The fireside university of modern invention, discovery, industry and art for home circle study and entertainment . t percept-ibly altered since the beginning of history. Without traversingseas and continents, we gaze upon the same spectacle that has claimed thewonderingattention of Confucius, Herodotus,Pythag-oras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, Ptolemy, Mithri-dates, Hannibal, Marius, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Charlemagne,Charles V, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Frederick, Franklin andNapoleon. All these mighty of the Earth have looked uponthis same group of Stars. It is the most prominent
The fireside university of modern invention, discovery, industry and art for home circle study and entertainment . t percept-ibly altered since the beginning of history. Without traversingseas and continents, we gaze upon the same spectacle that has claimed thewonderingattention of Confucius, Herodotus,Pythag-oras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, Ptolemy, Mithri-dates, Hannibal, Marius, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Charlemagne,Charles V, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Frederick, Franklin andNapoleon. All these mighty of the Earth have looked uponthis same group of Stars. It is the most prominent in the north-ern heavens, both on account of the brilliant Suns which go toform it, and from the fact that, of all the distinctively-markedgroups, it never sinks beneath the horizon in our latitude. Thisconstellation was called Arktos (Greek for Bear) and Hamexa(Wagon) in the time of Homer, the father of poetry, who liveda thousand years before Christ. There are seventeen Stars visi-ble to the eye in this constellation, astronomically speaking, butto us, and to the World which is gone, seven bright Stars give. THE GENIUS OF INVENTION PRESENTING HER DISCOVERIES TO 1NIH SIKV ASTRONOMY. 497 to it its shape,six of them forming a dipper,and one of them hang-ing down a little, giving the handle a crooked appearance, ifwe are inclined to attach it to the other six (as people alwayshave done). The people of Rome, of course, translated Arktosinto their word for Bear, which was Ursus. Ursa, therefore,was She-Bear. Now, as there was another constellation of theBear, of which the Pole Star was a member, they called the Poleconstellation the Lesser Bear (Ursa Minor) and the constellationof the Big Dipper Ursa Major the (Greater Bear). As there isa constellation higher in the sky, which is seen much of the year,and is exactly like the Big Dipper in shape on a smallerscale, it has always seemed odd to some people that it should nothave received the name of Ursa Minor instead of the group whic
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectscience, bookyear1902
