 There can be little doubt that an etymological confusion 

 lay at the bottom of this inconsistency. " To rain," in 

 Greek is huein : but Jitis (cognate with " sow ") means a 

 "pig." Moreover, in old Latin, the Hyades were called 

 Suculce ("little pigs"); although the misapprehension 

 which he supposed to be betrayed by the term was re- 

 buked by Cicero {De Nat. Dcoriiin, lib. ii. cap. 43). 

 Possibly the misapprehension was the other way. It is 

 quite likely that " Suculffi "preserved the original meaning 

 of "Hyades," and that the pluvious derivation was in- 

 vented at a later time, when the conception of the seven 

 stars in the head of the Bull as a " litter of pigs " had 

 come to appear incongruous and inelegant. It has, never- 

 theless, just that character of nah<ete which stamps it as 

 authentic. Witness the popular names of the sister- 

 group — the widely-diffused "hen and chickens," S3.ncho 

 Panza's " las siete cabrillas," met and discoursed with 

 during his famous aerial voyage on the back of Clavileno, 

 theSicihan "seven dovelets," — all designating the Pleiades. 

 Still more to the purpose is the Anglo-Saxon " boar- 

 throng," which, by a haphazard identification, has been 

 translated as Orion, but which Grimm, on better grounds, 

 suggests may really apply to the Hyades [Teutonic 

 Mytliology, trans, by J. S. Stallybrass, vol. ii. p. 729). 

 It is scarcely credible that any other constellation can 

 be indicated by a term so manifestly reproducing the 

 " Suculse " of Latin and Sabine husbandmen. 



The Homeric scheme of the heavens, then, (such as it 

 is), was produced at home. No stellar lore had as yet 

 been imported from abroad. An original community of 

 ideas is just traceable in the names of some of the stars ; 



that is all. The epoch of instruction by more learned 

 neighbours was still to come. The Signs of the Zodiac 

 were certainly unknown to Homer, yet their shining 

 array had been marshalled from the banks of the 

 Euphrates at least 2000 years before the commencement 

 of the Christian era. Their introduction into Greece is 

 attributed to Cleostratus of Tenedos, near, or shortly after, 

 the end of the sixth century D.c. By that time, too, 

 acquaintance had been made with the "Phoenician" 

 constellation of the Lesser Bear, and with the wanderings 

 of the planets. Astronomical communications, in fact, 

 began to pour into Hellas from Egypt, Babylonia, and 

 Phoenicia about the seventh century B.C. Now, if there 

 were any reasonable doubt that " blind Melesigenes " 

 lived at a period anterior to this, it would be removed by 

 the consideration of what he lets fall about the heavenly 

 bodies. For, though he might have ignored formal astro- 

 nomy, he could not have remained unconscious of such 

 striking and popular facts as the identity of Hesperus and 

 Phosphorus, the Sidonian pilots' direction of their course 

 by the " Cynosure," or the mapping-out of the sun's path 

 among the stars by a series of luminous figures of beasts 

 and men. 



Thus the hypothesis of a late origin lor the " Iliad " and 

 " Odyssey " is negatived by the astronomical ignorance 

 betrayed in them. It has, however, gradations ; whence 

 some hints as to the relative age of the two epics may be 

 derived. The differences between them in this respect 

 are, it is true, small, and they both stand approximately 

 on the same astronomical level with the poems of Hesiod. 

 Yet an attentive study of what they have to tell us about 

 the stars aftbrds some grounds for placing the " Iliad " 

 the " Odyssey," and the " Works and Days " in a 

 descending series as to time. 



In the first place, the division ot the month into three 

 periods of ten days each is unknown in the " Iliad," is 

 barely hinted at in the " Odyssey," but is brought into 

 detailed notice in the Hesiodic calendar. Further, 

 the " turning-points of the sun " are unmentioned in the 

 " Iliad," but serve in the " Odyssey," by their position on 

 the horizon, to indicate direction ; while the winter solstice 

 figures as a well-marked epoch in the " Works and 

 Days." Hesiod, moreover, designates the dog-star (not 

 e.xpressly mentioned in the " Odyssey ") by a name of 

 which the author of the " Iliad " was certainly ignorant. 

 Besides which an additional constellation (Bootes) to 

 those named in the " Iliad" appears in the "Odyssey" 

 and the " Works and Days'' ; while the title " Hyperion," 

 applied substantively to the sun in the " Odyssey," is used 

 only adjectivally in the " Iliad." Finally, stellar mytho- 

 logy begins with Hesiod ; Homer (whether the Ionian or 

 the Ithacan) takes the names of the stars as he finds 

 them, without seeking to connect them with any sublunary 

 occurrences. 



To be sure, differences of place and purpose might 

 account for some of these discrepancies, yet their cumula- 

 tive effect in fixing relative epochs is considerable ; and, 

 even apart from chronology, it is something to look 

 towards the skies with the " most high poet," and to 

 retrace, with the aid of our own better knowledge, the 

 simple meanings their glorious aspect held for him. 



A. M. Clerke 



ON ICE AND BRINES^ 

 I. 

 'X' H E composition of the ice produced in saline solutions, 

 ■'■ and more particularly in sea-water, has frequently 

 been the object of investigation and of dispute. It might 

 be thought that to a question of whether ice so formed does 

 or does not contain salt, experiment would at once give a 

 decisive answer. Yet, relying on experiment alone, com- 

 petent authorities have given contradictory answers. AH 



' Paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, by J. V. Buchanan 

 on March 27 last. 



