Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
recognised, men had begun to associate with certain star-groups the
names of familiar objects animate or inanimate. The flocks and herds
which the earliest observers of the heavens tended would suggest names
for certain sets of stars, and thus the Bull, the Ram, the Kids, would
appear in the heavens. Other groups would remind those early observers
of the animals from whom they had to guard their flocks, or of the
animals to whose vigilance they trusted for protection, and thus the
Bear, the Lion, and the Dogs would find their place among the stars. The
figures of men and horses, and of birds and fishes, would naturally
enough be recognised, nor would either the implements of husbandry, or
the weapons by which the huntsman secured his prey, remain unrepresented
among the star-groupings. And lastly, the altar on which the
first-fruits of harvest and vintage were presented, or the flesh of
lambs and goats consumed, would be figured among the innumerable
combinations which a fanciful eye can recognise among the orbs of
heaven.
In thus suggesting that the first observers of the heavens were
shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen, I am not advancing a theory on the
difficult questions connected with the origin of exact astronomy. The
first observations of the heavens were of necessity made by men who
depended for their subsistence on a familiarity with the progress and
vicissitudes of the seasons, and doubtless preceded by many ages the
study of astronomy as a science. And yet the observations made by those
early shepherds and hunters, unscientific though they must have been in
themselves, are full of interest to the student of modern exact
astronomy. The assertion may seem strange at first sight, but is
nevertheless strictly true, that if we could but learn with certainty
the names assigned to certain star-groups, before astronomy had any real
existence, we could deduce lessons of extreme importance from the rough
observations which suggested those old names. In these days, when
observations of such marvellous exactness are daily and nightly made,
when instruments capable of revealing the actual constitution of the
stars are employed, and observers are so numerous, it may seem strange
to attach any interest to the question whether half-savage races
recognised in such and such a star-group the likeness of a bear, or in
another group the semblance of a ship. But though we could learn more,
of course, from exacter observations, yet even such rough and imperfect
records would have their value. If we could be certain that in long-past
ages a star-group really resembled some known object, we should have in
the present resemblance of that group to the same object evidence of the
general constancy of stellar lustre, or if no resemblance could be
recognised we should have reason to doubt whether other suns (and
therefore our own sun) may not be liable to great changes.
The subject of the constellation-figures as first known is interesting
in other ways. For instance, it is full of interest to the antiquarian
(and most of us are to some degree antiquarians) as relating to the
most ancient of all human sciences. The same mental quality which causes
us to look with interest on the buildings raised in long-past ages, or
on the implements and weapons of antiquity, renders the thought
impressive that the stars which we see were gazed on perhaps not less
wonderingly in the very infancy of the human race. It is, again, a
subject full of interest to the chronologist to inquire in what era of
the world's history exact astronomy began, the moon was assigned her
twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the sun his twelve zodiacal signs. It is
well known, indeed, that Newton himself did not disdain to study the
questions thus suggested; and the speculations of the ingenious Dupuis
found favour with the great mathematician Laplace.
Unfortunately, the evidence is not sufficiently exact to be very
trustworthy. In considering, for instance, the chronological inquiries
of Newton, one cannot but feel that the reliance placed by him on the
statements made by different writers is not justified by the nature of
those statements, which were for the most part vague in the extreme. We
owe many of them to poets who, knowing little of astronomy, mixed up the
phenomena of their own time with those which they found recorded in the
writings of astronomers. Some of the statements left by ancient writers
are indeed ludicrously incongruous; insomuch that Grotius not unjustly
said of the account of the constellations given by the poet Aratus, that
it could be assigned to no fixed epoch and to no fixed place. However,
this would not be the place to discuss details such as are involved in
exact inquiries. I have indicated some of these in an appendix to my
treatise on 'Saturn,' and others in the preface to my 'Gnomonic Star
Atlas'; but for the most part they do not admit very readily of familiar
description. Let us turn to less technical considerations, which
fortunately are in this case fully as much to the point as exact
inquiries, seeing that there is no real foundation for such inquiries in
any of the available evidence.
The first obvious feature of the old constellations is one which somehow
has not received the attention it deserves. It is as instructive as any
of those which have been made the subject of profound research.
