THE STARS FOR MARCH.

URSA MAJOR is now (p. 78) swinging round toward the highest part of his course above the pole. It is his forepaw that you see, marked by the letters 6, K, and , very nearly above the pole; while a and B are the "Pointers" whose motion has been already described.

The Little Bear is nearly in a horizontal position, and I proceed to give a short account of this small but most interesting constellation.

I do not think that the Little Bear, like the larger one, was so named because of any imagined resemblance to a bear. (See Fig. 13.) The original constellation of the

Great Bear was much older than the Little Bear, and so many different nations agreed in comparing the group to a

bear, that there must have been a real resemblance to that animal in the constellation as first figured. Later, when star-maps came to be arranged by astronomers who had never seen bears, they supposed the three bright stars forming the handle of the plough to represent the tail of the bear, though the bear is not a long-tailed animal. They thus set three stars for the bear's tail, and the quadrangle of stars forming the plough itself for the bear's body. This done, it was natural enough that, seeing in the group of stars now forming the Little Bear the three stars a, d, and ← on one side, and the quadrangle formed by the stars 5, 7, B, and y on the other, they should call this group the Little Bear, assigning the three stars to his tail and the quadrangle to his body. Thus did the constellation of the Little Bear probably take its rise. It was not formed by fanciful folks in the childhood of the world, but by astronomers. Yet it must not be imagined that the constellation is a modern one. It not only belongs to old Ptolemy's list, but is mentioned by Aratus, who borrowed his astronomy from Eudoxus, who "flourished" (as the school-books call it) about 360 years before the Christian era. It is said that Thales formed the constellation, in which case it must have reached the respectable age of about 2,500 years. It is usually pictured as shown in Fig. 1, and a very remarkable animal it is.

But if the Little Bear is not a very fine animal, it is a most useful constellation. From the time when the Phoenicians were as celebrated merchant-seamen as the Venetians afterward became, and as the English-speaking nations now are, this star-group has been the cynosure of every sailor's regard. In fact, the word "cynosure" was originally a name given either to the whole of this constellation or to a part of it. Cynosure has become quite a poetical expression in our time, but it means literally "the dog's tail ;" and either the curved row of stars a, d, e, ¿, and B was compared to a dog's tail, or else the curved row of stars 4, 5, ẞ, and y. I incline, for my own part, to think

these last formed the true cynosure-for this reason simply, that when the constellation was first formed these stars were nearer the pole than was our present Pole-star. Even in the time of Ptolemy, the star ẞ was nearer the pole than a, and was called in consequence by the agreeable name AlKaukab-al-shemali, which signifies "the northern star." (For the reason why the fixed stars thus changed in position with regard to the pole of the heavens, I must refer you to books on astronomy. I only note here that the star-sphere remains the same all the time; but the earth, which is whirling on its axis like a mighty top, is also reeling like a top, and just as the axis of a top is swayed, now east now west, now north now south, so does the axis of the earth vary in position as she reels. I may add that the reeling motion is very much slower than the whirling motion. The earth whirls once on her axis in a day, but she only reels round once in 25,868 years.)

Admiral Smyth gives some interesting particulars about the two stars B and y, called the Guardians of the Pole. "Recorde tells us," he says, "in the 'Castle of Knowledge,' nearly three hundred years ago, that navigators used two pointers in Ursa-' which many do call the Shafte, and others do name the Guardas, after the Spanish tonge.' Richard Eden, in 1584, published his 'Arte of Navigation,' and therein gave rules for the 'starres,' among which are special directions for the two called the Guards, in the mouth of the 'horne,' as the figure was called." (The Polestar would mark the small end of the horne.) "In the 'Safeguard of Saylers' (1619) are detailed rules for finding the hour of the night by the guardes." How often,' says Hervey, in his "Meditations," have these stars beamed bright intelligence on the sailor and conducted the keel to its destined haven !"

The constellation Cepheus is now about to pass below the pole. The royal father of Andromeda is presented in a somewhat unkingly attitude at present-standing, to wit, upon his royal head. In any case, the constellation is not

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