PAST AND FUTURE OF A CONSTELLATION. 291 

 PAST AND FUTURE OF A CONSTELLATION. 



By CAM1LLE FLAMMARION. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, BY J. FITZGERALD, A. M. 



THE notions hitherto entertained as to the stars and the heavens are 

 destined to undergo a complete revolution. There are no fixed 

 stars. Each one of those distant suns, naming in infinitude, is swept 

 along in a stupendous movement which the imagination can hardly 

 conceive. Notwithstanding the countless millions of miles of space be- 

 tween them and us, making them appear to us only as luminous points, 

 whereas they are as great as our own sun, and thousands and millions 

 of times greater than the earth, still, hy means of the telescope and 

 computation, astronomers have been able to come at them, and to de- 

 monstrate that they are all moving in every possible direction. The 

 heavens are no longer motionless, nor can the constellations any longer 

 be regarded as the symbol of the unchangeable. Take, for instance, 

 Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, the first of the constellations to be ob- 

 served and named. Who is there that has not taken that figure as the 

 enduring symbol of the preestablished harmony, the unalterable dura- 

 tion of the firmament ? Well, that ancient constellation will be de- 

 stroyed. Each one of the stars which constitute it is endowed with a 

 movement of its own. The result is that, in course of time, the form of 

 Ursa Major will be changed. It now somewhat resembles in outline a 

 wagon, and hence its popular title everywhere of car, or wain, while the 

 learned have given it the name of the Bear, that being the only animal 

 known to the ancients as living in polar regions. As every one knows, 

 the four stars arranged in the form of a quadrilateral are supposed to 

 represent the four wheels, and the three stars in the front of the figure 

 three horses. But the proper movement of the separate stars will 

 alter this arrangement : it will bring the foremost horse to a point 

 back of where he now is, while the other two will move onward. As 

 for the two hinder wheels, they will proceed in contrary directions. 

 When we know the annual value of the displacement of each of these 

 seven stars, we can calculate their future relative positions. This I 

 have done, and I here lay before the reader the curious results of my 

 calculations. 



In order to get an exact account of the difference in the form of this 

 constellation, which will be observable at a given time, let us first por- 

 tray its present state. 



The Arabs gave these seven famous stars names which are some- 

 times applied to them still. Beginning with the hind off-wheel, and 

 then taking in the order indicated by the Greek letters ((3, y, d, e, f, 77) 

 the other wheels and the horses, the Arab names are as follows : Dubhe, 