There is a great space in the heavens over which none of the old
constellations extend, except the River Eridanus as now pictured, but we
do not know where this winding stream of stars was supposed by the old
observers to come to an end. This great space surrounds the southern
pole of the heavens, and thus shows that the first observers of the
stars were not acquainted with the constellations which can be seen only
from places far south of Chaldaea, Persia, Egypt, India, China, and
indeed of all the regions to which the invention of astronomy has been
assigned. Whatever the first astronomers were, however profound their
knowledge of astronomy may have been (as some imagine), they had
certainly not travelled far enough towards the south to know the
constellations around the southern pole. If they had been as well
acquainted with geography as some assert, if even any astronomer had
travelled as far south as the equator, we should certainly have had
pictured in the old star charts some constellations in that region of
the heavens wherein modern astronomers have placed the Octant, the Bird
of Paradise, the Sword-fish, the Flying-fish, Toucan, the Net, and other
uncelestial objects.
In passing I may note that this fact disposes most completely of a
theory lately advanced that the constellations were invented in the
southern hemisphere, and that thus is to be explained the ancient
tradition that the sun and stars have changed their courses. For though
all the northern constellations would have been more or less visible
from parts of the southern hemisphere near the equator, it is absurd to
suppose that a southern observer would leave untenanted a full fourth of
the heavens round the southern or visible pole, while carefully filling
up the space around the northern or unseen pole with incomplete
constellations whose northern unknown portions would include that pole.
Supposing it for a moment to be true, as a modern advocate of the
southern theory remarks, that 'one of the race migrating from one side
to the other of the equator would take his position from the sun, and
fancy he was facing the same way when he looked at it at noon, and so
would think the motion of the stars to have altered instead of his
having turned round,' the theory that astronomy was brought to us from
south of the equator cannot possibly be admitted in presence of that
enormous vacant region around the southern pole. I think, however, that,
apart from this, a race so profoundly ignorant as to suppose any such
thing, to imagine they were looking north when in reality they were
looking south, can hardly be regarded as the first founders of the
science of astronomy.
The great gap I have spoken of has long been recognised. But one
remarkable feature in its position has not, to the best of my
remembrance, been considered--the vacant space is eccentric with regard
to the southern pole of the heavens. The old constellations, the Altar,
the Centaur, and the ship Argo, extend within twenty degrees of the
pole, while the Southern Fish and the great sea-monster Cetus, which are
the southernmost constellations on the other side, do not reach within
some sixty degrees of the pole.
Of course, in saying that this peculiarity has not been considered, I am
not suggesting that it has not been noticed, or that its cause is in any
way doubtful or unknown. We know that the earth, besides whirling once a
day on its axis, and rushing on its mighty orbit around the sun
(spanning some 184,000,000 of miles) reels like a gigantic top, with a
motion so slow that 25,868 years are required for a single circuit of
the swaying axis around an imaginary line upright to the plane in which
the earth travels. And we know that in consequence of this reeling
motion the points of the heavens opposite the earth's poles necessarily
change. So that the southern pole, now eccentrically placed amid the
region where there were no constellations in old times, was once
differently situated. But the circumstance which seems to have been
overlooked is this, that by calculating backwards to the time when the
southern pole was in the centre of that vacant region, we have a much
better chance of finding the date (let us rather say the century) when
the older constellations were formed, than by any other process. We may
be sure not to be led very far astray; for we are not guided by one
constellation but by several, whereas all the other indications which
have been followed depend on the supposed ancient position of single
constellations. And then most of the other indications are such as might
very well have belonged to periods following long after the invention of
the constellations themselves. An astronomer might have ascertained, for
instance, that the sun in spring was in some particular part of the Ram
or of the Fishes, and later a poet like Aratus might describe that
relation (erroneously for his own epoch) as characteristic of one or
other constellation; but who is to assure us that the astronomer who
noted the relation correctly may not have made his observation many
hundreds of years after those constellations were invented? Whereas,
there was one period, and only one period, when the most southernmost of
the old constellations could have marked the limits of the region of sky
visible from some northern region. Thus, too, may we form some idea of
the latitude in which the first observers lived. For in high latitudes
the southernmost of the old constellations would not have been visible
at all, and in latitudes much lower than a certain latitude, presently
to be noted, these constellations would have ridden high above the
southern horizon, other star-groups showing below them which were not
included among the old constellations.
I have before me as I write a picture of the southern heavens, drawn by
myself, in which this vacant space--eccentric in position but circular
in shape--is shown. The centre lies close by the Lesser Magellanic
cloud--between the stars Kappa Toucani and Eta Hydri of our modern maps,
but much nearer to the last named. Near this spot, then, we may be sure,
lay the southern pole of the star-sphere when the old constellations, or
at least the southern ones, were invented. (If there had been
astronomers in the southern hemisphere Eta Hydri would certainly have
been their pole-star.)
Now it is a matter of no difficulty whatever to determine the epoch when