THE SOUTHERN CROSS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 13

THE SOUTHERN CROSS.

«. — DID JOB SEE IT? ; Sir David Gill, in his address as president of tbo British Association, quotes ' (snys Ihc Times) the Book of Job where 1 it couples the "chambers of the south" ' with Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades, [ and cites Sohiaparelli's highly probable conjecture- that the expression refers to the stellar region which includes the | Southern Cross. How did the writer of the Book of Job know anything of, that ' splendid constellation? The answer is ' that at the trnio ho wrote, probably 750 ' 8.C., tho Southern Cross would bo visi1 blc in the latitude of Judaei, low down ' on the southern horizon. To ccc it we ' have now to travel some twelve degrees ' of latitude fuithcr south. Dante, who '■ was bom 2000 years after the Book of I Job was written, could never have- seen 1 the Southern Cro3S, yet he describes it as ■ "four stars no'er seen before save by our first parents." It miyht suem that some I vague trudition of a striking group once i visible in Europe had been handed down ■ fiom ancient days. At all events the ; constellation was once visible in Europe, i .md its disappear-unco illustrates tho n.i- , tuie of tho slow changes whicli astionoin1 crs with modern instruments of piecmon ? endruvour to lecister within short jjoripda,