In Fig. 73 we recognize the familiar stars of Pegasus, which tell us we have gone quite round the heavens.  Note the beautiful cross in the Swan. b in the bill is named Albireo, and is a beautiful double to almost any glass.  Its yellow and blue colors are very distinct.  The place of the famous double star 61 Cygni is seen.  The first magnitude star in the lower left-hand corner is Fomalhaut, in the Southern Fish. a Pegasi is in the diagonal corner from Alpharetz, in Andromeda.  The star below Altair is b Aquilae, and is called Alschain; the one above is g Aquilae, named Tarazed.  This is not a brilliant section of the sky.  Altair rises at 9 o’clock on the 29th of May, and at 6 o’clock A.M. on the 11th of January.

[Page 208] [Illustration:  Fig. 74.—­Southern Circumpolar Constellations invisible north of the Equator.]

Fig. 74 gives the stars that are never seen by persons north of the earth’s equator.  In the Ship is brilliant Canopus, and the remarkable variable ae.  Below it is the beautiful Southern Cross, near the pole of the southern heavens.  Just below are the two first magnitude stars Bungala, a, and Achernar, b, of the Centaur.  Such a number of unusually brilliant stars give the southern sky an unequalled splendor.  In the midst of them, as if for contrast, is the dark hole, called by the sailors the “Coal-sack,” where even the telescope reveals no sign of light.  Here, also, are the two Magellanic clouds, both easily discernible by the naked eye; the larger two hundred times the apparent size of the moon, lying between the pole and Canopus, and the other between Achernar and the pole.  The smaller cloud is only one-fourth the size of the other.  Both are mostly resolvable into groups of stars from the fifth to the fifteenth magnitude.

[Page 209] For easy out-door finding of the stars above the horizon at any time, see star-maps at end of the book.

Characteristics of the Stars.

Such a superficial examination of stars as we have made scarcely touches the subject.  It is as the study of the baptismal register, where the names were anciently recorded, without any knowledge of individuals.  The heavens signify much more to us than to the Greeks.  We revolve under a dome that investigation has infinitely enlarged from their estimate.  Their little lights were turned by clumsy machinery, held together by material connections.  Our vast worlds are connected by a force so fine that it seems to pass out of the realm of the material into that of the spiritual.  Animal ferocity or a human Hercules could image their idea of power.  Ours finds no symbol, but rises to the Almighty.  Their heavens were full of fighting Orions, wild bulls, chained Andromedas, and devouring monsters.  Our heavens are significant of harmony and unity; all worlds carried by one force, and all harmonized into perfect music.  All their voices blend their various significations into a personal speaking, which says, “Hast thou not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” There is no searching of his understanding.  Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created all these things, that brought out their host by number, that calleth them all by their names in the greatness of his power; for that he is strong in power not one faileth.